the children of God, and his lot among the saints."

The subject under our consideration is calculated to minister the important question, whether you possess, or do not possess, that faith which worketh by love, purifying the heart and producing unreserved obedience to the precepts of the gospel, as well as the faith that embraceth the doctrines and promises of the gospel? The faith that leaves you dead in your sins, the faith that moves not your heart to choose the statutes of the Lord as your heritage for ever, the faith that permits you to continue in any known sin, the faith that leads you to "continue in sin that grace may abound," is not the faith that justifies,-is a dead faith, and no better than the faith of devils. Think you that Christ came to be "the minister of sin," by his obedience and suffering to deliver you from sin's condemnation, that you may indulge yourselves in sin? If the man who, in the pride of his heart and relying on his own moral deeds, rejects Christ's atonement and Christ's sacrifice for sin, cannot escape condemnation; O! what must be the fearful doom of the man, who, by "turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness," into an occasion of sin, intro

1 Wisdom of Solomon, v. 3, 4, 5. This passage is not adduced as inspired scripture.

2 Jude 4.

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duces and holds the Lord Christ as "the minister of sin," as the abettor and approver of disobedience to God, and contempt of God's word and commandments? Beware, brethren, beware of this damnable and damning doctrine, this demoralizing notion, which represents sin as tolerable and tolerated through the sufferings and the death of the Son of God.

The subject before us is calculated also to afford consolation to the believing and obedient disciple of Christ. Through the medium of faith in God's word, you see the approaching destruction of "this evil world." As you believe the record that the flood overspread the earth and destroyed all living creatures, except those in the ark; so you believe that the predicted conflagration of this guilty world will take place at the appointed but hidden time. Through the medium of revelation, you behold the godless multitude arraigned before the last tribunal, and you see the righteous judge frown, and you hear him pronounce their dreadful and irreversible doom. But, through the same medium, behold the righteous safe in Christ, approved of God, and for ever delivered from the merited evils which will be poured out on the wicked. As Noah persevered in faith and obedience through the toils of many years while preparing the ark, so, be ye "not weary in well doing, for in due sea

son we shall reap if we faint not."3 "Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."4

3 Gal. vi. 9.

4 2 Pet. i. 5,

&c.

SERMON XIII.

ON THE FINAL SALVATION OF THE

CHRISTIAN.

ROM. V. 10.

"For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life."

To have our hope or expectation of some important event, established on a sure foundation, must greatly contribute to our comfort, by removing painful doubts and fears which, in a state of uncertainty, always distract the mind. In all the changing scenes of life through which we pass,-in all the varied and multiplied afflictions which we are called to endure,-in all the spiritual conflicts in which we must engage,—nothing can impart to us greater tranquillity and stronger consolation, than the certainty of that undisturbed, everlasting rest which remaineth for the people of God. The assurance of this rest is no where given but in the

word of God. It is in that blessed word that we learn the certainty, and, in some measure, the nature, of our existence beyond the grave. It is in that word that we learn too by what means and for whom the glorious rest has been prepared and secured; and what are the qualifications necessary for entering into and enjoying that rest.

These subjects, of all others the most important to man, the Apostles pressed upon their hearers with unwearied zeal and diligence. And whilst they earnestly called the attention of heedless sinners to the one thing needful,—the salvation of their immortal souls,-they did not neglect to strengthen the weak, to raise the dejected, to comfort and animate the desponding, believer. To all believers, weak or strong, young or old, their language was, "Press on toward the mark;" "be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might."

Encompassed and opposed as the Christian is by his powerful and insidious enemies,—the world, the flesh, and the devil, and conscious as the Christian is of his own weakness,-no wonder if he is sometimes tempted to despair of final victory and a crown of glory; and in the language of unbelief to say, as David said in another case," I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul." No, O Christian, you shall not perish. The great Cap

2

21 Sam. xxvii. 1

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