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but of God!" O the wondrous condescension of our God! O the ingenuity of his compassion! the delicacy of his solicitude! Call up within your minds every image that can represent effectual interference, and every sentiment that can animate the soul; combine these results in one accumulated whole :-such are the complicated pledges of the efficacious intermediation of Christ;-such the complicated blessedness of those who trust in Him!" Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are covered! Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin!"

SERMON VI.

CHRISTIAN DEVOTEDNESS.

GAL. II. 20.

I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.

HE who has become awakened to the solemnity of his relations with God, will find no lasting peace but in union with Him as his Father. And this union, we have seen, may be attained through the intermediation of the Son of God, and the consequent supply of the Spirit of God.

If now we go on to ask what is thenceforth the plan of life of the devoted penitent, thus introduced to God by Christ-what the principle of his new existence, we shall find this sufficiently indicated in the words that I have read to you; in which St. Paul declares the

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Peter, to show the inCostle's conduct with reuservances, and the img up again the principles ney had both so fully reлеу says, in v. 19,) I through that new law of Chrisve adopted-" am dead to law of Judaism-"that I Ja:" that now henceforth the of my existence may be the :he gospel of his Son. Nay, artext,) "I am crucified with

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2s recollect, that the life of ristian is altogether that of a Sys Paul) am crucified with ut myself to have renounced practice of my former life, I had passed away by death

into a new state of being. I have bid farewell to the world in which I formerly moved, its prejudices, its opinions, and its pursuits, as much as if I had been actually crucified with my Lord, and had fled for ever from the present world. And this strong image to represent his total renunciation of the evils of Judaism, St. Paul is very fond of using: as in this same epistle, (vi. 14) "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.". All my hope, and all my boast, are now no longer in the law and its sacrifices, but solely in the one atonement made by Jesus,-" by whom the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world;"-through my knowledge of whom I have renounced my former views, and have gladly suffered the loss of all things that the world could give me. It is the same sentiment therefore, still more strongly expressed, which he had conveyed in the verse preceding our text (19), by saying, "I am dead to the law,"I have no more to do with it, and it has no more to do with me, than if I had passed away by natural death from its dominion;-and which he states more at large in Rom. vii. 1, 4, 6, where he says, "Know ye not, brethren, how that the law"- the demands of the Mosaic economy-"hath dominion over a man only so

spirit by which he was animated as a Christian man, in that new life of obedience to God, to which he had been introduced by Christ.

He is stating, you will remember, the argument which he used to Peter, to show the inconsistency of that Apostle's conduct with respect to the Jewish observances, and the impossibility of his taking up again the principles and practice which they had both so fully renounced. "For (he says, in v. 19,) I through the law," through that new law of Christianity which I have adopted-"am dead to the law," the old law of Judaism-" that I might live unto God;" that now henceforth the one single purpose of my existence may be the service of God in the gospel of his Son. Nay, (he continues in our text,) "I am crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ liveth in me;" that is, My present life is that of a new man, actuated by a new principle.

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First, then, let us recollect, that the life of the reconciled Christian is altogether that of a new man. "I (says Paul) am crucified with Christ, i. e. I count myself to have renounced the principles and practice of my former life, as entirely as if I had passed away by death

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