Jehovah, the name of the divine essence, is applicable to our Lord Jesus Christ, and affords, among many others, an unanswerable proof of his divinity.

For the illustration and profitable use of these words, I shall,

First, Make a few observations upon them; and,

Secondly, Shew more particularly that Jesus Christ is properly an object of religious worship.

In the first place we shall make a few observations on the words of the text-" Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, shall be saved."

1. Salvation is the grand concern of an awakened sinner. It is the grand concern of him who "calls upon the name of the Lord," as the words "shall be saved," plainly shew. This was the object the apostle had in view, as you find in the first verse of this chapter-" Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved;" and in the ninth verse, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved." Salvation is deliverance-deliverance from imminent danger, the danger of God's eternal wrath-the "wrath to come," and which will ever remain, "the wrath to come." The person who calls upon the name of the Lord, is one who has been convinced that he has broken the holy law of God, and incurred its dreadful penalty, which is eternal death; he is afraid of God's judgments; and well he may; for "it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Hence he anxiously looks out for help; his enquiry is, "What shall I do to be saved?" Ask yourselves, my friends, whether you have been brought into this state? and whether you have thus called upon the name of the Lord,

from a sense of danger? You know in what manner the scriptures represent the condition of the sinnersometimes it is that of a guilty and condemned criminal, in danger of punishment; sometimes it is that of a sick man ready to die, under the power of disease; sometimes it is that of a sheep, which has strayed from the fold, and is in danger of being devoured by wild beasts. Indeed every expression of danger is employed, in the illustration of the case of a sinner; and we should all be concerned to know that this is our condition, that so we may be induced to call upon the name of the Lord.

2. Calling upon the name of the Lord is an expression of faith in the heart.

No one calls on the name of the Lord, till he is persuaded that the Lord can help him, in his particular case; and this is evident from the fourteeenth verse of this chapter; "How then shall they call upon him, in whom they have not believed"-believed in what? That which is called, in the eighth verse, "the word of faith, which we preach;" the word of the gospel, which a man believeth with his heart unto righteousness;" for "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God"believing the testimony and promise of God in the gospel is supposed in this case; and the apostle particularly refers to believing, in the heart, the resurrection of Christ. In the ninth verse, it is said, "If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved :" because the resurrection of Christ is the great proof of his ability to save, and that he is accepted of the Father, in the character of a Saviour: for, as the apostle elsewhere argues, "if Christ be not risen, then is your faith vain; ye are yet in your sins." And in another place, "if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also in vain." But Jesus was both

"delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification;" so that we may join in the language of the apostle Peter, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to his abundant mercy, hath begotten us again into a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."

3. Again. You will find this calling upon the Lord, is accompanied with confession: With the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation;" there is a confession suitable to all Christians, in their joining some Christian society, in order to partake of divine ordinances; for though no particular form of doing this is specified in the scriptures, yet almost all churches require some open profession of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; and doubtless our Lord himself requires it, for he has said, Matthew, x. Whosoever shall confess me before men, him also will I confess before my Father which is in heaven: but whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven."

4. But the text has certainly a particular reference to prayer-calling on the name of the Lord in prayer, and this necessarily supposes a belief that he is able to hear and to answer prayer; which he could not be, if he were a mere man, existing only in one place, and able to attend to one petition only at a time, and that where he is corporally present: whereas Jesus says, for the comfort of his followers," where two or three are met together in my name, there am I, in the midst of them." Calling upon the name of the Lord, includes a personal application to Jesus for salvation; renouncing all dependence upon our own righteousness. It is the reverse of that for which the Apostle so much blames his countrymen in the third verse of this chapter; "for they, being ignorant of God's righteousnsss, and going about to establish

their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." Calling on the Lord implies a submission to the righteousness of the Lord, and he who thus calls, must believe that "there is no name under heaven, given among men, whereby we can be saved, but the name of the Lord Jesus."

I proceed now, in the second place, more particularly to shew that Jesus Christ is properly an object of religious worship.

Indeed, this is already sufficiently proved, for reliance upon Christ, and calling upon him as a Saviour, are the highest acts of worship we can perform; and it would be the height of folly to suppose that, if he were not God, he could save all the millions of sinners, who in all ages and countries should call upon him. But that Christ is an object of religious worship not only to men but to superior beings appears from Heb. i. 6, where Jehovah says, "Let all the angels of God worship him ;" and so we find in the visions of St. John, Rev. v. 11-13. "I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders, and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, proclaiming with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.'

It is evident from several parts of the New-Testament, that it was the character, the distinguishing character, of the first Christians that they called upon Christ." In the 11th and 12th verses of this chapter, it is said, "whosoever believeth on him, shall not be ashamed; for there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek; for the same Lord over all, is rich unto all them that call upon him ;" which supposes that all persons of this description, all who are real believers, do call upon him; for, in

order to shew there is no difference between Jew and Greek, he says "the same Lord over all, is rich unto all that call upon him. He is the Lord both of Jews and Gentiles, and he is rich unto all who call upon him. This supposes that all the saints do call upon him ; and he is rich, inexhaustible in the riches of his merit and mercy, and exceedingly bounteous in his saving blessings to all sorts of persons, of whatever rank or nation-to all and every one who invokes and worships him as a divine Saviour.

If we look into the history of the primitive Church, in the Acts of the Apostles, we find this was their character, they called upon the name of the Lord. For instance, in the 9th chapter of the Acts, and the 13th and 14th verses, Ananias says, concerning Saul of Tarsus, who was just come to Damascus, "Lord, I have heard by many of this man, how much evil he hath done to thy Saints at Jerusalem; and here he hath authority from the chief priests, to bind all that call on thy name."-It is evident that all real Christians, or saints, were persons who "called upon the name of the Lord. See likewise the twenty-first verse, "all that heard him," that is, converted Saul," were amazed, and said, Is not this he that destroyed them which called on this name in Jerusalem ?" And in the first epistle of St. Paul to the Corinthians, first chapter and second verse, the apostle gives this description of Christians" unto the church of Christ which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints; with all, that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. Nothing can be more clear than that this was the character of the first Christians, that they called upon the name of the Lord Jesus, our common Lord, whom we, and all true Christians join in acknowledging and adoring as their Lord and ours.

Once more, we find a similar expression in the twenty-second of the Acts of the Apostles, and the