all, that they which live, (live through His death,) should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them, and rose again." You see then, that till a conviction, a deep heartfelt conviction is awakened, that in our natural state we are dead-spiritually "dead in trespasses and sins," and must have remained, helpless and hopeless, in this awful state of spiritual death here, and hereafter have suffered all the unutterable horrors of eternal death, had not the Son of God, as our substitute and sacrifice, by dying in our stead, offered up in the nature which had sinned an all-sufficient atonement for sinners, and thus, by His obedience unto death, brought in an everlasting righteousness, for the justification of all who believe on Him-till such a conviction is wrought in the soul by the Holy Spirit, a man cannot feel the want of such a Saviour, or the worth of such a salvation as the Scriptures reveal, and consequently cannot feel, in all its subduing and sanctifying influences, the constraining love of Christ.

This furnishes an explanation of that most melancholy fact-which might otherwise seem inexplicable, considering the stupendous display of divine love exhibited in our redemption-why the Redeemer is still so 66 despised and rejected of men"-why among those who profess His religion, so few comparatively even desire to love Him, in any measure as he deserves to be loved! Even

because so few feel their awful and affecting need of Him; so few believe, cordially believe, that they are so entirely ruined, and so altogether unable to do any thing for their own recovery, as to require such a Deliverer, and to be willing to accept such a way of deliverance, so humbling to human pride, as the Gospel of the grace of God proclaims ! How can they who have never, under a conviction of their own sinfulness, shuddered at seeing the weight of Jehovah's righteous wrath ready to fall on their guilty souls, and sink them down to hell, or felt this eternal weight of wrath to be as deserved as it is dreadful-how can they love, as they should do, that compassionate Saviour, who, that the blessings of a reconciled God might be showered down on hell-deserving sinners for His sake, consented that the vials of His Father's wrath against sin should be poured out on His self-devoted head! Who is grateful for deliverance, that does not apprehend danger? Who is thankful for the offers of escape from a prison in which he delights to dwell; or the unloosing of fetters which he loves to wear? Go-visit an asylum where the victims of a disordered imagination are confined; address yourself to one, who by the creative workings of his bewildered brain has converted the place of his confinement into a palace, and his fantastic dress into royal robes, and the companions of his captivity into the attendants of his court: tell him

you are come, after a fatiguing and painful journey, to release him from his confinement, and restore him to his family and friends; he hears you without a sensation of pleasure or gratitude; refuses, perhaps indignantly, your friendly offer of release, and pointing to the imaginary splendors which surround him, laughs and dances, in the wild delirium of frenzied enjoyment. Alas! and what else than such an asylum must this world appear to those angelic beings who are the invisible spectators of its inhabitants-and see so many of them under the influence of a bewildering infatuation, priding themselves in a fancied righteousness-exalting themselves in imaginary grandeur! and saying "I am rich, and increased in goods, and have need of nothing"-and not knowing that they are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked"—and though the curse of a broken law is hanging over them, and the frown of an angry God is louring on them, all the while the smile of gaiety sparkles in their cheeks, and the loud laugh of merriment bursts from their lips; and while tottering on the very brink of an eternity of woe, they exhibit the frightful spectacle of maniacs on a precipice's edge, dancing in their chains!—and when the Almighty Deliverer, who came down from Heaven, to open the prison doors, and give deliverance to the captives of Satan-when He comes in His mercy, and offers to release these victims of

a disordered imagination from the degrading captivity in which they are enthralled, they turn from Him with cold contempt, refuse His offers-perhaps with indignant scorn-and rush back into their prison house, to plunge once more into its scenes of phrenzied riot, and amidst its wild delirious enjoyments to lose all thoughts of Him— His offers of mercy-His visit of redeeming love; and all His infinitely precious gifts of present grace, and eternal glory! Are not these men mad,— though esteemed by the world, and esteeming themselves the only wise? But does any asylum for maniacs in our land present cases of more deplorable idiocy-more terrible insanity, than this?

Go next to a prison, where a condemned criminal, who has been found guilty of treason against his Sovereign, is brooding, in the silence of darkness and despair, over the horrors of his approaching execution. Visit him the fatal morning when he is to terminate a life of guilt by a death of shame; see him, as you open the door of his solitary cell, casting ashuddering look of unutterable agony at the thought that the dreadful hour is come! and then-when the cold damp of approaching death is stealing over him, and his heart is fainting within him, let a stranger suddenly appear, and announce to him that his pardon is granted! that his Sovereign's mercy has been extended to him, and that he is free

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to go forth from his dungeon to light, and life, and liberty. Imagine the speechless joy and gratitude with which he flings himself at the feet of the messenger mercy, and bathes them with his tears; but picture, if you can, his feelings, were he told that this messenger of mercy is his offended Sovereign's only and well-beloved Son! and that he has come to release the rebel, by suffering in his stead, and to save his life, by laying down his own! Oh! my friends, what would be that man's feelings, when he beheld the chains just taken off himself fastened on his deliverer; when he saw the prison doors which were opened for himself, closed on his generous self-sacrificing friend; and a few days after beheld Him dragged from the dungeon, and hurried along, bound and bleeding, amidst the shouts and insults of an infuriated populace, to the place of execution; and there, amidst the most. excruciating agonies, submitting to the death of ignominy and torture from which He thus saved the rebel that He loved! and suppose yet further, that by virtue of, and as a reward bestowed by the Sovereign on his well-beloved Son for this generous act of self-devotedness, that rebel were not only pardoned, but raised to the highest honours his Sovereign could confer-ranked not merely among the nobility, but the princes of the court*.