cipated from his former bondage to sin, and enjoying God's service as his most perfect freedom. We find him casting his eyes by faith upwards to the holiest of all, and now anticipating with desire and delight that futurity, the very thought of which had formerly made him tremble. The night which hung over him has fled; the sun has arisen; the impediments have been cleared away. The objects which are now before him appear in all their loveliness and grandeur. He has become a beauteous and living stone in that holy temple which God honours with his presence, and fills with his peace.

We have thus seen what are some of the blessed effects of the gospel remedy when applied by the Holy Ghost. It removes man's guilt; it purifies his corruption; it rectifies his alienation; it strengthens his weakness. And if it be then thus beneficent in reference to the case of a single individual, oh, how surpassingly glorious shall be the results when this remedy shall be extended and applied to the whole race of Adam upon the earth!

You have seen the state of man by nature; you have heard of some of the experiments he, in his wisdom, made for his relief; you have marked their total failure; you have contemplated the remedy which the wisdom of God devised, and you have observed some of its blessed effects upon an individual of the human race. Look now finally at the effects it will produce upon the whole world. Let this word of the cross— let this Spirit of the crucified one go forth among the nations of the earth, and then the day when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy, would be deemed, in comparison, but as the

darkness of the dawn when contrasted with the splendour of the full meridian. Then, indeed, a globe was created most fair and beauteous to behold, as it rolled along in its majestic course. Still it was but a mass of inert matter. But with what joy and triumph shall these sons of God look upon that same globe when filled with rational, purified, and immortal minds, influenced by God's grace, devoted to his glory!

Let us think only of what will be the character of the world's institutions when this gospel shall have pervaded the great family of mankind. Despotism will cease, oppression and cruelty will be unknown; all human laws will be tinctured with the mild, liberal, beneficent spirit of the gospel. The dwellings of rich and poor will be scenes of harmony and joy. The church will throw its sacred character over the world; both will present the same proofs of renown, and angels will rejoice to behold in both the manifold wisdom of their God. Men shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruninghooks. No sword shall be wielded but the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. No threat shall be held out but the denunciations of God against sin. No sound of artillery shall be heard but the artillery of heaven, proclaiming by the mighty angel the everlasting gospel to all nations and tribes on earth. The various denominations of the saints shall then be lost in the common name of Christian; and the feelings which now divide, and sub-divide, and estrange, shall then, united, send up the language of united prayer to one Father. No party Shibboleth shall then distract or confuse the simple-minded worshipper; but all shall acknowledge one Lord, one faith, one baptism.

Then the nations that have never heard of his fame shall be made to experience his grace, and shall send up common praises with those who have long known his salvation; and then the ambition of power, and the grasping of gain, and the struggling for distinction, shall all be swallowed up in love to the only and all-wise God our Saviour.

The Lord hasten it in his time. Amen.

with trembling. It is that perfection of the Deity, even his mercy in Jesus Christ, that we are now called to contemplate; and if there are those present whose consciences are awakened, who feel alarmed at the view of their past transgressions, and at the prospect of the deserved and dreaded punishment, then, though every other promise were erased from the Bible, here is that which is well suited to meet their case, to fill their hearts with strong consolation, with joy unutterable,"Come now, and let us reason together, saith Jehovah ; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool."

In this gracious and condescending address of God to sinners, there are three points embraced:—

I. There is assumed the existence of aggravated guilt.

II. There is expressed the promise of pardoning mercy.

III. There is required the exercise of wise consideration.

I. There is here assumed the existence of aggravated guilt. The sins of those addressed are supposed to be red as scarlet, or as crimson. With us there is a distinction between these two things; the one denoting a bright red, and the other, a red darkened with blue. But it is needless to suppose that distinction here, for it is believed that only one and the same colour is intended by the two words employed in the original. They designate the worm-colour, or worm-dye, which is also the meaning of our word vermilion, because it

was obtained from a worm or insect found in the excresence which grows on a species of evergreen oak. The radical meaning of the expression scarlet, conveys the idea of shining brightness; and, according to some, it implies also the being double-dyed; and the term rendered crimson, is just the name of the worm itself, from which the tincture was extracted, repeated with the view of imparting variety and intensity to the expression; "Though your sins be red as the bright double-dyed worm-colour, yea, though they be as red as the worm itself."

It is important to mark the fact, that this colour was a fast or fixed colour. Neither rain, nor washing, nor long use could remove it, and hence it fitly represents the inherent, inwrought, immovable, and permanent indwelling of sin in the soul of fallen man. No human means can wash it out; no effort of man or angel, no outward rites, no prayers, no sacrifices, no tears are sufficient to efface from the heart one of the red stains of sin. It is deep-seated there, as was scarlet in the wool and cloth. To discharge the strong colour is beyond the skill and power of man, a skill and power divine can alone effect it. Now the Jews, to whom the words of the text were first addressed, were, as a people, characterised by sins of the deepest dye; and the whole of the previous part of this chapter is taken up, as we request you specially to observe, with a dreadful yet most melancholy representation of their deep depravity and heinous crimes. If we take a view of all these enormities (more especially in connexion with the high and abundant privileges with which they were favoured,) we shall perceive something of the awful guilt under which they lay, and