heavens? They shall vanish, like a shrivelled scroll, in the consuming fierceness of that flame. But, as the last resource of despair, may not that flame itself reduce you to ashes, and destroy you, so that nothing, either of soul or body, shall remain, upon which the judge can inflict his sentence of wrath and woe? Alas, your souls are each a spark of God's immortal nature, which cannot be quenched. They will have already begun to date their eternal doom of misery, from that day, in which you died impenitent. The body also, to which each spirit must be joined, for a community of misery, will be raised incorruptible, so as not to be destroyed, even by the worm that never dieth, or consumed by the fire that is not quenched. Will ye resist the Almighty to the last, as the Anakim resisted his people? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like him? Remember, that you are now contending, and must then contend with him, whose omnipotence hurled the archangels from their seats, in utter impotence, and helplessness. Bring not the matter, I implore you, to such an awful extremity. Now are ye where conditions of peace may reach you. Now may ye turn, in the sincerity of repentance, to your inviting God, become the children of his adoption, and the heirs of his kingdom. If the hour

of salvation should be allowed to pass by unimproved-if the fountain of mercy, in the atoning efficacy of the Redeemer's cross, and the sanctifying work of his gracious Spirit, should close upon you-if death should find you at enmity with the everlasting Leader of the armies of Jehovah, your exclusion from the Canaan of his rest, would leave you to that most awful aggravation of hopeless sorrow, which contrasts the sufferer's state, with what it might have been, if he had not become the destroyer of his own soul. Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation! Shall it, indeed, visit you so long, and end at last without improvement? Then hear the alternative: Prepare to meet thy God.

(2.) The settlement of Israel in the land of promise cannot fail to illustrate that all-important doctrine of scripture-By grace ye are saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God. Were the chosen tribes thus distinguished, because they had a more perfect obedience to offer, and therefore a more valuable reward to claim, than the men of other kingdoms around them? Hear the record, and judge for yourselves. "The Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy righteousness, for thou art a stiff-necked people." Many were their offences,

and often, had not Moses interceded in their behalf, would their very name and memory have been blotted from the earth. No Israelite could claim the humblest portion in the promised land, by merit of his own, but obtained it, as an undeserved gift, from the loving-kindness of God. And you, my Christian brethren, if he have given you repentance unto life—if he have enabled you to believe on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that ye may be saved-if he be guiding you by his counsel, and will afterwards receive you to glory-if he be strengthening you to run the way of his commandments-and if ye be kept by his power, through faith, unto salvation, who made you to differ and what have you that ye have not received? God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved you, even when ye were dead in sins hath quickened you, that in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his kindness towards you ; ..... through Christ Jesus. The more you experience of that kindness here, the more truly will you be humbled by the sense of your own undeservings. And when ye reach the glory that shall be revealed, the more will every affection of your hearts unite in ascribing all the praise of your salvation" to him who loved you, and washed you from your sins, in his own blood."

Continue now to walk humbly with

your God. Let no self-complacent feeling have entrance into your minds. That a Christian should be elevated by his Saviour's goodness, would be as inconsistent, as that the dumb man, when his tongue was loosed by that Saviour's almighty mercy, should have boasted of the eloquence with which he praised his benefactor. Have ye paid any thing for the astonishing love of God, thus unequivocally communicated to you? any thing for the rich hopes and success of that gospel, which is the power of God to your salvation? Have ye purchased the atonement and intercession of Jesus Christ, by which your sins are pardoned, and your soul brought into covenant with the Father of mercies? Have ye bought with a price that work of the new creation to righteousness and true holiness, which the Holy Ghost has effected within you: or that land of unimaginable felicity which the promise of him, who cannot lie, has pledged to

give you, when you have fought the good fight, finished your course, and kept the faith? No: ye have rather earned the wages of sin, which is death. The gift of God, which his grace has freely bestowed, is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Thanks be to him for this Is then an act of love, so

unspeakable gift!

free and gracious, unfriendly, as some assert,

to the growth and exercise of Christian morality? Give the objection its most full and triumphant contradiction and refutation, by the consistent holiness of your lives. Let the adversaries of this blessed doctrine, which is the only foundation of a sinner's hope toward God, have no encouragement from its abuse in you. Walk worthy of God, who hath called you to his kingdom and glory. As he who hath called you is holy, so be ye holy, in all manner. of conversation and godliness.