reason so perversely from your premises? Why reason so blasphemously against God? It is the dictate of conscience, it is the declaration of God himself, that men harden their hearts and destroy their souls in no other way than by refusing to hearken to the voice of the Son of God. They must turn away their attention from the Gospel as much as possible, and when it is urged by others on their attention they must resist and brace themselves up against its power in order to hold out in rebellion, for the very reason that it is so powerfully bent on humbling and subduing them to repentance. They will not come to the light for the very reason that they fear to bring on their souls the power of its convicting, humbling, subduing reproofs. They are at enmity with God solely because they cannot bear to have him denounce that very curse and condemnation against their idolatry which is most powerfully adapted to bring them to a self-condemning renunciation of their idols. And for these very reasons which you would urge to show that the Gospel has no power to beget repentance in man, I should on the other hand affirm it to be utterly impossible to reach their hearts and subdue them to cordial repentance in any other way. These are the very means which need to be brought into contact with their consciences and hearts. And if they will not lay the Gospel in its power on their own souls this but shows the need of others doing it, if ever they are to be saved. This but shows the need of the Holy Spirit himself taking the truth which is dispensed in their hearing and carrying it home to their consciences and hearts in spite of all their ungrateful resistance if ever they are to be saved, and of his applying it there till they are overcome in their resistance and stubbornness; till they are reproved and humbled in the dust for their guilt; till they cordially join with God in his sentence upon them for their idolatry, and, with this subdued and humbled spirit, accept the peace, the forgiveness, the salvation which God so freely proffers.

With this view of the power of the Gospel as a means adapted to beget the cordial repentance and faith of mankind, laid before you, I remark, still further, that there is a mode of preaching the Gospel which is better fitted than others to bring its power upon the minds of hearers. This observation is so apparent that it scarcely needs any illustration. For as the truths of revelation have one grand design in their bearing on man and are employed by the Holy Spirit himself to subserve that very design, there must be a manner of dispensing those truths in public preaching which best accords with that design, in which ministers, as auxiliaries and helpers in the work of salvation, will be in the happiest manner workers together with God. You all know, for instance, that it better accords with the design of the Gospel for a preacher to speak

with that earnestness which will gain attention rather than with that listnessness which will not secure an outward hearing; better to be plain and intelligible than to be indistinct and confused in thoughts; better to be convincing in his reasonings with sound speech that can not be condemned, than to rely on inconclusive arguments which adversaries and gainsayers may easily resist; better to lay the truth home on the consciences and hearts of hearers as a thing of infinite moment to their souls than to present it as an abstract system of truth for their idle speculation; better to present it as a thing of immediate urgency and calling for the instant decision of the heart rather than a thing merely for after consideration at some future day; better, in short, to fall in so fully with the design of the Holy Ghost as that the hand of the Lord shall be visibly with them, and a great number believe and turn unto the Lord, rather than by any departures from his will to hinder his work and provoke him to leave them without his co-operation in their labors.

If then there is a way of preaching the Gospel so as best to bring its power upon the hearts of hearers, and the Gospel itself is adapted to secure faith and repentance; then we see that, in full accordance with the testimony of Luke, there is a way of preaching it adapted to beget faith in hearers. What that way is, is the important inquiry which remains to be considered.

I proceed therefore as was proposed.

II. To point out some of the things which are essential to such a mode of preaching the Gospel.

I would remark that to secure a manner of preaching the Gospel adapted to success, it seems essential.

1. That it should be preached with a heart deeply intent on the very design of securing the cordial faith and obedience of hearers. According to the testimony of Paul, the preaching of Jesus Christ is now made known, by the commandment of the everlasting God, to all nations for the obedience of faith. To call sinners to repentance and faith, is the very work which God has put into the hands of the ministers of his Gospel. This is the very privilege the Almighty confers upon them in their sacred office. And to my mind nothing appears more presumptuous than to venture upon preaching the Gospel to sinful men without any hearty design to secure their cordial faith and obedience. Besides, is there any doubt that Paul and Barnabas, on the day when they went into the synagogue at Iconium, really intended to secure cordial faith in their hearers, and preached

*NOTE. I mean that our preaching should proceed from the point of personal faith in the Saviour and fellowship with him in his cause, with a heart deeply intent on co-operating with him in the design of securing through the Gospel the cordial faith and obedience of hearers.

with their hearts fully set on this very object? And would you charge them, in this, with grossly perverting their office? or would you not rather commend them for their faithfulness and their hearty accordance with the will of God?

Besides, in what other way can success be rationally expected in the ministrations of the Gospel? In any other employment surely, you would say that the one who engages his whole heart in the design of securing the object, would, other things equal, be the more likely to command success. And why shall not this general law of providence hold in regard to the preaching of the Gospel? Does success depend here on the Holy Spirit applying the truth to the conscience and heart? Then surely, he who preaches with the hearty design of promoting the work of repentance and salvation, will only be so much the more solicitous to secure the hand of the Lord and the presence of the Holy Spirit with him in his ministrations. The very object on which his heart is set will cause him to be more importunate in prayer and more watchful in duty, that the God of Israel may go with him and cause the arrows of truth to be sharp in the hearts of his enemies. Or does success depend at all on presenting the full power of the Gospel to men that the Holy Spirit may wield it as his conquering sword? But who shall ever exhibit the power of Gospel truth, if it be not he who enters with his whole heart into the very design of the Gospel and seeks to promote its saving triumphs among men. But without such a design at heart no one will ever fully present the Gospel in its true light. Cicero has justly remarked that if the feelings with which you represent a fact and the fact itself do not accord, you have not in reality presented the truth, but have misrepresented it to the minds of your hearers. Just so here. Unless you carry the feeling into an audience and pervade them with the feeling that you are presenting to them a message from God of endless concern to their souls, you misrepresent the Gospel. And it is with a heart deeply intent on the very design of securing the repentance and salvation of them that hear you, that you are to expect, if ever, to pervade an audience with that absorbing feeling and present the Gospel before their minds in that only light of truth as a message from God of endless moment to their souls. You will then, if ever, be conscious yourself, and make them conscious that you are speaking for God; that you are standing before them in the stead of Christ and pleading in his behalf; that the Lord through you is speaking to them; that he pleads with them respecting their own conduct; that he is present with the word calling them to repentance; that he beseeches them by all the horrid ingratitude and vileness of sin, by all the terrors of

ng wrath, by all the agonies endured for their forgiveness on ry, by all the love and compassion of his heart, by all the in

terests of eternity, by all the worth of their own souls, to be reconciled at once and submissive to his government, and accept with all the heart his offered salvation. Thus will the weighty realities of the Gospel, if ever, be brought into immediate contact with every feeling of their souls. Thus will the Gospel come to them not in word only but in demonstration of the Spirit and with power. Thus will they, if ever, be in circumstances to receive the Gospel not as the word of man but as it is in truth, the word of God which worketh effectually in them that believe.

I would remark, that in order to secure a manner of preaching the Gospel adapted to success, it seems essential.

2. That it should be preached as a system of consistent truths, bearing with one harmonious design on the great object of repentance and salvation.

God has but one grand object on which his heart is set in the publication of the Gospel, and that is, the accomplishment of redemption, to call men to the obedience of the faith and to salvation. He has not two counter, adverse, and warring designs running through that book, as some, either directly or indirectly, misrepresent its contents. It can not be said with any truth, nor without dishonor to God, that such a part of revelation was intended to excite faith and such a part to hinder it; such a part to promote repentance and such a part to prevent it; this part to secure filial prayer and obedience and that to secure contempt and sin; this to subdue the heart and that to harden it; this to save and that to destroy souls. Though the Gospel may receive this opposite and diverse treatment from men and be attended with different consequences on account of their treatment of it, yet the Gospel itself has but one consistent, holy, salutary bearing upon this guilty world. God published it for the one object of promoting repentance and salvation. And though Paul found, in preaching Jesus Christ, that the sweet savor of his name was life to them that were saved and death to them that perished; yet the commission he received from God and the object on which his heart was set, was one, to 66 open the eyes of the ignorant Gentiles and to turn them from the power of Satan unto God that they might receive forgiveness and inheritance among the sanctified through faith in Christ." And if while engaged with all his heart in this one object of benevolence, any to whom he preached refused the message of heavenly grace, the savor of Christ was fragrant still notwithstanding their perversion and ruin, fragrant even in the execution of final justice.

Now, if a preacher of the Gospel would hope to bring its salutary power on the hearts of men, he should enter into the design of God in this very respect, and set forth the various doctrines and precepts of the Gospel as one harmonious system, having in all its parts one

salutary and practical bearing on man. The harmony of which I speak is the agreement of the truths of the Scriptures in their practical bearing; the harmony not only of the doctrines with one another but of the doctrines with the precepts. It is obvious that a system of doctrinal representation agreeing with itself in its various parts might be made out, and yet the various parts in themselves be erroneous and aside from the practical intent of the Gospel; for it is as easy to construct error into a system as truth. But I refer to that system and harmony which exists in doctrines; their agreeing with each other not merely in abstract speculation, but above all, in this respect that they all have one practical tendency, lending their united power to the one object of promoting faith and salvation. He who brings out the doctrines of the Gospel in this harmony, will find the whole scope and range of Gospel truths bearing directly on the design of his heart to lead men to salvation. One will be sustained in its practical bearing with the whole force of all the others. And if there is any way of making bare the sword of the Spirit and presenting it to the heart in all its sharpness, if there is any way of presenting the full power of the Gospel before the minds of hearers, this is the way. All the truths of the Gospel will thus be coincident with its grand precepts. All will be guides, helps, motives in favor of compliance, none of them hindrances.

For example: The duty of sinners to repent and their dependence on grace should not be set forth at practical variance but in practical harmony. Their perfect qualifications as creatures for obedience or disobedience being admitted as the foundation of their duties and their being addressed by the commands of God, their dependence on grace should be resolved, consequently, not into their want of such constitutional qualities but into their own refusal to do the duties for which they are qualified, and their own unwillingness at heart, when left to themselves, to comply with the reasonable demands of God. In this way you make it out that it is they themselves who are to turn and repent, if ever their salvation is effected; and at the same time you throw them as guilty beings on the grace of the Holy Spirit who is striving with them through the Gospel, who is ready, if they yield, to lead them forward to heaven as adopted sons, or who may, even if they refuse this once to hear the voice of Christ, abandon them to their own stubbornness and perdition. Thus the preceptive will and the purposes of God should be set forth as alike favoring the cause of holiness in his wide moral creation and net at practical variance. When his law and government are justly set forth as expressing his real will and preference as to what he would have his rational creatures do on their part, his purposes should be represented as his will and preference as to what he should do himself most wisely and successfully to promote the very same object among his creatures. The destinction between the being of God and the being of