old and infirm and dying to be saved? is it not of the same importance to the young and strong? can they be saved without religion? or can religion save them without thinking about it?

If, thirdly, such a levity of mind be our character, as nothing can make an impression upon, this levity must be cured, before ever we can draw near unto God. Surely human life wants not materials and occasions for the remedying of this great infirmity. Have we met with no troubles to bring us to ourselves? no disasters in our affairs? no losses in our families? no strokes of misfortune or affliction? no visitations in our health? no warnings in our constitution? If none of these things have befallen us, and it is for that reason that we continue to want seriousness and solidity of character, then it shows how necessary these things are for our real interest and for our real happiness; we are examples how little mankind can do without them; and that a state of unclouded pleasure and prosperity is, of all others, the most unfit for man. It generates the precise evil we complain of, a giddiness and levity of temper upon which religion cannot act. It indisposes a man for weighty and momentous concerns of any kind; but it most fatally disqualifies him for the concerns of religion. That is its worst consequence, though others may be bad.. I believe, therefore, first, that there is such a thing as a levity of thought and character, upon which religion has no effect. I believe, secondly, that this is greatly cherished by health and pleasures, and prosperity, and gay society. I believe, thirdly, that, whenever this is the case, these things, which are accounted such blessings, which men covet and envy, are, in truth, deep and heavy calamities. For, lastly, I believe, that this levity must be changed into seriousness, before the mind infected with it can come unto God; and most assuredly true it is, that we cannot come to happiness in the next world, unless we come to God in this.

Trepeat again, therefore, that we must look to our hearts for our character; not simply or solely to our actions, which may be and will be of a mixed nature, but to the internal state of our disposition. That is the place in which religion dwells; in that it consists. And I also repeat, that one of these internal marks of a right disposition, of an honest and good heart, as relative to religion, is seriousness. There can be no true religion without it; and further, a mark and test of a growing religion, is a growing seriousness; so that when, instead of seeing these things at a distance, we begin to look near upon them;

when, from faint, they become distinct; when, instead of now and then perceiving a slight sense of these matters, a hasty passage of them, as it were, through the thoughts, they begin to rest and settle there; in a word, when we become serious about religion, then, and not till then, may we hope that things are going on right within us: that the soil is prepared; the seed sown. Its future growth and maturity and fruit may not yet be known, but the seed is sown in the heart and in a serious heart it will not be sown in vain; in a heart not yet become serious, it may.

Religious seriousness is not churlishness, is not severity, is not gloominess, is not melancholy but it is nevertheless a disposition of mind, and, like every disposition, it will show itself one way or other. It will, in the first place, neither invite, nor entertain, nor encourage any thing which has a tendency to turn religion into ridicule. It is not in the nature of things, that a serious mind should find delight or amusement in so doing; it is not in the nature of things, that it should not feel an inward pain and reluctance whenever it is done. Therefore, if we are capable of being pleased with hearing religion treated, or talked of, with levity, made, in any manner whatever, an object of sport and jesting; if we are capable of making it so ourselves, or joining with others, as in a diversion, in so doing; nay, if we do not feel ourselves at the heart grieved and offended, whenever it is our lot to be present at such sort of conversation and discourse: then is the inference, as to ourselves, infallible, that we are not yet serious in our religion; and then it will be for us to remember, that seriousness is one of those marks by which we may fairly judge of the state of our mind and disposition, as to religion; and that the state of our mind and disposition is the very thing to be consulted, to be known, to be examined and searched into, for the purpose of ascertaining, whether we are in a right and safe way, or not. Words and actions are to be judged of, with a reference to that disposition which they indicate. There may be language, there may be expressions, there may be behaviour, of no very great consequence in itself, and considered in itself, but of very great consequence indeed, when considered as indicating a disposition and state of mind. If it show, with respect to religion, that to be wanting within which ought to be there, namely, a deep and fixed sense of our personal and individual concern in religion, of its importance above all other important things; then

it shows, that there is yet a deficiency in our hearts, which, without delay, must be supplied by closer meditation upon the subject than we have hitherto used, and, above all, by earnest and unceasing prayer for such a portion and measure of spiritual influence shed upon our hearts, as may cure and remedy that heedlessness and coldness, and deadness and unconcern, which are fatal, and under which we have so much reason to know that we as yet unhappily labour.

XVIII.

THE EFFICACY OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

PART I.

HEBREWS IX. 26.

Now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

THE salvation of mankind, and most particularly in so far as the death and passion of our Lord Jesus Christ are concerned in it, and whereby he comes to be called our Saviour and our Redeemer, ever has been, and ever must be, a most interesting subject to all serious minds.

Now there is one thing in which there is no division or difference of opinion at all; which is, that the death of Jesus Christ is spoken of, in.reference to human salvation, in terms and in a manner, in which the death of no person whatever is spoken of besides. Others have died martyrs, as well as our Lord. Others have suffered in a righteous cause, as well as he; but that is said of him, and of his death and sufferings, which is not said of any one else; an efficacy and a concern are ascribed to them, in the business of human salvation, which are not ascribed to any other.

What may be called the first gospel declaration upon this subject, is the exclamation of John the Baptist, when he saw Jesus coming unto him: Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.' I think it plain, that when John called our Lord the Lamb of God, he spoke with a relation to his being sacrificed, and to the effect of that sacrifice upon the pardon of human sin: and this, you will observe, was said of him, even before he entered upon his office. If any doubt could be made of the meaning of the Baptist's expression, it is settled by other places, in which the like allusion to

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a lamb is adopted; and where the allusion is specifically applied to his death, considered as a sacrifice. In the Acts of the Apostles, the following words of Isaiah are, by Philip the evangelist, distinctly applied to our Lord, and to our Lord's death: 'He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearers, so opened he not his mouth; in his humiliation his judgment was taken away, and who shall declare his generation? for his life is taken from the earth' for his life was taken from the earth: therefore it was to his death, you see, that the description relates. Now, I say, that this is applied to Christ most distinctly; for the pious eunuch, who was reading the passage in his chariot, was at a loss to know to whom it should be applied. "I pray thee,' saith he' to Philip, 'of whom speaketh the Prophet this? of himself or of some other man? And Philip, you read, taught him that it was spoken of Christ. And I say, secondly, that this particular part and expression of the prophecy being applied to Christ's death, carries the whole prophecy to the same subject: for it is undoubtedly one entire prophecy: therefore the other expressions, which are still stronger, are applicable as well as this. 'He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed; the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.' There is a strong and very apposite text of St Peter's, in which the application of the term "Lamb' to our Lord, and the sense, in which it is applied, can admit of no question at all. It is in the 1st chapter of the 1st epistle, the 18th and 19th verses: Forasmuch as ye know, that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.' All the use I make of these passages is to show, that the Prophet Isaiah, six hundred years before his birth; St John the Baptist, upon the commencement of his ministry; St Peter, his friend, companion, and apostle, after the transaction was over, speak of Christ's death, under the figure of a lamb being sacrificed that is, in having the effect of a sacrifice, the effect in kind, though infinitely higher in degree, upon the pardon of sins, and the procurement of salvation; and that this is spoken of the death of no other person what

ever.

Other plain and distinct passages, declaring the efficacy of Christ's death, are the following: Hebrews, ix: 26. ' Now once