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with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began:" "according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost, which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour. 4th Redemption. We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. 5th Perseverance. "The righteous shall hold on his way, and he that hath clean hands shall be stronger and stronger,," so it is said of Israel of old, "they went forth to go into the land of Canaan, and into the land of Canaan they came" Do you think that God accomplished these things in his providence for his typical people, and will not for his spiritual, his covenant people? They go from strength to strength." How long? Till every one appeareth in Zion before God. I hope to obtain, to possess a golden harp, a crown of righteousness, to sit down in the mansions of bliss and blessedness above, and to sing worthy is the lamb that was slain." Yes, I believe so, says the poor doubting soul, but sometimes I doubt and fear whether this will be realized. But shall your unbelief make the truth of God of none effect? Blessed be his sacred name, never, if we believe not, he abideth faithful, he cannot deny himself; it is secured for you, it is so secure that the most doubting believer in Jesus, at times finds and feels an evidence within, that he is as fully satisfied of heaven as if he was already there, that he can say in the words of the poet

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'Yes I to th' end shall endure,

As sure as the earnest is given,
More happy but not more secure,
The glorified spirits in heaven.'

There are five porches. Time almost forbids me to say any thing more concerning these. Looking at them experimentally considered, one

may be regarded as preservation, "preserved in Christ Jesus and called." Another may be viewed as prayer; a third preaching; a fourth hope, and a fifth communion. Here are five more porches for you.

II. I shall now speak of the characters; "in these lay a great multitude of impotent folk, of blind, halt, and withered, waiting for the moving of the water.' Blessed be God, that he has again and again given such a description of character, it gives me some hope of salvation, very different from the description given by man; he paints the characters as something very holy, pious and dignified, and by these descriptions I have been made to doubt again and again whether I have an interest in it. Let us look first at the characters denominated blind; they lay there, this I think touches your experience. In the first instance, there is not a soul but what is blind to the depravity of the heart; second, to the law, and thirdly to Christ. Yea as the subjects of God's grace. Say you, I feel so depraved in soul. Did you always feel so? No, spiritually considered you were blind to it, you did not feel so depraved in your soul, then, have you discovered that depravity? How was it, there must be a change, was sin always hateful to you? Say you, no. Is it now hateful to you? Yes. Then there must be a change. Did sin always appear ugly to you? No, I thought it very beauteous. Does it now appear ugly to you? Yes, say you. Then there must be a change. Did you always find when you arose in the morning, you carried about with you a body of sin and death; go where you would, it always annoyed you; in your business, in the closet, the sanctuary of God, rising up and laying down, going out and coming in, be engaged wherever you would, you were annoyed with it? No, say you. Do you feel it now? Yes. Then there is a change; that change must

have been the work of God the Holy ost. I think a plain line of demarion may be drawn between natura and spiritual conviction for sin, in very few words. Natural conviction for sin may alarm a man's conscience for some external acts and crimes of hich he is guilty. Spiritual convictis make a man mourn over what feels himself to be from the deprity of his heart, the workings win; I never can believe natural convictions for sin will ever make a man mourn, groan, and sigh, from what he feels within; nobody knows what a character he is but himself. It is the Lord who has given you this consciousness, it is God's work to make you feel the plague of your own heart, the sore of your heart; the Lord will surely answer the prayer he puts there. Solomon at the dedication of the temple prays that what

prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart." In another place rendered "when every one shall know his own sore." It is the Lord who makes you feel your own sore; the Lord makes you feel as the Psalmist said, "my sore ran in the night and my soul refused to be comforted." The Lord will in his own time comfort you. There was a time when you were insensible to all this, you did not know what a miserable guilty individual you were; you were not led to discover, to turn and behold and thou shalt see greater abominations; turn and go unto the hole in the wall, what perceivest thou trein? "turn, thou son of man, thou balt see greater abominations." The Lord shews us next; that we are blind to any knowledge concerning the moral law of God. Individuals speak of the law of God as if it was something finite, something that merely alluded to individual acts. When the Holy Ghost instructs a sinner the nature of the law, he

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teaches a deeper lesson; every day he makes the man feel the law is holy, just and good. The law does not merely go to the outward acts of a man's life, but to his very thoughts and intents of his heart; supposing a man could be found who could in the external letter of the word keep the law of God, and only break it in thought, in God's view he has broken it in act, "cursed is he that continueth not in all things written in the book of the law to do thein." He that offends in one point is guilty of all.” Only in thought he comes under the guilt of condemnation. Has God the Holy Ghost instructed you then in the nature of the law, in the spirituality of the law, made you discover anger is murder, he that looketh upon a woman to lust after her, has committed adultery with her already in his heart." What think you now of the law, where is the man with the grace of God in his heart but what is guilty; you are blind till the Holy Ghost becomes your teacher. What says the apostle, "for I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." The law only hardens, as the poet says :—

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'Law and terrors do but harden,
All the while they work alone;
But a sense of blood-bought pardon,
Soon dissolves a heart of stone.'

This melts the hard adamantine heart. It has melted yours, yea, the blood of the anti-typical scape goat, our most glorious Christ.

Next as to Christ. You were blind as to all pertained to his pc: Smice, character, fulness, understanding, preciousness, doctrines, and promises of Christ: not blind to it now, if subjects of his grace, the Holy Ghost has opened your eyes. Yes, say you, I think I see a little. How much? I can truly say, "I see men as trees walking.' You will see more clearly in God's time, where

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the Lord has opened the eyes, anointed them with eye salve, he will anoint again and again until you see things clearly. You shall be led by the teaching of the Holy Ghost to discover how God can be just, and the justifier of them that believe in Jesus; you shall be led to discover that salvation is full, free, and everlasting, that his love is unchangeable. You shall be be led to discover that Jesus is unchangeable in his perfections, unchangeable in the whole of his grace, that he is the saine yesterday, to day, and for ever. You shall be led to discover he is able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him. You shall be led to discover, that "to you that believe he is precious," precious in his person, in his obedience, in his blood, in his righteousness, precious in all the promises of his word, all the doctrines of his grace, precious in his invitations, in the tone of his voice. "the voice of my beloved; behold, he cometh leaping upon the moun. tains, skipping upon the hills." "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me," they know not the voice of strangers.

The next characters are the halt. A person is said to halt when they are stopped or arrested; has God stopped you? arrested you as you were going on in your mad career of sin, when drinking down iniquity as the ox drinketh down water, exceedingly mad against the church of Christ? You have got a heart as bad as the apostle Paul, only have not the influence to put it in execution, Persecuting the saints even unto strange cities. Has God arrested you?

Sir, say you, the

foundations of my heart have been shaken, the foundations of my imprisoned soul caused me to discover my deformity, so that like the gaoler, I have sprung in, coming trembling, crying," what must I do to be sa

ved?" Then you are amongst the halt, he has stopped you, prevented you with his goodness:

For thus the eternal council ran, Almighty love arrest that man.' What is your cry? "What wouldest thou have me to do?" Go to such a place and get instruction, wait till the Lord come; say you I cannot believe the Lord will look upon me, it is impossible he can find love for me, I am afraid after all I shall be lost. Satan tells me so, unbelief tells me

So. But, beloved, we are persuaded of this very thing, that he that hath begun the good work in you, will carry it on and perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.

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Blessed are they that mourn," not blessed shall they be, they are blessed, the true mourners after blessedness shall be blessed; we must be positive because the word of God is positive. The Lord then has stopped you, arrested you, this is the meaning of the world halt. Another idea is, hesitate; a person is said to halt with respect to his opinion, his apprehension: there may be some in this little assembly this morning who are halting with regard to their opinions, not fully satisfied which is right, the Arminian or Calvinistic. I would say to you as Elijah of old, “ Why halt ye between two opinions." I believe the saints of God often halt between two opinions in the first stages of their experience. Before they are led to discover clearly the economy of redemption, to participate in the sweetness and fulness in Christ, many a child of God is led to say in the language of hope, from very different principles and different motives from Pilate, What is truth?" The Arminian says theirs is truth; the Independent says theirs is truth; a third says they are right. What is truth? I halt, says the man?

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To be concluded in our next.

A SHORT TREATISE UPON God's ever-
LASTING COVENANT; TAKEN FROM

ISAIAH, 49th chapter, part of the
8th verse.

“ And give thee for a covenant of the people."

THIS being a very glorious and deep subject, oh may the Lord the Spirit be pleased to guide me into the truth as it is in Jesus. We often

life before the foundation of the world. These were the persons and no others, to whom the Son of God was given for a covenant; (it might easily be shewn here, that in affairs among men, unless a person's name be inserted in the deed or instrument at the time the other party becomes surety or bound for him, the person for whom he is bound would receive no benefit from the engagement in law) the rest he was pleased to pass by, and leave to perish for the breach of the first covenant. This does indeed manifest his sovereign love and mercy to those whom he has chosen in Christ. Oh how do these blessed truths confound the pride and haughtiness of empty man, and lay him in the dust before God, who was under no obligation whatever to any of the sons of Adam; indeed, they had for ever forfeited all claim to the least mercy by their rebellion against him. The most high God is a sovereign Lord, and has an imperial right to do whatsoever he will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, that no flesh should glory in his presence.

hear of God's covenant in the Holy Scriptures, that it is everlasting and unchangeable, and that the mercies of it are sure unto all who are interested in it. It is of great moment to know who it is that the blessed God says, he will give for a covenant of the people. We have the same gracious promise in the 6th verse of the 42nd chapter; by reading both the chapters, and comparing them with numerous other parts of the Old and New Testaments, we shall be at no lost to find that it is God's coequal and coeternal Son, who was given for a covenant of the people. This covenant was made in eternity, consequently before the foundation of the world was laid. It was entered into by the three adorable persons in the ever-blessed Trinity, Father, Son, His people being implicated in the and Holy Ghost, dwelling in and same consequences of the fall as the participating equally in all the glori- rest of mankind, the holy law of ous perfections and attributes of God being immutable, and having deity, equal in majesty, dignity, been violated by our first parents, power, glory, dominion, and eternity; under that law brought upon themone in mind, will, and purpose. In selves and their posterity the curse this covenant the first and grand de- contained in that law, also spiritual sign was, that the triune God might and temporal death, and exposed to be glorified in the highest, and the eternal death; having lost the divine next, the everlasting salvation and image wherein they were created, and happiness of his elect people; in- the seed of the serpent being infused deed, they are inseparably linked to into them, which is the corruption gether in this covenant. and depravity of our nature, called in scripture the old man, being nothing but enmity against the blessed God, so they, and all their seed gave themselves up willing slaves to the devil,

The blessed God foreseeing (and did purpose to permit for his own glory) the fall of man, elected and chose in Christ a certain number of persons, without any reference whatever to their merit or demerit, but of his mere sovereign will and good pleasure, and these persons' names were written in the Lamb's book of September, 1845.]

acknowledging him as their master,

and well pleased with his service.

The writer of this treatise has given a very imperfect description of the awful condition of man by the fall.

2 E

We here see his utter inability to help himself: first, by the eternal obligation of the law, it being violated, divine justice must be satisfied, and maintain all the honours due to it. Man by the fall, not only brought the curse upon himself, but also death in his soul, so that he has no life or motion in him whatever towards God. Man never could satisfy divine justice, by any doing or suffering of his own; and as to his keeping the law for the time to come, how can that be possible, the law being spiritual, and he having lost the spiritual life of his A soul.

This being the state and condition of God's elect with the rest, it was proposed, that the second person in the adorable Trinity should, in the fulness of time, take upon him their nature, sin only expected, and in that nature should be their surety and substitute at the bar of divine justice, and should magnify the law and make it honorable, and at last endure the curse, by dying the accursed death of the cross for them, by enduring all that wrath and vengeance that was due to them for their sins, and by shedding his own most precious blood, should make a perfect and everlasting atonement to divine justice, that their sins should be made an end of, and for ever put away, and bring in that glorious, perfect, and everlasting righteousness, that should justify them for ever from all things, and should entitle them to all needful grace here, and eternal glory in the world to come; and also, by his death, should gain an eternal victory over all their enemies and all the powers of hell, and should rise again from death and the grave, and enter into heaven as their covenant head and representative by his blood, having obtained eternal redemption for them. By his becoming their surety and substitute, he undertook their cause, and became their covenant head, which constituted a legal union between them in the eye of the law, so that they were considered as

one in this covenant, he, the head, and they, the members; therefore, whatever he was to do and suffer, they were to be considered to do and suffer too, arising out of that oneness between them. The Father having predestinated them unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, and by the covenant engage. ments of the Son for them, there should be a way opened, whereby all the divine perfections and attributes would be glorified, the honours of his holy law maintained, and the infinite rectitude of his righteous government in the world vindicated before men and angels; therefore the way was to be opened by the covenant engage. ments of the Son, for the Father to bestow upon the elect all those mercies and blessings, spiritual, temporal, and eternal, which, in his gracious purpose he had designed to give them in Christ, he having chosen them, and loved them with an everlasting love in him; therefore he would be gracious and merciful to them, pardon, blot out, forgive freely, and for ever all their sins, accept their persons, save and justify them, and manifest his love and favour to them, as if they had never violated his law, and that he was their God and Father, and would own and bless them for his children, and confer upon them all the glorious privileges of his heavenly family; would make all things work together for their good, give them all needful blessings here, and preserve them safe by his mighty power unto his heavenly kingdom; and at last, acknowledge them before an assembled world of men and angels, that they are the seed, the blessed of the Lord, to whom he had given his Son for a covenant.

All these blessings, the Father out of his abundant mercy freely gave to them in his Son, when he him gave for a covenant for them. He treasured up in him, all the glorious promises contained in it, because he was not

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