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you ; turn to your strong-hold, ye prisoners of hope: Great is your danger, if you continue longer in your present secure state ; the destroying angel pursues you with rapid step; the avenger of sin is at hand; the storms of divine wrath will sweep away every refuge of lies ; and there can be no salvation but in the Anointed of the Father.

How manifold, important, and encouraging, are the arguments which might be used for your complying with this exhortation !

I this day invite and earnestly beseech every individual to whom these words are addressed, to embrace the gracious Redeemer! By all the infallible certainty of your being blessed through your union with him; and by the equal certainty of your being punished with everlasting destruction, if ye will not have him to reign over you : By the bitter agonies he endured when he was wounded for your transgressions, and the benefits he procured when he offered himself a sacrifice of a sweet-smelling savour: By the unlimited offers of salvation which he makes to sinners of mankind : By all these solemn considerations, I beseech you to lay hold on his covenant, and to give yourselves unto the Lord.

Amen, so be it, and to his blessed name shall be all the glory. Amen.

SERMON

SERMON XVII.

THE STRONG CONSOLATION.

Heb. vi. 18.

That by two immutable things, in which it was

impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us.

Many form unjust notions of vital religion. They suppose it a dull and melancholy thing. When they embrace its doctrines, they consider themselves as bidding adieu to every thing which deserves the name of pleasure ; that they must be affected in their manners, singular in their opinions, and be devoted to a life of sorrow and mortification.

Such persons have assumed their mistaken notions of serious godliness, by listening to

the

the vain conversation and ensnaring principles of worldly men. Those who mind earthly things as their chief good, and who look only at what is seen and temporal, do not hesitate to say, “ Can any good thing come out of Nazareth ?” Or, Can any pleasure arise from a life spent in the ways

of holiness, and in communion with God?

All men wish for peace, and seek after happiness; but, alas! the greater part of the world are seeking safety in the broad way which leads to destruction, and attempt to secure their present happiness, in the

pursuit of those things which end in bitterness and death. Such may be addressed in the language of the inspired apostle, “ What fruit have you in those things of which you ought to be ashamed, the end whereof is death?” Satan is deceiving you as he deceived Eve, holding out the forbidden fruit, and saying, It is fair and good; but concealing from you that the sentence has

gone forth, and that, “ in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die."

To guard us against such fatal delusions, our text gives us a very different view of genuine godliness, and declares, that it yields

present

present comfort, and leads to future happiness : For, says the inspired apostle, and let his words be the rejoicing of

your heart, he has “ confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us."

The hope of which the apostle speaks is Christ himself, in all his suitableness and fulness; he is the foundation, the author, and the object of the Christian's hope. This hope, though hid from ages

and

generations, is now set before us, and made manifest, not by the light of nature, by the powers of reason, or by the discoveries of philosophy; but by the glorious gospel of peace and reconciliation.

The persons who flee for refuge to this hope, are made sensible of their danger, and sincerely concerned for deliverance ; they unfeignedly renounce their former false grounds of dependence, and most cordially rely on the Mediator for grace and glory.

These things we have already illustrated ; and we now propose, through divine aid, to

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