let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, and he will abundantly pardon."

Since then it here plainly appears that Christ neither procured nor first revealed the divine forgiveness to repenting sinners, for that the people of Israel were fully apprized of it before he came among them and spoke to them; we are still to inquire, in what way it is that he saves sinners: what is that great blessing which the whole sinful race of men have by him, of which the Scriptures, especially of the New Testament, are every where so full.

Now this we shall easily come at the knowledge of by considering that, though the almighty Being had always from the first assured his creatures of his kind dispositions to pardon their sins upon their forsaking them, and had given intimations from time to time that they should not be suffered to perish for ever in the grave to which all were consigned; yet the way in which this was to be accomplished, and the entire discovery of it, was reserved to be made known by our Saviour Jesus Christ, who brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.

"Search the Scriptures;" (says he to the

Jews

Jews, John v. 39, 40.) "for in them ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me. And ye will not come unto me, that

ye might have life."

"I am the light of the world:" (viii. 12.) "he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." "I am come (x. 10.) "that they might have life," i. e. might enjoy happiness in another world. "This is life eternal, that they might know thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent."

This then is the mighty favour which we have by Christ, who was made the blessed instrument of it to us; and this the reason why the salvation of sinners is so appropriated as it were to Christ and the Gospel, as if it had never been known before or revealed. And what equal blessing could God bestow or man receive? This filled the breasts of believers at first with such joy and gladness. This is that which raised the astonishment of those Jewish Christians who were but too much accustomed to confine the divine goodness to themselves, when upon hearing that the heathens were made partakers of the great privileges of the Gospel as well as themselves,

"they

"they glorified God, saying, Hath God then indeed to the gentiles granted repentance unto life!" (Acts. xi. 18.) granted them the means of recommending themselves to his favour for ever equally with Jews!

And herein consisted that vast power and efficacy of the Gospel of Jesus, which was seen at first in such numbers embracing and being reformed by it, and is now beheld in all who live and die under the happy influences of it, that it brings to perishing mortals an assurance of surviving the shock of death, and of living hereafter in an endless state of virtuous happiness: a hope and expectation, where any are thoroughly persuaded of it and penetrated with it, capable of removing mountains, of working the most extraordinary effects in changing men's dispositions, and turning them from sin and the world to God.

II.

We may now go on further to inquire how it comes that here, and also in the general language of the New Testament, it is sinners whom Christ is said to have come to save.

For it was an objection made very early to the doctrine of the Gospel, and continues still

to

to be made to it, that it does not so much invite virtuous men, who are conscious of no evil, who live according to the law of righteousness, but addresses itself mainly to sinners.

To this we have to say that it can be no discredit to any institution of religion, that it lays down rules of pardon for great sins, if at the same time it lay strict injunctions of amendment of life, and of doing so no more. Now nothing is more certain than this, that the Gospel proposes no advantages to those who live in sin, but to those only who forsake it. And though, in its promiscuous call to the world, it addressed all men as sinners, (and by what other juster appellation was the mixed mass of mankind to be denominated?) its benefits were not offered to sinners as such, but to those only who repented, and brought forth the fruits of repentance in real holiness

and virtue.

St. Paul declares that both with Jews and Greeks (Acts xx. 21.) he always insisted on the necessity of repentance toward God, ast well as faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ. It was necessary that all men should have faith in Christ, should be convinced that he

spoke

spoke and acted by authority from God, of which his miraculous works gave sufficient proof, that they might be induced to attend to his words and obey him. For it then followed as the result of such a faith and persuasion, that he was to be listened to as one speaking immediately from God himself. And in one place he remarks that, not only his own but his apostles' words are thus to be reverenced by us. "He that receiveth you, receiveth m ; and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.'

Also when the world was called to the hope of eternal life by Christ, it was justly and indispensably required of them to repent and renounce every evil way, to fit and qualify them for a happiness with God, into whose presence nothing sinful or unholy, nothing false or unjust can ever enter.

Hence you find that almost all our Saviour's instructions were of the practical kind: not so much what men were to believe, as what they were to do to attain eternal life; and especially that they should bend their whole endeavours to make themselves and their fellow-creatures good and happy, and accepted of God.

The