of the creature's guilt, and the immensity of the Creator's love,-that the more clearly and simply it is stated, the more powerfully is it fitted to overthrow the empire of sin, and bring the sinner back to God. Where is the principle which human ingenuity can devise that can produce such holy, and regenerating, and tranquillizing influences as the doctrine of the cross? Let us go to the profligate, and let us see if a lecture on the beauty of virtue and the dignity of man, will touch his bosom with that compunction which is so often excited by a simple display of the affection and the mercy of Him who loved us, and gave himself for us, that by his stripes we might be healed. Let us go to the couch of the expiring sinner, and try if any thing will attract his attention and touch his heart like the doctrine of the cross of Christ. We may lay before him in that moment of extremity the most refined and distinct principles of ethics, but we shall only chill and disappoint him, and he will still cry for balm to a wounded conscience. We may preach the terrors of futurity, and we shall but affright him, and leave him weeping in all the bitterness of a troubled spirit; but let us tell him of the cross of Christ, and point his eyes to that great High Priest who offered up himself a willing and an all-sufficient sacrifice for sin,—and exhibit in all its holy benignity the character of the expiring Saviour, and light shall break in on his disordered mind, and he shall lift the eye of faith and confidence to that blessed Master who has said, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no ways cast out.”

Here, then, my friends, is the cardinal point of salvation. If we reject this truth there is no hope; if we receive it we are safe. The denial of it is the prelude of wo; the belief of it is the pledge of joy. "The preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but to them which are saved it is the power of God." A more solemn or more searching statement is not to be found in the revelation that God has made to his fallen creatures. Let every one, then, bring his conscience and his conduct to this intelligible but momentous test. It is not a matter of indifference whether we receive or refuse this record which God has given of his Son. The doctrine of the cross is not propounded to us as a matter of speculative inquiry, to exercise the ingenuity of the curious, or to show off the erudition of the learned; but is laid down as a truth, on the reception of which is suspended our happiness for time and for eternity. If you reject it, or, in the language of the text, regard it as foolishness; if your minds refuse the great truth which every page of the New Testament teaches, that it is by the cross of Christ that we are reconciled to God,-that it is by the obedience and sufferings of Christ that we are set free from wrath and made heirs of glory; if you refuse to humble yourselves to receive this truth, and either regard it with indifference or spurn it away from you in the haughtiness of scepticism; then-I tremble while I announce the fearful word, but it is God's, and it must be spoken-you perish. This is the testimony of the text, and the text is the word of God; and is he a man that he should

lie, or the son of man that he should repent? God has provided no other sacrifice for sin but the sacrifice of his beloved Son; he has made known no other name by which we can be saved; there is no other foundation laid for a sinner's acceptance and peace than that is laid which is Jesus Christ; and if this provision for the restoration of the guilty be refused, there remaineth no other sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking-for of judgment and fiery indignation to devour the adversaries. Knowing these terrors of the Lord, we seek to persuade you. Search the Scriptures, and embrace, while to embrace is in your power, the salvation which they unfold and offer. Go to the Throne of Grace, and seek illumination in the knowledge of Christ, that ye may know, and feel, and exemplify the enlightening and transforming efficacy of his cross.

I trust, however, I am speaking to many who can bear their grateful testimony to the truth in the text, and have experienced that the preaching of the cross is the power of God. Yours, my brethren, is a happiness which the world knows not, and which it can neither give nor take away. But, ah, remember from whom you have derived it! "Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour." Let him have all the praise of that work, which is all his own. And as the best proof of our gratitude to that grace which has made us to know the power of God in

the preaching of the cross, let us daily seek to be "filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God." And as he who has called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation." Amen.

SERMON XIX.

JOHN, iv. 23.-" The hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth for the Father seeketh such to worship him."

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THERE are few circumstances that mark more prominently the corruption and inconsistency of man than the union which we sometimes find in the same person of a speculative taste for religion with a practical disregard of its influence and authority. Although, at first view, one would imagine that it was scarcely possible to direct the thoughts to religion in any form without having the heart impressed with the love of that moral excellence which it is the great object of religion to recommend and enforce, and guarded against the crimes and follies which it denounces and prohibits, yet there is nothing more frequent than to see men zealous for the doctrines and forms of religion, while their hearts are strangers to its power, and their conduct at variance with all its prescriptions. Nothing is more common than to find some of the most furious controversialists among them who are enemies to God by wicked works; and the most ardent zeal in some religious dispute, which happens to be the popular theme of the day, is often united with the most hardened and unblushing profligacy of heart and