If you are right, we are safe enough, but if we are right, if "there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved," you are fearfully, fatally wrong; therefore it is worthy of your acceptation. My young hearers, it is worthy of your acceptation, for it is the only boon that can make life easy, pleasant, peaceful, safe. Receive this saying, and God will be the guide of your youth, the strength of your manhood, the stay of your old age, and your portion for ever. My aged hearers, it is worthy of your acceptation. It will be a halo of glory around your brow. "The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness." "The years are come, in which you have no pleasure," but this salvation gives a mellowness to old age, like the well ripened fruit of autumn, far richer and sweeter than the green buds of youth, ready to be gathered into our Heavenly Father's store-house. Having this salvation, you may with confidence believe," that though the dust return to the earth as it was, the spirit shall return to God who gave it," and so be "ever with the Lord." Ye who are poor in this world, it is worthy of your acceptation. Having this, you "have all and abound.” “All things are yours; whether the world, or life, or death, or things present or things to come; all are yours and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's." § Are you rich? It is worthy of your acceptation. Without it you are in a snare. Without it you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. "Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days." || Acts iv. 12. + Prov. xvi. 31. + Eccl. xii. 7. || James v. 3. O, my beloved hearers! receive this saying without delay or hesitation, "the time is short." Receive it with gratitude, it is God's great gift. Receive it with entire submission to the will of God-it is the way He has ordained for our salvation. Reject every other mode and rely wholly and exclusively on Him who "came into the world to save sinners." If your hearts are drawn and moved at all, you can raise only one difficulty. You may say, "I am not worthy.” I know it. But this salvation is "worthy to be received.” If it were never to be received but by those who are worthy, verily the end of Christ's coming would be fruitless. Was Paul worthy? No, says he-" I am the chief of sinners!" Yet he accounted both this saying, and Jesus, the substance of the saying, "worthy to be received by him," and by the vilest of sinners in all ages. Jesus came to save sinners—not the worthy. Jesus "received gifts for the rebellious”—not for the worthy. Jesus "liveth to make intercession for transgressors"-not for the worthy. Then, let one, let all, upon this warrant receive this saying, i. e., "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ unto salvation." SERMON II. "The riches of his grace."—EPH. i. 7. The riches of Two most captivating words are contained in our text. The one captivates the worldling, the other the Christian. Riches and Grace! No music like riches in the ear of the worldling; no sound like grace in that of the Christian. But the one is all sound, the other all reality. The former is in truth, poor; the latter incalculably rich. God's grace are our riches, if we are in the faith. They form therefore a fit subject for our contemplation. The miser counts and recounts his treasures, and the Christian surely may attempt, at least, to reckon his, which are more precious far than gems or stores of gold. It will be but an attempt, for who can measure infinity, and comprehend eternity? The Apostle, contemplating this transcendant subject, exclaims, as if on the brink of an ocean without bottom"Oh, the deph! how unsearchable! how past finding out!" The more therefore we labor to know it, the more we shall find that "it passeth knowledge." It is a field, where the soul may range through everlasting ages, with infinite satisfaction, but without satiety. This makes it the soul's eternal delight, because every advance discovers new beauties and more light, with the certain prospect of still increasing beauties, and still increasing light. There are many particulars in which Jehovah is rich. As in wisdom: "In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." And in power: "He has all power in heaven and in earth." And in possessions: "All things, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers" in heaven or on earth, are His. And in glory: but how can a worm of the earth speak of His Glory, before whom angels, with trembling awe, cast their crowns, saying-"Thou art worthy O Lord, to receive glory and honor, and power?" Every attribute is but a ray of His glory; all combined do but illustrate the riches, the exceeding "riches of His grace." Divine power, and wisdom, and possessions, and glory, are golden reeds and scales to measure and to weigh His grace. What is the exceeding greatness of His power, as expressed in the works of creation, and especially in "raising Christ from the dead," and setting him at His own right hand in heavenly places, far above all principalities and powers? that is the measure of His grace. What is the depth of the riches of His wisdom, called by the Apostle, His "manifold wisdom?" Such is the depth of His grace. What the extent of His dominions? Such is the length and breadth of His grace. What is the brightness of His glory? No tongue can tell, no figure can express. Whatever it may be, He calls His grace His glory-yea, "The riches of His glory." + Well may His grace be termed "unsearchable riches," and "exceeding abundant grace." § Let us now see wherein the "riches of His grace" have been exhibited. The goodness of God to angels and man at the first creation was grace; but to demonstrate His im Rev. iv. 10, 11. + Eph. iii. 16. Eph. iii. 8. § 1 Tim. i. 14. mense love and goodness, we must consider what He has done for sinners. Creating goodness bears no more comparison to saving grace, than the light of the first day of creation did to the brightness of the fourth. While I, who am "less than the least of all saints" preach among you the unsearchable "riches of Christ," may you be filled with all the "fulness of God." I. We see the "riches of His grace," in having "predestinated men to the adoption of children," ver. 5, 6. We are by nature the children of the Devil, and of course, children of wrath. What did He? Did He swear, as He justly might, that we "should not enter into His rest," and that He would raise up another and a better race from the dust and the stones? No. Though He had spoken against the soul that sinneth, that "it should die," yet, He "earnestly remembered us still." His bowels moved towards us, and determined to receive us again into His family, and that, to a higher place; to be children and heirs, not with the morning stars who never fell, but with His Son Jesus Christ, and all "according to the good pleasure of His own will." In us, there was nothing to move His love, and every thing to move His wrath; but mercy triumphed over wrath. This He did when there was no arm to save, no, nor an eye to pity. Where did this divine purpose begin? On Calvary? No. In Bethlehem? Was it an after-thought, when Satan had marred the beauty of His moral creation? No. It was, says our Apostle,-"and he spake as he was moved by the Holy-Ghost"-" before the world began." Well may the Apostle break out-and oh! who would not join him?-in praising and glorifying this grace. II. The purpose was good, even if it could go no further; 9 |