except on the terms of a thorough-going repentance. When we have done this, we shall behold the God of the New Testament, and not till then. We shall approach Him as the hater of sin, and the inflexible enemy of the sinner, wherever He meets him, except only at the foot of an atoning Cross. We shall, in short, forget all the natural grandeurs which surround Him, and cling to the single proffer of mercy, and enter completely into that spirit which drew from holy Job the impressive exclamation, "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth Thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." This is the language in which we are to approach that awful Being who holds in His hands our eternal destinies. We do not, however, imagine that the affection of love is associated with terror. Far from it. We may feel terror; we must feel it when we first seriously step into the presence of the Infinite Jehovah, on the business of our souls, because we invariably carry along with us a load of guilt, without apology or palliation. But when we have caught the hope of pardon, the scene is at once changed. God, indeed, remains clothed with the same fearful perfections as ever; but then we look upon them in a different light. Terror gives way to a confiding and reverential attachment, and those severer attributes of the Deity which once we contemplated with fear, we find to harmonize with all the rest, and to throw over them the chastening influence of a consistent explanation. We see then, without pressing the argument further, that, in this one matter, a Christian's views are essentially distinct from the views of a man of the world. A man of the world loves God because he has shared His bounties, a Christian because he has discovered the beauty of His holiness: a man of the world loves God because His character is majestic and imposing, a Christian because it bears upon it the lustre of punishing sin, while it offers mercy to the sinner. In a word, a man of the world loves God because his imagination depicts him in the mere garb of his natural perfections, a Christian because he feels himself guilty and helpless, and finds his heart warming towards that parental and compassionate Being who could stoop to provide a Redeemer for the perishing children of men. And this is the second point I wished to prove.

Now, my hearers, if I were to take the subject we have discussed, and walk through the whole of these pews for its application, I should not meet an individual without some semblance of love to God. There would be one accustomed to admire the works of creation, the loftiness, perhaps, and magnificence of the heavens; and he would pay homage to the Divine power. There would be another familiar with the analysis of Providence, in its protecting and merciful dispensations, and he would pay homage to the Divine goodness. There would be another prepared to go further still, and drop the tear of an honest gratitude over the story of a Saviour's death, and he would pay homage to the Divine compassion. But if either, or if all of these exercises, make up the one thing of Gospel love to God, what, I ask, is the meaning of the apostle in our text? To possess the feelings which I have just recounted, was it necessary that God should first have that love to us which induced Him to send His only begotten Son into the world? Might we not have admired the splendors of creation-might we not have acknowledged the kindness of Providence-might we not have cherished gratitude to a benefactor, without the dreadful expenditure of the blood of Christ upon Calvary's mount? How is it, then, that our love to God is brought about only by His previous love to us in the gift of His Son?

Why, my hearers, the plain and honest truth is this: We have within us, by nature, hearts which turn away from the holiness and purity of the Divine character. We do not relish these perfections, nor, by our own power, can we make ourselves to relish them, any more than we can make ourselves to love the bitterness of wormwood. Yet relish them we must, before we cross the threshold of Heaven. They constitute there the only source of enjoyment; and even were we in Heaven, with our antipathies along with us, we should be wretched forever. Something then must be done for us, and Jesus Christ has done it. He has ex. pired in our stead, that we might receive the Holy Spirit, to mould our hearts anew, and from enemies to make us the friends of God. This is the reason that His love is the great procuring cause of ours, for, without Him, our hearts would never have surrendered their hostility to the Divine perfections. We should have gone on to the day of death, incased in the panoply of war against the Almighty, unless Christ had "reconciled us unto God in his own body by the Cross, having slain the enmity thereby." We see, therefore, that if any of us take the standing of the friends of God, it must be through Christ alone. To him we must go, and on him rely. No matter how many noble and lofty conceptions we cherish of the Deity, no matter how cordial be our veneration for His attributes, it is love which carries a sinner to Heaven; and never will it find a home in our hearts unless we seek it at the foot of Calvary, on our knees, and through the merits of that all-sufficient Redeemer which God has sent for the salvation of man. Amen.

SERMON ΧΧΙΧ.*

"As many as have sinned in the law shall be judged by the law." Romans, ii., 12.

THE solemn spectacle, my brethren, which this city has been called the past week to witness, is fitted to put us all upon reflection. I do not mean that there are any of us so debased as to need such a warning to keep us from such a crime; but the principle upon which the recent execution was grounded, is one of the most impressive and imposing character. In the judicial act of hurrying two fellow-beings into eternity, we have not been looking on the infliction of revenge-we have not been viewing a sacrifice to the mere excitement of public feeling-we have not been witnessing the fate of persons, too abandoned for reformation. None of this. The one single principle presiding over the necessity and the sternness of so mournful a scene, has been the unbending majesty of law-of law which knows none of the impulses of mercy-which puts away from it every sympathy with the suffering it demands. While, then, the laws of man evince so much severity, suppose we carry our contemplation higher, and look at the similar relation in which all of us stand to the laws of the Godhead. Do not call this, my hearers, an unnatural transition to another subject. It is essentially the same subject. If there be any truth in the Bible, "sentence has passed upon all men to condemnation," and surely when sentence has issued, we need not be told that somewhere a law must ex

ist; and that it has been violated, and that it has put forth its penalties against the transgressor.

But where is the law which is thus affirmed to lay upon us all, without reserve, the brand of an unsparing condemnation? Here it is, my brethren, within the lids of the Bible. Here is the statute-book of Heaven's king. Hard, indeed, I know it is to look upon Inspiration in the light of positive law, and to clothe it with the corresponding attributes of sternness and inflexibility. But open the volume and read for yourselves. Does it not lay down a code of intelligible and arbitrary precepts? Is it not armed on every page with penalties and sanctions? Are not we, as subjects, furnished with understanding, and conscience, and free will, which make up a complete obligation to obedience? Then, the Bible is absolutely law, or it is nothing. If it were a mere summons of advice, it would have no precepts. If it aimed only at moral suasion, it would have no penalties. As it is, it constitutes to every intent and purpose, the idea of law in all its severity, and all its requirements, and little as we may think of it in the common concerns of life, it holds over each and every one of us, the exercise of an unyielding and paramount authority. This is the meaning of the text, "As many as have sinned in the law, shall be judged by the law." In other words, upon those who have had the means of knowing the Book of God's Revelation, it will enforce all its penalties, and inflict all its punishments. It will move forward to complete and rigid execution in spite of the ridicule, the neglect, and the complaints of mankind.

Now, putting the subject into this attitude, what I wish is to make upon it two simple, but very important, points: the first, that where the Divine law has been promulgated, every violation of it must be punished; -the second, that all of us have committed such violation, and, therefore, our