resting would appear insignificant, compared with the offered salvation of the gospel of Christ. This would call out our energies. This would cheer our spirits. This only, and at all times would, like the ark to Noah, rise up before us, with all the interest of a prepared and appointed shelter, from an otherwise inevitable destruction.

And you, my Christian friends, be comforted. It is awful to think that the vengeance of God, which slumbereth not, will come suddenly, terribly, unexpectedly, and fatally upon the world: that the portion of creation in which we dwell, shall be involved in annihilating flames; and that if we have not something that can outlive the destructive power of almighty vengeance, that doom, sudden and unlooked for, must be ours. This is awful. But you have a sure word of prophecy,a sure foundation of hope. In that day that shall burn as an oven, God will spare his redeemed children, "as a father spareth his own son that serveth him." Your shield against all evil, is everlasting love, omnipotent mercy,-the eternal covenant of peace in Christ Jesus. The blood of Jesus speaketh better things than the blood of Abel. This cries for mercy with a louder voice than that for vengeance. And your garments washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb, shall pass harmlessly through the fire of judgment, so that their lustre shall not be changed, nor the smell of fire pass upon them. In looking forward, my friends, to that

awful day, we have no other confidence but the righteousness of him who was slain, and who is now at the right hand of God. But rest assured, that they who by his grace have really found refuge in his mercy, shall never perish. Whatever are the horrors of that last conflagration, they shall float innocently by the true servant of Christ; they shall bear him subserviently and peacefully to the eternal palaces of light.

SERMON VI.

THE BELIEVER'S PRIVILEGE.

1 JOHN III. 1.

Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God.

THIS first Epistle of John, is chiefly a letter of comfort and encouragement to those whom he considered to be truly sincere in the profession of the Christian faith. For this purpose he adopts many different modes of address, and among them we find the passage which we have just read. He had noticed the promise of eternal life, on which they were professing to rely; and had warned them of the risk of being led away from the comfort of that promise, by those who aimed to seduce them. But then he immediately referred them, as real followers of Christ, to that inward anointing which they had received from him, and which was to them a satisfactory testimony of the reality and sufficiency of the grace on which they reposed, and of the glory

for which they awaited. And then having so referred them to this internal testimony borne by the divine Spirit in their hearts, to the reality of their new and gracious relation to God; he calls upon them to survey with joy and gratitude, the privilege to which they had been so admitted, and the blessed source of divine love from which it flowed. "Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God."

This is unquestionably a most extraordinary privilege: yet it is one to which all the true disciples of Christ are admitted; and their right to it originates also in the very same principle of love, emanating from the divine mind upon our guilty race. So that the topic which St John set before the Christians of his day, is precisely the desirable subject for affectionate and grateful consideration by real Christians now. Let us then address ourselves to the examination of these two subjects of thought.

I. The privilege of the real Christian,—he is the son of God.

II. The source of the blessing,-it is the love of God.

And first, The privilege of the real Christian. He is the son of God. Even a casual reading of the epistle will shew any man, that the apostle speaks of this as the privilege and possession of

some only, not of all, nor of all who profess and call themselves Christians. For he lays down the principle very clearly, that there may be a false and futile profession of Christianity, and that “if we say we have fellowship with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth.” And this is still

"He that saith

further explained, when it is said, he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now." And again, "He that saith he abideth in him, ought himself also to walk even as he walked." By which we must understand, that if there are any professing Christians, whose habitual walk is contrary to the purity of the law of Christ, any walking in enmity or in falsehood, the apostle regarded them as excluded from the number of real Christians.

And observe again, also, that St John assumes all through the epistle, that those who really are Christ's know it. He speaks to them of a fact of which they are decidedly aware. He lays out in his statements a character of the true servant of God, to which he assumes as a matter of course, that their hearts and consciences will respond; and he speaks therefore of the internal experience, and the holy character of the believer, as a matter to which they will unhesitatingly give their assent. And most unquestionably whatever has tended in these latter days to gloss over the strong testimony of the apostle, to the substantial reality of Chris