of faith, "My Lord, and my God!" Oh, that we may cast our crowns before him, in connexion with the holy angels, and adore Him who sitteth on the throne, and the Lamb for ever and ever! Let us remember that they were made superior to Him, and pay him their highest homage, and their best obedience.

It intimates what ought to be the anticipation of believers. We are coming, my dear hearers, to an innumerable company of angels. Oh, what a privilege it is to be an heir of salvation. Think of the society, think of their state, think of their character. In the course of a very little time we shall be given to the dust. Death is making rapid strides. "The fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live for ever?" How we see removals constantly taking place. Year after year, some pulpit is vacant; some father, some pastor, some prophet of Christ lost to us, and gone to the eternal world; or some that have been active and holy in the Church, members of the mystical body of Christ, have passed away: and every year reminds us, that the period is coming when our dust shall return to the earth, when our connexion with the Church shall be broken up, when our associations here below will be no longer continued. Let us humbly say, "Father, thy will be done: only let me live in this delightful anticipation, that I shall come to the Church above, that I shall mingle with the innumerable company of angels, that I shall enter into that society at last where I shall hear how the creation came into being, where I shall hear how the heavens and the earth were made, where I shall hear how God's providence has governed it for six or seven thousand years, where I shall hear more of the mysteries of redemption and all its glorious effects." May the Spirit of God help us, my dear hearers, that, when we feel we are approaching eternity, we may have some pleasing anticipations that we are coming to the innumerable company of angels, and to the spirits of the just made perfect.

In closing this subject, let me remind you there are two classes of angels : and let me seriously put the question to you, With which, think you, shall you be associated? There are the angels who have not kept their first estate, and they are consigned over to chains and darkness, unto the judgment of the great day. There are legions of them, legions of fallen spirits: and will it be that you shall mingle with them? Will it be that you shall die under the sound of the Gospel, and be associated with those that perish? Will it be that you shall have heard of the Bible, and of the pure society of heaven, and, after all that, be exIcluded from it? Oh, that you may be wise, that you may consider your latter end, that you may ascertain where you shall be found at last, when every one shall be judged, and shall receive according to the things done in the body. Remember, if you are to associate with angelic beings, you must yourself be holy all angels are holy; and they can have no intercourse, no communication, no fellowship with unholy creatures: if you mingle, therefore, with these holy angels, you must have a corresponding holiness. "Ah!" you will say, "I am unholy, I am carnal, sold under sin: I am a rebel, a transgressor: I feel the depravity of my nature." Now look at the blood of Jesus; now look at that which angels are looking into with admiration, and love, and praise. I call upon you to look at it with faith, to look at Calvary now, to turn to the Lord of angels; and remember that his blood cleanseth from all sin; and, however impure and imperfect you are, standing in him you shall mingle with this innumerable company when time shall be no more. May he pour out his Spirit upon us, and at last bring us into this celestial state, where we shall go no more out, but serve him day and night in his temple continually. Amen.

THE UNSPEAKABLE GIFT OF GOD.

REV. 1 DALE, A.M.

ST. MATTHEW'S CHAPEL, DENMARK HILL, CAMBERWELL, APRIL 6, 1834.

"And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son." 1 JOHN, v. 11.

OUR knowledge of God being limited as to his attributes, it is manifest that our conceptions of God must be inadequate as to his acts. It is, however, mercifully ordained, that those which most immediately concern ourselves are those also which we can most readily comprehend. The wisdom which devised, the love which directed, and the power which accomplished the Gospel system of salvation, are, doubtless, among the mysteries into which angels desire to look, as well as among the splendours of divine agency on which mortal sense cannot endure to gaze. For, of the dwelling of light wherein Jehovah tabernacles, and to which we are told man cannot approach, we know it is a concentration of brightness, before which even the celestial intelligences are said to veil their faces with their wings. And if this be true in the material, wherefore not also in the moral sense?

All speculations, therefore, concerning the divine nature, which deviate in any degree from the beaten track of divine revelation, are much more likely to bewilder by uncertainty than to conduce to edifying. And, in like manner, all admeasurement by the standard of human reason of things beyond its province, all attempts to scale or system those divine workings by which salvation can be brought home to any one of us, are liable to become, in the issue, at once disparaging to the divine honour, and detrimental to our own improvement. It must be enough to establish a doctrine that God has revealed it; enough to certify a promise that God hath uttered it; enough to commend and sanctify an inward working that God hath ordained, and that God is accomplishing it.

Hence, in propounding the doctrine which our text records and attests, that "God hath given to us eternal life," and that "this life is in his Son," no demand is made on the believer for an examination into God's motive, why he gave; nor for an admeasurement of God's benevolence, what he gave; nor for a demonstration of God's consistency, the way he bestowed the gift of his Son. His motive is revealed to have been the purest possible; his benevolence, the broadest possible; his mode of dispensing it, the wisest possible. All these points, indeed, are practically involved in the deelaration, that the work of salvation is God's. Lower than this, the Apostle could not rest; higher than this, he desires not to ascend: for when wisdom and faith have combined, and measured out their widest range, they must turn, after all, to the two points, and settle there, wherein all the light that can be thrown on the subject is con

centrated: "He is faithful that hath promised;" and "what he hath promised, he is also able to perform."

It is, therefore, a matter of fact which is stated, both in the text and in the passage to which the text immediately refers: "This is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life:" and thus, though the subject is one which over. passes man's imagination, though it is that which "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath entered into the heart of man to conceive;" though, consequently, were it man's, no asseveration would be too earnest, nor any evidence too ample and conclusive; yet, since it is God's, the Apostle hinges the door of eternal life on the single and sufficient promise, on the bare word and will of God; and, with a touching simplicity which goes directly to the heart, and which should operate a confidence filial as his own, he thus demonstrates by example, what ne had before declared in terms, that it is impossible for God to lie, and, that in proportion to our conviction of that impossibility, is the strength of our consolation, if we have fled for refuge to the hope set before us in the Gospel.

The inference, then, from all this will be, what indeed the Apostle had already stated in the preceding verse: "He that believeth on the Son, hath the witness in himself." It is the witness of God's working; it is the seed of God's sowing; it is the root of God's planting. "No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the power of the Holy Ghost;" and none, surely, can aver that there is life eternal in Christ Jesus, who does not believe and avow that Jesus is the Lord.

It ought, therefore, to be determined this day, dearly beloved brethren-and may the Lord himself enable you to determine the point aright—whether you have as yet duly recognized and realized, impressed and engraven on your hearts, first, the value of the gift; next, the goodness of the giver; and, lastly, the fitness and sufficiency of the instrument. The gift is eternal life; the giver is God; and this life is in his Son.

Now, in one sense, it must be admitted, THE VALUE OF THE GIFT defies all estimate for the gift is eternal life; and who shall furnish us with any data on which we can compute the costliness of a benefit which is destined to endure throughout eternity? Some of us may be able, perhaps, to cast a retrospective glance nearly three-score years and ten behind, and the life of man is declared to be nought but labour and sorrow; but what is that when paralleled with the chain which stretches forward throughout endless ages and generations? It is the hill that we ascend which overlooks the boundless plain; it is the river down which we are borne by the tide into the immeasurable expanse of ocean. No, we can never rightly estimate the value of the gift; but, we can arrive at this conclusion that its value transcends all estimate; not only in theory (for all will concur in the fact, which is from its very nature incapable of denial) but in practice also; so far, at least, that we seek the invaluable gift in preference to every other, though the due proportion may not be observed between it and others, as to the ardour, and zeal, and fixedness of purpose in which it is sought. Still none approximate to the general estimate of the truth, but those who avow, or, which is better far, whose conduct will attest for them, without the necessity of any further avowal, that they do seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, though they do not seek these only-that their works, in the experience of their daily intercourse, are commenced, continued, and ended in God; that they sanctify whatever they undertake by the word of God and

prayer; furnishing themselves for the necessary contact and unavoidable collision with the world, which is always hazardous, and often pernicious, by keeping constantly upon them the whole armour of God, and constantly polishing their only weapon of defence, which is the Word of God. It would be no feeble test of vital religion, to determine how far we are acted on in common things by the remembrance and recognition of eternal life; how far the desire we have to attain it works upon our daily motives and principles; and how far we are thus prepared for the pursuit of practical holiness. For though God has given freely, and gratuitously, and like a God, in a manner harmonizing with all that he has in his word revealed of his own adorable perfections, he does not offer, except in some few special cases, to force, or even to urge, his gift on man's acceptance. Free to accept that gift we must be considered; just as it is certain that we are unable to accept it unless God prevent us, and give us the will, and work with us when we have that will. The impulse, therefore, the effort, comes from him: and happy are those who can, while I am speaking, discern the production thereof in themselves.

For in stating the fact, the Apostle virtually proposes an inquiry. He supplies the subject of it, at least; and the estimate of its importance will best determine the propriety of proposing it for ourselves. The fact is this: "God hath given to us eternal life." The question founded on the fact is, Have we received his gift? Have we truly and effectually received it? For there were those in the Apostle's days, and doubtless there are in our own, of whom it is necessary to entreat, even with tears, that they "receive not the grace of God in vain." If then, we have received it, where is the evidence of the fact? What result does it produce? What power does it bring to bear on the complicated machinery of our daily motives and principles of action? How does it operate on the actions of our lives, and how does it influence the conversation of our lips? How do we know ourselves, how are others to know, that we have earnestly accepted and appropriated the unspeakable gift of God, for which all thanks are now due, but for which hereafter all account must be rendered?

And this suggests a consideration fraught with an awfulness which few of us can duly appreciate—that here, in the presence of each other and their common God, is a congregation of persons who would concur in the acknowledgment that God hath given to us eternal life; while there is reason to fear that not a few would be confounded by the deniand, were it made by one who had power to dive into their hearts-Have you received what God has given? Have you so much as stretched out your hand to receive the bough laden with the fruit which the dove has brought fresh and fragrant from the bowers of Paradise? Have you taken any step that you might affix your name and seal to that covenant which, at once, entitles all who are parties to it to become inheritors of eternal life, and excludes all who might have been parties to it and are not? Do you really feel and declare that the Sabbath is not a mere shred and fragment of time given to God, torn from the piece, and varying in colour and texture; but that, in the desire to mortify sin and to serve Christ, every day is a Sabbath, an antepast of that rest which remaineth for the people of God, and into which they that have believed do enter now? For scarcely is any habit more pernicious and none, certainly, requires more care in the avoidance-than to refer every thing to a future and indefinite period, considering that the life of the soul is then only to begin when the life of the body is extinct; which it is no more reasonable to expect than that manhood should arrive without the preparatory

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stages of infancy, childhood, and youth. The gift of God includes the riches of his grace no less than the riches of his glory: the former must be realized here, if the latter are to be enjoyed hereafter: and the very expression leads appropriately to that which we ought to consider in the second place; I mean,

THE GOODNESS OF THE GIVER. Here also, it is obvious, the same difficulty will be found to lie which we encountered at the commencement of the subject: When can we take an admeasurement of God's goodness, but when we have computed with precision the full value of the benefit? and how can his love be a fathomable deep when eternity is an interminable ocean? Our knowledge must be comparative; the subject of practice, not of theory; delineated in action, with a full conviction on the mind, that, in the estimate, imagination itself must fail. We feel, if we feel at all, that we are held by an obligation of which we cannot tell the force; a love constraining us, of which it is impossible to express the depth and the power. The venerable Evangelist has, perhaps, concentrated in three words all that the language of man can express, and far more than the capacity of man can embrace, concerning that peculiar attribute of the divine nature under which we must for ever contemplate the Author of our salvation: "God is love." And hence in treating this other portion of our subject, the value of the gift, incapable of being theoretically comprehended, must be brought practically home. Then, at least, we ought to know the love that passeth knowledge. It is not only, What are we doing that we may attain the gift? but, How are we endeavouring to demonstrate ourselves the surpassing and incalculable obligation towards Him who gave it? That God hath given to us eternal life, that life eternal is the gift, that He who hath given is God, and that he hath given it in his Son-oh what a treasury of love! and condemnation is reserved even in these most comfortable words, to all those whom the goodness of God is not the means of leading them to repentance.

Is there the shadow of a pretext, is there the phantom of an apology, is there the breath of an excuse, for those who know the fact, who believe the fact, who acknowledge the fact, and yet, who knowing, believing, and acknowledging, forbear to act on it; who live from day to day in the presence and under the eye, the never-wearied eye of the God who hath given them eternal life, which yet they put away from themselves-not as judging him unfaithful, or themselves unworthy, but simply, as it will appear, because in their view such a Giver may be most safely neglected, and such a gift most conveniently postponed?

Ah! beloved brethren, it is to little purpose that we have long enjoyed the revelation, and attended with outward show of reverence on the ministry, of God's word. It is to little purpose that we have heard the details of the love, the exercise of which called into action all the attributes of the divine nature, to devise, ordain, and execute the plan of mercy: it is to little purpose that, while we listen to the development, and look on the spectacle, of the eternal redemption accomplished by the inestimable sacrifice, we feel our hearts burn within us, and our desires awakened, and our affections delighted, and our conduct improved: all this, I say, is to little purpose, if the inefficient knowledge and the evanescent love produce only a light which imparts lustre to the mind without warmth, a blaze which kindles up momentarily, only that it may expire in darkness or be smothered in death, if these be the only result of the declaration of such a gift, through the benevolence of such a giver. Yes-for those who live such, and die such, it would have been better never to have heard of the gift, though unspeakablenever to have known a benevolence which will only punish. For where the