soul, than, when convinced that there is no other righteousness than in the merits, and no other sanctification than in the grace of the Saviour, it henceforth glories only in his cross; and now, that every other expedient of reformation has been tried, and failed of its accomplishment, it takes to the remaining one of crying mightily to God, and pressing, at a throne of grace, the supplication of the Psalmist," Create a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.”

One thing is certain; you are welcome, at this moment, to lay hold of the righteousness of God, in Christ Jesus; you are welcome, at this moment, to the use of his prevailing name, in your prayers to the Father; you are welcome, at this moment, to the plea of his meritorious obedience, and of his atoning death; and you are welcome, at this moment, to the promise of the Spirit, given unto all who believe, whereby the enmity of their carnal minds will be done away,-God will no longer be regarded with antipathy and disgust, he will appear in the face of Jesus Christ as a reconciled Father,he will pour upon you the spirit of adoption,you will walk before him without fear, and those bonds being loosed, wherewith you were formerly held, you will yield to him the willing obedience of those whose hearts are enlarged, and who run, with delight, in the way of his commandments.

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SERMON XIV.

THE POWER OF THE GOSPEL TO DISSOLVE THE ENMITY OF THE HUMAN HEART AGAINST GOD.

EPHES. II. 16.

"Having slain the enmity thereby."

II. WE shall now consider how it is that the gospel of Jesus Christ, suits its application to this great moral disease.

The necessity of some singular expedient, for restoring the love of God to the alienated heart of man, will appear from the utter impossibility of bringing this about by any direct application of authority whatever. For, do you think that the delivery of the law of love, in his hearing, as a positive and indispensable enactment coming forth from the legislature of heaven, will do it? You may as well pass a law, making it imperative upon him to delight in pain, and to feel comfort on a bed of torture? Or, do you think, that you will ever give a practical establishment to the law of love, by surrounding it with accumulated penalties? This may irritate, or it may terrify,-but for the purpose of begetting any thing like attachment, one may as well

think of lashing another into tender regard for him. Or, do you think, that the terrors of the coming vengeance will ever incline a human being to love the God who threatens him? Powerful as these terrors are, in persuading man to turn from the evil of his ways,-they most assuredly do not form the artillery by which the heart of man can be carried. They draw not forth a single affection, but the affection of fear. They never can charm the human bosom into a feeling of attachment to God. And it goes to prove the necessity of some singular expedient, for restoring man to fellowship with his Maker; that the only obedience on which this fellowship can be perpetuated, is an obedience which no threatenings can force,-to which no warnings of displeasure can reclaim,-which all the solemn proclamations of law and justice cannot carry, and all the terrors and severities of a sovereignty resting on power, as its only foundation, can never subdue. The utterance of the words, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, or perish everlastingly, can no more open the shut and alienated heart of man, than it can open a gate of iron. Multiply these arguments of terror as you may,-arm them with tenfold energy, and make them to fall in thunder on the sinner's ears, tell him of the God of judgment, and manifest to him the frown of his angry countenance,-lay before him the grim aspect of his impending death, and spread a deeper mantle of despair over the vast field of that eternity which is on the other side of it;You may disquiet him, and right that he should be so, you may prevail on him to give up many evil doings, and right that the whole urgency

of the coming wrath should be employed to make him give them up immediately, you may set him a trembling at the power of God, and better this than spending his guilty career, in thoughtlessness and unconcern, about the great Lawgiver;-but where, in the midst of all this, shall we find obedience to the very first and greatest commandment of the law? Has this obedience been yet so much as entered on? Has love to God so much as reached the infancy of its existence, in that heart which is now beginning to be agitated by its terrors? Amid all the bitterness of remorse, and all the fearful looking for of judgment, and all the restless anxieties of conscious guilt, and anticipated vengeance, tell us, if a single particle of tenderness towards God, has any place in this restless and despairing bosom? Tell us, if it act as an element at all, in this wild war of turbulence and disorder? Or, has it yet begun to dawn upon the mind, and spread its salutary and composing charm over that dark scene of conflict, under which many a sinner has to sustain the burden of the wearisome nights, that are appointed to him? You may seek for love to God throughout all the chambers of his heart, and seek in vain. The man may be acting such reformations as he is driven to, and may be clothing himself in such visible decencies, as he feels himself compelled to put on, and may be labouring away at the drudgery of such observances as he thinks will give him relief from the corrosions of that undying worm, which never ceases to goad him with its reproaches; but as to the love of God, there is as grim and determined an exclusion of this principle as ever, that

avenue to his heart, has never been unlocked, through which it might be made to find its way, -every former argument, so far from having dissolved the barrier, has only served to rivet and to make it more unmoveable. And the difficulty still lies upon us,-how are we to deposit in the heart of man, the only right principle of obedience to God,-and to lead him onward in the single way of a pure, and spiritual, and substantial repentance?

This, then, is a case of difficulty, and, in the Bible, God is said to have lavished all the riches of his unsearchable wisdom on the business of managing it. No wonder that to his angels it appeared a mystery, and that they desired to look into it. It appears a matter of direct and obvious facility to intimidate man, and to bring his body into a forced subordination to all the requirements. But the great matter was, how to attach man, how to work in him a liking to God, and a relish for his character;-or, in other words, how to communicate to human obedience, that principle, without which, it is no obedience at all,-to make him serve God, because he loved him; and to run in the way of all his commandments, because this was the thing in which he greatly delighted himself. To lay upon us the demand of satisfaction for his violated law, could not do it. To press home the claims of justice upon any sense of authority within us, could not do it. To bring forward, in threatening array, the terrors of his judgment, and of his power against us, could not do it. To unveil the glories of that throne where he sitteth in equity, and manifest to his guilty creatures the awful inflexibilities of his truth and righteousness,

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