and to move it. If on this occasion, then, we find you insensible, when can we hope to succeed?

You complain, perhaps, that I have chosen a text which implies some threatning. You wish to hear of nothing but peace and reconciliation. Why propose any thing else to us? you will say: this is a day that speaks only of love and peace.-Undeceive yourselves this day speaks also of judgment and condemnation, if you neglect the great salvation which is once more offered. The same gospel, which is "" a savour of life unto life to them that are saved, is a savour of death unto death to them "that perish."* The same Jesus, who is a rock of salvation to believers, is "a rock of offence" to unbelievers. Do you not know, that even in his sacrament to which you are invited, while he is present as a lamb, he is there likewise as an avenging God? While he is there as on a throne of grace, to those who go to him with the necessary dispositions, he is present also as on a tribunal of judgment to those who approach him without the wedding-garment. While he is there as the bread of life, to bestow eternal life on his real guests, he is there also as deadly and empoisoned food to false disciples? "For he that eateth this bread and drinketh this cup unworthily, eateth and drinketh judgment to him"self, not discerning the Lord's body."t Ah! "how dreadful" then "is this place! This is" indeed "the house of God; this is the gate of heaven:" this is the place where the angels ascend and descend; but by that very circumstance how awful. is it rendered! Yes, since God is here, let the

guilty conscience tremble; for he is attended by his vindictive justice. His salvation indeed is here, and he presents it for our acceptance; but punishment is also prepared for those who shall despise it. Let us pay the greatest attention to what we are about to do; for "how shall we escape, if we neglect so 66 great salvation?"

I find in the text three things; a great blessing, a great crime, a great punishment. A great blessing; a great salvation, the wonderful production of divine mercy. A great crime; the astonishing negligence of man towards this salvation, the unhappy effect of the corruption and hardness of our hearts. A great punishment; the impossibility of escaping the justice of God, expressed in this interrogatory which has more than the force of an absolute negation, "how "shall we escape?" that is, the righteous infliction of divine vengeance. These are the three parts of our discourse. The first will shew us THAT GOD PRESENTS TO US A GREAT SALVATION:-the second, THAT, GREAT AS IT IS, MEN FREQUENTLY DESPISE IT-the third, THAT THE PUNISHMENT OF THOSE WHO DO SO, IS INEVITABLE.-God grant that the effect of this whole discourse may be, to make us flee from the wrath to come, condenin our past negligence, and embrace the salvation which is once more offered to us to day. Amen.

I. What God presents to us in his gospel, and what multitudes neglect, is called by St. Paul, so great salvation. What is salvation? Put the question to fallen man. Man in innocence was acquainted with life, but knew nothing of salvation. He felt

what it was to be happy, but had no conception of what it was to be miserable. He could, therefore, neither desire salvation, nor appreciate its value. He could know nothing of a recovery from extreme wretchedness to supreme felicity. Without the law, says St. Paul, "I had not known sin."* We may affirm, that without sin we had never known salvation.

Go not to the law to inquire into its nature. As a covenant of works, the law said nothing concerning it. It spoke of life, as if man had been still in the garden of Eden. Its language was, "The man that "doeth those things, shall live by them."

It

required of man a perfect holiness, as if he had still retained his original powers. It never contemplated him as lost; and where there is no perdition, there is no salvation. It proposed a reward to human obedience; but this was very different from grace and pardon, being only the remuneration due to a natural righteousness and sinful man, being incapable of fulfilling the law, in consequence of sin dwelling within him, beheld in the law nothing but condemnation; it afforded him not the least glimpse of salvation.

The legal economy, it is true, had typical salvations, temporal deliverances, which were figures of the great salvation. It contained also some promises of the salvation of the gospel, some declarations which foretold it, or which presented it to the faithful as already come, because it was infallibly certain in the divine decree, and was to be revealed in the fulness of time. But after all, it is properly

from the gospel, that we must learn the nature of salvation.

The gospel declares, that salvation is the re-establishment of fallen man in a state of holiness, righteousness, and glory, infinitely more perfect, exalted, and permanent, than the primitive state of innocence. The gospel informs us, that salvation includes a deliverance from all evils and an enjoyment of every real good; that it consists, in the present world, in the remission of our sins, justification, adoption, sanctification, and the right to eternal life; and that it comprehends the happiness of our souls after death, the resurrection of our bodies at the last day, and the complete glorification of our bodies and souls in eternity. The gospel represents salvation as the greatest and best of all the works of God,-which he decreed before the beginning of time; which he intended to effect by the mission of his Son into the world; which Jesus Christ merited by his grievous sufferings and death, and prepares by his presence and intercession in heaven; which the Holy Spirit deigns to communicate to the heart by his grace; which the gospel offers on the most reasonable conditions;* and finally, which God, and

This term being used by some theologians in a sense very different from the acceptation of others, and being avoided by some excellent 'men' as inconsistent with the doctrine of salvation by grace, the translator conceives it will not be improper to state the meaning in which it is obviously employed by the author. This cannot be done better than in the language of an eloquent preacher of the present day. 'When the term conditions of salvation, or words of similar import, are employed, he wishes it once for all to be clearly understood that he utterly disclaims the notion of meritorious conditions, and that he intends by that term ' only what is necessary in the established order of means, a sine qua non, that without which another thing cannot take place.-That repentance,

Jesus Christ his Son, the judge of the world, will one day assuredly bestow upon us, if we embrace with joyful ardour the promise made to us in this world, and perform, with persevering fidelity, the conditions required from us. This is a compendious account of the salvation concerning which St. Paul addresses us, and of which he speaks as presented to us in the gospel; which is therefore called "the "word of salvation,"* "the power of God unto "salvation to every one that believeth," "the grace "that bringeth salvation,"+" the word which is able "to save our souls."§

The design of the apostle, throughout this epistle, is to confirm the Hebrews in the profession of Christianity, and to guard them against unbelief and apostacy. With this view he recommends the gospel by arguments of every kind;-by its author, Jesus Christ the eternal Son of God;-by its matter, or the excellence of what it contains concerning the great salvation which it offers ;-by its certainty, and the force of the evidences and proofs by which it has been confirmed';-and lastly, by the consideration of the punishments which will certainly avenge the contempt it shall receive. In all this, the apostle, having to address converted Jews, constantly opposes the gospel to the law: and it is particularly in opposition to the law, and to the promises it made of a terrestrial Canaan, that he describes the

faith, and their fruits in a holy life, supposing life to be continued, are ' essential prerequisites to eternal happiness, is a doctrine inscribed as with ❝ a sunbeam in every page of revelation.” Essential Difference between Christian Baptism and the Baptism of John. By Robert Hall, A. M. p. 65, 66.

Acts xiii 26, + Rom. 1. 16.

Tit. ii. 11. § James i, 21.