mental as well as extrinsic and legal, is also the object of the most anxious desire in the breast of an awakened sinner. Emancipation from the curse would not meet his conscious wants without the concurrent blessing of vital, prevailing, and active holiness. This end the atoning sacrifice secures, not only by presenting the most probable inducements and assistances, but by an efficiency of ALMIGHTY INFLUENCE, which convinces and satisfies the understanding, persuades the heart, and determines the will. "How much more," says our text, "shall the blood of Christ-purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the Living God!" The continuance of this sanctifying agency is secured by the unchangeable value of the great sacrifice, and by the everliving power and love of Him who offered it on earth, and is now "entered, with his own blood, into heaven itself, there to appear in the presence of God for us ;" our Patron, Advocate, and Intercessor. Because he lives, his saints shall live also. Under the conduct of his Holy Spirit their holy character shall grow and flourish, till it is ripened to the perfection of heaven. He gives to them eternal life and who shall separate them from the love of Christ?

This encouraging sentiment is strengthened by the relation which this doctrine has to the exercise of devotional communion with Heaven. Such intercourse of the soul with God is the essential and principal instrument of maintaining the spiritual life. Yet this happy intercourse is impossible, except by a sincere dependence upon the sacrifice of Christ. By

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him alone, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, can we approach the Father. The blood of sprinkling is the only protection that will avail us before the Judge of all. But now we have boldness to enter into the holiest, by the blood of Jesus ;" and are assured that prayer and praise, perfumed with the fragrance of his atonement and intercession, will rise with acceptance before the spotless throne.

To that throne we must, in a short time, approach in another manner. We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him. But none shall be able to stand in the day of his coming, except those who are "washed from their sins in his blood." To such only, will the tribunal of justice appear encircled with the rainbow of mercy; for he that sitteth upon it "is become unto them wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption."

This is the principal topic on which the preaching of Christianity should dwell. Like the sun in the heavens, it is the fountain of the light and life of religion, the energy, the fervour, and the joy of the Christian character. So the apostles of Christ considered it. The doctrine of a Saviour crucified was to them the wisdom and the power of God. Its truth, its value, and its efficacy, are the same still. Innumerable instances have existed and do exist of its unrivalled effect, in the conversion of the unbelieving, the prejudiced, and the profligate, to holiness of character, to active benevolence, to the best use of life, and to a triumphant hope in death. You, my

beloved brethren, students for the Christian ministry in our venerable seminary ;* you have the strongest

motives to hold this doctrine of the cross dear and precious. It is all your salvation and all your desire: and to announce its glad tidings to mankind is the choice and purpose of your lives. You participate in the pleasure afforded to me this day, of bearing a public testimony to this glorious theme. Ye are witnesses, and God also, that these are the sentiments which, privately and publicly, are professed and maintained among us, not in the elucidation of their theory only, but with a studious regard to their influence on the heart and in the life. The affectionate belief and enjoyment of this doctrine will be found, in practice, to be the only means of preserving your hearts pure and happy, your lives holy, and your ministry useful; "for other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid; which is Jesus Christ." Upon this rock," said the Faithful Witness, "I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."

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Some carelessly disregard this grand truth, or professedly disbelieve it. But have they taken care to understand what the doctrine really is? Have they attended to it with the serious diligence which it demands? Have they scrutinized its evidence and tendency, with impartiality and prayer, with a sense

*The Protestant Dissenting College at Homerton, consisting of two foundations, of which the one was established soon after the Revolution, and the other in 1730. To the Patrons and Students of that Institution, the substance of this Discourse was originally delivered on March 11, 1813.

of their accountableness as creatures, and of their humiliating condition as sinners ? "O that they were wise! that they understood this!" O that they would faithfully search into the motives of their inattention, the secret springs of their disbelief! Are there no criminal passions, no irreligious prejudices, which indispose them to the search? Is there no pride of fancied virtue, or of imagined superiority in discernment; no unwillingness to concede the painful charge of sin and guilt and ruin, which this doctrine presupposes, and which the word of Heaven so plainly asserts; no reluctance to admit that sin is that unutterable and flagitious evil, which, on these principles, it must be; no secret dislike to those humiliating reflections, that entire self-renunciation, and those strict obligations to holiness, which MUST be felt by him who truly receives Christ as his wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption? The day is coming which shall declare. Amidst the awful developements of that day, may our "faith be found unto praise and honour and glory, at the appearing of Jesus Christ!"

Let us not imagine, as many do, that these are only speculations, ingenious and perhaps just; but by no means essential to the existence of religion now, or to the possession of happiness in the future state. The sacrifice of Christ, and the doctrines associated with it, are not by us conceived as matters of mere theory, so that the opinionative belief in them is all that distinguishes the genuine Christian from the outwardly virtuous and moral man of the world. The

case is essentially different. It is the INFLUENCE of the doctrines of Redemption upon our own inward sensibilities and affections, in relation to God and ourselves, that constitutes the value of a scriptural faith. That faith is a holy and active principle. Were it the inert belief of any doctrine whatsoever, we would lay no stress upon it, except that which arises from the rational pleasure of knowing the truth. But we are persuaded that the state of mind and motive, upon which depends all the moral value of outward actions, is both the necessary and the exclusive product of that faith. Without it, we have no just appreciation of the moral attributes of God, no sense of the excellence of his law, no right feeling of the rectitude and beauty of obedience, or of the intrinsic deformity of sin, no repentance but that which is the constrained result of selfish fear, no vital piety, no acceptable devotion, no holy gratitude, no Christlike benevolence, no generous and delightful charity, no solid virtue, no consistent and comprehensive morality, no "purifying of the conscience from dead works to serve the LIVING GOD."