divine contemplation and delight in God, are alienated to the service of the most despicable idols, and employed in the vilest embraces; to behold and admire lying vanities; to indulge and cherish lust and wickedness.

"There is not now a system and entire table of coherent truths to be found, or a frame of holiness; but some shivered parcels. And if any with great toil and labor apply themselves to draw out here one piece, and there another, and set them together, they serve rather to show how exquisite the divine workmanship was in the original composition, than to the excellent purposes for which the whole was at first designed. Some pieces agree, and own one another; but how soon are our inquiries nonplussed and superseded! How many attempts have been made, since that fearful fall and ruin of this fabric, to compose again the truths of so many several kinds into their distinct orders, and make up frames of science or useful knowledge! And after so many ages, nothing is finished in any kind. Sometimes truths are misplaced, and what belongs to one kind is transferred to another, where it will not fitly match; sometimes falsehood inserted, which shatters or disturbs the whole frame. And what with much fruitless pain is. done by one hand, is dashed in pieces by another; and it is the work of a following age, to sweep away the fine-spun cobwebs of a former. And those truths which are of greatest use, though not most out of sight, are least regarded; their tendency and design are overlooked, or they are so loosened and torn off, that they cannot be wrought in, so as to

take hold of the soul, but hover as faint, ineffectual notions, that signify nothing.

"Its very fundamental powers are shaken and disjointed, and their order toward one another confounded and broken; so that what is judged considerable, is not considered; what is recommended as lovely and eligible, is not loved and chosen. Yea, 'the truth which is after godliness,' is not so much disbelieved, as hated, or held in unrighteousness;' and shines with too feeble a light in that malignant darkness which comprehends it not.' You come, amidst all this confusion, into the ruined palace of some great prince, in which you see, here the fragments of a noble pillar, there the shattered pieces of some curious imagery, all lying neglected and useless among heaps of dirt. He that invites you to take a view of the soul of man, gives you but such another prospect, and doth but say to you, 'Behold the desolation,' all things rude and waste! So that, should there be any pretence to the divine presence, it might be said, 'If God be here, why is it thus?' The faded glory, the darkness, the disorder, the impurity, the decayed state in all respects of this temple, too plainly show the Great Inhabitant is gone!'"

But if such be the true picture of human nature, where is there any ground of hope for the children of men? Not in and of themselves, nor from themselves, most surely! But in Him alone who “ was wounded for our transgressions, who was bruised for our iniquities, who himself bare our sins in his own body on the tree, by whose stripes we are, or may be healed." Here, and here only, is our

hope-in the sacrificial death of Christ, through whom, and to whom, with the Father and Spirit Eternal, be all honor and glory ascribed, world without end. Amen.

See Watson's Institutes, Wesley's Works, Fletchers' Appeal, Bates' Harmony, Boston's Four-fold State, and Chalmer's Discourses on this subject.

LECTURE IX.

ON THE ATONEMENT.

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. And not only so, but we also joy in God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.—Rom. v. 8—11.

“ATONEMENT,” says Mr. Watson, in his Biblical Dictionary, is "the satisfaction offered to divine justice by the death of Christ, for the sins of mankind, by virtue of which, all true penitents who believe in Christ are personally reconciled to God, are freed from the penalty of their sins, and entitled to eternal life."

"An atonement," says Jenkyn, in his treatise on this subject, "is any provision introduced into the administration of a government, instead of the infliction of the punishment of an offender-any expedient that will justify a government in suspending the literal execution of the penalty threatened-any

consideration that fills the place of punishment, and answers the purpose of government as effectually as the infliction of the penalty on the offender himself would; and thus supplies to the government just, safe, and honorable grounds for offering and dispensing pardon to the offender. This definition or description may be more concisely expressed, thus :Atonement is an expedient substituted in the place of the literal infliction of the threatened penalty, so as to supply to the government just and good grounds for dispensing favors to an offender.'

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The foregoing definition is thus happily illustrated by two remarkable circumstances, one taken from the Holy Scriptures, the other from profane history.

"The first instance is that mentioned in the book of Daniel. King Darius had established a royal statute, that whosoever should ask a petition of any god or man for thirty days, save of the king himself, should be cast into the den of lions. Daniel was the first offender. And when the king heard thereof, he was sore displeased with himself, and set his heart on delivering Daniel; and labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him, but could not so Daniel was cast into the den of lions.

"Here is an instance of an absolute sovereign, setting his heart on the deliverance of an offender, and laboring to obtain it; and yet prevented from exercising his clemency by a due sense of the honor of his government. But could not Darius have pardoned Daniel? Yes as a private person he could forgive any private injury; but, as a public officer, he could not privately forgive a public offence.