priesthood of Christ that stamps completeness and perfection on the Gospel as a saving system. What would you have in a religion purporting to come from God that you do not find in the Gospel? No religion will suit your case, as a sinner, but a religion that first points out a deliverance for you from the guilt and punishment of sin. But the Gospel does this when it tells you that you have a great High Priest, who not only died to make atonement, but lives and reigns at the head of the kingdom of grace, to administer the blessings of salvation. It makes provision for the want of your souls in this most important point; it opens to you the gate of pardon and reconciliation. No religion, again, will answer your purpose that does not tell you how you may be rescued from the corruption and bondage of sin, and enabled to serve God in future. You feel yourselves to be not only guilty, but helpless and weak; depraved, inclined naturally to that which is evil, and unable to accomplish even your own best resolves and intentions. You must, therefore, have grace from above, strength that is extraneous. You must be led to the rock that is higher than yourselves. You must be pointed to the fountain from which streams of purifying influence may be derived. No religion is worth anything to you that does not tell you how you may become pure; how you may be delivered from the hands of your worst enemies, your sins, and enabled to serve God without fear. But the Gospel tells you this when it exhibits Christ as having by his death procured the sanctifying Spirit, and as dispensing that Spirit's influence to all who seek it. Thus you may be endued with divine power, strengthened by the Spirit's might in the inner man, and throughly furnished to every good word and work. Now, what would you have more? Why should you seek another religion? Why should you abandon the one you have been professing if it does all this for you? If it meets all your reasonable wants, if it provides for all the exigencies of your fallen nature; in one word, if it opens a way to holiness, to heaven, and to God, why should you exchange? Where will you get a better? Hold fast your profession: you cannot change for the better, and you cannot want more than it pro

vides. You will be infinite losers if you abandon it. There is no other scheme which undertakes to do so much for you. Of all who adhere to rival systems it may be said, "Their rock is not as our rock, our enemies themselves being judges:" and why should we abandon a house that is built on a rock in order to go and make the vain attempt to build one on the sand?

But the apostle may have meant to say, in the text, not so much that we ought not to abandon it, as that because of the priesthood of Christ we can hold it fast. It is a thing possible and practicable. Perhaps some of you may be saying, "I want no argument to convince me of the value of the Gospel; but I fear, from my own personal feebleness and fickleness, that I shall betray my trust in Christ; that I shall not be able to hold fast my profession. My temptations are so many, my adversaries are so mighty, and I am so frail at the best, that I fear it is impossible for me to stand my ground, to retain my religion, and obtain the promised recompense of steadfastness." Brethren, it would be impossible, if you were left to yourselves. But my text tells you that you are not left to yourselves; that you have "a great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God;" that this almighty Friend takes an interest in your case; that he has at heart your salvation; that, though passed into the heavens, he loves you as well as when for your sins he hung on the cross of Calvary; that the transition from the tree to the throne made no change in his regards to you; that he is "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever," the friend of sinners; that, having loved you to the death, he loves you still; that all the powers and prerogatives of his princely state are pledged and exerted in your favor; that he has resources of mercy and grace perfectly adapted to your necessity; that he is able to meet all your soul's desires; that he is waiting to be gracious; that he knows your weakness, and is ready to succor it; that he knows the hostility that is directed against you, and is engaged in counteracting and defeating it. Yea, and mightier is he that is for you than all they who are against you. You are not left to yourselves. Now, therefore,

A feeble saint may win the day,

Though death and hell obstruct the way."

"Fear not, thou worm Jacob:" thou hast a great High Priest, an almighty Saviour, a friend on the throne of glory. Jesus is concerned for thy victory. Fetch thy resources from him. Make use of him in his priestly character. Rely on the virtue of his atoning blood. Trust thy soul in his hands. Invoke his promised aid. Let thy life be one looking up to him as the author and finisher of thy faith. Then thou shalt be more than conqueror through him that loved thee. Let us hold fast our profession for we can do it. We can do all things through Christ strengthening us. May God grant us this grace!

X.

THE PLEASANTNESS OF RELIGION.

PART I.

HER WAYS ARE WAYS OF PLEASANTNESS, AND ALL HER PATHS ARE PEACE.—

Proverbs iii, 17.

TRUE religion is recommended to us in the Sacred Scriptures by motives exceedingly various. We are sometimes reminded that it is the way to honor; that the wise inherit glory; that they are kings and priests unto God, sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, the excellent ones of the earth even now, and destined to be hereafter the compeers and associates of angels in heaven. Sometimes the gain of godliness is the allurement particularly exhibited to our hopes; and we are assured that it is a pearl of great price; "profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come." In other passages we are invited to contemplate it as the one thing needful; absolutely, universally, and essentially requisite to our present and everlasting safety. And in our text we are informed that its pleasures are as pre-eminent as its honors; that its consolations are equal to its profits; and that its necessity is not more urgent and indisputable than its enjoyments are pure, exquisite, and permanent. "Her ways" (that is, the ways of wisdom, by which in this passage we are certainly to understand the ways of piety) "are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.

From these words I propose,

I. To explain, with as much precision as I can, the exact sense in which the text is to be understood, when it asserts that a life of religion is a life of pleasure.

ÍI. To evince the truth of the assertion thus defined and

explained.

III. To notice the peculiar and distinguishing excellence which the text ascribes to religious pleasures, namely, that they are peaceful, as well as delightful. For her ways are not only "ways of pleasantness," but also "paths of peace."

I. My object in the present discourse shall be to explain the exact sense in which it is asserted that a life of religion is a life of pleasure. This will serve to guard the passage against the abuses of some, and will be a sufficient answer to the unfounded objections which are urged by others. With this view, I observe,

1. When we say that there is an intimate alliance between religion and pleasure, we do not mean that religion sanctions or permits the pleasures of sin: those pleasures, to wit, which suit the taste and engross the attention of men of this world; and which either imply in their own nature some direct criminality, or are, at least, vitiated by circumstances and tendencies that are criminal. Such are the generality of what are falsely called "innocent amusements,”—those "things, or rather nothings, in which time that should be redeemed is 'killed,' God that should be remembered is forgotten, religious impressions that should be retained are effaced, and souls lost that should be saved."* To these unholy diversions, as well as to other prohibited indulgences, certain advocates have sometimes attempted to reconcile us, by talking much of the cheerfulness which belongs to piety, and of the connection which the Scriptures so often declare to subsist between religion and pleasure. Profane and miserable sophistry! which thus quotes the letter of the word of God for the purpose of evading its obvious sense and spirit, and pretends to derive from the sacred oracles themselves a license for gratifying sinful passions, and for conforming to the follies and vices of an ungodly world! Be not deceived, ye slaves of fashion and of sin: God is not to be mocked. Ye cannot serve two mas

* Cadogan's Discourses.