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the world and its fashions and its politics, nay, on every little impulse of the feelings, and every fine-spun sentiment of the mind; but if the great God intrudes into conversation, his ways or his dispensations, his mercies and his loving-kindnesses, the tide begins to ebb, the glow of society dies away, and the cold and heartless silence betrays that an unwelcome stranger has made his appearance. Truly this is a magnificent fragment of that illustrious image; enough to shew that it once existed, and that now it is shivered and broken.

Alas! it is no wonder that when God looked again upon the earth, and saw the wickedness of man, that he said, "I will destroy man from off the face of the earth." Nor was he deterred from doing so by the multitude that it overwhelmed in ruin. In those days, no doubt, they compared themselves with one another; no doubt they said, 'We are all tolerably alike; none of us is singularly wicked; if God punishes me, he must punish the rest of mankind along with me.' But did God therefore withhold his hand? No; but it is stated as the very reason of his vengeance, that all the earth was sunk in wickedness; and their guilt was aggravated by the very circumstance that they countenanced each other in their sin, and thus joined in a kind of deliberate rebellion against his authority.

But, even leaving punishment out of the account, conceive what must be the natural consequence of having, as it were, disappointed the object of our creation, and of having run counter to God's original intention. Must not the natural end of those things be ruin? But, "Thou turnest man to destruction : again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men.' The Creator said, once more, "Let us make man in our own image ;" and he came down himself from heaven to create him a second time. He left his bright and glorious abode on high, for us poor and wretched wanderers, who had not only forsaken his good and pleasant paths, but had actually forgotten that we need

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ed one to bring us back again; who were so degenerated as to have forgotten our degeneracy; and he came to create us anew, and he came as a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief :" that we might once more become the image of God, he was contented to come himself in the image of man; and by that stupendous atonement upon the cross,--by that sacrifice, which will be regarded with astonishment by men and angels to all eternity, he has accomplished his new work of creation. We are told that " our old man was crucified with him ;" so that we are to " put off, according to the former conversation, the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." We are declared expressly to be "God's workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus, unto good works."

But how is it, you will say, that the death of Christ becomes second life to us? How is it that his sufferings can create us anew? By this one sacrifice he bore in his own person the punishment due to our sins. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes we are healed. All we, like sheep, had gone astray, we turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." By this satisfaction to his justice, the communication was once more opened between God and man; for we are told, "That God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses;" and through his merits, his atonement, and his intercession, the gift of the Holy Spirit was procured, by which the image of God may be again stamped upon our hearts, and our souls moulded into a resemblance to Him "who is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity." Thus does God again "breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, and man again becomes a living soul." Him that cometh to this

good Creator, he "will in no wise cast out;" God liveth, he willeth not the death of a sinner."

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But we must come deeply sensible of our want of a renewing spirit and of a purifying influence. God will not cast his pearls before swine, "lest they trample them under foot." We must learn our lost and ruined state. We must feel that our natural hearts have wandered far from him who is the only fountain of all that is good; that we have followed our own ways and our own imaginations, and that we are unable to recover ourselves from the broad way that leadeth to destruction; for it is not a few partial changes, a few sins now and then forsaken, that can restore us to our former glorious state. Alas! the poison has sunk deeper; it has mixed with our heart's blood, and penetrated into our vitals. If we do not feel thus naturally corrupt and helpless, and that we need a higher power than our own to change, to strengthen, and to purify-let us save ourselves; let us not call ourselves by the name of Christ; let us act a bold, manly, and a consistent part; renounce him, and declare honestly that by our own strength will we stand or fall; that by ourselves we are willing to encounter the burning eye of God; that we are able to deliver ourselves from that justice which demands blood for sin; and that we can change and purify our own hearts, and of ourselves mould them into the image of the Almighty.

But if we feel ourselves truly unable either to escape from punishment or to qualify ourselves for heaven, let us come with an humble and contrite spirit to Him who died that he might give gifts unto men, and submit ourselves to his creative influence. "A bruised reed will he not break." "He will gather the lambs with his arms." As we look to him with prayer, and converse with him through his Gospel, we shall find new and better dispositions growing within us,-holier habits of thought collecting and increasing, a new interest excited within us about things regarded before with indifference,- -a power over sin that is an earnest of future triumphs, a pleasure in studying the divine dispensa

tions, and discovering fresh traces of wisdom and goodness where others see nothing but what is gloomy and unintelligible,-and an activity in the fulfilment of every duty to God and man. And then "to him that hath shall be given ;"--our progress in grace and obedience will every day become easier and more delightful, -our perceptions of future and invisible things will become more lively, and our affections will be set upon things eternal in the heavens, where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Those subjects of thought which we before considered cheerless and tiresome, will wear a beauty that was before unperceived :—and the obedience that before appeared irksome and insupportable, will become our light yoke and our easy burden. We shall be able to measure our advance, by keeping our eye steadfastly fixed upon him, who came to newcreate us by his Spirit into the image of God; who was himself the express image of the Father, softened down to human comprehension and human imitation. By keeping our eye upon that holy and divine Redeemer as our pattern, and as the source of our means of conforming to it; by constantly asking ourselves the solemn and humiliating question—" Is it thus that Christ would have thought, or said, or acted ?—or is this the temper by which he would have been actuated ?"- -can we alone attain even the faintest resemblance. However short we may be of our divine original, we must not dare to take any human pattern. Even the devoted Paul said, Be ye followers of me as I am of Christ." Divine and delightful Redeemer ! who didst turn from thy bright course among the stars unto the valley of the shadow of death for our sake,-suffer us not-suffer us not to think it too much to turn from the broad way that leadeth to destruction, to meet thee in this career of mercy! Suffer us not to look at thee only to hate thy beams, that bring to our remembrance what we were— from what height fallen! but change us by thy light and thy Spirit to thine own glorious image; "and when we awake up after thy likeness, we shall be satisfied with it."

SERMON IV.

MATTHEW, xiii. 44.

The kingdom of Heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field, the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth, and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field.

THIS is our Saviour's account of the kingdom of Heaven. The great body of mankind appear to differ with him in opinion. They do not seem to agree with him in either of the two points that he has here stated; -neither acknowledging, that the kingdom of Heaven is a hidden treasure; nor admitting that, even when discovered, it may cost a man all that he has to attain it. That they are of a different opinion from our Saviour upon these subjects scarcely requires a proof. The case between them may be briefly stated thus :According to him, the kingdom of Heaven is a hidden treasure. Salvation is a treasure which is naturally none of ours. Among all the riches that nature has scattered over the surface of the world, it is not to be found. If we would find it, we must turn our back upon them all; and seek for it as if we were diving into the bowels of the earth. But what says the world? So far from regarding everlasting life as a hidden treasure which they must use all their power and diligence to explore, they consider it to be something that they may stoop for in their hurry through life, without either checking their speed, or turning aside either to the right hand or to the left. If they really and soberly

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