blind guides leading the blind, and both fall into the ditch to. gether.

6thly, The darkness of a departed God and glory follows upon the removal of the gospel-lamp. The name of that nation or congregation then becomes Ichabod, that is, “The glory is departed.” And then innumerable woes take place: “Wo also unto them, when I depart from them.” Utter destruction and desolation takes place: “Behold your house is left unto you desolate,” Matth. xxiii. 38. “ And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged, but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Ju-. dah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry,” Is. v. 5—7. Thus you see what darkness follows upon the removal of the gospel-lamp for rejecting and refusing to come to God's Anointed. Oh, then, let me beseech you, as though God did beseech you by me, “ be ye reconciled unto God," by receiving him, resting upon him alone for salvation from sin and wrath, as he is offered to you in the gospel.

Oh that I knew how to prevail with you to accept of God's Anointed! Come and let us reason together upon this important matter. Sirs, when you reject God's Anointed, you reject God himself, that God in whom every moment you live, move, and have your being; for. God is in Christ his Anointed dear; but when you receive him, you receive God to be your God and portion in time and through eternity ; his. Father becomes your Father, and his God your God.

. Pray tell me, what ails you at God's Anointed, that you will not come unto him? Do you reject him because he is. an insufficient Saviour? Why, the gospel-lamp discovers the contrary, and that the very reverse is true: “ I have laid help upon one that is mighty," says God. Do you reject him on a pretence that he is unwilling to receive you? T'he gospel-lamp confutes this thought; for you may see him complaining of sinners, that they will not come unto him; swearing by his life, that he is willing, and bas no pleasure in the death of the wicked; appealing to the heavens and earth, to bear testimony for him against sinners for their folly and obstinacy: “ Be astonished, 0 ye heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid, be ye very desolate, saith the Lord, For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns,

broken cisterns, that can hold no water," Jer. ii. 12, 13. And again, he says, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me," Is. i. 2. Do you stand off from God's Anointed, because you have no claim or right to him? Let not this be pretended; for you have as good a right to him, and as good a warrant to employ him for your salvation, as any of the saints, either in heaven or earth, ever had, before they actually believed in him. You have a right to him by virtue of the human nature that he wears, by which he is related to all the human kind. You have a right and claim to him by virtue of his office; he is the Saviour of all men that are willing to be saved. As every man in Israel had access to the brazen serpent, which was a common good to all the camp; so has every sinner a right to look to Christ, and be saved. You have a right to him by the revelation, the offer, the gift, and grant, of the gospel: "Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world," John vi. 32, 33: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given," Is. ix. 6. And, again, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters," &c. Is. lv. 1: "And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst, come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely," Rev. xxii. 17. Do ye stand off from God's Anointed for want of power and ability to come to him? Why, God's Anointed in the gospel is reaching forth his saving arm to help every impotent soul, saying, "I give power to the faint; to them that have no might I increase strength." Do you decline to come to God's Anointed, because you are uncertain if God ordained him for you, or you for him, in his eternal purpose or decree? Why, sirs, I have often told you, and now I tell you again, that in the matter of believing, you have nothing at all to do with the decrees of God: "Secret things belong unto the Lord; but things revealed, to us and to our children." Now, it is among the things revealed, that you should believe in God's Anointed; "This is the work of God, that ye believe in him whom God hath sent;" and that moment you believe with the heart, thou mayest read thy name in the Lamb's book of life; and never can or shall any man find out the decree of God as to himself in another way or method. Oh then, come and close immediately with God's anointed Saviour, and the way of salvation through him, by which you shall at once both give "glory to God in the highest," and secure

your own salvation for ever. But if you continue to reject God's anointed, and the lamp he has ordained for him, your light shall be put out in obscurity, and you shall lie down in everlasting sorrow with hypocrites and unbelievers. “ Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks; walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled. This shall ye have of mine hand, ye shall lie down in sorrow," Is. I. 11,

Query, What advice do you give us, in order to our right improvement of the gospel-lamp as to [get] à saving interest [in] God's anointed? To this I answer in these particulars :

ist, Be much in viewing yourselves in the light of the holy law of God, which requires no less than an absolute and sinless perfection in every man and woman sprung of Adam, in order to fix a title to life and glory, and which dooms every one to hell and destruction from the presence of the Lord, who cannot produce a personal and perfect obedience to it. The language of the law is, “ He that doth these things shall live by them :” but “ Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them."

2dly, Consider seriously whether you be capable to produce what the law requires of you. There are three things demanded of you by God from the bar of the law, to which, if

you cannot give a satisfying answer, sentence must pass against you. (i.) God will demand of you, Where is that innocent nature you received from me at your

creation : for I made you upright? (2.) Where is that sinless obedience of life which the law requires? Have you done all that the law requires ? None of Adam's race can answer these two; for “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” And, therefore, (3.) A third demand follows: What satisfaction do you give to my justice? To this the sinner, ignorant of the gospel, is ready to answer, “Oh, will God be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? will he accept of our first-born for our transgression, or the fruit of our body for the sin of our souls.” But will God be pleased with this ? No, he no more values all these large proffers, than the cutting of a dog's neck, or the offering of swine's blood upon his altar. Such " sacrifice and offering I desire not,” says God. Well, seeing the sinner cannot give a satisfactory answer to these questions, seeing his nature is vitiated and corrupted, “every thought of his heart is evil,” seeing he has broken the law, in thought, word, and deed, times without number, what must follow on this, according to the tenor of law and justice, but that the sword of justice awake

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against the criminal, and that he be “hewn in pieces before the Lord,” as Agag? Now, I say, my advice to you is, oh take a serious view of this state of matters between God and you. While you are upon a law-bottom, "indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, unto every soul of man that doth evil.”

3dly, Having thus pondered how matters stand between God and you in the light of the law, I advise you next to take the lamp of the gospel, and see what relief is provided by God in his Anointed for you in this dismal situation. See if there be not a suitable and sufficient answer to these [puzzling] and silencing questions in God's Anointed as a second Adam, a new covenant-head. When the question is put, Where is that pure and holy nature that we had from God at our first creation ? view God's Anointed by the lamp of the gospel, and you will hear him answering, Here it is, in my person, as their public head and representative; and I present their nature to God as holy and pure as ever it was at its creation. Again ; when the question is put, where is that perfect, personal, and sinless obedience they owe to my holy law, which was the condition of life, according to the tenour of my covenant I made with them ? why, the gospel-lamp will let you see God's Anointed as your Surety, answering, I have fulfilled all righteousness" that the law required in their room; I “was made sin for them, that they might be made the righteousness of God in me;" “ I am the end of the law for righteousness unto every one that believeth in me;": “ I have magnified the law, and made it honourable," and the righteousness of the law is fulfilled by imputation, in all that come to me by faith. Again; when the question is put,

. What satisfaction will the guilty sinner give to my justice ? God's Anointed answers, I was wounded for their transgressions, I was bruised for their iniquities, the chastisement of their peace was upon me; I was made a curse for them, the just suffered for the unjust, to bring them to God; I bore their sins in my own body on the tree, and therefore justice cannot have recourse upon them. Thus you see how the gospel-lamp discovers a way of relief for the poor sinner standing condemned at the bar of the holy law, how this answers all these questions, to which, all finite understandings, whether among men or angels, were utterly unanswerable.

4thly, Having thus viewed how things stand in the light of the law, and in the light of the gospel-lamp, consider, deliberately, where you will take up your standing before God's tribunal, and for an awful eternity; whether will you

take

your hazard' to answer God to these questions in your own person, by presenting to him the works of righteousness that you have

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done, for the satisfaction of his justice? or will you quit and renounce all these as filthy rags, and betake yourselves to God's Anointed, as “the Lord your righteousness," saying, “ In him alone will I be justified, and in him will I glory?" I am sure, if you have any uptaking of God in his infinite tremendous holiness and justice; any uptaking of the holiness, equity, perfection, and extent of the law; any uptaking of your own lost, wretched, and miserable condition ; any value for your precious souls, that are condemned already by the law; any view of God's Anointed in the light of the gospellamp, you will not be long in determining the matter, upon what foundation you will venture. Oh, will the soul say, with Paul, “ Yea, doubtless, I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord; for whom I am ready to suffer the loss of all things, and do count them but dung that I may win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.” This is just the language of faith submitting to the righteousness of God's anointed Saviour and Surety. The soul just sinks itself, and all its own works and righteousness, into nothing, and states itself before God in Christ, and says, “ Behold, O God, my Shield, and look

O upon the face of thine Anointed,” Psal. Ixxxiv. 9. It is in this

way that the soul closes with Christ, and is interested savingly in him; and it is in this way that the infinite power of God is exerted and put forth, when he “fulfils the work of faith with power,"

5thly, In regard the gospel-lamp discovers Christ not only as an atoning Priest, but also as a teaching Prophet, and a ruling and a governing King; therefore at the same time that we submit to his righteousness for justification, we must take care to submit to the whole will of God revealed by him, setting the seal to all the “promises of God, as yea, and amen in him ;" yea to the whole of the gospel revelation; submitting also, at the same time, to the law as in the hand of a Mediator, and saying, “ The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good :" thou hast delivered me out of the hand of mine enemies, therefore rule thou over me. Thus the man gets the law written in his heart, “ the kingdom of God is set up within” him, and “ every thought brought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ, God's Anointed. So much for advice how to improve the gospel-lamp, in order to your sharing salvation by God's Anointed.

I conclude with a word of advice to believers, who through the light of the gospel-lamp, and the power of God accom