constituted, thus endowed, and thus appointed, can find it in his heart to insult the Giver of these unspeakable blessings, and, by deliberately chusing that which is hateful in his sight, tơ frustrate the riches of his goodness, and make void his counsel against himself. Oh! my brethren, let us think of these things, of these unbounded mercies which we have all so often despised, and let each of us veil his head, and smite upon his breast, saying "God be merciful to me a sinner."

In the next place, we may form some notion of the malignity of sin, by observing its effects on the world at large, and on the sinner himself. When we compare the actual state of things around us with what it might be, and would be, but for the wickedness of man, how striking and how dreadful is the contrast; instead of beholding an earthly paradise, peopled with a race of beings, whose principal care and employment it is to glorify their common Father which is in heaven, and to alleviate the natural misfortunes, and augment the happiness of cach and all of their kindred men, how frequently and how widely are we compelled to witness the mournful ravages of sin; sometimes appearing under the form of ambition, and slaughtering men in mere wantonness, till the sword is drunk with the blood of the slain ;-sometimes destroying the confidence of civil life, by acts of violence, injustice, and oppression;-sometimes by perfidy and ingratitude tearing asunder the strongest ties which knit the heart of man to man ;—and sometimes, in the indulgence of private profligacy, infusing poison into the cup of innocence, and planting in the bosom, where parental and conjugal affection had produced a sweet oblivion of the ills of life, unutterable anguish and bitterness of soul. Such is the face which creation wears, in conse quence of the voluntary depravity of its lord; but who shall depict even the temporal misery which he is accumulating for himself as often as he transgresses the law of his God; who can descend into the dark recesses of the sinner's soul, and describe the sounds and sights of woe which burst upon it from every quarter; the fearfulness and trembling, the suspicion and dismay, wherewith the mind is haunted, when no mortal

enemy is by; the trumpet-tongue of conscience, which ceases not to cry neither day nor night; and the convulsive agitations of a tortured spirit, which is "like the troubled sea when it "cannot rest." Tranquillity must be sought in the ways of virtue, for "there is no peace, saith God, to the wicked."

Again-let us read the nature and desert of sin in characters visible to the external eye, which are daily and hourly presented to our notice, and written by the immediate finger of God. According to his all-righteous judgement "the wages of sin is death," and the sentence pronounced as a penalty on the first transgressor, is regularly inflicted on all his descendants, as an awful memento, (among other purposes,) of what is properly due to sin, and as a present intimation of what it may expect to receive in a future and eternal world. See, then, the sorry and loathsome remnant of that noble creature, man, when the spirit has fled, and resigned its habitation to the worms. How wonderful! how terrible! that he, who was lately beheld with complacency, it may be with affection and delight, is now transformed at once into an object of aversion, disgust, and horror. It is sin that has wrought the mighty ruin; in the fearly exhibition of mortality, it is sin that sits triumphant on the throne, and death is only the minister by her side.

Lastly, let us karn the enormity of sin in the sight of a pure and righteous God, by the value of the atonement, which he required to be made for it. Neither "thousands of rams" for a sacrifice, nor "ten thousands of rivers of oil" for a libation, could send up a savour unto heaven sufficiently grateful to appease its wrath; no, nor could even repentance and reformation cancel the hand-writing of ordinances against us, and restore the sinner to the unqualified favour of his Maker. And as no one could avail to liberate himself from the curse of the law, much less was he able to redeem his brother, or make atonement unto God for him; and all creation would have groaned together in bondage until now had not the second Man from heaven, compassionating our infirmities and miseries,

D

condescended to lay aside the inherent glory of the only-begotten of the Father, and offer himself as a Lamb for a burntoffering, holy and acceptable unto God. With what feelings then of deep remorse, of self-abasement, and self-condemnation, should we look upon him whom we have pierced,' when it was our iniquity that nailed him to the tree; and with what unfeigned and fervent gratitude to him who died for us that we might live through him.

And can we then continue in sin now that grace and mercy have thus abounded to us, and love and cherish the mortal enemy of God, which called his Son from heaven to the cross. Oh let us be infinitely careful how we "crucify the Son of God afresh, and put him again to an open shame;" for, if we count the blood of the covenant an unholy thing,' and refuse to avail ourselves of its sanctifying influence, "there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain fearful looking for of judgement and fiery indignation."

SERMON III.

On Regeneration.

PREACHED on EASTER-DAY, APRIL 14.

COLOSSIANS iii. 1.

If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

THE object of Christianity is two-fold to improve the condition and augment the comforts of man while he is yet a stranger here on earth, and to exalt him to everlasting happiness hereafter. Neither of these purposes, however, is to be accomplished independently of the co-operation of man himself; the latter of them more especially, that which is so infi. nitely the more valuable of the two, is perfectly contingent on the character, the consistency, and the extent of his own exertions; for the happiness of heaven, held out to the faithful Christian as the glorious prize of his high calling, is purely of a spiritual kind, and as it resembles in its nature the essential happiness of the Deity himself, it is exclusively adapted to the capacities of a soul refined and spiritualized by virtue. The attainment therefore of internal holiness is every where inculcated in the Gospel, not indeed as a meritorious ground on which fature bliss may be claimed, but as an indispensable qualification for the enjoyment of it; all the doctrines and

D2

admonitions, the promises and threatenings, interspersed throughout the sacred volume, tend ultimately to this point, and exemplify minutely the assertion of the apostle, that the end, for which our blessed Saviour died and rose again, was to "purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good "works."*

The doctrine, however, which declares the necessity of personal holiness to salvation, though it is indisputably the clearest of any which the Gospel has revealed to us, has in these latter days been involved in strange obscurity, from the novel mode in which it has been stated, and the mysterious language with which it has been described. Under the term " Under the term "Regeneration" or the "New Birth" opinions have been propagated, which are supported, as we conceive, by no authority of Scripture, and which, if they may be sometimes incidentally the occasion of good, are very frequently the origin of extensive mischief, by perplexing the understanding, and needlessly distressing the consciences of the humble and faithful followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Regeneration,+ according to the sentiments of those, who now make it a principal topic of their exhortations, consists in an entire change of heart from sin to holiness, which must necessarily be experienced by everyindividual before he can be considered in a state of salvation. Those strenuous supporters of this doctrine, Whitfield and Wesley, who signalized themselves so much by their unwearied exertions to bring it into general notice, were more explicit in their accounts of it than most of their successors have been, for they represented the change, which they called the New Birth, not only as radical and entire, and as an indispensable

* Tit. ii. 14.

In the present discourse we have frequently been obliged to use "Regeneration" and "Conversion" as synonimous terms, because they are so considered by those whose sentiments we are examining, though there is a manifest distinction between them according to their scriptural meaning, and both are widely different from "Renovation."