to God for civil and religious liberty? That were treason to your country. And will you make no effort for spiritual freedom! No effort to escape from the dominion of sin? Then you are lost! Lost! Who can tell the fearful import of that dreadful word? Lost! it is the ruin of the soul of every thing precious and dear; the wreck of hopes, of happiness, of all we are and all we prize. Go, view the ruined spirits in the world of woe; measure the length and breadth of their misery; see in their anguish—and which must be yours, if you are lost-the desirableness of salvation, which delivers from the guilt, pollution, and power of sin; and while you see its desirableness, seek it with all your heart-seek it in Jesus, who came to save from sin and hell, restore to God's favour, and exalt to heaven. For,

Salvation delivers from hell. If saved from our sins, we are also saved from the punishment which they deserve. Jesus endured the penalty of the law, that we might be delivered from it. If interested in him, we are rescued from perdition. And surely this is desirable. Oh, what would you give to be sure of escape from hell? And salvation

prepares us for usefulness and happiness here, as well as for rest hereafter. It fits us for the service of God in this world, as well as for his praise in the next. It teaches us to live to God's glory; it enables us to die in peace; so that living and dying, we are the Lord's, and shall be with him for ever! Rom. xiv. 8; 1 Thess. iv. 17.

See, then, the goodness of God in giving his Son for us. It was of his own free love

that he did it. He might have left us with no provision for our deliverance from sin and death. But he did not. "He so loved the world as to give his Son," John iii. 16. And he gave him freely. And now the offer of life through him is freely made. We should accept it. This is our duty and our privilege. We are authorized to accept it; we are required to accept it; we are bound to accept it; and we refuse at the hazard of our souls. To reject Jesus is to reject salvation; and to reject salvation is to reject Jesus. In either case we seal our own doom and destroy ourselves; and the inscription on our eternal prison will be SELFDESTROYERS! Jesus came to save us from our sins; we reject him, refuse to be saved,

and he will say unto us, "Ye would not come to me that ye might have life," John v. 40. O sinner! pause, think, turn; and your trust be in the Saviour of sinners!

let

"The voice of free grace cries, Escape to the mountain,
For Adam's lost race Christ has opened a fountain :
For sin and transgression, and every pollution,
His blood flows most freely in streams of salvation."

CHAPTER III.

IT IS A GREAT SALVATION.

How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation?— Heb. ii. 3.

WE are exposed, and need salvation. Jesus. has died to save us. Yet most men are very indifferent to the subject. They seem to care but little about it, and to esteem it a thing of no value. Judging from their estimate of it, as exhibited in their lives, we should think it a matter of no great consequence. But it is of vast importance; “the one thing needful," Luke x. 42.

"Religion is the chief concern

Of mortals here below."

"Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip. For if the word spoken by angels was stedfast, and every trangression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward; how shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation; which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed unto us by them that heard him; God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will?" Heb. ii. 1-4.

It is a great salvation. The plan of redemption is a conception of infinite wisdom. It is too broad and deep to be the offspring of finite intellect. It abases man, while it honours and exalts Jehovah and brings glory to his name. It honours the law, while it spares the criminal. The just suffers for the unjust-suffers voluntarily, for he had power to lay down his life and to take it again, John x. 18. The ungodly are justified; and yet God's character is untarnished, and every one of his perfections receives new lustre and shines forth with ever-increasing glory,

F

Rom. iv. 5; 2 Cor. iv. 6. The scheme of redemption is not a human invention, nor an angelic invention; it originated with God. The plan was laid by infinite wisdom; and when we contemplate it, we may well exclaim, "Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" Rom. xi. 33. God is its author. It originated in his infinite love. It was because he loved us that he devised the way of salvation; because he loved us that he gave his Son for us, John iii. 16. And this love was selfmoved. There was nothing in us to call it into existence; no good thing in us to move him to compassionate our case and provide salvation for us. It is well for us to remember that we had no claims; that they were forfeited by sin; and that we could have had no reason to complain, had no provision been made for our deliverance from wrath. But God pitied us; and he devised the plan by which his justice could be honoured, and yet the sinner be forgiven and restored to his favour. And the plan is worthy of its Author. The salvation partakes of the greatness of him who originated it, and how great is he! "Canst thou by searching find out God?