but their lives testify, that they are rejecters of his mercy. It was long ago predicted that this would be the case. "He is despised and rejected of men." "He shall be for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence." In the language of Simeon, "he is set....for a sign which shall be spoken against." What now is the reason of a fact so strange? That he should be received and loved, coming on such an errand of love, would not be strange. He deserves the confidence and homage of the world. Why then do men reject him? The cause lies deep in that moral disease, that controlling depravity, which infects and pervades man's nature. That, which constitutes an urgent reason for the reception of Christ, operates as the efficient and deadly cause of his rejection. But where lies the specific objection or difficulty? Where the point of repulsion? In the character or the doctrine, in the nature or the principles of Christ? It is not in the character. Worldly unsanctified men care but little, whether Christ is Divine, superangelic, or merely human. When the dignity of Christ is lowered, it is done, not because that dignity in itself considered, is offensive, but for the purpose of escaping from certain disrelished moral consequences which are invariably associated with that Divine and supreme dignity; namely, the fact and necessity of atonement for sin by the death of Christ, and the necessity of inward spiritual regeneration by the Holy Ghost.

It is, emphatically, the cross that is an offence-an offence which never will cease but with sin. Atonement and regeneration are not barren dogmas, unmeaning speculations; they are heavenly truths, instinct with life, humbling and joyous in their efficacy. They are humbling; they do what God intended they should do--stain the pride of all human glory, divest the transgressor of all ground of boasting-and lead him to acknowledge, if saved, that it is wholly by grace-that he is a brand plucked from the burning.

The doctrine of the necessity of spiritual regeneration, a change of heart by the power of the Holy Ghost, implies, yea proceeds upon the broad ground that there is no moral goodness, no true love to God in the natural heart-the heart of the sinner. It is because there is none, that it must be produced-because men are dead in sins, that they must. be quickened and raised to life by the power of God. But how plain to see, that we are on disputed, resisted, hated ground. Bring home this truth to the bosom of the individual sinner, and how often will he repel it with marked displeasure. Still it is the distinct testimony of God, that the carnal mind is not only without love to God, but "is eumity against God, is not subject to his law, neither indeed can be." This testimony is rejected, on account of the pride of the human heart; and the gospel is rejected, and the Saviour thrust away, because he presses

the fact of sin, and then bases upon it the unqualified declaration, "Ye must be born again."

The doctrine of atonement proceeds upon the ground that our own best righteousnesses are but as filthy rags-that we cannot, by any obedience, morality, prayers, almsgiving, procure the forgiveness of our sins and propitiate the favor of offended Deity. On this account, especially, is the cross an offence, namely, its conclusiveness. There is no other possible mode of pardon. Every thing else, however lovely and of good report among men, goes for nothing here. You must lay your guilty soul down in the dust before God, to be sprinkled with this blood, and pardoned by this dying goodness, or it must lie for ever under the wrath and curse of the Almighty. Men generally dislike to be thus stripped of all personal merit, and to be shut up to one way, one name, method and faith. Yet the gospel does this. Christ is this only name; his blood the only ground of forgiveness. Hence he becomes an object to be spoken against.

These feelings of dislike and repugnance would keep all from the Saviour and heaven, if left to themselves. Blessed be God that any are subdued and saved. The reason is found in the electing love of God, and the administered grace of the Holy Spirit.

IV. We are now prepared for our main point-the consequences which are to result in eternity from Christ's coming into the world, or the influence of his coming upon human destiny. He is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel: that is, for the fall of some and the rising of others. Christ did not come for this purpose, that some might perish under a more aggravated condemnation. His coming is simply the occasion. Just as in the passage in which God gives a direction to the prophet. "Go tell this people, hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed." The meaning is not, that there would be exerted upon these rejecters of the message of God a directly and positively blinding and hardening influence; but that they would be blinded, and hardened, and destroyed, in consequence of voluntarily and wickedly perverting and disobeying the truth of God. The truth resisted always has a hardening effect. It invariably accomplishes something. It becomes the occasion of a hastened and deepened perdition, where it does not sanctify and guide to life and blessedness. So Christ is set for the fall of some, for the rise of others. He is a rock of hope, on which some will build and be saved; and also a rock of offence, on which some will dash and be broken-a rock of retribution, which will fall upon others and grind them to powder.

But the particular thought I would present is, that Jesus the Christ will be the occasion of the fall of some, and of the redemption of others. And the question is, what will it be, on the one hand, to fall from a Saviour's proffered help into the dark world of wo, and on the other, to rise, through a Saviour's grace and efficacy, from a world of sin to the heavenly Paradise.

In the first place, we will consider the fall as resulting, notwithstanding the coming and benign efforts of Christ. Had not Christ come, all would have fallen and perished; now, only a part-but far more deeply and dreadfully than they would have done, had no Saviour been provided and proffered them. And how does this appear?

It appears from the sayings of Jesus Christ. "Wo unto thee, Chorazin! wo unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidou, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee." Here we have a great general principle; and it applies to us as distinguished from those who have not the knowledge of a Saviour. It declares that punishment will be proportioned to light and privilege abused; it teaches, on the authority of Christ, that if we fall, our fall will be immeasurably aggravated, beyond what it would have been, had we not received these offers of grace and heaven. Reason and common sense confirm this principle. Let the question return :

Why will the fall of those who fall from a Saviour's interposition be more deep and dreadful? We answer-Christ presented in his benign offices, and not received but rejected, perhaps scorned, serves to foster and strengthen the depravity of that heart which so treats the Son of God. All heavenly truth is, as it were, embodied in the glorious person of Jesus Christ. There is something, yea much, in Christ which will stir all the elements and energies of feeling. Christ has always been an exciting subject. On such a theme, and doctrine, and glory, none but stones and blocks can be indifferent. Christ brings out the heart, and rouses to intensity its strongest emotions. Consequently, where there is dislike, there is decided dislike. "He that is not for me is against me." He that does not receive, rejects-every time Christ is presented, positively, palpably rejects him. Now this wrong moral action, persisted in, on such a question as the reception and service of a Saviour, must have, does have, a powerful tendency to strengthen and consum

mate the reign of sin in the soul. Pride is cherished-dislike of holiness and opposition to the ways and kingdom of God lamentably augmented.

Again, the ruin will be dreadful, because guilt, criminality, is also vastly increased. "If I had not come and spoken to them they had not had sin." "This is the condemnation, that they have not believed on the name of the only begotten Son of God." These passages seem to imply, that the guilt of rejecting Christ is so enormous, that it causes all other kinds of guilt, as it were, to shrink into nothing before it. "A sign that shall be spoken against." The meaning or implication of this is, that Christ is a signal unparalleled instance of a benefactor neglected and contemned. He is an unparalleled benefactor-all love, kindness, and glowing desire to bless unworthy men-stooping from heaven to the astonishment of heaven-taking the form and lowliness of a servant -submitting to every thing for the welfare of the world. But the cry has been, all the world over, "Away with him, we will not have this man to reign over us, and be our Saviour and king." And some, more daring, have said, "Crush the wretch, and obliterate his name and cause from the records of earth." And others have stupidly cared for none of these things--neither for Christ, nor for their own souls. Christ came to his own, and they received him not. He has stood, and wept, and pleaded over the world he made, and urged the gifts of his love with long and tender entreaty ; and is grieved, and wounded, and crucified afresh, if there can be pain in heaven, at the cold rejection and deadly scorn of the beings he would gladly bless with his grace and crown at last with heavenly glory. The guilt of all this is measureless in amount-red in its coloring like murder itself. For he that goes on in this way, does unnecessarily, knowingly, wantonly destroy, with suicidal atrocity, the life, by perpetrating the second death upon his own soul. Perhaps you will say, these are strong expressions. They are so, but they are not extravagant. They do not transcend the truth: indeed, they do not reach the inconceivable height, and depth, and darkness of guilt, which will adhere to, and press upon, our souls, as a burning attribute of wo, if we live, if we die, at variance with Jesus Christ.

There is another thing which will aggravate the misery of those who fall from a Saviour's love to perdition's wailings: namely, the retrospect of the past-of an abused and lost probation-that there was a price put into their hands to get wisdom, but they had no heart to do it. Those who thus fall into hell, will have unquestionably a vivid and active memory. What and where they were, the blessings that begirt them, the Saviour that besought them, the pardon that was proffered again and again, times without number, with tears of entreaty, and the

Spirit's striving-all will be thought of, and new throes of anguish will ensue, and regrets, which will pierce and rend the soul that utters them "Oh that we had accepted that Saviour! why did we not? What were we about? Inexpressible madness and mystery!" Think of these things now, my hearers, while you stand on praying ground. You will think of them in eternity. But do not wait till destiny puts her iron hand, insupportably heavy, as the mountain of the Almighty's displeasure, upon you.

We now pass to a more pleasing part of our subject. Almost every subject in the gospel has two sides—a side of sin and wo, and a side of recovery and joy. There will be two sides at the judgment; there will be two conditions in eternity. While some will fall, others will rise. It remains to speak of the glory and blessedness of that "rising;" or rather, of some of the elements and characteristics of the redeemed soul's happiness.

Let us first glance at the depth of ruin and darkness from which that rising commenced, and the means by which it was effected. That soul, now in heaven, perfectly holy, was once a totally depraved spirit on the earth. Its depravity corresponded, we will suppose, with that of a Col. Gardiner, or an Earl of Rochester; it plunged in all pollution, practised all licentiousness for a time, and uttered all blasphemies, except the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost; was miserable in its rebellion, and said, as did one of those men, "Oh that I were that dog!" This is a strong case, but some such, without doubt, are in heaven. The Saviour had purposes of mercy-designing to show the mighty power of his Spirit, and the unsearchable riches of his grace. He visited that soul with regenerating grace, and it began to be holy. It grew, and put on more and more of the brightness of the heavenly pattern. It fulfilled its course of earthly obedience and patience, then left the body and went up to its reward in heaven. How high, how blest that rising. How wide and wonderful the contrast. Look at it-a depraved being of earth, object of Jehovah's disgust, lying under condemnation and at the gate of eternal misery, lifted up to the city, and palace, and throne of God-once all polluted, now perfectly holy; once with a body of death, now in a state of glorious immortality.

This furnishes us with one of the peculiar and thrilling characteristics or properties of the happiness of the redeemed. It is not merely safety, but safety after the most threatening peril; not merely peace, but peace after the agitations and tossings of tempest and storm; not merely purity, but purity after the debasement and odiousness of pollution and guilt; not merely stability and joy, but these after vicissitudes and trials, which made the heart to bleed with keenest anguish.