external enemies! How great an honour to be a member of it! Yet to this honour all real Christians are exalted. How poor and mean, in comparison with this, are all human distinctions and earthly privileges of birth! Yet, alas! how much is a temporal inheritance or dignity, in general, preferred to the citizenship of heaven! With what ardour ought we to offer up the prayer, that God would open the eyes of our understanding, that we may know what is the hope of our calling, and what the riches of the glory of the inheritance of the saints!

VI. Lastly, we are also come to "God, the Judge of all; and to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant.”. The time forbids me to dwell upon these parts of the glorious description: it may be sufficient to say, that we are come to God, not as the Judge and Legislator of a particular tribe, as he appeared to be on mount Sinai; but as the Judge of all men, the Sovereign Ruler and Lawgiver of heaven and earth. We are come to him, not merely as being his creatures, but his redeemed people: as bearing to him a new and most honourable relation. We are come to him, in order that we may hold near communion with him, that we may be visited with his gracious presence, and receive continually out of the fulness of his grace and bounty. And we are come to Jesus Christ, the Mediator, the great Minister of Reconciliation, the Lord of angels and of men, who hath undertaken to combine them in one body, and bestow equal blessings on the whole family of God. The formation of this vast assembly is the work of Jesus Christ. He came down from heaven to accomplish it. He offered up his own most precious blood, that man might be cleansed from his transgressions, and might be accepted through his expiation for sin. This blood speaketh better things than that of Abel. The blood of Abel cried to God for vengeance; the blood of Christ pleads for mercy; the blood of Abel was shed involuntarily; the blood of Christ voluntarily, for the sins of the whole

world. Thus Christ, having redeemed his people from the curse of the law, presents them to the Father, sanctified by his Spirit, and prepared to join the great assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.

I shall not interfere with your endeavours to derive improvement from this subject by attempting to direct your meditations upon it. It is the most sublime and encouraging subject which can be presented to the human mind. The contemplation of it will sustain us amidst all the sufferings and trials of the present life:it will enlarge our ideas and elevate our piety:-it will endear to us, beyond expression, the name, and character, and office of that blessed Mediator through whom such inestimable privileges are conferred upon us:-it will make us think, and speak, and feel, and act, as men who are heirs of such an inheritance, exalted to such honour, and partakers of such inestimable blessings:it will correct our false estimate of the things of sense and time, and teach us to judge as God judges, as the Scriptures direct, and as the truth of things dictates:and, finally, it will impress upon us the infinite importance of the soul, the salvation of which it will show to be the one great end and object of human life.

SERMON IX.

ON THE WAY OF ACCEPTANCE WITH GOD.

John xiv. 6.

No man cometh unto the Father but by me.

TO come to the Father is to be accepted by God, to be regarded favourably by him, to be allowed to approach him with confidence; and this may have respect either to our now worshipping him in an acceptable manner, or to our being finally accepted by him at the day of judgment. It is not very material to which of these the words are supposed more directly to refer, since they are evidently closely connected with each other. If God favourably accepts the worship and service which a person offers him here, there can be no doubt but that he will graciously receive him at the last day into the kingdom of heaven,

The words of my text, then, inform us, that no person can be accepted by the Father unless through Jesus Christ: his sins must be pardoned, his guilt cleansed, his religious endeavours sanctified, his heart purified, and his person rendered acceptable, solely through Jesus Christ. They speak nearly the same language as

the Apostle did, when he said, "Neither is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name given under heaven whereby we must be saved."

When we hear such words as these pronounced, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me;" it seems necessary to advert to the character and office of the Speaker. The words spoken seem to bear a most high and lofty sense: but whether they ought to be so interpreted, or whether they ought to be qualified and understood in a much lower sense, must be determined from our previous knowledge of the Speaker, from the service he claims, from the titles he elsewhere assumes, and from the dignity in other places attributed to him.

Allowing this rule of interpretation to be just, let us consider what is said of Jesus Christ in other places. And here we must call to mind, that he was born in an extraordinary manner, which shewed his origin to be very different from that of the children of men; that he described himself to have dwelt in heaven before his birth in this world, and to have come down from thence to be the Saviour of mankind; that God was, in a peculiar sense, his Father, and that a voice from heaven articulately pronounced him to be his only begotten Son; that he claimed the title of Supreme Judge of the world; that he was said to possess all power in earth and heaven, the Father having put all things into his hand; and that he proved his claim to such dignity and power, by a vast profusion of miracles of the most extraordinary kind.

Here, then, let us ask, Does not the high and lofty sense which the words obviously convey, exactly coincide with that high and lofty character which Jesus bore, and with all that the Scriptures have spoken elsewhere concerning his glory and dignity? Must the sense be lowered, as some persons would argue, to accommodate it to the Person? Or, rather, ought not the sense to be exalted as much as possible, in order to be adequate to the greatness of him who here speaks of