:

to me a finner; breathe mightily on my flain, that they may live; only speak the word and thy fervant fhall be healed; the flave of corruption fhall become a child of God and an heir of everlafting life Whatever elfe thou art pleafed to withhold, deny me not the affurance of thy love and an intereft in thy great falvation: Seeing thou haft not spared thine only fon, but didst deliver him up for our guilty, polluted, perifhing world, wilt thou not with him freely impart all that I need for enriching me both in time and eternity."

4. LET thofe who have fome fcriptural evidences of being alive to God, be taught from this doctrine that to his rich, unmerited, felf-moving grace they are indebted for this unutterable blefling. To fuch I may repeat the language of this apoftle to the believing Ephefians, God, who is rich in mercy, for the great love wherewith he loved you; even when you were DEAD in fin hath quickened you together with Chrift. Are there not multitudes of your own acquaintances; fome that were perhaps nurtured at the fame breasts, trained up in the fame family, educated in the fame fchool, inftructed under the fame miniftry, who enjoyed equal opportunities both publicly and privately that are to this day DEAD? They are yet lying under the accumulated guilt of their nature and lives: The curfe of God is upon them, the wrath of God hangs over them, and they are, notwithstanding, at cafe in Zion;

devoted to the purfuits and pleafures of a perishing world. Who hath made you to differ from fuch? Who taught you to fee, while they remain fpiritually blind, and raifed you to life while they continue fpiritually dead? He that hath wrought you for this felf fame thing is God, who hath alfo given you the earnest of the fpirit, until the redemption of the purchafed inheritance unto his own glory. Great, infinitely great are your obligations to Jehovah the fpirit for what you already experience, and what yet remains for you in certain profpect. Once, Chriftians, ye were blind, ignorant of God, ignorant of Jefus, of your own fpiritual and everlasting interefts, but now you fee; you are made wife unto falvation; the eyes of your understanding are enlightened to know what is the hope of his calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance among the faints; once you were afar off, aliens from the commonwealth of Ifrael, and frangers to the covenant of promife, but are now brought nigh by the blood of Jefus Chrift; brought nigh by a relation which fhall never, never be broken; once you were dead, under fentence of condemnation, groaning beneath a weight of guilt which might fink a world to hell, but are now legally alive, are completely accepted through the righteousness of Jefus the furety, and unalienably entitled to the inheritance of heaven. Could you only conceive the ten thoufandth part of what has been freely forgiven you, or the mercies

which are laid up for you in ftore, you could do nothing but wonder and adore; your hearts muff be all gratitude, and your lips muft conftantly overflow with the melody of thanksgiving. Ye are a chofen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye fhould Jhew forth the praifes of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light. Depend each day and hour and in every appointed mean on the gracious fpirit for perfecting that good work which he has already begun. As he is the author, he muft alfo be the finifher of your fpiritual life and confolation: Afpire after greater conformity to God as your chiefeft glory, and after the more intimate, uniform fellowship of his love as your pre-eminent joy. Amidst all the afflictions of earth be looking forward with confident expectation to the bleffednefs and the glories of the heavenly world.

To Father, Son and Spirit, who, moved by the richest grace, begin and perfect our falvation, be afcribed by every heir of this falvation glory in the highest now and forever.ΑΜΕΝ,

Reconciliation with God unattainable by Human performances.

ROMANS iii. 10.

THEREFORE BY THE DEEDS OF THE LAW THERE SHALL NO FLESH BE JUSTIFIED IN HIS SIGHT.

THIS verfe is properly an inference drawn from the preceding verfes. The apoftle had been confirming the doctrine of human corruption; he had been proving that it was univerfal, extending to all mankind, to each individual whether male or female, in every period of time, and every nation under heaven. There is none that underftandeth, there is none that feeketh after God; he argues that this corruption was univerfal extending not only to mankind in general, but to all the thoughts, the words, the actions of each individual; their throat is an open fepulchre, like a medium through which the abominations of the corrupted heart iffue forth, with their tongues they have ufed deceit; the poifon of afps is under their lips; there is no fear of God before their eyes; he afterwards exhibits the fearful confequences of this corruption, that we are thereby involved in guilt, and exposed to deftruction and fhut up, like a criminal already

tried and convicted, from any excufe or apology that can be mentioned. Now we know that what things foever the law faith, it faith to them that are under the law that every mouth may be Stopped, and that the whole world may become guilty before God.

In the verfe which has been read for our prefent confideration, the apoflle fums up the argument, and afferts that falvation is altogether unattainable by any righteoufnefs of our own.Therefore by the deeds of the law there fhall no flesh be juftified in his fight; "formerly," as if he had faid," formerly I have proved that all the world is become guilty before God; now I affert that they cannot, by any fervices which they perform, atone for that guilt, or fecure them felves from future condemnation.

THE law, fo frequently mentioned in this and the other epiftles of Paul, fometimes fignifies the ceremonial inftitutions; that fyftem of worship which was divinely communicated to Mofes and conftituted, in a certain fenfe, the gospel of that difpenfation. It is therefore declared the law, that is, the ceremonial law is a fhadow of good things to come, all the rites and ceremonies and facrifices then exifting were of a typical nature; they refpected fomething afterwards to be realized in the death and refurrection of Meffiah the glo. rious antitype; it is called, upon another occa