rents, as they branched forth into all nations, sometimes indeed obstructed in their course, and almost every where polluted in their channels; whilst standing by the pure fountain of inexhaustible love, we can exclaim in joy and triumph-Ho every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters. We can proclaim to the faithful in our Saviour's own words, He that believeth on me shall never thirst. We can issue from thence his merciful and universal invitation, Whosoever will, let him come and take of the waters of life freely.

Where a consciousness of sin must have utterly rescinded all rational hope of acceptance with the GOD of perfect holiness, and only trembled at the impossibility of pardon from his unsatisfied justice, the consolations of his own word, and the promulgation of a Law, which renewed the possibility of a justifying obedience, restored that hope, and suggested, that however abhorrent from the divine purity the corrupted nature of man might have become, yet still the means of reconciliation and acceptance would be found, and the satisfying atonement supplied by the GOD of mercy

himself. With a conformable accomplishment, therefore, of all that had been testified beforehand by the Holy Spirit, and comprising within its sanctifying influence the object of all former dispensations, we find in Christianity the priest and sacrifice, the offering and the reconciliation. In the death of Christ we have seen the sufferings that have satisfied for sin; in the gospel, by which he has brought life and immortality to the perfect light, we have seen the glory that should follow.

Though writings of unquestionable antiquity afford collateral evidence to this doctrine, though the mythological systems of Heathen nations retain such indelible marks of this origin, as necessarily lead to the establishment of that faith from which they departed, yet it being my sole purpose to exhibit Christ and his redemption as the great subject of the sacred scriptures, I intentionally forbear the citation of these proofs. I would establish the sufficient testimony of the sacred writings, and then commit them to your hands as a treasure of divine knowledge, wherein you are to search for the

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pearl of great price, and wherein every part has its specific use and value.

We are here, as the grand foundation of the articles of our faith, instructed in the cause of sin, of its entrance into the world, and of death by sin, as the just judgment of GOD to the condemnation of all men, who by the offence of one were made sinners. We are here instructed, that consolatory hopes of restoration were in the instant imparted by the GoD of mercy to the abashed original of all our woe. The scheme of redemption grows gradually clearer, and is for ever, whether by promise, by type, or by prophecy, kept open to our view; till at length, being made free from sin, by the righteousness of One who has tasted death for every man, we are instructed, that the free gift has come upon all men unto justification of life; and that as the wages of sin is death, so the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ, to all, who, in every period and under every dispensation, with respect to the great recompence of the reward, believed to the saving of the soul. An humble Christian spirit of research is alone wanting, to behold the day spring

from on high which hath visited us; to find out Him in the scriptures of God, who revealed the truth, who then came to seal it with his blood, and left his church to be its perpetual and faithful guardian. With what clouds, therefore, must we envelope our hearts and understandings, if that light of revelation, which has successively shone through every dispensation, should in these latter times shed its splendour in vain.But unless we suffer the true light that was to light every man that cometh into the world, to conduct us to realms of unspeakable glory, every other will prove a meteor that will delude us. The brightness of natural religion will at last prove an ineffectual fire, the lamp of reason grow dim, every path of hope will be obscured, till our feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and we have no guide to direct our goings.

But as a faith in futurity was required, and found in the predecessors of the gospel dispensation, so also, not only in the price that has purchased our redemption, but in the future. possession of that purchase itself, is our faith required. The promise to them was the means of mercy; the promise to us is the efficacy of

those means. The first advent of our blessed Redeemer has only fulfilled the promises in part,

and left the Christian, like the Patriarchal and Jewish believer, to future hopes and future consummation. That He, who was wrapt in swaddling clothes in a manger, now sits upon an eternal throne, above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion; that He, who visited us in great humility, is now crowned with glory and honour; that He, who was condemned to death before an earthly tribunal, will again come to sit in judgment upon the whole human race, and to reward every man according to his works ; that He, whose body and blood were the sacrifice, now pleads its sufficiency, as the great High Priest, and Intercessor for our sins; are truths as clearly revealed in scripture as that He was to have been born of a Virgin, or that He was to have been wounded for our transgressions, and cut off, not for himself, but that, by the means of his death, He might bring us to GOD. But as these, although not distinctly conceived by those to whom they were made known from afar by promise and by prophecy, were yet expected by them in humility and faith;