fights resolutely against it as sin, spares none, desires to lay it all down at the feet of the Saviour, and, in the sense of his love, is as willing to be released from the bondage as the penalty of it. One is before the cross of Christ, and, with the help of God, may in time bring us up to it; but the other only, which begins from it, is sincere, faithful, abiding, and lays the axe to the root of sin. Believe therefore in the Lord Jesus Christ as your peace, your righteousness, and life, thank God for giving you the victory through him, and you will enter upon a state of unfeigned humiliation; call your ways to remembrance, and hide nothing from him. If mercy is sweet to you, as the very thing you want from God, it will put you upon the most vigorous endeavours to secure it, perfect your repentance, and keep you close to Christ in the work he binds upon you, from the sacred consideration of his love. At the same time that you read your forgiveness in his cross, you will see the accursed nature of sin in his death for it, God's vengeance against it, and the extreme danger of your condition, if it is not confessed and repented of. You will be the blessed of the Lord, the men and women" in whose spirits there is no guile;" not because you are free from all spot of sin in yourselves, for then you would have no unrighteousness to be forgiven, or sin to be covered, and not imputed; but because you are in some measure naked and open to yourselves as you are to God, acknowledge the guilt and damnableness of all sin, and the reality and greatness of your own, fly to the mercy of God in Christ for redemption from it, receive your pardon with a feeling heart and a melting eye, and resolve to keep mercy, by endeavouring, as God shall enable you, to purge yourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit.

But if you think this is strict, and will have mercy in

your own way, though you hide and keep your sins, I dare not deny the Bible, or flatter you to your ruin; your blood will be upon your own heads; the whole truth of God is against you; and when you come to appear before Christ at the day of judgment, you will find, to your everlasting confusion, that he has not forgotten his words, though you do-repent, or perish. From all blindness and hardness of heart, good Lord, deliver us; and bring every soul here present before thy mercy-seat, sprinkled with the blood of the holy Jesus, in the true spirit of this prayer:

Almighty and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all them that are penitent; create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

SERMON II.

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder. Isaiah, ix. 6.

THE seven first verses of this chapter, of which the text is a part, are a very remarkable and express prophecy of Christ, above seven hundred years before his coming; and cannot, without great force, be applied to any thing but the spiritual deliverance and complete salvation wrought by him. And well might the prophet speak of it as matter of great rejoicing to mankind, and compare it, as he does, to signal victory over powerful enemies, or the deliverance of captives from the darkness of a

dungeon, and the horrors of death, to the enjoyment of liberty, and the comforts of full daylight. Every diligent and serious reader of Scripture will make proper reflections upon these comparisons, and be led by them to consider the alteration made by Christ in the condition and circumstances of mankind. For in truth, striking and lively as they are, they fall short of the reality, and are but a faint resemblance of our natural darkness, misery, and captivity in sin, and restoration to light, freedom, and happiness in Jesus Christ, the child who is here said to be born, and the son given unto us. The former part of the verse, which I have now read to you, will find us work enough at this time; and may God enable us to fathom the depth of these blessed words, and receive the full benefit of them in our knowledge of the Saviour, experience of him in all his offices and characters, as he is here described, and happy deliverance by him! The words, "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder," will afford great cause of rejoicing to all those whose hearts the Lord opens to receive them, if we consider,

I. What is implied in the expression, child is born, unto us a son is given."

"unto us a

IV. The characters of those who receive it; signified to us in these words, "the government shall be upon his shoulder."

1. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." I would desire your attention to the word given. When the prophet had said, "unto us a child is born," he was directed by the Spirit to say further," unto us a son is

given;" that we might know and consider it as the free gift of God to us, from the bowels of his own mercy. When we remember that the child who was born unto us was his own Son, we see at once that we could have no right to such a favour, no power to purchase it, no thought or expectation of it. It is a most astonishing instance of God's good-will to mankind, and pity for them in their lost condition. -Our lives and the support of them, the bread we eat, the air we breathe, the sun that shines upon us, all we have, enjoy, or hope for, is the gift and bounty of God to us. And we are further assured by his word, that, unworthy as we are of the least of his mercies," our heavenly Father" is always "ready to give good things to them that ask him." But that he should give his own Son to take our flesh, that in it he might redeem us from the curse we were under, and restore us to life and immortality, is such a token and pledge of his love to us, as far exceeds all our thoughts and all our praises. The angels, we are told, desire to look into it, as if the greatness of the mystery was too high for their understandings, wise as they are, and engaged their attention and admiration beyond any thing that they knew of God. But so far we ourselves may know and understand, that as God gave his Son, and he freely gave himself for us, so our condition must be desperate for any thing we could do to help ourselves; and that if we do not receive the precious gift at his hands with all humility and thankfulness, we must be left to perish irrecoverably. God can do no more for us; he has not another Son to give us. -O Jesus, the eternal Son of God! that thou mightest be given, and give thyself to us, thou didst not abhor the virgin's womb.-To help and to save us, thou wast contented to become a man like one of us, and to be the greatest sufferer that ever appeared in our nature. For thou wast not only a child

born unto us, but a Son given unto us, to be the price of our ransom, and deliver us from death, by giving thyself up to an accursed death in our stead.

II. Which leads me to consider the nature or value of the gift. My brethren, it is Christ himself, in what he did and suffered for us; living, dying, and rising again, that we might be made "the righteousness of God in him." To speak more plainly, if possible, he was our Peace-maker and Saviour in and of himself, only and altogether in his own person, singly considered; and not by any thing he does in us, or enables us to do for ourselves, as if we had any share or fellow-helpers with him in the great work of our redemption." I will give thee," saith God," for a covenant of the people," that as all fell and died in Adam, when he brake the covenant which God made with him, and with all mankind in his loins, so Christ was to be the Head of a covenant of restoration by grace, and the Author of life and righteousness to all that belong to him, solely by virtue of his own act and deed, and not by the help and concurrence of any other, man or angel. He is life, righteousness, victory, peace, and salvation; insomuch, that by denying him the whole glory of it, and refusing to receive him as a gift from God by faith, we run the hazard of losing it altogether; and, by pretending to be our own saviours, make God a liar, as St. John faithfully, but severely, expresses it. "For this," says he, "is the record"-the testimony and word of truth, and the glory of all Scripture-" that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son." In the Son, because, as God, he has life in himself; and, therefore, as all life was from him at first, so when it was lost, it could only be given and restored in and through him.

We are miserable mistakers of the great grace of God