sinner,-yea, to render it inevitable; and still, here is an arrangement which meets every claim on behalf of God, and every necessity on the part of man, procuring for the most flagrant culprit, availing himself of it, an acceptance, the same with HIS, of whom the Father is heard to say, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased! Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!

II. There are three INFERENCES deducible from the doctrine now explained, which should be noticed.

In the first place, it is a DOCTRine affording THE

STRONGEST ENCOURAGEMENT TO FAITH AND HOPE, EVEN

IN THE CASE OF THE MOST GUILTY. It is plain, that the justification of a sinner is an event not at all affected by the amount of offence with which an offender may be chargeable. The most vicious, and the least vicious, are alike condemned; and if justified, must be justified alike, on the ground of another righteousness than their own. The degree of their depravity, might affect the degree of their punishment, should they perish; but cannot in the least affect the manner or terms of their acceptance, if they are saved. In either case, their acquittal must be equally the work of God; and, with him, a work of the same ease. Admit, then, all that can be urged against you, as to your great guilt:-that you have spent many years in sin; that you have

sinned against the light of nature and of the Bible, against the strivings of the Spirit, against the monitions of conscience, and all the means of grace. Let it be that you have become to every good work reprobate, carnal, sensual, and devilish! Even this, does not in the slightest degree embarrass the point of your justification, since that is not to depend in the least on the character that may have distinguished your life, but altogether on that of your Surety. As you believe on him, it is not toward your merits, but toward his, that the law directs the whole of its scrutiny. If it were not so, whence the justification of Manasseh, of Saul of Tarsus, of the debased Corinthians, of the men who with wicked hands crucified the Lord of life and glory? These have all been washed, and justified, and sanctified, in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God. We repeat, therefore, that this doctrine affords the strongest encouragement to faith and hope, even in the case of the most guilty.

It should be observed in the next place, that a work so evidently begun and ending in God, must be free from the least touch of the imperfectness belonging to every thing with which fallen creatures are allowed to intermeddle. But it is, perhaps, more important to remark, that from what has passed before us, it is plain that the justification of believers is an act strictly IRREVOCABLE. The decisions of the Court of Heaven-and to that court this trial is restricted-are all regulated by consummate

knowledge. There, also, that Judge presides, who has no equal, and who cannot do wrong. Accordingly, the decrees there published are unalterable, all the sources of uncertainty and change being utterly excluded. Hence the triumphant appeal of the Apostle, Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.

It must be further observed, that the doctrine now explained, and which constitutes so prominent a theme of inspired scripture, MUST BE CONDUcive,

IN AN EMINENT DEGREE, TO THE HOLINESS AND HAPPINESS OF THOSE WHO EMBRACE IT. Men do not look to Jesus Christ as a deliverer from the wrath to come, without perceiving the obligation of that law, which has exposed them to this penalty, and the necessity of that sacrifice, in which they profess to confide, as affording their only hope of escape from it. And the evil which sin is thus admitted to include, greatly exceeds what the most severe code of morals has ever taught. It is, in brief, to confess that our sins have deserved infinite punishment, and that the removal of them has required the intervention of an infinite sacrifice. The man who is sincere in such admissions, will not lightly become a flagrant transgressor. It is true, that as a believer, he is no longer under the law, but under grace. But shall he live in sin that grace may abound? God forbid! Though no longer under

the law, as a rule by which to work out his own acceptance, he is still under a law to Christ, as a rule by which to express his gratitude to the benefactor, who, by dying in his room, has saved him from destruction. And it must be remembered, that the same purpose which secures the perpetuity of the believer's acceptance before God, secures the perpetuity of holy principle and of holy affection in his soul. The person, therefore, who shall sin wilfully and habitually, whatever be his profession, will perish; not because he has thereby fallen from a state of justification, but because he has thereby shown that he had never attained to such a state. He is not a sanctified man, and this is the scriptural evidence of his not being a justified man; for whom the Lord foreknew, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son; and whom he justified, them he also glorified. These are all essential parts of the great salvation: and, in the nature of things, it must be so. The men who embrace the doctrine of justification by faith, have the most enlarged conceptions of the divine purity, and the deepest feeling of obligation to the divine goodness. They know, more certainly than other men, that, without holiness no man shall see the Lord; and they feel, more intensely than other men, that their whole nature should be a constant offering of devotedness to his glory. Where much is felt to have been forgiven, there will be much love. Where there is the greatest consciousness of benefits, we expect the greatest measure of obedience. And it is hardly

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doubtful, that, in this fact, we have the great secret of the world's opposition to the doctrine of justification by faith. To admit the truth of this tenet, is to admit a claim on our obedience, so instantaneous and so powerful, as may not be evaded, without exposing ourselves to a painful conflict, occasioned by the pangs of self-reproach, and the terrors of coming wrath.

There may be men base enough to abuse this truth. But what has been the general character of its disciples ? Who sustained the christian cause in the early ages of the church, when exposed, during several centuries, to the most subtle and powerful attacks from pagan persecutors? The disciples of this doctrine. Who were the lights of the world, through the long night which followed from the fall of the Roman empire. to the dawn of the Reformation, protesting, alike, against pagan and popish imposture, and doing it to the death? The disciples of this doctrine. Who, when the days of reformation came, stood forth as the defenders of holy writ, braving all danger, to the jeopardy, and even to the loss of life, that they might restore to mankind the free use of their noblest possession ?-The disciples of this doctrine. Who were the main instruments in perpetuating our own liberties, and our own religion, during the generations which followed upon that crisis, and when both were exposed to manifold peril ?-The disciples of this doctrine. Who broke up the slumbers of our guilty land in the last century,