the Lord Jesus makes no distinction in the objects of its clemengrace than cy, as if one man became more or less worthy of another; for the positive language of Scripture on this point is, that "all have sinned and come short of the glory of God." And however gratifying it may be to the unmortified pride of nature, when at any time making comparative views of man, with man, to fancy one more excellent than his neighbour, the gospel knows of no distinction but what grace hath made among creatures of universal depravity and corruption. Such notions may float on the imagination of the vain and unawakened, who are strangers to "the plague of their own hearts," but they lose their very existence before God. The debtor to God of five hundred, or the debtor of fifty pence, being both alike insolvent and unable to pay, are both alike equally exposed to the prison, and for ever, unless that prison means hell; and must continue so the goodness of the Almighty Creditor should pass an act of grace, and frankly forgive them their respective debts. Indeed the dear Lord of his people, as if to encourage the most timid mind, when overpowered with the sense of multiplied transgressions, and to prevent all despondency, mercifully taught in this view of nature's insolvency, in this very parable of the debtors, that as the greatness or littleness of the debt is the same, both as it respects the state of the sinner's mind in violating the Divine precept, and as it concerns the Divine mind in the exercise of mercy; the difference is wholly on the part of man, and "To whom little is forgiven the not on the part of God. same loveth little." Our gratitude for pardoning love will be in proportion to the sense we have of its extent. For, though it may well be supposed that all ransomed debtors, when their

* See Luke vii. 36-50. Few persons seem to be duly sensible of this most both by the plainest matunquestionable truth, though it be confirmed to us, ter of fact, and by the apostle St. James, who, in his 2nd chapter, says, that "whosoever keepeth the whole law, and yet offendeth in one point, is guilty of all.", And for this plain reason, because in breaking the law in one point, he evidently manifests his disregard to the authority of the Lawgiver, as much as he would by the breach of ANOTHER: and consequently, if he be restrained from breaking it in ALL, this does not arise from a cordial reverence to God, for that is already given up in the first instance. Hence, therefore, the man that knowingly ventures to violate the obedience which he owes to God's law in ONE commandment, would as certainly do it in every other, if the temptation and the motive were equally powerful.

fetters are broken off and the prison doors thrown open, will sing "to the praise of the glory of His grace," by whom their salvation is procured; yet his will be the loudest note, whose recovery hath been the most gracious, the most undeserved, and the most unexpected.

And what sums up and completes this finished view of the gospel, is the third prominent character of it, in super-adding to both those gracious properties this striking particularity, that it is altogether unconditional on the part of God, and requires no previous qualification or worth on the part of man. Indeed the highly favoured objects of such rich bounty, as is shewn in the gospel, being all along considered as "without strength, and dead in trespasses and sins; and having the sentence of death in themselves, that they should not trust in themselves, but in Him who raiseth the dead;" it would be a contradiction in terms to suppose, that characters so described should be capable of doing any thing to help, or bringing any thing to recommend them, to the Divine favour. For even "repentance and faith, those most essential qualifications of the mind, for the participation and en

This is so plain a matter of fact, that it cannot be denied. So that, in accounting for the different degrees of transgression among men, we must refer them to other causes, and not to an internal approbation of the law of God. And in the various situations of life, and the variety of temptations arising out of them, in the constitutional features of the mind, and above all in the preventing and restraining grace of God; in these alone we shall find the real and adequate reasons, why offences abound in some more than in others. The deadly seed of sin is the same in all. But, like the seed of hemlock, not cast in the earth, THAT will remain inert and inactive, which, if falling into a suitable soil, would have brought forth its poisonous fruit. Sin in the heart, not brought into action, is like seed not used, but laid by in a chest, or other receptacle. Drop it into its motherearth, and the consequence is certain, and soon appears. So that it is the absence only of those contingencies, which are necessary to give it birth, which accounts for its inactivity in some cases and not in others.

If you, my reader, before whom these lines appear, be ready to call in question this statement of our fallen nature, I can only lament your uncon sciousness of it, and that on a double account. First, because, according to Scripture, nothing can be more fatal to a due apprehension of the infinite importance of salvation by Christ, than this blindness and ignorance of the heart. And, secondly, because, in respect to the happiness of the present life, you certainly lose one of the sweetest enjoyments the mind is capable of receiving here below, in not knowing that " they that are kept, are kept by the power of God, through faith unto salvation." (1 Pet. i. 5.), ..

joyment of the blessings of the gospel (and which all real disciples of the Lord Jesus cannot but possess) are never supposed as a condition which the sinner performs to entitle him to mercy, but merely as evidences that he is brought home to God, and hath obtained mercy. They cannot be the conditions of obtaining salvation; for, like the gospel itself, both faith and repentance are the immediate result of the Divine operation, and are the gift of God. The same hand which bestows the gospel, bestows also faith and repentance, or the sinner would never obtain them. The blessed Redeemer of mankind is called both the Author and Finisher of faith; and is said to be exalted to give repentance and remission of sins. And when His servant, the apostle, declares that believers are saved by grace through faith, he as positively declares also, that this is "the gift of God." Unto you (he says) it is given to believe. I could as easily create a world, as create either faith or repentance in my own heart. Both are of divine origin; and, like the light, and the rain, and the dew of heaven, “ which tarrieth not for man, neither waiteth for the sons of men," are from above, and "come down from the Father of lights, from whom alone cometh every good and every perfect gift."

This view of the gospel (and which certainly is the only true view of it) serves to place it in that light, which corresponds with our purest and most exalted notions of the beneficence of God, and answers to all the necessities of man. For it consists of nothing but invitations, promises, assurances, and the strongest declarations of mercy, followed up by innumerable instances of those who have been made the happy partakers of it, from one end of the Bible to the other. It seems to court the observation, to solicit the attention, and to invite the acceptance of the miserable and the wretched to its warmest embraces. And, that no broken-hearted sinner might despair in fancying himself placed beyond the reach of this rich tide of mercy, which flows continually without ebbing, it is not enough to say, that it washes on the shore of the un-deserving, but it reaches to the ground of the ill-deserving not barely to those who have done nothing to merit mercy; but even to those who have done every thing to merit punishment. It rises therefore above high water mark, overflows all bounds, evertops even the tallest mountains of corruption, and demonstrates what one of the apostles declared, and

thousands of sinners have found to be true, that, "where sin abounded, grace hath much more abounded."

Such being undeniably the state of the case in reference to the gospel; and which on account of the boundless extent of its mercy, is very properly termed "the unsearchable riches of Christ;" it next follows that to preach the gospel under any limitations, restrictions, or reserve whatever, in proposing conditions to the sinner, as constituting his title to a participation of its blessings, is to invert the very order of the gospel; and, instead of holding forth salvation to the lost, is only to propose strength to the whole. Just as absurd would it be in a physician to send away his patient, when labouring under some desperate disease, with a recommendation to do his utmost towards his own cure, and then to come to him to finish it; as it is in the minister of the gospel to propose to the sinner ❝ to do his best," by way of healing the disease of the soul, and then to come to the Lord Jesus to perfect his recovery. The only previous qualification is to know our misery, and the remedy is prepared. And as the Lord Jesus Himself, when upon earth, in opening His commission in the synagogue of Nazareth, declared that, "He was anointed to preach the gospel to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to give deliverance to the captives, to give sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, and to preach the acceptable year of the Lord :" it must follow by an undeniable inference, that the office to which He hath appointed His servants, who minister in His name, is to preach freely and fully the same gospel of salvation. I consider therefore the several churches of Christ on earth, as so many market-places of public resort, established for this express purpose, where proclamation is continually supposed to be made, to the poor and to the wretched, the weary and the heavy laden, to come with their several wants unto Him, who alone can supply them, and give rest unto their souls, without money and without price. And it is very certain, that the various ordinances of worship which the Lord Jesus hath appointed in His church, are for this purpose and this only, that they may become so many channels of communication, under the blessed Spirit's operation, between Christ and His people, by which empty, needy, distressed, and burthened sinners may bring their wants, and their cares, their sorrows and their sins before the Lord, and receive a suitable sup

ply out of His abundant fulness, and "grace for grace." And were I to drop into a church of christians, professing the eternal truths of the gospel, and found not evidences of these things; but discovered that moral essays were supplying the place of evangelical truths; that the person of the Lord Jesus, and His precious offices to lost souls, were not made the great topic of discourse; I should be led to conclude that I had mistaken my path, and had fallen into a synagogue of the Jews, and not the church of the Lord Jesus Christ.

My brother in the ministry! (if peradventure one of the sacred order should condescend to be among my readers) shall I entreat you not to be offended with this statement of the case, neither hastily to turn away from the serious consideration of a subject, which involves, in its final consequences, the everlasting welfare both of ourselves, and our people? Do not fancy that this doctrine leads to licentiousness, or that any poor self-condemned and broken-hearted sinner can possibly adopt the horrible maxim of "continuing in sin that grace may abound." The apostle hath answered this childish question in a way which one might have supposed, and coming from him, would have “ put to silence the ignorance of foolish men. How shall we (says he) that are dead to sin, live any longer therein." How is it possible that a man once awakened to a new life, and thereby become "dead to sin, can live any longer therein?" And for characters of a different description, with whom both the awful threats of the law, and the sweet allurements of the gospel, have lost all their influence, there can be no apprehension. They wrest whatever is preached, as they do also the "Scriptures themselves, unto their own destruction." And would any man, in compliment to such persons, hold forth a restrained, multilated, half-preached gospel? For my part, I am not afraid to imitate Him, in whose service I minister, by preaching a full, free, and finished salvation, through the sole merits, death, and righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, while I trace the footsteps of mercy in his history when upon earth, in going about the streets of Jerusalem, constantly inviting sinners to come to him for life and salvation; while I see him now with the eye of faith on his throne of glory, calling unto such persons in all the ends of the earth, to "look unto him and be saved;" while every ordinance of worship is uniformly