complains by all his servants both prophets and apostles, Jerem. v. throughout, Paul's First Epistle to Timothy, &c. 2 Tim. iii. 1-8. Then comes in the gracious recovery by the divine sovereignty of love.

But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us; even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, by grace ye are saved; and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Christ Jesus." (Eph. ii. 1-7.) All which is in exact correspondence to the portrait of the prophet Isaiah in the text. The sinner is quickened by regeneration, and brought into spiritual life. He falls into numberless corruptions, and walks, as other gentiles walk, in the vanity of his mind; and is a child of wrath, meriting wrath, even as others. But the Lord doth by him as by Isaiah, quickens him in Christ, opens to his view the glories of Christ which shine so blessedly, contrasted to his own deformity, that self-condemnation follows; he sees himself lost in himself, and saved only in Christ: he dies with Christ; is buried with Christ; is “raised up together with Christ;" and ascends by faith with Christ; is justified wholly by the salvation which is in Christ Jesus. And all this by the sovereignty of rich, free, and unmerited grace.

I cannot ask a greater blessing for myself, and you, than that these divine truths may be realized in every heart of the Lord's people. Gracious God! vouchsafe to write these saving testimonies of thy teaching in the souls of thy chosen ones; give us to receive them, most cordially, heartily, sincerely; and to live upon them by faith, until brought home in open vision to enjoy them in glory : daily crying out with the church, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts! the whole earth is full of his glory!".

THE

INIQUITY OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL

REMOVED BY THE

LORD OF HOSTS IN ONE DAY.

BEING THE SUBSTANCE OF A SERMON, PREACHED IN THE BROADWAY CHURCH, ST. MARGARET'S, WESTMINSTER, ON LORD'S

DAY MORNING, JULY 16, 1826.

"In those days, and in that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none: and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found." JEREMIAH 1. 20.

PREFACE.

THE design of these sermons being (as it is presumed) sufficiently known, there will need nothing more by way of introduction, in the preface, than the commencement_of_the perusal in first seeking the Lord's blessing upon it. It hath long been with me a maxim, warranted both by reason and revelation, that what begins in prayer will end in praise. The cottager who, by regeneration, in the new birth, hath been brought to see things spiritually, will feel his mind when led out by grace to implore from the Lord "the seeing eye and the hearing ear; while contemplating the marvellous work of the Lord of hosts, in this sovereign act of mercy, proposed in this Scripture for the church's faith, "in the iniquity of the land of Israel being removed in one day." I would therefore say for him, and for myself, Lord! give grace to thy people in meditating on this soul-comforting subject, that "not having received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, we may know the things which are freely given to us of God." Lead out our souls in holy longings for the suitable and spiritual apprehension of his almighty person by whom such stupendous acts are wrought! And in beholding the greatness and allsufficiency of his incommunicable salvation, to find faith to rest wholly upon Him, as the sole Author of redemption mercies.

And we do most earnestly entreat God the Holy Ghost, whose almighty province it is to glorify Christ, and to receive of the things of Christ to shew unto us, that while attending to the relation here given, in this sermon, of his own eternal power and GODHEAD, and the completeness of his finished redemption, we may realize the saving truths to our soul's joy, and know our own personal interest therein.

O thou great and glorious God! so stamp and seal those divine realities of the church's deliverance from sin and satan, from death, hell, and the grave, by those victories of our most glorious Christ over all the tremendous foes of our salvation, as may enable us to live out of self, and above all that is in self, which would tempt to the losing sight of Christ; and that we may make him what he is, and must everlastingly be in himself, the whole of our hopes, and the Lord our righteousness. Let an unction from our Lord be with us, that our meditation at this time of the Lord be sweet; and praises to the Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, begin and end our

service. Amen.

SERMON XXII.

THE INIQUITY OF THE LAND OF ISRAEL REMOVED BY THE LORD OF HOSTS IN ONE DAY.

ZECH. iii. 9.

“And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day.”

Ir we take the scriptures of God in one complete whole, (when by regeneration we are rendered capable of spiritually knowing the glorious truths of God,) we discover that Jehovah, in his trinity of persons, had this one and chiefest of all designs in view, when coming forth from that invisibility in which from all eternity the holy Three in One had lived, in inconceivable blessedness and happiness with each other, in the unity of the GODHEAD; namely, to make such discoveries of himself as might best promote the divine glory. This evidently appears to have been the first and leading design of all revelation. God in his trinity of persons would make such a manifestation of himself, and his own glorious perfections, to his creatures, as might be rendered the means of glofying him to all eternity. In this display of himself Jehovah was pleased also to set forth the riches of his grace towards the church which he had chosen in Christ before all worlds. But all this was secondarily and subordinately to the first and leading design of his own glory; for this could not but supersede every other. And hence the church gives in her full responses to the same, when saying, "Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created." (Rev. iv. 11.)

This gracious discovery, which in relation to the church lays at the bottom of all our mercies, was followed up in a farther revelation; namely, that by One of the persons in the GODHEAD taking into union with his divine nature a portion of our's, he would become the visible Jehovah; and thereby such manifestations of the GODHEAD might break forth, and shine through the medium of his human nature, as should bring in a revenue of everlasting praises to himself, and be productive of everlasting happiness to his people. Hence those divine Scriptures: "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us." (John i. 14.) "Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh." (1 Tim. iii. 16.) Hence therefore the church is said to have union with Christ, by virtue of his assuming (in what is called in Scripture the fulness of time) our nature "made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." (Gal. iv. 4, 5.) Jehovah having from "before the world chosen the church in Christ, to be holy and without blame before him in love; and having predestinated the church to the adoption of children, by Jesus Christ to himself." (Eph. i. 4, 5.) Here, by the redemption in Christ Jesus, accomplished the vast plan all along from everlasting intended, and brought the church by the Holy Spirit to receive that adoption character by which they cry, Abba, Father! (Gal. iv. 6.)

And hence (and which forms the culminating point of all) as the church, from her being chosen in Christ before all worlds, had an uncreated holiness in Christ which nothing in creatures could do away; so by her nature union in Adam, the church had a creature holiness, which from the very mutable state of man upon earth was liable to be lost and which, by the fall of Adam, in which all his posterity was involved, was