and of such continual violations of his law written on my heart, am I sure that my sincerest repentance will be accepted in lieu and place of any other atonement? I never can be sure of this point. To say the least, it is doubtful. What person, therefore, (except him who prefers speculation to revelation, pride of intellect to the submission of his understanding to the Gospel,) would choose in the matter of his eternal salvation, to rest his foot upon such uncertain ground? What person would choose, for the sake of indulging his own fancies, or those self-adopted notions which he conceives to be more worthy of God, (though in opposition to his expressly revealed will) to leap so awful a gulph, and thus to venture into the presence of his supposed reconciled, but perhaps doubly and trebly incensed God?

The truth is, my brethren, that depending on reason alone, without Christ, the revealed mediator, there is no feeling for us but of guilt; no prospect but of punishment, of darkness, and despair; "nothing to be beheld by us, but obscurity and confusion in the divine nature, and in our own. By his authoritative voice, the holy scriptures of truth, he has declared, that

* Pascal.

"no man cometh to the Father but by his Son." He has solemnly protested unto us, that we shall not see his face, except this our elder brother be with us.

Hence it appears, that man, by rejecting revelation, as it regards the doctrine of a mediator between God and his creatures, rejects not merely the only sure, but the only possible way of coming to the Father; and so far from acquiring more light to guide him in his enquiries, he plunges himself into impenetrable and inextricable darkness. Until he can point out some other necessary and infallible connection between God and his offending creatures, by removing guilt and punishment out of the way, or by substituting some other link in the chain than that which the Gospel supplies, some other medium of communication than Jesus Christ the righteous, he never can, with scriptural assurance, at least, in the true spirit of adoption cry Abba, Father.

But, it may be asked, did not the sacrifices of atonement under the Jewish law, present a sufficient medium of communication with God? Was not he preeminently the God of the Jew, "to whom pertained the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God, and the promise?"

Thus placed, as it were under the very eye of heaven, in the very centre of divine attractions, surely, it may be said, God was their father, in the true spirit of adoption. Far from it. St. Paul is addressing converted Jews, in the chapter before us. And throughout it, as well as in all his other epistles, he contrasts the glorious privileges of the true adopted sons of God under the Gospel, with the slavish condition of those who were bound by "the law of sin and death," to render an obedience thereto, which the more imperfect it necessarily was, served but to convict them, in the same proportion, of fresh sin and guilt. Dim and obscure as was the light of nature to conduct sinful man to God and happiness, the law served, it should seem from the Apostle's argument, more fearfully to perplex him, more surely to detain him captive in the regions of sin and death. What are his remark"I was alive without

able and striking words?

the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died." As if he had said, 'As long as I remained ignorant of that law which brought the knowledge of sin, I yet showed symptoms of life even in that alienated state of the heart from God; I was comparatively happy but when under the prohibitions and awful sanctions of the law, and their extensive

moral obligation, I became fully acquainted with the extent also of my sinfulness and guilt, as well as total inability to do good works pleasing and acceptable to God-then sin revived in all its strength, the guilt of my unrenewed nature rose upon my mind as an armed host, and I became dead, absorbed in all the apprehensions of a guilty conscience, and with a certain fearful looking for of judgment." "Sin is not imputed when there is no law." But "as many as are of the works of the law, are under the curse." "The law was weak through the flesh; and they that are in the flesh cannot please God."

Hence we arrive at the conclusion, that it is under the light of the gospel dispensation alone, that man recovers his first but forfeited relationship to his God. He discovers his real pedigree, and traces it with joy to his heavenly Father. The darkness is past, and the true light shineth. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God." Christ hath showed us plainly of the Father. Our fellowship is now with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. This is the title which every where runs through, and animates the writings of the saints and Apostles. "I write unto you, little children," says St. John, "because ye have known the Father." The salutation

in the epistles to the Churches is "Grace, mercy, and peace, from God the Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ." "The Father of mercies and God of all consolation." "For ye,

believers, have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear: but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father."

Since, then, union with the ever blessed God and his Son Jesus Christ, is the end of all religion, the grand feature of Christianity, the perfection of our restored nature, and the real foundation of all happiness and peace in this world as well as in the next; let us enquire more particularly,

First, into the nature of this adoption;
Secondly, into its privileges; and
Thirdly, into its effects.

I. The nature of this adoption. Adoption is in its common and popular acceptation, an act whereby a man takes a person into his family, makes him a part of it, acknowledges him for his son, receives him into the number, and gives, makes over, and conveys to him, all the rights and privileges of true children. This act being, as the term imports, the result of a man's own free choice, is not tied in its operation and exercise to any circumstance in the adopted person