seech you, in complying with the call, lest your gracious day should terminate in everlasting night. Soon death will knock, and to him you must open, or he will break down your door. Soon the trump of judgment will sound, and then you shall hear, "Behold, the Judge standeth before the door!" If the Saviour be refused admission, the Judge will punish the refusal by saying, "Depart, ye cursed;" and that voice you must both hear and obey. "Moved with fear" of these awful consequences of continued carelessness and unbelief, no longer harden your hearts, no longer resist the Holy Ghost.

(3.) By a motive of gratitude. He who stands at the door is Jesus, the great, and good, and lovely Redeemer. Your obligations to him are such as no words can adequately express. For you he

Was betrayed, forsook, denied;

Wept, languished, prayed, bled, thirsted, groaned, and died;
Hung pierced and bare, insulted by the foe;

All heaven in tears above, earth unconcerned below.-YOUNG.

Having by these sufferings procured all spiritual blessings for you, he comes to impart them to you. And will you, after all, refuse to bid him welcome? Instead of saying, with thankful joy, "It is the voice of my Beloved that knocketh," will you turn a deaf ear to his application? How vile, then, how abominable, will be your ingratitude! Besides, you have heard that he asks admission, not only for the purpose of causing you to sup with him on the communications of his grace to you, but for the purpose of supping with you on the fruits of those communications. After his hard toils and sufferings, the Mediator desires to be refreshed and satisfied by seeing of the travail of his soul in the salvation of yours. Did he behold you receiving the benefits of his death into a contrite and believing heart, the joy which was set before him, and for which he endured the cross, would be so far accomplished. How cruel is it, then, to deny him this gratification, this interesting part of his mediatorial recompense, the joy of saving you. To make him die in vain, to refuse him that for which he died, is clearly to "crucify him afresh," and worse

Vol. I.-9

even than the crime of those who crucified him at first. Would you exclude from your house, from the protection and comfort of your roof, the affectionate father or the tender mother to whom, under God, you owe your being? This would be shocking impiety. And is it not equally impious to exclude from your souls the Saviour who died to redeem you? Away, then, with excuses and delays; and, if neither necessity nor fear is strong enough to unbar the door, let gratitude break asunder every remaining bolt, and open your hearts to your best Friend.

3. Let those of you who are willing to admit the Saviour be comforted by the encouraging assurances of the text. You are anxiously longing for his entrance, and exclaiming, Come quickly in, thou heavenly Guest!" And, behold, he does come quickly. He is already at the door. He is nigh at hand, and not afar off. Only believe, and you shall soon see his salvation. For, "if any man," however long he may have resisted, or however foully he may have sinned, if even an adulterous David, an idolatrous Manasseh, a persecuting Paul, a backsliding Peter, "if any man" will "hear my voice, and open the door," will renounce his sins and embrace his Saviour, "I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." "" Penitent backsliders are included in this overture. Ye who are weary of being cut off from that delightful fellowship with Christ which was once your portion, you are not only included in the text, but it specially belongs to you. It was originally addressed to a backsliding Church, and to every backsliding individual here does Jesus now reiterate the gracious call.

4. To those of you who have admitted the Saviour I must also address the word of exhortation.

(1.) Be thankful. It is mentioned as a distinguished honor conferred on some of old, that they were permitted to entertain angels. (Hebrews xiii, 2.) Even the ministers and messengers of Jesus are highly valued and thankfully welcomed by all true Christians, who are ready to cry, with the Church of old, "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace; that

bringeth good tidings of good, that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth!" (Isaiah lii, 7.) But how much more thankful still should we be for the presence of Him who is the Lord of angels, and the Saviour of sinners! Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who thus visits and dwells in his people!

(2.) Be humble. The friendship between Christ and you, however intimate, is, after all, "a friendship of unequals."* Though he becomes our guest, yet he does not cease to be our King. We must therefore maintain a humbling sense of our littleness and unworthiness, even while he is honoring us with the most condescending tokens of his regard and love.

(3.) Be watchful, that you may not offend, by any unworthy treatment, your heavenly guest. Having opened your door to Christ, for ever shut it on sin and vanity. Beware of whatever would suspend or terminate your communion with the Saviour.

4. Be confident. "Fear not," said Cesar once to the mariners in whose vessel he was sailing during a storm, "for Cesar is aboard." With much greater propriety may we say to you who have realized the promise of the text, "Fear not, for Christ is in you!" The vessel cannot sink, however high the tempest, however rough the sea, in which Jesus deigns to dwell. The bush shall not be consumed by the hottest fire of temptation or affliction, if God be in the midst of it. Hold fast your Saviour in the arms of grateful love and obedient faith, and nothing shall be able to hurt you. All is well, infallibly and eternally well, when Christ is ours. May he grant us this grace!

* Sibbes.

1

VI.

THE MAJESTY OF THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION.

FOR IF THE WORD SPOKEN BY ANGELS WAS STEADFAST, AND EVERY TRANSGRESSION AND DISOBEDIENCE RECEIVED A JUST RECOMPENSE OF REWARD; HOW SHALL WE ESCAPE, IF WE NEGLECT SO GREAT SALVATION; WHICH AT THE FIRST BEGAN TO BE SPOKEN BY THE LORD, AND WAS CONFIRMED UNTO US BY THEM THAT HEARD HIM; GOD ALSO BEARING THEM WITNESS, BOTH WITH SIGNS AND WONDERS, AND WITH DIVERS MIRACLES, AND GIFTS OF THE HOLY GHOST, ACCORDING TO HIS OWN WILL?-Hebrews ii, 2-4.

THE blessed Jesus has admonished us that "unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall much be required;" and that "to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more." In proportion, therefore, to the religious advantages and opportunities which men are permitted to enjoy, will be the severity of their punishment if they neglect humbly and diligently to improve them. Hence it follows that the Jews, who lived under the dispensation of the law, and were favored with the clear and certain knowledge of the one true and living God, but who yet refused to worship and serve him, were more highly and heinously culpable than the heathen nations, who possessed no written revelation. It follows, also, that we, who live under the still more gracious and more glorious dispensation of the Gospel, incur much greater guilt than that which impenitent Jews incurred, and expose ourselves to greater severity of judgment, if we neglect our Christian privileges, and improve not the day of our most merciful visitation. This will be the awful condemnation of such that light, the full meridian blaze of light, came into the world, but they ungratefully persisted in choosing darkness rather than light. "Therefore," argues the apostle, in the opening of the chapter before us, "we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip."

May God himself assist me to speak, and you to hear, while I attempt to set before you,

I. The great salvation of which my text makes mention. II. The character of the persons who may be said to neglect it.

III. The certain perdition to which such persons are exposed.

I. The great salvation.

If you have attentively examined the connection and structure of the passage, you will not hesitate, I conceive, to admit that by this phrase our text intends to characterize the Gospel of Christ, as contrasted with the law of Moses the word spoken by the Lord himself, as excelling the word spoken by angels-the Christian dispensation, as distinguished from the Jewish.

The Gospel is called salvation,

1. Because salvation is the leading subject. Hence St. Paul defines it, when preaching at Antioch, as "the word of this salvation;" (Acts xiii, 26;) and when writing to the Ephesians, as "the word of truth, the Gospel of our salvation." (Ephesians i, 13.) The Gospel fully describes and freely offers salvation. It informs the guilty, polluted, helpless sons of men, that God has remembered them in mercy, and that the bared arm of Jehovah has wrought out deliverance for them. It informs them, further, that Jesus has accepted and executed the benevolent commission with which the Father graciously intrusted him; that he assumed human nature, magnified the law by his holy and spotless life, died on the cross to expiate our sins, rose triumphantly from the grave on the third day, and finally reascended in triumph to heaven, there to possess again the glory which he had with the Father before the world was, and to make continual intercession for us. It assures us that in consideration of his Son's suffering, and in honor of his Son's mediation, God has mercifully entered into a new covenant with man, a covenant of peace and grace; by which he engages not to impute to them their past sins, not to punish