lament while you may rejoice; but his mourning shall be turned into joy, when your mirth shall have issued in the blackness of darkness for ever. O then be persuaded to consider your ways: forsake the wicked, the careless, the thoughtless, the worldly-minded, and live. Choose now affliction, if affliction be necessary, with the people of God, that you may be "comforted also with their endless, boundless consolation:" rather than to enjoy the "pleasures of sin which are but for

not, nor cloak "

To those who may be suffering under the sense of guilt and the apprehensions of the divine displeasure, let me repeat the exhortation to observe and to imitate the course which David at length so happily took. Keep not silence." "Dissemble your sins. Do not strive to depart from God, but flee to him without delay. Let neither the hope of making some compensation for your faults, or of previously amending your state, or even of attaining more deep repentance, at once hinder or retard you. Betake yourselves to God in Christ; fully and ingenuously confess your sins unto him confess them as it were over the head of the great Christian sacrifice, Jesus Christ. Rely only on his atonement and the mercy of God conveyed through it: thus will God also

:

forgive the

iniquity of your sin and compass you about with songs of deliverance."

Finally Do you enjoy peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ? Walk then carefully and circumspectly; watch unto prayer; guard against negligence and every act of disobedience, everything that might grieve the Spirit of God or wound your own conscience. David was a man highly favoured of God, who attained great heights of devotion and of holy joy; but sin-but negligence-but the want of watching and prayer plunged him into what guilt you all know, and into what misery this Psalm discovers to you. Here too see how difficult it is, even for the pious mind, to return again to the paths of life, having once strayed from them. Obey then the charge of the Almighty, who promises that he will guide you with his eye. "Be ye not as the horse or mule which have no understanding,”—perverse and wayward; but on the contrary, ever be ready to follow his heavenly guidance; to submit to all the directions of his word-to observe all its cautions to obey all its precepts, and then rejoice in the Lord, and be of joyful gladness.

SERMON V.

JOHN III. 18.

HE THAT BELIEVETH ON HIM IS NOT CONDEMNED: BUT

HE THAT BELIEVETH NOT IS CONDEMNED ALREADY, BECAUSE HE HATH NOT BELIEVED IN THE NAME OF THE ONLY BEGOTTEN SON OF god.

SOME persons like not the preaching of faith: others avow that they do not understand it and both are apt to think, that, in insisting so much upon faith, we undervalue, if we do not even supersede good works.

Now I would earnestly intreat both these descriptions of persons seriously to observe, how very much the Sacred Scriptures say concerning faith; the stress which they lay upon it; the importance which they assign to it.

Let the passage of my text be taken at present, as the single example. It is part of our Lord's very solemn and impressive discourse with Nicodemus. Now hear the fourteenth and four following verses. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in

the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. He that believeth on him, is not condemned: but he that believeth not, is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God."

Now can we preach faith with more repetition than this? Can we give more importance to it, than is done by thus inseparably connecting salvation with faith, and perdition with the want of faith? And the scriptures at large are in the same strain.

What saith the most ancient of the sacred writers concerning Abraham, in a passage, which for its importance, is repeatedly quoted by the Apostles ? "Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness." What saith the prophet Habakkuk in a passage, in like manner, repeatedly cited in the New Testament? "The just shall live by faith." What was the testimony of John the Baptist, the forerunner of our Lord?

We have it recorded at the end of this chapter, in

G

these remarkable words: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him,"

Faith was ever that quality which our Lord marked with peculiar approbation in those who applied to him; and the quality to which he especially ascribed the success of their application.

Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no not in Israel." "O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” Thy faith hath saved thee, go in peace. "If thou

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canst believe, all things are possible to him that believeth."

What were the words of his parting charge and commission to his disciples, just before he ascended into heaven? "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature: he that believeth, and is baptized, shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned." What, accordingly was St. Paul's direction to the alarmed gaoler ?—"Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."

The Apostolic epistles are full of this subject. By grace are ye saved through faith." The gospel of Christ is "the power of God unto salvation, to every one that believeth for therein the righteousness of God is revealed, from faith to