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the Gospel, and the price at which that was obtained, even the precious blood of the Son of God, what devout joy should fill our hearts, what pious gratitude should flow from our lips, while we meditate on this great deliverance !

Let us learn another truth from the history before us. We see that Adam, even in Paradise, was placed in a state of trial. Though God made him after His own image, pure and holy, and capable of all good, yet did He not make him secure from falling. He ordained him to undergo a course of trial before he possessed everlasting happiness. In that trial he fell. Now we, under the new covenant of mercy and redemption, are also placed in this world in a state of trial. Salvation is freely offered us, and a power granted to all who will seek it, "to work out" that "salvation with fear and trembling;" but our acceptance, under Christ, depends on the manner in which we receive and obey the Gospel during this the day of our visitation and probation. Our faith is proved by our works; and let us remember that we have enemies to contend with in our progress, the world, the flesh, and the devil. If our first parents, even in Paradise, ignorant as yet of sin, enjoying familiar intercourse with God; if they yielded to the tempter, how shall we, their corrupt and sinful posterity, now living in a fallen and sinful world,

full of snares and temptations on all sides, how shall we stand in our strength, when they who were so much stronger fell? "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." 1

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wiles of the devil, and All who truly come to

Let us remember that our success depends on a constant, diligent, and persevering use of all the means of grace; not of this or that particular ordinance, but of all within our power; putting on the whole armour of God, that so we may able to stand against the having done all to stand. Christ, and who faithfully abide in him, shall be saved-saved from the consequences of original sin, as well as from their own sins. But then truly to come to him, truly to keep with him, includes in it a sincere and unreserved conformity to his will. There is, there can be no other solid or satisfactory test of our state. God has no exclusive favourites. Heaven is not conferred by an arbitrary and pre-determined decree on some, while others are shut out. Under the Christian covenant we all stand on the same level: the same Lord is rich in mercy to all; the same conditions and qualifications are prescribed to all, and these are repentance, faith, and obedience. We must come in the same way, and whosoever cometh in

1 Matt, xxvi. 41.

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the appointed way "shall in no wise be cast out. Here then, brethren, let us fix our feet, if we would gain the victory in this holy warfare. Let our faith appear, not as a dead, inactive, but as an operative principle, giving power and efficacy to those eternal truths which the Gospel reveals. Let us so run as to obtain; and looking forwards to that future state and that final judgment which is before us all, let all our thoughts, words, and actions be regulated by the prospect of that day. Christ is gone before to prepare mansions for all his faithful followers; he has opened a better, a more glorious Paradise than that lost at the Fall. In that happy region "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain." From that heavenly world the Redeemer speaks: "Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me, to give to every man according as his work shall be."2 May we be found living such a life of love and obedience to this Almighty Saviour, that every heart with humble confidence may be able to answer, "Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."3

1 Rev. xxii. 19.

2 Ib. xxi. 4.

3 Ib. xxii. 20.

SERMON II.

PREACHED ON GOOD FRIDAY.

2 CORINTHIANS v. 14, 15.

For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: and that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose again.

THE event which we meet, here this day to commemorate, is undoubtedly the grandest and most astonishing that was ever presented to the mind of man :-the Son of God, essentially the same with his Father, in our nature, man as well as God, dying on the cross, a sacrifice and atonement for the sins of a lost world. But it is not only the most astonishing, it is the most important event in its consequences to us we can possibly conceive. To

all who believe in a future state-in a life after this, which shall last for ever-what question can be of such moment as to know and ascertain our condition in that life-how we shall meet God, that great and almighty Being, in whose hands are the issues of our life and death, our happiness or misery through all eternity? Especially, brethren, when in addition to this we regard ourselves as sinful creatures, who in numberless instances have sinned against God, and transgressed his holy laws, abused his patience, and done despite to the Spirit of his grace; and who, therefore, may justly dread his righteous judgment and displeasure, in a way, and to an extent, from which our minds naturally shrink. As Bishop Hall strongly observes, in a sermon on this subject: "The bitter, yet victorious passion of the Son of God, as it was the strangest thing that ever befel the earth, so it is both of most sovereign use, and looks for the most careful and frequent meditation. It is one of those things which was done once, that it might be thought of for ever. Every day, therefore, should be the Good Friday of the Christian; who, with the great Apostle of the Gentiles, must desire to know nothing but Jesus Christ and him crucified.'

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The well-known words of this Apostle, which I have taken for the text,naturally lead us to consider:

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