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full and unwavering as his; a self-sacrifice as entire and prompt as his; a human soul like Christ's, expanded and harmonized in all its capacities and filled with the spirit of God. This is Christian salvation. This, and nothing short of this, is the real and the full benefit which Jesus bestows on the world. Can there be a higher or larger good? Does anything deserve the name of salvation which does not more or less issue in this good? Is not this good the very essence of all good, and consequently must not this be the good which God offers the world through his Son? If God is holiness and love, and if Christ is holy and loving, then Christian salvation is and must be participation in those divine qualities. May you and I make no mistake here! May we not be deluded with the notion that we are or can be saved except as we share in the holiness and love which form the very essence of God, and are the ruling and beneficent powers of the universe!

2. The means or channel of the bestowment of this priceless and eternal good is indicated when the apostle declares that "the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world." Every word in that declaration is a source of equal light and assurance. The origin of the good is the infinite Father. Are not his resources boundless? Are not his mercies inexhaustible? A father can but desire his children's highest good. An almighty Father cannot fail to accomplish what he desires. “If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him!" (Matt. vii. 11). Moreover, he has sent his Son for the very purpose of saving the world. In doing so, has he not taken the requisite means for the accomplishment of the end? Does any earthly parent send his son to perform a task without putting into his hands the needful power? The mission of Christ is the virtual salvation of the world. Christ has come, therefore the world is The first fruits are all that we behold, but the first

saved.

fruits foretel the harvest. "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how will he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Rom. viii. 32). And then that Son how fit to be the Messenger of God on such an errand! What wisdom to win over the mind! What gentleness to captivate the heart! What love to enrich and ennoble the soul! What power to renew the life! When you have formed to yourself a full conception of Jesus,-when, consequently, you know what Jesus is,-when you feel his sublime character, in all its tenderness, compass and energy, radiating its excellences in the centre of your soul,-then you know with childlike simplicity and certainty of assurance that the gift of Christ is the bestowal of salvation. But this Son and Image of the good and omnipotent Father is designated "the Saviour." The way in which he proves himself the Saviour is indicated in his own words: "I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit" (John xv. 5). Christians partake of salvation by being grafted into Christ, the spiritual vine. Thus grafted, they receive the living sap of spiritual and eternal life. That sap rises in the trunk and passes into every branch, and so every branch swells with the generous influence, and buds and bears fruit no less rich and beautiful than abundant. The metaphor conveys a great spiritual truth. It conveys that truth more exactly and more fully than any ordinary terms. Yet, for the sake of being understood, I may venture to add a word or two of explanation. Observe, then, that the idea of spiritual union is here conveyed. Now of all spiritual union sympathy is the essence. It is a fellow feeling that knits us with our home friends, and makes their moral life our own. By a fellow feeling is the Christian grafted into Christ, the living vine. We become one with Christ by having our nature attuned to his. We partake of the vital essences of his soul when we have the same mind that was in

him, when we share his affections, pursue his designs and work his work. I believe that no one ever sat at his feet and learnt of him without being "changed into the same image, from glory to glory” (2 Cor. iii. 18).

The means, then, of Christian salvation is the grace and power of the Almighty Father, the love of the Son, and the efficacy of the Saviour, our Brother and our Lord, who was made perfect through suffering, and who, having suffered, is able and ready to succour those who suffer (Heb. ii. 18).

3. This inestimable good is enhanced and recommended by its universality; for Jesus is the Saviour, not of Jew or Gentile, but of the world. So large and impartial a blessing looks like the gift of the common Father. Its realization is the more easy, because it disowns all the factitious distinctions of earth, and so in its flowings forth is unimpeded and unchecked. by the partition-walls and boundary-lines of national dislikes and sectarian jealousies. The genial glow which springs from a community of interests, action and destiny, is a large and free channel, down which the one Father of humankind is pouring and will pour the grace and love he bestows on the world in Jesus Christ. When all have one God, one Saviour, and one salvation, all will experience a common gratitude and work for the common good. Partial salvation is no salvation at all. The only salvation is that which, like God's heavens, covers, enlightens, warms and blesses all men.

4. You have to some extent seen, and you accordingly testify, that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. My guarantee for this assertion is in the joy which you feel in the thought that Christ is the universal Friend, and as the universal Friend, so the universal Saviour, of man. You have entered into the spirit of Christ, and can in consequence have no sympathy with "particular redemption." A world in part saved and in part lost, is to you not God's world. A salvation from the benefits of which many, if not "the

many," are either designedly or undesignedly excluded, is to you no salvation such as the Father would originate, the Son achieve, or the world accept. You have seen and felt the expanding, liberalizing and elevating efficacy of the gospel, and can therefore testify, and do gladly testify, to its certainty and worth. In the degree in which your spiritual vision becomes more clear, more distinct and more full, will your testimony be more emphatic and more rejoicing alike for yourselves individually, for those whom you specially love, and for all your fellow-men. It is this personal experience which is the best and the only sufficient preacher of the gospel. Those who live under the influence of Jesus can no more doubt the efficacy and the blessedness of his salvation, than they who see the light of day can question its reality or its acceptableness. Happy their condition! They believe, not because they hear the word of man, but because they feel the power of Christ. Their faith stands not in outward evidence, but in the unmistakeable assurances of their own inmost life. They are "born not of flesh and blood," but of the Spirit of God, and have, as the power, so "the light of life" in their own souls. They therefore can adopt the words addressed by the Samaritans to the woman from whom they had heard of Jesus: "Now we believe, not because of thy saying, for we have heard him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world" (John iv. 42).

There may be present some who have not this personal knowledge of Christ and the value of his gospel. To your earnest consideration would I affectionately offer the doctrine that has now been expounded. You may have been kept aloof from the subject by narrow and unscriptural views. “A more excellent way" is now before you. Study it; consider it in relation to your wants and capabilities, and the wants and capabilities of others. There is one recommendation that I would beg to urge on your attention. The view of Christian

salvation now set forth runs in a line with all God's great providential movements for the good of man; it runs in a line with all your natural sentiments and better tendencies; it runs in a line with all the bearings and strivings of your moral life; it runs in a line with all your domestic affections; in a word, Christian salvation is simply the human being perfected; it is God's own workmanship completed, and completed too by God's own hand. "Creation, Providence and Grace," are then one. The top-stone in the spiritual temple is brought and laid by the hand of Christ, the great masterbuilder. I will not ask you to say whether such a view is not preferable to that which makes salvation run across our natural sentiments and God's good providence, if not run counter to all the great streams of God's ordinary influence; but whether it would not be wise, whether it is not right, whether it is not imperative on you, to meditate on these things, to lay them to heart, to make trial of their truth, certainty and acceptableness, with lowly and devout prayer to God for aid and direction?

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