He was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners. Like the sun in his daily round, He went about doing good to the bodies and souls of men ; and is in the most strict and incommunicable sense of the word JESUS CHRIST THE Righ'TEOUS.' Whosoever therefore contemplated the character and conduct of Jesus, might therein have discerned holiness itself made visible. Now a persuasion of the holines of God in our own heart is essential to salvation. For without it we must remain ignorant of the nature and evil of sin, and the necessity of renovation and sanctification. It is not to be wondered at that those, who consider God as like to themselves, should confound a reformation from outward immorality with conversion of heart. Whereas he, who is taught of God, clearly discerns his own inward defilement; and learns, with Job, to abhor himself and repent in dust and ashes.' When a discovery is made to him of the immaculate purity of God, with Isaiah he exclaims, wo is me; for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.'-A knowledge of the inflexible Justice of God is also essential to a participation of eternal life. The existence of this perfection appears in the destruction of the old world, and the cities of the plain. It is also evident from the damnation of the Angels, who kept not their

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first estste; and from all the threatenings of the scriptures. But it shines with the brightest lustre round the bleeding temples of the Lamb of God. How awfully strict must He be, in maintaining the sanctions of His perfect law, who,

'Rather than His Justice should be stain'd,
'Hath stain'd the cross.'*

Now unless we have some proper conceptions of this attribute of God, we shall discover no necessity of the death of Christ, we shall fancy that God might by an act of His sovereign authority have forgiven sin; and all our apprehensions of His love, and gratitude for it, will be cold and lifeless. It is a due conviction of the glory of this divine perfection, that excites in the believing heart that ardor of thankfulness which it feels ; and which causes the redeemed sinner to cry out, while gazing on his incarnate God stretched on the Cross, Behold, what manner of love He • hath vouchsafed to such a wretch as me! It would also be easy to show the necessity of an acquaintance with the other perfections of the Godhead. But, lest the present essay should be extended to an unusual length, one particular more shall suffice. A knowledge of the Love of God is essential to salvation. For a man may know Him to be just, and holy, and by his apprehensions of these tremendous attributes be driven to

* Dr. Young's Night Thoughts:

despair; unless at the same time, a manifestation of the loving-kindness of the Lord be made to the mind. Without this there can be no genuine repentance, faith, love, hope or joy. But as this subject has been already presented to our contemplation, it will be needless here to expatiate on it any farther. It is, however, necessary to remark, that this knowledge of God is not mere theory or speculation; but it is such a kind of information, as communicates life to the soul, awakening it to sensibility, and exciting it to pant after God. It transforms the soul into the Divine image, by enabling it to appreciate every object by the standard of inspired truth, and by producing emotions of love to God, because He hath first loved us. It is a knowledge that is always accompanied by humility of heart; for the sinner, who is instructed aright in the character of God, must lie prostrate in the dust at His footstool, in silent admiration of that grace and glory, which irradiate the countenance of the Divine Majesty. If your knowledge of God be such, as is here connected with eternal life; then the effect of beholding the glory of God has been similar to that, which is experienced by one, who gazes on the natural sun; for his eyes are thereby so powerfully affected, that he is rendered incapable of looking as before on terrestrial objects: and, if you have seen the glory of God, as it shines in the face of Jesus Christ, you look around you on

the things of time and sense with an indifference, to which you were before a stranger. This knowledge of God is eternal life. The life it produces in the soul is similar in kind, though not in degree, to that, which saints made perfect enjoy : for this knowledge has always a sanctifying efficacy. The justification of him, who believes, is indeed complete; but his sanctification is partial: it is begun through grace, and will be gradually carried on to farther degrees of maturity, in proportion as his acquaintance with God increases; till it be perfected at his dismission from the body, and at the resurrection of the just. To know God in Christ is also eternal life, both as it is the sure and only way to it; and as it is the earnest and beginning of it: for the peace of conscience, the love to God, the sensations of delight in Him, the desire after conformity to His image, and obedience to His will, which it uniformly produces, are real foretastes of glory, and infallible evidences of a right, founded on redemption, to the possession of the purchased inheritance. And the complete enjoyments of heaven will partly consist in the clear discoveries, that will then be vouchsafed to us, of the glorious perfections of the Godhead, when we shall see eye to eye, and face to face. O blessed knowledge, which thus enriches the human soul! How happy the man, who is possessed of it! How pitiable the case of those, who have substituted any

thing in the place of it! For, if it be life eter'nal to know the only true God, and Jesus

Christ, whom He hath sent;' it is, on the contrary, eternal death to remain in ignorance thereof. And if you have never seught it, as the one thing needful to happiness, be assured that hitherto you possess it not.

How delightful is our social worship, when we personally experience, that God's service is per•fect freedom!' The freedom talked of so much in these licentious times, would prove in all cases, as it has in one, a liberty of depriving each other of property, peace, and life.

'But there is yet a liberty unsung

By poets, and by senators unprais'd,

Which monarchs cannot grant, nor all the pow'rs
'Of earth and hell, confed' rate take away.
A liberty which persecution, fraud,
'Oppression, prisons, have no power to bind,
"Which whoso tastes can be enslav'd no more.
"Tis liberty of heart, deriv'd from heav'n,

· Bought with HIS blood, who gave it to mankind,
And sealed with the same token. It is held
< By charter, and that charter sanction'd sure
'By th' unimpeachable and awful oath

'And promise of a God.

-There is a paradise that fears
'No forfeiture, and of its fruits He sends

. Large prelibation oft to saints below.
"Of these the first in order, and the pledge
'And confident assurance of the rest,

Is liberty. A flight into His arms
" Ere yet mortality's fine threads give way,