destroyed yourself; you have done violence to every power which God himself has created within you: but once acknowledge, only confess thine iniquity, and in the sufficiency of this atonement you may safely bury every fear; on this present and prevalent intercession you may daily depend. "For I came down from heaven," said Jesus, "not to do mine own will, but the will of Him that sent me;

and this is the will of Him that sent me, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day."

See that Jew, in ancient time, laden with guilt, with the prime of his flock approaching the gate of the temple, and inquiring for the priest-see them meet, and the one party, laying his hands on the head of the innocent victim; hear him now confess his crime, while the priest in waiting, bends his ear to hear-see the offerer receive the knife, and, like another Abraham, end the days of the finest animal in his possession-see it cut in pieces by the priest, salted with salt, and laid on the altar to consume-see a portion of the blood now carried into the holy place, and on the great day of atonement, into the holiest of all. The priest has disappeared; but it is on this man's behalf, while he is left to wait and view his sacrifice consuming. The offerer, however, can tell you how the priest is engaged. "Now," he replies, " he is sprinkling the blood; now he is repeating my confession; and now he prays for my forgiveness." An answer is obtained, and again the priest appears. He approaches towards the

confessor-his sacrifice is consumed-the blood has been sprinkled before the mercy-seat-his sins had been confessed, while he leaned on the victim; and they have been repeated, with blood and incense, before the Lord. See the priest raise his hands, and hear him pronounce on this man the divine blessing!

Now, if all this is but a correct shadow of the blessings

to which you are now invited, then assuredly conviction of sin, and a sense of guilt, brought this man every step on his way to Jerusalem; and these occasioned his approach to the gate of God; and there he came for assurance of pardon, and to have his forgiveness sealed and sanctioned by the divine blessing. No such length have you to go; yet the same conviction of sin will ever precede the reception of that atonement, of which this sacrifice was but a shadow.

Or if, from these shadows of good things then to come, you would rather turn to the substance of them all under the New Testament, then will you see how and why it was, that, upon setting up his kingdom in the earth, our blessed Lord, laying hold of God's most righteous law, began by giving an interpretation of it, which, in point of spirituality, left all former expositions so far behind. Often have you heard Mount Sinai referred to, with much of terror; and no wonder; for so terrible was the sight and the sound, that even Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake." Yet, methinks, the mountain in Galilee, where Jesus sat, was the more serious mountain of the two. Still, "as lancing, and other severities of the surgeon's hand, far from being like the wounds of an enemy, are as useful and necessary a part of his business as his application of healing medicines ;" so the Saviour began, on that mountain, to show by his spiritual and rigorous determination of the penalty to the heart, that He, with his mighty grace, had come indeed to heal diseases of the mind. By such spiritual interpretation did He propose that every man should both find out and feel the necessity for his atonement. Thus did he fully explain the princi ples on which its necessity was built, and on which it was not only to be offered to God, but proposed for man's simple yet cordial acceptance. Thus, too, did he vindicate and magnify this ancient and unchanging record, and

show triumphantly, that "the law is good, if a man use it lawfully-according to the glorious gospel of the blessed

God."

Yes, indeed, when Man should afterwards behold the Lamb as the visible representation of the invisible God, bearing away the sins of the world, or when looking over Mount Calvary to heaven itself, doubtless the, Saviour meant, that the various perfections of his Father should appear conspicuously in harmony round that cross-Mercy and Truth met together, Righteousness and Peace embracing each other.

Surely then, my friend, the various attributes of the great and blessed God, with which formerly you were apt to deal, at one moment partially, and at another irreverently, speaking of one as being more estimable, or even more lovely than another, must now appear in a very different light indeed. With which of these could you now dispense? "The very question," you reply, "is irreverent and ungrateful. My idea of God, when the atonement is thus introduced to my notice, is surely now at last just and correct, as far as it goes, on a subject so profound. God is Love, and all his attributes are but different modifications of love, or love operating in different ways." In all this I think you are right. Vindictive justice itself, whatever any interested party may say, is the love of order; and it is exercised for the welfare of being in general. The whole law itself, of which so many are afraid to speak; from which many feel so averse; and for which some professors, nay, even preachers, feel little or no occasion, is in fact founded in the divine character: it is a transcript of it, and has been summoned up in love, expressing the benevolence of Him who gave it.

"Besides," you continue, "having both found out and felt such a necessity for the atonement; understanding

now so far the principles on which it was offered, and on which it is freely proposed to man, I see also why it is styled the glorious gospel of the blessed God; and surely I, in some degree, better understand the connection in which this expression is introduced in Scripture."

Now then, also, you may see how, and why it is that any man "made free by the Son, is free indeed;" free, to expatiate on the collection of the divine perfections, styled in Scripture, "the name of God;" free, to survey them in union; and free to gather them up, reverently, by deep meditation, and then exclaim, "Who is so great a God as our God? He that is our God is the God of Salvation; and unto God the Lord belong the issues from death!""

The arguments contained in the preceding pages are applicable, without doubt, to the young as well as the old, to Children or youth as well as Parents; but as the former have it not in their power to act as they would in the Family circle, and the restoration of it is the object in view, I have addressed myself to those especially who stand at the head of families; to such as have already been invested with an influence and authority for which they are responsible to God; and which, as they are bound to use them for his glory, so they have an opportunity of immediately employing them on a constitution of things made ready to their hands,-a subject, however, which will be more fully considered in the following Section.

Here, therefore, our conversation may for the present come to a close. Once only possessed of principles such as these, sure I am that you will admire the Scripture characters of ancient time, as well as the goodly company who have followed in their footsteps. Like them, your principles will be unfolded, especially in your relative connections: like them, will you command your children,

and your household after you, to keep the way of the Lord: like them, resolve that you and yours shall serve the Lord, and, like them, will you often return to bless your house. Of you, too, even you, will God again condescend in effect to say, "I know such a one, that he will do all this; and the heart, though conscious of a depravity to which it was before a stranger, yet the heart being now right in my sight, many other things will be right ere long."