and receive the gifts of Him who has declared

Simon Magus is not commanded to pray in impenitency, but to repent of his wickedness, and pray God, &c. Acts viii. 22. Repentance and prayer to God for mercy, must necessarily go hand in hand; and so the call to both comes to the wicked at once. Accordingly the Lord frequently declares that he will not hear the prayers, nor accept the religious services, of the impenitent and incorrigibly wicked, and that they are offensive to him, as being nothing but profane mockery and solemn deceit. See Psl. i. 16. 23. Isa. i. 10. 16. lviii. 2. lxvii.3. Jer. vi. 19, 20. vii. 21-29. Amos v. 21-25. But all this is perfectly consistent with his calling the wicked to repent and apply to him for mercy; and if, like the publican, they comply with his call, he will not despise their prayer. — It must be granted, therefore, that while divine grace is absolutely free, preventing, and unsolicited, yet it is no way inconsistent with this, to command and exhort all men everywhere to repent, believe the Gospel, call upon the Lord, &c. on the contrary, it is one of the methods of divine grace, wherein the Lord is beforehand with men who were not seeking after him, and by which he draws their attention, and brings them to the actual enjoyment of his favour; who, till they were made to hear his voice in these calls, were intent upon something else as the foundation of their hope and happiness."-M'Lean's Works, vol. i. p. 383-391.

From the above statements we may conclude, in the appropriate language of Dr. Chalmers, that "there is a line of effort that is productive. There is a path, along which the light of evidence will dawn; and that which is impossible to be seen without it, will be seen by it; and that, too, without distortion or unnatural violence upon the faculties. We are bidden to seek the pearl of great price, and there must be a way of it. It is quite obvious, and not at all impracticable, to read the Bible with attention; and to wait upon ordinances, and to give vent to the desirousness of our hearts in prayer, and to follow conscience in the discharge of all known duties—and the truth which is unto salvation, and by the knowing and believing of which we acquire everlasting life—a truth that never can be seen while an opaque and impenetrable shroud is upon it, will at length break out into open manifestation. It does not do to be so urged by a sense of the necessity of faith, as to try the impracticability of making faith outrun the evidence. But it does well to be at the post, and along the path of inquiry and exertion, where it is promised that the light of this evidence will be made to shine upon us. If we keep by our duties

My salvation shall be for ever, and my righteous"ness shall not be taken away.

We are now sufficiently prepared to distinguish

and our Bibles, like the Apostles who kept by Jerusalem till the Holy Ghost was poured upon them, there is not one honest seeker who will not in time, be a sure and triumphant finder. And we ought to commit ourselves, in confidence to this course, assured of the prosperous result that must come out of it. We ought not to be discomposed by our anxieties about the final attainment. Though the alternative of our heaven or hell hang upon the issues of our seeking to be justified by faith, still we ought not to try and toil to make our faith outrun the light of conviction. It should be our great encouragement, that it is not merely he who has found the Lord, that is called upon to rejoice, but that it is said by the Psalmist, "Let the heart of them rejoice that seek the Lord." "Ask, and "it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall "be opened unto you." Psl. cv. 3. Luke xi. 9. Chalmers Essay to Serle's Christian Remembrancer, p. 10, 11.

* The grand stumbling-block to this reception of God's free gifts, is the pride of man. As Mr. Erskine says:-" He is naturally unwilling to be a receiver, for the fall of man consists in the spirit of independence,—in the setting up of self in the place of God,-in an averseness to be a receiver. Now can there be any thing so subversive of the principle of independence in him,—so humbling to self,—and so well fitted to restore to him the character of a mere receiver,-as the knowledge of the fact, that he can positively do nothing towards his own deliverance, and that his only escape from absolute ruin-his only hope for time and for eternity, lies in a free, unsolicited, unthought of, and most costly gift of love, laid down at his door by that God whom he has been neglecting, and despising, and resisting, from his youth up until now.—It is a principle of common sense, -as it is a principle always taken for granted in the Bible, that the ground of a man's hope, and expectation, and dependence, must command his will and mould his character. As long as he depends on himself, or has hope of delivering himself by his own exertions, so long will he hold and maintain the independence of his own will. He may wish to do many things that are right, and he may do many things that are honourable to himself, and useful to others, and yet all the while

8 Isa. li. 8.

the recipients of this grace, and clearly to understand the character and condition of those, who can take up the Apostle's challenge, and apply it to themselves: "He that spared not his own Son, "but delivered him up for US ALL, how shall he not with him also freely give US all things ?"

it is not the will of God, but his own will, that he follows. Nothing short of an absolute despair of delivering himself, or helping himself at all, can cut the roots of his self-will. And nothing short of an absolute dependence on God's unmerited grace for every thing, can graft him on the root of God's will. And thus nothing but a true sense of the absolute unconditional gratuitousness of the Gospel, can write the law of God on the heart of man. And yet this doctrine of gratuitousness is opposed as if it were antinomian. But the true reason of the opposition is, that it opposes the pride of man :-he therefore opposes it. There is, indeed, something very striking in the perverse ingenuity with which he endeavours to dilute the medicinal virtue of the Gospel. He must have self to lean on, and so when he is obliged to surrender his own works, he betakes himself to his own faith, as his prop. But this is still self; and in whatever form it appears, as long as it is the ground of hope, it must command the will. And surely this is the chief reason why the Gospel contains so many evident declarations on the part of God, that beside him there is no Saviour, and that man is absolutely incapable of doing any thing in the work of his own redemption, and that his interference only spoils it. Any thing of man's own must be bad, because the growing out of his own root, is itself the original offence and disorder; he ought to be a branch, and not a separate plant. I am quite satisfied that self is the great antinomian, because it is the great antichrist; and that where self acts in this matter, and tries to establish a claim to the benefits of Christ's death, either by faith or by works, it incapacitates us for spiritual obedience, by cutting us off from the true source of spiritual life. Thus we may, in some measure, understand, how the very gratuitousness of the gospel may lead to its rejection, because this very gratuitousness is, in fact, a declaration on the part of God, that man can do nothing for himself, and thus it is an offence to his pride."-Erskine's Essays on the Freeness of the Gospel. 12mo. p. 139–142.

P

Lastly, then, we have to inquire, to whom these things are given? And this will more strikingly appear, by considering the question negatively.

Are there any here, who impiously deny the doctrine of atonement through a Saviour's blood? If so God's grace in man's Redemption cannot extend to you; for "without shedding of blood "there is no remission," and it is only "the blood "of Jesus Christ his Son, (that) cleanseth us from "all sin." 1

Are there any here, who, in defiance to the blaze of evidence that illumines every page of the New Testament, would presume to question the divinity of the Saviour, and would bring down the high and holy nature of our incarnate Mediator, to the level of a delegated creature? If so-to you then pertain not "the adoption, nor the covenant;"" for "the Mediator between God and men, 993 through whom alone we can obtain the adoption of sons,* is "heir of all things," and the Creator of all things, one with the Father, in whom "dwelleth "all the fulness of the Godhead bodily:" he is "Immanuel, God with us." And "if (said he,) " ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins." 1

6

9

Are there any here, who, admitting" that Jesus

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4

" is come in the flesh "to save sinners,' 99 3 yet heretically hold the monstrous doctrine, that he took upon him sinful flesh? If so-to you neither do the promises belong; for the promises are made only to the believer in Jesus, as he is revealed: and Jesus, as he is revealed, was "made like unto "his brethren in all things," and "was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."5 Are there any here, who, denying the Scriptural grounds that have been stated, for the necessity of Redemption, represent man as only partially corrupt, and as able to turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength, to faith, and calling upon God"-contrary to the doctrine of our Church, and the whole tenor of Scripture? If so you the gifts cannot be freely given-gifts which are wholly of grace-to you who would purchase them by your own merits, and with a fruitless and a cheerless search, would obtain them for yourselves.

to

Are there any here who receive the Gospel only as a more perfect system of morality which Christ came to deliver, admitting him in his prophetical office as a teacher come from God," and as proving his mission by a miraculous power deputed to him?

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If so for you, then, God delivered not up his own Son: for the ground of the challenge, "who is he that condemneth ?"

21. John, iv. 2.

5 Heb. iv. 15.

3 1 Tim. i, 15.
6 1 John, iii. 2.

4 Heb. ii. 17.