mind? No. I need not dwell on this point. We do not want the doctrine to be expounded; we need only the practice of it to be confirmed. We want only more copious supplies of the Spirit of grace and supplications, we require only more near and affecting views of the Cross; we need only deeper impressions of grief for those sins which crucified the holy and innocent Saviour; and then, whilst we see, our misery and yet our remedy in the tragical scene, we shall have both the disposition and ability to live, not unto ourselves, but unto Him that died for us and rose again. I only add here, that the DUTY OF FERVENT PRAYER TO GOD FOR THE CONVERSION OF THE JEWS, is obviously to be deduced from our subject. The prediction of the text in its most glorious import respects them, and should animate us, under every discouragement, to those persevering supplications, as well as those prudent and zealous efforts, which may, perhaps before we are, aware, lead to their return to their Saviour and their God. The same Spirit of grace and supplication which we need for ourselves, is all that is necessary to subdue their unbelief, fix them in humble contemplation of their 'pierced' Lord, and bring them to mourning and bitterness of spirit for him. But I cannot close the discourse without observing, " II. TO THE UNGODLY AND IMPENITENT, that if any subject can show them their OBLIGATION to repent, and affect their hearts with a DESIRE to do so, it is the one we have been reviewing. Consider YOUR OBLIGATIONS TO REPENT. Remember that it is your sins which have pierced the blessed Immanuel-those sins in which you are now living. Remember that till you repent and forsake them, you are crucifying the Son of God, as it were, afresh. Every act of luxury and impurity, of excess and debauchery, of pride and vanity, of fraud and covetousness, of hypocrisy and self-conceit, of formality and indifference, is a new insult to the crucified Saviour. And yet you are loving and delighting in these sins, which, if you were real Christians, you would mourn over and abhor. You have never prayed fervently to God for salvation. You have never seriously thought of the nature of repentance. You have never looked with one feeling of compunction to the Lord of life, whom you have nailed to the cross. You have never mourned for having brought him there. To other objects you have looked and looked again. For other calamities you have been in bitterness time after time. But to the bleeding Saviour you have never turned your eye.. For the sufferings of Calvary you have never shed a tear. You call yourselves Christians, but what have you ever said or done or felt as Christians? And yet God is long suffering to you-ward. Yet he calls you to repentance. Consider, then, your obligations to this duty or if you will not consent to this invitation, at least let me remind you that you MUST look upon Christ, either here in a way of penitence, or elsewhere in a way of despair; for, Behold he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all nations of the earth shall wail because of him. Then, sinner, you will be forced to behold the Son of God, but not as a Saviour. Then you will look on him, but not with penitence. Then you will mourn for him, but not with salutary sorrow. No; the heavens shall then depart as a scroll when it is rolled together, and every mountain and island shall remove out of its place: and the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men, and every bond-man, and every free man, shall hide themselves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains; and shall say to the mountains and rocks, Full on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. Rev. vi. 14-18. Do you ask, then, what is your obligation to repent? Let these awful forebodings be the answer; or rather let the inexpressible tender ness and long-suffering of that crucified Saviour you have who still waits to be gracious, form the reply. H 1 ETERNAL LIFE THE GIFT OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. And this is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life; and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life; and he that hath not the Son of God, hath not life. THE chief truths of religion are revealed so plainly in the Holy Scriptures, as to be intelli gible to every serious inquirer. Whatever ob scurity may rest on some parts of the sacred Volume, every thing is perspicuous in proportion as it is important. Thus the leading doctrines of the fall of man and his recovery in Christ Jesus, lie on the very surface of Holy Writ. God has been pleased to direct our regard to them with peculiar solemnity. The Witnesses of heaven and earth attest by an express record the eter nal life which is in the Son of God. To such a testimony who would refuse credence? To a * 1 John, v. 7, 8. |