meet for repentance, they must perish; for God cannot lie, He cannot change; He is without variableness or shadow of turning; his threatenings, as well as his promises, must be fulfilled ; and as heaven is prepared for the righteous, so hell is prepared for the wicked. "Be not deceived: God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."1 "The Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ" (mark well the words, "obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ :") "who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power."2

Brethren, why do I set these things, or rather, I should say, why does the Gospel-the word of God and the Spirit of God-set them before you ? In mercy and love, to awaken us, to lead us all to look into ourselves, to stir us up to a deeper and more heartfelt concern for our immortal souls. May the Holy Spirit incline us all to lay these things more seriously to heart. Oh! that we may be wise, that we may understand this, that we may consider our latter end. Let this end, I beseech

you, be frequently before you the end of the righteous, the end of the wicked; for your last end will speedily arrive. Time flies, eternity is at hand. Soon must we all appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, to receive according to the deeds done in the body, whether they be good or whether they be evil. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men." The end of the wicked is fearful even to contemplate; but how glorious is the end of the righteous! Is the way of religion a narrow way? is it thorny, difficult, painful? Consider the end to which it leads. Consider who he is who offers to be your Guide, through all the difficulties and dangers of the way, the Captain of your salvation; who himself has already trod that way, and calls upon you to follow; who offers you (weak and wholly insufficient as you are in yourselves) that blessed Spirit, that grace sufficient for you in all your conflict to make you "more than conquerors through him who loved you.' ."Are you visited with trials, with temptations, with afflictions? Set before your minds that "rest which remaineth for the people of God:" when the world and all that is in it, its fleeting riches, its pleasures, its honours, its possessions, shall have passed away for ever as a dream of the night. Oh! think what it will be to awake to immortal bliss and glory. Think what

it will be to be found on the right hand of your Lord, and to hear from his own lips those gracious words, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."1 Think what it will be to hear the dreadfully appalling sentence, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels,"

SERMON X.

2 PETER i. 4.

Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.

THE force and connexion of these words will sufficiently appear, if we only turn back to the preceding verse. "According as his divine power," says the Apostle, that is, the power of God, "hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him,” that is, Christ, "that hath called us to glory and virtue." Christ is the channel through which all spiritual blessings flow in upon us. In him all fulness dwells; and it is from him we receive of that fulness, and grace for grace. "Whereby," by the glorious dispensation which he came to reveal in that astonishing scheme of Gospel Redemption, "are given unto us exceeding great and precious

promises, that by these"-by their renewing influence and sanctifying effect-"ye might be partakers of the divine nature; having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." In these words then, my brethren, there are three principal points calling for your attention.

1st. What the promises of the Gospel are, and wherein their exceeding greatness and preciousness here spoken of consists.

2dly. What is meant by being partakers of the Divine nature, and in what sense we can be

come so.

3dly. The means by which this work is wrought in us, by escaping the corruption or pollution that is in the world through lust.

I shall consider each of these heads in succession, and conclude with a suitable application.

The promises of the Gospel are expressed in a great diversity of terms, and represented in Scripture under various figurative descriptions. But they may all be resolved into these leading and fundamental articles: pardon of sin, reconciliation and peace with God, and the capacity, through the merits and justification of Christ, of attaining everlasting life and felicity. Of these "exceeding great and precious promises," God, through

X