to him, without regret? what is it that fortifies, elevates, entrances his parting spirit? O it is the remembrance that comes over his heart like the distant music of the blessed, that God is in Christ reconciling the world unto himself; it is the deathless conviction of his soul that God, even his own. God in Christ, will never leave, and never forsake him.

Will it be said that such emotions of joy are not confined to those who maintain the atonement of Christ? I am aware that men have been indifferent to death; or that they have expressed a willingness to die; or thought that they were at peace with God; but the records of men tell not of one having died rejoicing in God, save the self-renouncing follower of the crucified Jesus. Nor is it possible that any other should. When the world is receding, and eternity with its dread realities is breaking upon my naked spirit, can I peacefully think of that holy Being before whom I am shortly to appear, if I do not know that my sins are pardoned? Oh! as I am about to launch upon that dread, unknown futurity, do I not need assurance that I shall not be lost? Whose voice can allay the dark forebodings of my guilty soul? On whose arm can my trembling spirit lean as I enter that fearful passage, never to return? "None but Christ!" "None but Christ!" was the exclamation of a dying martyr; it has found a sweet response in the dying lips of thousands of God's people; and when I think of the evidence which has been afforded to us in his death that God loves us with a quenchless love; that all his precious promises are yea and amen in Christ; that there is no reason why we should distrust his favor, and every reason why we should most cheerfully trust in his mercy and grace, I feel that Christ should be all our desire, as he must be, if we are ever saved, our only salvation. Nay, how can we be assured, that God is not now our enemy, short of the evidence of his grace and mercy which has been presented to us in the expiatory offering of his Son?

Hear the great Apostle.-(And his testimony is surely not to be undervalued-he could not have changed his religion on shadowy grounds; could not have been so weak as to expose himself to poverty, and contempt, and toil, and persecution, for the sake of a poor young man who had been crucified at Jerusalem, if that form had not shrouded Divinity, and that Cross had not been erected for the interests of the uni verse. His, we apprehend, was too strong an intellect to build his hopes for eternity on hay and stubble; and, if we accede to him the gift of inspiration, his was too intimate an acquaintance with God's will to admit of his being deceived as to the grounds of the Divine favor towards man.)-What

was it then that led him to embrace Christianity? The atonement. What animated him to preach the gospel despite of erudite scorn, or of vulgar ridicule? The atonement. What sustained him amid his perils and trials, and enabled him ever to joy in God? The atonement. "We joy in God"-through what medium? the works of his hand? the reason with which he has endowed us? the creatures whom he hath formed? because all nature so brightly symbolizes his perfections? because the air we breathe is so refreshing, and the sun that warms us is so glorious, and our faculties of mental and moral achievement are so sublime? Ah, had man not fallen, no other revelation would have been needed than reason, nor scriptures than the creation; no other incitements to praise and joy in God than the unnumbered blessings which crowd around his path. But listen to Paul, the pardoned sinner: "We joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Why? because he has delivered us from traditions of the elders? because he so beautifully expounded the law? because he embodied in himself both precept and example, and died in attestation of the truth of his doctrines? O no; Paul knew in whom he had believed-knew that he was not a mere man like himself-simply another prophet sent of God. He knew that no creature could secure to him, a sinner, the favor of a holy God. "We joy in God through our LORD Jesus Christ by whom we have received the atonement."

The atonement is the grand source and medium of the Christian's joy in God, from the hour of his conversion to the last moment of expiring nature-joy in his perfections, his creation, his providence, his purposes. It is not that he has

given us a religion which pours a flood of light on immortality, and stamps shame and confusion on all other religious systems; not that it has ameliorated man's condition, advanced science and art, diffused the blessings of liberty and knowledge; not that it expands and energizes the intellect, purifies and ennobles the heart, or fosters the sweet charities of life, it is that while we were yet enemies to God, Christ died for us.

Speak we of the perfections of God? it is well to refer to their embodied exemplification in the character of Christ; or of duty, to him who esteemed it his meat and his drink to do the will of his father; or of wisdom, to the teachings of him who spoke as never man spoke; or of virtue and benevolence, to the loveliness of his spotless example ;-so did Paul. But speak we of the only ground of our hope and joy in God, it is the atonement. Would we joy in God? to that mysterious mount must we repair-on the blood-dyed arms of that cross hang our faith. O mystery of mysteries! that our joy in God.

should have been purchased by the blood of his only begotten and well beloved Son!

We see, then, the position that Jesus Christ maintains in the system of revealed truth. To him every Mosaical institution referred; of him the Seers of Israel prophesied ; to him the expectation of the world was directed. And now every proof of a divine revelation centres in his death; every doctrine for our practical belief springs from his atoning mediation; every argument to the conscience of the sinner is bathed in his blood; every motive to our love, and gratitude, and joy in God emanates from his cross. Without him, we have no such knowledge of God as we need; no access to the mercy seat; no assurance of divine acceptance; no hope of a blessed immortality. Without him there is no deliverance from the condemnation of a righteous law; no escape from the vengeance of an offended God.

Why then this reluctance to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ? Why this effort to degrade his rank, or to change the nature of his death? Beware, my hearers, how you listen to the suggestions of the carnal mind, unless you are prepared to renounce "the faith once delivered unto the saints." I am not inducing an unnecessary caution. My life on it, CHRIST is ALL, or CHRISTIANITY is NOTHING. Take away

Jesus, and our religion is a headless trunk!

But what reason have you, it may be asked, for believing Christianity to be trne? I need not refer to historical and critical evidences, though they cluster around the Bible, like sunbeams, pointing out to us the high source of this marvellous light. They are all insufficient, nothing worth, unless this gospel has a moral adaptation to our lost condition. What reason have I for belief? You might as well have asked, what reason has yonder wretch for regarding you as his friend and benefactor, if at the expense of great sacrifices, you have relieved his miseries, and raised him to affluence and comfort.

Has not Christ made an atonement for my sins? has he not introduced me to an intimate and endearing friendship with God? Do I not owe to him all my hopes of pardon, purity, and eternal life? Believe the Gospel? How can I help believing it, when it is the very gift which, as a poor, lost sinner, I most urgently need? Believe it? I should be lost to common sense if I did not believe it, when it is the only thing in the wide world that can dispel my fears and relieve the yearnings of my soul. I should justify against myself the charge of ineffable folly, if, by disbelief, I spurn God's favor and trifle with my deathless interests. Ah, you must prove to me that man is not a sinner, has no wants, no woes, no sins, no sufferings, no dread forebodings of what

may come after he has "shuffled off this mortal coil," before we can be induced to reject the Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the Atonement. A firm, cordial belief in God through Jesus Christ, infinitely transcends any system or object that the world may command or value. It affords the only position, from which, sinful man may deduce the sublimated conclusion, "I know that this is but the infancy of an immortal existence; that my sins are pardoned; that God is my portion and heaven my final home." It places man on the only ground where he is truly independent of all the frowns or favors of the world; where joy springs from sorrow, and blessings from afflictions; where poverty becomes imperishable wealth, and obscurity undecaying honor; where life awakens from the sleep of death, and "beauty immortal" arises from the corruption of the tomb.

What, then, does the infidel mean? See the pious poor, from whom he would wrest their only hope; the widow, from whom he would snatch her last resource; the orphan, whom he would turn out to wander at random in a forsaken world; the dying, whom he would reduce to despair! Look over the length and breadth of our world, which we fondly trust may yet be reclaimed from sin and misery; but which he would cover with an eternal pall! Talk not to me of charity, when the hopes of a dying world are at stake. Infidel! I arraign thee as man's direst foe. In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I solemnly charge upon thee the work of death and damnation!

But what is it that the impenitent sinner means? You do not reject the gospel, and yet you do not believe. You shudder at the infidel's guilt, and yet you have not availed yourself of the believer's privileges. You are not happy-you know you are not; or if, at any time, you imagine yourself so, why is it? Simply because you have added to your stores or your laurels, and gathered around you the means of selfish gratification. Yet what boots it that you enjoy the things of earth? Ah, fill high the Samian bowl; dig deep the mines of gold, or climb the steep of fame; "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" Believe me, your pleasures are as "the crackling of thorns under a pot. You are strangers to joy in God. You have never received the atonement. Though Jesus has been preached unto you, and his servants have often plead with you, by his cross and passion, by his bloody sweat and agony, to be reconciled to God; though, in an ordinance of his own appointment, Christ has "evidently been set forth crucified" before you, and by his Word and Spirit is now knocking at the door of your hearts with weeping entreaties, still you have not re

ceived the atonement. Am I wrong? Why, then, were you not with his disciples when so lately they gathered round the table of their dying Lord? Why are you not this day all devotedness to the honor of his name and the advancement of his cause? Why is it, that should you be called to die this night, your Christian friends would gather around your deathbed in anguish of spirit, and plead with God to have mercy upon you, lest you should die without hope? Alas! poor soul! if you have never received the atonement-never embraced Christ as he is offered to you in the gospel-you are still in your sins, and in danger of dying in your sins; still out of Christ, and in danger of the judgment!

SERMON DLXXXVII.

BY REV. L. F. DIMMICK, D. D.,

NEWBURYPORT, MASS.

VENS.

MERCY REJOICETH AGAINST JUDGMENT.

"And mercy rejoiceth against judgment."

JAMES ii. 17.

FAR in the Empyrean heights, above the rolling spheres, and whither the thoughts of mortals find it difficult to climb, is a place called the THIRD HEAVEN, or the HEAVEN OF HEAIn that world is the Eternal City, the central seat of the great King. In the midst of the city, conspicuous, and under the wide-arching canopy above, is a throne, all resplendent with celestial glories, standing on a pavement of sapphire, and surrounded with a rainbow. On that throne sits the Ancient of Days, the Infinite, the Creator and Ruler of all worlds, and their final Judge. Not that he is limited to that place for no boundaries of space can contain him. He fills immensity with his presence. But there, he reveals himself in peculiar glory. There, amidst attending angels, the first-born sons of light,—the thrones, and dominions, and principalities, and powers, that bow around him, and wait his pleasure, he holds the grand central court of his universal