the sweet language of love is, "thy sins are forgiven thee; go, and sin no more.”* Now the soft cords that bind the redeemed saint to the horns of the altar are, I beseech you, therefore, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God."+ And now it is the happy, believing, justified sinner, having come to Christ for rest to his soul, finds that his yoke is easy, and his burden light. Now he neither works for life, nor in the fear of death; but his obedience is willing, loving, and cheerful, springing from life received, and salvation secured; and he goes on his way rejoicing in the hope of the glory of God.

(v.) Or if you advance a step further, and consider man as a glorified saint in heaven, there the obligation rises to the highest pitch, is perfectly rendered, and will be so for ever. And observe the process through which it is attained. The original law is not laid aside; the liabilities Rom. xii. 1, 2.

* John, viii. 11.

Matt. xi. 30.

of punishment, arising from its failure, are not winked at, or heedlessly passed over; the order and means by which the one might be honoured and the other avoided, are not cast away as of no worth or no avail. No. All is beautiful, consistent, harmonious, and glorious. Every penalty is here paid, and every claim is here fulfilled. To see the blessed God thus honoured and exalted; and to behold the sinner, through the Saviour's undertaking, bathed in penitential sorrow (without merit), looking to the Saviour's cross for pardon and peace, and accepted in God's beloved Son, in whom all merit resides, and out of whose fulness all mercies flow; and thus "washed, and sanctified, and justified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God," made "meet for the inheritance of the saints in light," and ultimately raised to endless life and peace; is one of the most glorious spectacles that earth or heaven can present to our view, which, next to our matchless God and Saviour, will call forth the praise and adoration of the heavenly hosts for ever and ever!

(vi.) Or yet again, once more, if you look down into the depths of the burning lake, and see. the devil and his angels, and the wicked, and all

the nations that forget God, turned into hell, and suffering together the vengeance of eternal fire, you there behold the creature's obligations exhibited in the most awful and tremendous manner. Why were the former hurled from their thrones, and reserved, under those chains of darkness, not only unto the judgment of the great day, but for ever? They are created spirits accountable to God; and, having forfeited his favour in proud rebellion against him, according to the law of their responsible existence and the irreversible decisions of his supreme dominion and vast authority, they are made perpetual sacrifices to his justice, salted with the fire of his wrath, in which they will be tormented, though not consumed, for ever! Why, again, are the latter cast into the same place, and made partakers of the same punishment? They also are creatures accountable to God; and although they are not equal to them in the dignity of their original formation, yet, far surpassing them in sins multiplied, and mercies slighted, which the devils never had the possibility of gaining, they have incurred an equal, if not greater, condemnation; and therefore the just sentence of the God of heaven and earth consigns them to the same place, and dooms

them together to the same torments for ever and ever! But in all this we see nothing more than the doctrine of our text-" the soul that sinneth, it shall die,"-carried out to its proper extent in the ultimate execution of that sentence which is the legitimate wages of sin.

SERMON V.

THE SAME CONTINUED IN FURTHER

DETAIL.

EZEKIEL, XVIII. 4.

"Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine; the soul that sinneth, it shall die."

BUT we must not be satisfied with this general view of the doctrine before us; we must also consider it,

2. In its expansive nature and particular detail.

Every soul of man comes under the influence of this law. None can be exempted from its boundless sway. Like the great and glorious God, in his supreme dominion and universal authority reigning over all, this truth universally extends to all,-takes the whole family of man, in all its various sections and gradations, within its wide embrace,-lays its unalterable claims