deadly hereditary complaint, derived from our first father Adam; a distemper that ever grows worse and worse, fretted and inflamed by our daily transgressions. It taints all men from their birth; for we read, "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned," Rom. v. 12. Because you do not feel this disease, and suffer no sharp anguish from it, is no proof that you are free from it. In cases of mortification no pain is felt. And of some poor souls it is declared, "This people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them," Matt. xiii. 15. In this day of grace strive for a knowledge of your diseased state. Oh that the Holy Spirit may now convince you of sin! It is his work, John xvi. 7-9. A heart that is at enmity with God, Rom. viii. 7; that does not love Jesus, 1 Cor. xvi. 22; that has not experienced the grace of the Holy Spirit, Rom. viii. 9; that regards not the preaching of the cross, 1 Cor. i. 18; that indulges in sin, 1 John ii. 4, 9; that loves the friendship of the world, Jas. iv. 4; that trusts in its own good works, Gal. iii. 10-manifests the general symptoms of this awful disease. Perhaps you have scarcely thought these things wrong. Yet have these filled earth with misery, and hell with wailing. Oh that you may know the plague of your own heart! for Jesus Christ himself declares, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick," Matt. ix. 12.

But it may be you have long felt your wretched condition, have groaned under a conscience ill at ease, and found all the boasted remedies of the world unavailing. Self-indulgence perhaps lulled you for a time, but you could not banish the startling cry, "Flee from the wrath to come." Riches filled your thoughts for a time; but they too, you found, were vanity and vexation of spirit, and the summons sent to the rich man, "This night thy soul shall be required of thee," confused and saddened your calculations. Fame and honour promised you relief for a season; you delighted in the goodwill of your neighbours; all men spoke well of you; but in your calmer moments of thought, those real hours of life, the truth of God's word would speak out, "Nevertheless man being in honour abideth not: he is like the beasts that perish," Ps. xlix. 12. Your heart-ache was not touched. The cancer still corroded your soul; and you bethought yourself, "My life is withering under a strange unknown disease. My springs of health are drying up. I must adopt stronger measures. So you betook yourself to some grave moral physician, who told you

DON'T DESPAIR OF A CURE.

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diet, by carefully husbanding your strength, and by diligent daily exercise, you would soon recover the natural health of your constitution. Alas, you were miserably disappointed! Yours was no surface complaint, but a hidden deadly plague! It preyed upon your vitals. You were "without strength" to follow his directions. You wanted not only new rules for life, but life itself,—new life. You needed some mighty medicine to grapple with your devouring disease. You asked, but you found not. Men had healed your hurt slightly, saying, "Peace, peace; when there is no peace," Jer. vi. 14. You were like that poor woman "which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse," Mark v. 25, 26. Is this your state, unhappy friend? Have others given you up? have you given yourself up? Yet, we pray you, don't despair of a cure.

There is one remedy you have not tried, sure and certain, close at hand, free to all. It was planned by the God who made you; it was proclaimed by his only begotten Son; it is applied by the Almighty Spirit. God said to Israel of old, "Thus saith the Lord, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous;" and again, "Thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine iniquity," Jer. xxx. 12, 15. Could there be a more hopeless case? does it not resemble yours? Yet be comforted; for what with men is impossible, is possible with God; for, hark, the Lord continues, "I will restore. health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord," Jer. xxx. 17. Only come to Jesus, the good Physician: for he says, "Him that cometh to me I will in nowise cast out." Tell him all your case; or, if words fail you, listen to him while he describes it in truer terms than you could find: "The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint: from the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and putrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither mollified with ointment," Isa. i. 5, 6. Is not this your condition? Answer truly, "Yes, Lord, yes ;"— for lo! he proceeds: "The Lord hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised," Luke iv. 18.

Does hope begin to spring up in your heart, and with eagerness do you ask, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" Mark well this answer, "Look unto me, and be ye saved," Isa. xlv. 22. The Israelites, when bitten by the fiery serpents, if they looked upon the serpent of brass, lived. So shall

wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life,” John iii. 14, 15.

He

Well has it been said, What the eye is to the body, faith is to the soul. The good Physician stands before you. says, "I was wounded for your transgressions, I was bruised for your iniquities, and with my stripes (or bruises) you are healed, Isa. liii. 5. Poor sinner, poor sufferer, you deserved to die-to die for ever! But I suffered and died in your stead. The punishment is endured, the price is paid. I am now the Physician of dying souls. Look on me-believe-be healed." Reader! it is a solemn thought that your soul is either under the healing treatment of this good Physician, or else wasting away under a fatal disease. We will tell you some Bible marks of a healed soul. It is completely changed. Leprosy is a picture of sin. When Naaman, the Syrian leper, was cleansed, his flesh came again like the flesh of a little child. And Jesus says of our souls, "Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." A healed soul, under a sense of sin and utter ruin, embraces the salvation of Jesus, believes in his death as the ground of pardon, and in his righteousness as the ground of its acceptance. It is washed, it is sanctified, it lives to God. True, indeed, even a healed soul, while in a body of sin, must confess, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." Often it has, under the depression of spiritual weakness, to complain, "Attend unto my cry; for I am brought very low," Ps. cxlii. 6. Still it ever finds a "balm in Gilead," and a "Physician there," and will be brought at length to that land of life where the inhabitant shall no more say, "I am sick."

But suppose, after searching inquiry, you come to the mournful conclusion-I have never truly brought my case to Jesus; a deadly disease is at work within me, and yet my eternal life is at stake. Still, reader, there is hope for you; nay, there is certainty, if you will but apply to the good Physician. This paper brings good tidings to you from the God of love. Don't despair of a cure.

The good Physician is ever near you, ever ready, ever waiting, nay, inviting you to come. He offers his salvation "without money and without price;" and "He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him," Heb. vii. 25. Confide in this truth: and

DON'T DESPAIR OF A CURE.

If some one could now call you and lead you to a place where he should point you to a friend who had just died, and should then say, You were in danger of which you were not aware; he knew of it, and he has laid down his life to save yours how much would the sight affect you, how often be thought of, and how long remembered! The gospel of Jesus Christ directs you to such a sight, and calls you to behold a Friend, ten thousand times better than any earthly friend, who was crucified for you. The Bible gives the history of his sufferings and death, and tells their cause, design, and effect, showing their infinite importance to every child of man. The sufferings of Christ were predicted by ancient prophets, were described by the evangelists, were varied, intense, and dreadful, and were unlike all other sufferings ever endured in this world of sorrows.

They were predicted. It was foretold a thousand years before Jesus appeared, that cruel men would beset him, would pierce his hands and feet, would mock at his sufferings, would bring him to death, and would then part his garments among them, and cast lots upon his vesture, Psa. xxii. Seven hundred years before his coming, another prophet foretold that he would give his back to the smiters, his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair, and hide not his face from shame and spitting,-that

his visage would be marred more than any man, and his countenance more than the sons of men,-that he would, in general estimation, have no form nor comeliness, would be despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, -that he would be smitten, wounded, bruised, and scourged for others-be oppressed and afflicted, and brought as a lamb to the slaughter-be dumb before his persecutors-be taken from prison and from judgment-have his grave appointed with the wicked, but be buried with the rich-would pour out his soul unto death-would be numbered with transgressors, would intercede for transgressors-would be bruised even by the Lordwould die for the iniquity of men; but would live again, have his cause prosper, and see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied, Isa. 1. lii. liii.

All this, according to the evangelists, was literally fulfilled; and the accomplishment affords the strongest proof that the gospel is from God. See, in their narratives, the fulfilment in what Jesus endured when betrayed by Judas, seized by the officers, buffeted and spit upon before Caiaphas, and by him pronounced worthy of death; scourged by Pilate, and at length by him reluctantly condemned; mocked by Herod and his soldiers; bearing his cross, and nailed to it, and then more cruelly reviled and insulted while hanging in torture upon it. Yet worse than all this was the travail of his soul, when, in Gethsemane, his inward agony caused the bloody sweat, and when, on the cross, he cried out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

The sufferings and sorrows of Christ were not those of a mere mortal, but of the Lord of glory, who, in his Divine nature, was exalted above all suffering. Strange would it be for a holy angel to suffer, but far more wonderful is it that, for man, the Lord Jesus, who in his Divine nature was the Creator of angels, died. His sorrows were peculiar also in consequence of his innocence. All other sorrows have been those of sinful beings. No other innocent being ever suffered. He deserved no sufferings: all other men have deserved them; but he took our sufferings"The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." His sufferings were altogether voluntary. No one could compel him to suffer or to die. He might have declined the awful commission of saving sinners by suffering in their stead, and have been just and holy still; but he came as a willing victim, and said of his life, "No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself," John x. 18. His sorrows were peculiar in their mental severity. Probably others have died deaths as cruel, but never were such inward agonies as his endured; for none can imagine the deadly horror that was felt, when it pleased the Lord to bruise him and put him to grief. But the grand