-too humbling to pride. The sinner is not required "to do some great thing," he is not called on, like the votaries of idols, to cut and lacerate his flesh, or give the fruit of his body for the sin of his soul,—he is not commanded to make any atonement or offer any equivalent. In short, he is even not permitted or expected to do, or to suffer, or to sacrifice any thing which might form a ground of dependence, or be regarded as a price for pardon. No, he is simply invited to believe with his heart unto righteousness, and make confession with his mouth unto salvation. Is a voice heard crying, as from the lowest hell, "What must I do to be saved?" the response is borne down from the highest heaven, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And when that voice is heard and listened to-the heart is bowed down in lowest penitence; then the blessing of salvation is secured the believer's peace and happiness are now held sacred by the very God who till now had condemned him-for it comports with the wisdom of his counsels, as well as the equity of his government, "to save them that believe."

You may see, then, from these considerations, that one striking evidence of the wisdom of God in the preaching of the cross, which men consider foolishness, is this-viz., that it is designed to counteract the very sins, the peculiar offences, by which man fell. He fell by unbelief; he rises by faith. He fell by pride; he is restored by a way of humility. He fell by selfdependence; he is saved in self-renunciation. He lost himself by a vain desire after wisdom; he must return to God by what he naturally deems foolishness. He sinned by presumptuous curiosity; the wisdom of

God humbles him at the very root of the tree of
knowledge, and compels him to give up his pride of
understanding and submit to faith. So that every
thing, you perceive, connected with the cross of Christ,
opposes the reigning evil of our depraved heart.
Human wisdom receives not the doctrine; human
pride comprehends it not; human unbelief spurns it
away. But all these things must be brought down, if
we would be saved. Repentance begins in humility;
-Faith moves in it as in its proper atmosphere, claim-
ing nothing but from undeserved favour-looking for
nothing but from the mercy of the Lord. Prayer is
the breathing of humility;-Justification is a free gift,
-Salvation is of grace, not of works, lest any man
should boast. "By grace are we saved through faith,
and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God." Holy
obedience is but the fruit of humble submission. In
short, every step, every act, every feeling of a Chris-
tian—all is of faith, and therefore all is humility. And
the reason is just this,-Sin changed the way to hap-
piness. In the first creation God wished to draw men
to the knowledge of himself by the use of their reason,
and the consideration of the wisdom of his works.
the second, the new creation, He draws men by the
alleged folly of the word of the cross, and by the sub-
jection of their reason and will to the doctrine of
faith.

"Oh, how unlike the complex works of man,
Heaven's easy, artless, unencumber'd plan!
No meretricious graces to beguile,

No clustering ornaments to clog the pile;
From ostentation as from weakness free,
It stands-like the cerulean arch we see-
Majestic in its own simplicity;

In

Inscribed above the portal, from afar
Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,

Legible only by the light they give,

Stand the soul-quickening words- Believe and live!'"

All is of faith-simple faith-that all may be seen to be of grace.

But while man has to believe the gospel testimony, and avail himself by faith of the gospel remedy, let us not forget that we found it was one of the worst symptoms in his moral malady, that he has an alienated mind also, which must be brought back to God. You can conceive the case of a sinner having his sins blotted out, and his native enmity to God and godliness still retaining its influence over him. But we have here a scheme made known, which is designed to meet that want also, and to bring us back to the God from whom we had all wandered, and against whom we had all deeply revolted. When we are brought to him by faith in the cross, we do not come merely to have our iniquities pardoned and our sins covered. A criminal may hear that his prince has forgiven him all his crimes, and while he hears it, his heart may swell with new projects of vice and rebellion against the very sovereign who has granted him an amnesty. But it is not so with the gospel; such is the character of the remedy which it provides, that every part of it appeals to and affects the heart.

Whether you look at its contrivance, its execution, or its application, it bears the stamp of unspeakable kindness;—it speaks of constraining love; and thus does it come to the heart, which mercies had not moved, nor judgments awed, that it may bestow

upon that heart countless and inconceivable benefits. When we see the divine Saviour quitting the abode of glory, the seat of bliss, and becoming a man upon the earth;—when we see him leading a life of labour, poverty, and shame;-when we see him under the load of untold sorrows in the garden of Gethsemane; —when we hear the multitude, who but yesterday would have worshipped him, now raising the maddening shout, "Crucify him! crucify him!"-and when we then turn to Calvary, and see him, amid scoffing Jews and barbarous Romans, at once the sport of earth and hell;—and when we find him, in the midst of all this, retaining unsubdued kindness and tenderest compassion and love-excusing his timid friends, and praying for his murderous foes ;-when we remember that, in bearing all this with meek unmurmuring spirit, he had no motive of personal gain, and could derive no personal benefit, and asked for no recompense but to raise to glory those whom he might have sunk to perdition,-oh! there is something in all this which touches the heart, and softens and slays the enmity, and brings the soul up out of its corruption and back from its alienation, and causes it to yield all its powers unto him who gave himself that he might save them all.

But we found that another fatal symptom in man's deadly disorder is helplessness. And if the gospel remedy brings, as we have now seen, love into that heart which was heretofore filled with an enmity which no human power could remove, we shall next see that the same remedy makes provision for our helplessness, by the gift of the Holy Spirit. This, be it observed, is another peculiarity of Christianity as

a remedial scheme, by which it stands distinguished from all other systems. There was nothing in the schemes of ancient heathenism, and there is nothing in the speculations of modern infidelity, fitted to remedy and remove this impotency of man to do what is right. It is the glory of the gospel, yea, it is that which maketh it excel in glory, that it is the ministration of the Spirit; and his province and his prerogative it is to tell the sinner, not only that there is mercy for his guilt-holiness for his impurity-love for his enmity, but also that there is spiritual and moral power for his helplessness-to influence, to control, to subdue, to sanctify. And thus, while he removes terror from the conscience, he inspires the soul with courage and confidence to serve the Lord without distraction, and enlarges the heart to run in the way of God's commandments with alacrity and delight. Now this moral change is emphatically styled in scripture a new creation. And what is a new creation in the moral world? If we perceive in a large city a variety of new edifices and splendid improvements if we see wise and liberal legislative enactments advancing a nation's prosperity and greatness, we may, these and such like cases, be compelled to wonder at the change, and contrasting the state of things now with what it once was, we may say that, comparatively speaking, all things are new. But-passing from these more gradual changes,-if we could suppose geology to alter and abandon her well-known laws -if rocks and mountains were removed from the earth's surface-if the sea's vast population were to quit their accustomed abode—if a sandy desert were to become a river, or a barren wilderness a fruitful

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