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world!" What new mystery is this? Angels stooping from their seats in bliss, desire to look into this great mystery of godliness: then, rising in admiration, they sweep the strings of their golden harps, and swelling their loftiest notes, they cry, as with the voice of mighty thunderings, "O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" My brethren, you have heard of the seven wonders of the world. Here we have the one great wonder of the universe!—the master-piece of the great God! It is this which shall bind all worlds to the throne of the ever-blessed God! It is this which shall wake up the sweetest pæans in the heavenly world! It is this, which, through the mighty roll of everlasting. ages, shall fill the courts of God Almighty with sounding praise!-To the glory of God the Father! A few inferences, and I have done.

1. Here we have an unanswerable argument for the truth of the Christian religion-a doctrine such as we have now been considering; a doctrine of such mingled sweetness and grandeur, so worthy of God, and so suited to man; such a doctrine, if unrevealed, I firmly believe, could never have entered the mind of man. Wo to the infidel, he must meet a fiery day! 2. How invaluable must the soul of man be! To create worlds and systems required no

great array of means: God spake and it was done! He commanded, and it stood fast; but, to redeem the soul of man all heaven must be moved! The Lord of angels must become incarnate, must suffer, and bleed, and agonize, and die. In other words, there must be a mighty draft, not upon the resources of nature, but upon the resources of nature's God,

“Heaven weeps, that man might smile,

Heaven bleeds, that man may never die!'

They reject,

3. How dreadful is the guilt, and how tèrrible must be the doom of those who reject such a Saviour! They reject, whom? A dying Saviour, who is. God's eternal Son! whom? The world's last and only hope! There is salvation in none else; and, the sinner, dying without an interest in this Saviour, is accursed for ever! He is turned over to wrath and despair! He sinks down in the deep grave of sorrow, and no angel voice, no resurrection trump shall wake him up to hope and joy, any more! O sinner! sinner! You have rejected this Saviour already too long: O! be entreated to reject him no more! Submit now. This may be your last call, your last day!

4. How great will be the happiness of the redeemed in heaven!-After such preparation, and such cost to bring them to that blessed world above, how dear, O how precious will

they be in the eyes of him who brought them there! How will he beautify them with salvation! How will he pour into their souls the full tide of heavenly and never-ending joy! "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath it entered into the heart of man, what things God hath prepared for them that love him."

O heaven! sweet heaven! the dwelling place of love and joy!-the purchase of a Saviour's blood!—the Christian's rest, the pilgrim's home! O heaven, sweet heaven! there rolls the river of pleasure!-there flourishes the tree of life! there saints and angels mingling their splendors, have one continued festival, one neverending jubilee! "Visions of glory! how ye crowd upon my aching sight!" "Praise God from the heavens! praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels, praise ye him all his hosts. Praise ye him sun and moon; praise him all ye stars of light. Praise ye him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens. Let them praise the name of the Lord. Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps. Fire, and hail, and snow, and vapour, and stormy wind fulfilling his word. Mountains and all hills; fruitful trees and all cedars; beasts and all cattle; creeping things, and flying fowl: kings of the earth, and all people; princes, and all judges of the earth: both young men, and maidens, old men, and children, let them praise the

Lord; for his name alone is excellent, his glory is above the earth and heaven. Praise God in his sanctuary; praise him in the firmament of his power: praise him for his mighty acts; 'praise him according to his excellent greatness: praise him with the sound of the trumpet; praise him with the psaltery and harp; praise him with the timbrel and dance; praise him with stringed instruments and organs: praise him upon the loud cymbals, praise hím upon the high-sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the Lord!" Praise the Lord, O my soul!

SERMON IV.

THE USES OF THE LAW.

Wherefore then serveth the law?-GALATIANS iii. 19.

My brethren, the great doctrines of grace were precious doctrines with the Apostle Paul. Although he was a man of blameless morality, of ardent piety, of quenchless and untiring zeal; although he was a man who had done and suffered more in the cause of his divine Master than any other man, probably, that ever lived, yet, when he comes to speak of his acceptance with his Maker, he makes no

mention of any of these things. "Christ is all his hope, and grace is all his song. He relies upon the finished righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, imputed to him and received by faith alone. This doctrine, so humbling to the pride of the human heart, the apostle gloried in; and, on more occasions than one, he enters into an argument to show how utterly impossible it is for the sinner to obtain justification with God in any other way. In the third chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, he enters fully upon the subject, and winds up in this way: "Therefore, we conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law." In the next chapter he presents the same idea, but in language still stronger and more decisive: "To him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Presenting the doctrine of justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ, and that alone, in a manner so clear and strong, the apostle was aware that some might charge him with Antinomian sentiments; as if he undervalued the law; as if he would set it aside as a dead letter, and thus encourage men to continue in sin, that grace might abound. How does he meet this cavil? How does he repel this charge? With holy indignation! "Do we then make void the law through faith?" says he: "God forbid! yea,