not record any one which has escaped the general contamination. No inconsiderable part of the business of every government is to interpose restraints upon the evil passions of its subjects; yet so ineffectual are these restraints that the peace of the best constituted society is often disturbed by enormous crimes, while there are transgressions which elude the strictest human legislation, and which indicate a deeper depravity of mind than those enormities that are punished: and, in fact, every human being who knows himself, and pays due attention to the workings of his own heart, must have the consciousness of imperfection, of failing, and demerit.

Divine Revelation, indeed, does not leave us wholly ignorant of this melancholy fact for it connects the abounding of iniquity with a transaction which took place soon after the creation of the first man. "By one man," says the apostle Paul," sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned"—" by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation." This is the commentary made by an apostle upon the third chapter of Genesis: and when we take that chapter, the commentary of Paul, and other incidental expressions, in connexion, we are led to consider the transgression of the first parents of the human race as altering the condition of their posterity, rendering this earth a less comfortable and less virtuous habitation than it would otherwise have been, and introducing sin, with all its attendant misery, amongst a part of the rational creation who were made at first after the image of God, Gen. i. 27.

The Gospel, then, or doctrine of the Kingdom of Christ, proceeds upon a fact which was not created by revelation, but would have been true, although the Gospel had never been promulgated; and that fact is, that mankind are universally the subjects of personal guilt, and, as such, in a state of condemnation, from which they are unable by all their efforts to extricate themselves. The Scriptures represent the whole world as the children of wrath, and subject to the curse of the divine law, because they are the children of disobedience. It is not in the nature of repentance to avert those evils which past transgressions had deserved: and, even if it were, the Scriptures represent men as fatally indisposed to forsake their sins and return to God, from whom they have re

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volted: nor can we form a conception of any mode, consistent with the honour, and the great objects of the divine government, by which a creature who continues to transgress the divine laws, can arrest the course of that punishment which is the fruit of his transgression.

Here, then, when all the ingenious reasonings of man fail, and every appearance in nature conspires to show that hope is presumptuous, revelation steps in to our aid, and the Gospel of the kingdom is fitted by its peculiar character to enlighten and console the human mind. It teaches us that God who is rich in mercy, moved by compassion for human wretchedness, out of the great love wherewith he loved the world, devised a plan for delivering the children of Adam from that sin and misery from which they were unable to extricate themselves: Eph. ii. 1—5; Rom. iii. 19, and v. 12; Gal. iii. 10, 22. Foreseeing from eternity that man would yield to the seductions of Satan, and abuse that liberty which forms an essential part of his nature, the blessed God comprehended in the same eternal counsel a purpose to create and a purpose to save or redeem. Accordingly, soon after the transgression of the first man, some discovery was made of the gracious plan; for at the same time that a curse is pronounced upon the ground, and death is declared to be the punishment of sin, there is an intimation of future deliverance in these words:" I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." Gen. iii. 15. This promise was unfolded and the plan gradually developed through a succession of dispensations, all conspiring in their place to produce the fulness of time, when the plan was executed by the manifestation of that sublime being whom prophecy had announced. Of him the light of nature can give us no information; but, as the importance of the office which he executed renders his character peculiarly interesting to the human race, the Scriptures declare that "In the beginning he was with God and also that he was God—that by him all things were made-that he had glory with the Father before the world was called into existence; but that, veiling his glory, though he could not divest himself of the nature of God, he was born in a miraculous manner, was made in the likeness of men, took part with them in flesh and blood, and tabernacled

among those whom he came to redeem, and whom he is not ashamed to call his brethren.

The purpose for which this extraordinary messenger visited the earth was declared by an angel who announced the singular manner of his birth: "Thou shalt call his name Jesus; for he shall save his people from their sins." John his forerunner thus marked him out: "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." He said of himself, "I am come to call sinners to repentance"-"The Son of Man came to give his life a ransom for many"-"I am the good shepherd, and lay down my life for the sheep." And the charge which he gave to his apostles was this, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name amongst all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. In fulfilment of the character of a Saviour which he assumed, and which his name imports, he officiated as the great prophet of the church, revealing the Father's counsels, making known his true character as the just God and yet the Saviour, teaching men the will of God both by precept and example, and clearly unfolding that future state in which they are to receive according to the deeds done in the body; and he enforced the practice of righteousness by every motive that was adapted to work upon the heart and affections of men. He also submitted to the most grievous sufferings, and the most cruel death-voluntarily submitted to them, as the method ordained in the counsel of heaven for procuring their deliverance from sin; and in this way he discharged the office of high priest of his church. There is no mode of expression that we can devise, which is not employed by the sacred writers to convey this conception, that the death of Christ was not barely a confirmation of the truth of Christianity, an example of disinterested benevolence and heroic virtue, but a true and proper sacrifice for sin, offered by the divine substitute to the Moral Governor of the world, in order to avert the punishment which the sins of men deserved, and to render it consistent with the character of God and the honour of the divine law to forgive sin. Hence it is said concerning Christ Jesus, "God hath set him forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness in the remission of sins that are past."-"We are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." "Christ

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was once offered to bear the sins of many."—" His own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree."-"We have redemption in his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." Now the natural conclusion which any person, whose mind is not warped by a particular system, will deduce from these and numberless other expressions of the same kind, is this, that as the plan, or scheme, of man's redemption originated in the love and grace of God the Father, so it was accomplished by the instrumentality of that divine person whom the Scriptures designate the Son of God. Sin and misery had entered into the world by the transgression of our first parents, who were seduced by the evil spirit, the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air; and the remedy was brought by the generous interposition of one who had no share in the disaster, and who was moved to undertake our cause purely by compassion to the distressed. "For this cause was the Son of God manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil."-" He took part of flesh and blood, that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their life-time subject to bondage." That the interposition of the Son of God was divinely efficacious in promoting the purpose for which it took place, and that his death did really overcome the great adversary of God and man, is proved by his resurrection from the dead, and by the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit, which, in fulfilment of his promise, were sent upon his apostles after his ascension. The Scriptures invariably adduce this as a proof, "that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost all that come unto God by him." To the same effect is the declaration of the apostle Peter, in one of his first "The God of our father hath raised up his Son Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree: Him hath God exalted with his own right hand, to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel with the remission of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God hath given to them that believe." As if he should say -Our testimony of his resurrection, confirmed by the witness of the Holy Spirit, is the evidence that God hath exalted him to be a Saviour. He is now, by the appointment of God, the dispenser of those blessings which he died to purchase-he is the mediator

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of the new Covenant which was sealed by his blood, and which is established upon better promises, of the fulfilment of which we receive perfect assurance from the fact that "all power is given unto Him both in heaven and on earth." All spiritual and heavenly blessings flow unto the children of men from him as their rightful proprietor, who hath procured them by his sufferings, and in whose gift they are to bestow. Being justified by faith in his blood, we have peace with God, and access to the Father through him. He is the advocate of his people, who now appears in the presence of God for them-ever living to make intercession-and by him their prayers and their services are rendered acceptable. Universal nature is put under his control, and his Providence directs all events so as to promote their welfare —not by abolishing the present consequences of sin, but by converting them into a salutary discipline to the soul; and death, which is still permitted to continue as a standing memorial of the evil of sin, shall at length be destroyed by the working of his mighty power, which is able to quicken the bodies that had been mingled with the dust of the earth. "I am," says he, "the resurrection and the life"—" the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and shall come forth." Power is given to him over all flesh, that he may give eternal life to as many as the Father hath given him. And the crown of life that shall be conferred at the last day upon those for whom it is prepared is represented in Scripture, not as a recompense which they have earned, but as the gift of God through him. "The wages of sin is death—but eternal life is the gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord," Rom. vi. 25.

In this manner the blessings which the Lord Jesus Christ, the one Mediator between God and man, that divine person who interposed for the salvation of mankind, is able to bestow, imply a complete deliverance from the evils of sin, a restoration to the image and favour of God here, and to a state of eternal felicity in the world to come; agreeably to what the apostle Paul says to the Romans, "As, through one man's offence, death reigned by one; so they who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ."

The present lecture will not admit of my going through the subject proposed at the outset :-I mean the doctrine on which