Whatever difficulty there may be, amidst the many corruptions, and doublings of our hearts in finding out our sins, the method of obtaining pardon (thank God) lies plain before us. Every transgression of the law is sin and every sin becomes naturally unpardoned guilt; that is, we have naturally no claim to pardon. But it hath pleased Almighty God to reveal to us a gracious mode of obtaining pardon. Our own repentance must lead the way, and qualify us for the benefit of Christ's atonement. Christ's merits will not save us without our repentancethough repentance can be of no avail without the merits of Christ. Full of guilt however as we all are, some are not disposed to accept the free grace of God. The man of reason will ask, why God might not pardon us freely on our repentance without the merits of Christ? What God might do, is one thing; what God hath declared, he will do, is another. If we understood all nature around us and could give a reason for every thing we see we might then have some pretence for inquiring about the manner, in which God hath offered salvation to man, through the merits of Christ. But till that time, let tament as well as the new, discovers to prophecy, type, or reality, this gracious Indeed no reason can be given for the of Christ, but that of making an atoneme sin. If we disbelieve the doctrine, I s how we can believe the scripture. An deed, we generally find that such as renour atonement, garble scripture in their own p way. If, indeed, we inquire into the nature mystery, and ask, how the death of Chri be any satisfaction to God for the sins of kind-there we are silent. But then our tion recurs, Is this the only point, of we are ignorant? Can we tell how this globe of the earth, on which men have li many thousand years, hath continued, throu that space of time, to swim in the air? I on nothing but air: it is in continual m though we do not perceive its motion. account for that force which holds it in ba C and keeps it from rolling to one side or the other? Let us then have the modesty to conceive, there may be other things as well as the atonement of Christ, equally mysterious, yet undoubt edly true. They who believe this earth hangs poised in the air, on the credit of philosophers, cannot reasonably reject the idea of Christ's atonement on the credit of scripture. SINCE then God Almighty hath thus put the means of our salvation, in a manner, in our own power, by leaving us at option, whether we will accept, or not, the terms he hath offered; let us not be so lost to ourselves, as to go on in any sinful course, till at length our Sin find us out; but let us manfully endeavour to find it out first, wherever it lurks among the deceits of our own hearts, or among the temptations of the world : -Infidelity, where proper means of obtaining evidence have been neglected, is certainly a high offence. This sin, and whatever else we detect, let us bring to the throne of grace, and implore God's pardon through the merits of Christ.-When we have done our utmost to discover our sins, still it is to be feared, our best endeavours will not be wholly effectual. Many ignorances and negli gences will still be left behind; and each of us, in the true spirit of christianity, should lay his hand on his breast, and in the language of the penitent publican, cry out, God be merciful to me a sinner! 2 PETER, ii. 15. THEY HAVE FORSAKEN THE RIGHT WAY GONE ASTRAY; FOLLOWING THE WA BALAAM, THE SON OF BOSOR, WHO ON ST. PETER, in this passage, alludes to extraordinary man, and a very extraordinary the story of Balaam, which I have jus reading to you in the lesson of the day; a may, in some parts, be apt to mislead thought it not amiss to accompany it w explanation. In the following discourse, therefore, first explain to you the character of Balaan |