cruel tortures, speaks only of mercy and forgiveness! Why is he thus extended on the cross, why is his visage stained with those drops of blood, and why flows that purple stream from his side!-Ah! this is the great work of atonement; and he is now expiating the sins of a guilty world! Hear, oh heavens! and give ear, oh earth! He dies for those by. whom he dies: and that very blood which mankind hath shed, was poured forth to testify his love of man!

Such are the wonderful measures that God hath taken to engage our affections. And if we can feel all these blessings without any returns of gratitude on our part; if we, who were first raised from nothing into existence, and then again snatched from misery, and lifted to the hopes of immortal happiness, if we can forget the hand which did these great things for us, nor feel the love of God glowing in our breasts; then will the whole creation bear witness against us, that creation which hath in vain borne continual witness of the love of God towards us: then will that blood of our Redeemer also cry loudly against us; that blood which hath been in vain poured out for us.

With regard to our love of mankind, were we to recal every argument for our mutual affection that the gospel supplies us with, we must transcribe the gospel. It will be sufficient to urge the force of that general conclusion of the Apostle, "Beloved, if God so loved "us, we ought also to love one another." Here

we see the Apostle brings the whole weight of those considerations which arise from the divine love displayed in redemption, directly to enforce our love of each other, and makes all that hath been advanced in support of the love of God, an argument for our love of man. They are indeed kindred affections which open into and communicate with each other: and that love of God which springs up continually, and overflows in the heart of the true christian, feeds and maintains to an equal height the fountain of human love. For if we love our Redeemer, we must for our Redeemer's sake love mankind. It was not for some select few alone, it was not for some favorite sect or party, it was not for some peculiar people that our Lord died, but for the whole race of sinful men. He gave his life a ransom for many, and nothing less than a world was a fit object of his redeeming love. To every individual therefore amongst mankind, the force of the Apostle's general conclusion is clearly applicable. Beloved, if God so loved him as to send his only begotten Son into the world, to be the propiti. ation of his sins, surely then we are bound by the strongest obligations to love him likewise. For if there be any one man, how mean, how miserable, how contemptible soever he may seem; if there be any one whom we dare to think unworthy of our love, we thereby have the presumption to oppose our opinion to that of our Saviour, who hath declared him not unworthy of his. Oh you then, who harbor in

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your breasts any dark and unfriendly passion; you who listening only to the dictates of resentment, are preparing for your brother the whole weight of your revenge; look up before you execute your fatal purpose; look through those mists of passion with which you are now blinds ed, and behold him whom you were about to strike encircled in the arms of your Redeemer!

So powerfully doth redemption strengthen all the bonds of mutual affection between us, exalting benevolence into charity and brotherly love.

Having thus laid the foundation of all social virtues, faith proceeds no less effectually to provide for the security of those which more immediately respect ourselves. For we cannot have a nobler motive to engage us in the cultivation of all personal virtues, than the consciousness of that dignity and worth to which our nature is now exalted. Had we been to die for ever, and after a few years of precarious being here, to sink into the earth, and to mingle with our native dust, never more to be awakened to life or sense, the wisest thing we could have done would have been to croud into our short span of existence all the enjoyments we could meet with. But redemption hath set us free from the hard laws of morality after submitting to them for a while, and hath begotten us again unto a lively hope of eternal happiness. We are born to the highest expectations, and there is no degree of excellence which we may not aspire after in that endless

progress of improvement to which we are destined. And shall beings of that high rank to which we now belong, shall the sons of immortality, and the heirs of an heavenly kingdom, stoop to seek their happiness in common with the brutes that perish, amongst low carnal indulgencies and sensual pleasures? It would be the height of baseness as well as folly, thus to degrade our souls for which our Saviour paid so high a price, to sacrifice eternity to a moment, for a few drops of fugitive and deceitful pleasure to give up those rivers of pleasure at God's right hand which shall never be exhausted, or for any bribe that this world can offer to resign our right to that inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, that fadeth not away, re

served in heaven for us.

After gaining so considerable a part of the mind, the remainder will be easy to subdue the will also to the service of virtue, and thereby to restore it to its freedom. For what the understanding approves, and the affections embrace, will not easily be rejected by the will. All the motives that have been received into the mind by them, are prepared and disposed by them to act upon the will with the greatest force. When virtue appears to the mind in all those advantages which it derives from revelation, in all that celestial light and beauty which shine through the understanding, and command the affections, the will remains no longer in suspense, but yields itself entirely to the heavenly attraction.

That the assent of the will should follow the other faculties of the mind, and should give way to the same powerful application of faith by which they have been before gained, must appear very natural. But it may not perhaps be so readily understood, how by this means the will is restored to its freedom. To comprehend this effect it must be observed, that the will of man is not a detached and independent power, whose business it is to act alone, and to move merely for the sake of its own motion. The will of man is in a state of the closest connection with the other powers of the mind, upon which it acts, and is reciprocally acted upon by them. It concurs in all their operations, and unites in the minutest movements of every part of the mind. Hence what we call the freedom of the will, may perhaps be as well expressed by the freedom of the whole mind. At least the freedom of the will implies thus much, and may perhaps be better comprehended by some when thus expressed.

It follows, that in order to maintain the freedom of the will, the whole mind must be well adjusted and duly regulated: and if any of its powers are disturbed, the freedom of the will, that is, the ease and free motion of the mind, is necessarily impeded. The disorder does not terminate in that part where it began, but on account of the general influence of all the parts on each other, spreads in some measure through the whole frame, and is immediately communicated to the will, whose exercise depends on

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