- ner, the general declaration of the GOSPEL is,"God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him might not perish but have everlasting life." No one is named. But the comprehensive "whosoever" includes every one to whom the testimony comes. He feels himself a sinner :-the message is a message of mercy to sinners, on the ground of the Saviour's finished work. It is to "the world"-to "the whole world ;" declaring that "whosoever believeth hath everlasting life." He humbly believes the testimony, as from God:-and his simple consciousness of believing it places him amongst those to whom it promises "peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ."-On both sides of this parallel, there is of course understood to be a right apprehension of the law on the one hand, and of the gospel on the other. This must be assumed. If there be not a right understanding of the law, the sense of guilt will be proportionably defective and erroneous and if there be not a right understanding of the gospel, the peace must be false and delusive. I know few things of greater consequence than clearing the ground on this first particular,-simplifying the way of a sinner's coming to Christ and finding peace. Here, I apprehend, lies a great deal of what is frequently so perplexing and bewildering to the minds of inquirers, in human systems. The statements which some of them contain on this subject have kept many a sinner long back from the Saviour; besetting the way with briars and thorns, which intercept the open freeness of its access:-or converting the way itself into an intricate labyrinth, through which a passage must be groped with long, and tedious, and dreary difficulty:- or interdicting the sinner, even when he has come to Christ, from enjoying immediate peace and hope in resting on his merits and grace. There is nothing of this kind in the Bible. "Come unto me," is Christ's simple invitation :-" Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out," is his allgracious and encouraging assurance :-and it is his design that sinners, simply believing in him, should, on the ground of this assurance, "know that they have eternal life." These observations are in perfect harmony with the many instances recorded in the New Testament history, of sinners, immediately on their understanding and believing the apostolic testimony, being filled with joy, and peace, and hope. Thus it was, on the day of Pentecost, with those who were "pricked in their hearts" by the sudden and distressing sense of guilt awakened in them by the preaching of the Apostles, when they received the testimony of free mercy through the blood of Him whom, with wicked hands, they had crucified and slain. The torturing wounds of conscious guilt were healed by the blood of the cross, and an humble, holy, elevated joy was imme E diately diffused through their souls. They "gladly received the word;" and they "continued steadfastly in the Apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers,”—“ and did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God."* Thus it was with the Ethiopian Eunuch, when, upon receiving the testimony of Philip, and being baptized into the faith of it, he "went on his way rejoicing." Thus it was with the Philippian Jailor, when his trembling spirit was set at rest by the Apostle's answer to his eager inquiry "What must I do to be saved?" Whenever he understood the reply, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house," he "rejoiced, believing in. God with all his house." Thus too it was with the believers at Thessalonica, when they "received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost."§ And if it was thus of old, in the beginning of the gospel, can any good reason be assigned why it should not be so now? The gospel is the same; the character, and condition, and exigencies of sinners are the same; the adaptation of the one to the other is the same-why then should not the effects be the same? the same in kind, the same in immediateness ?—I do not, by any means, deny that, in many cases, the sin *Acts ii. 37; 41, 42; 46, 47. † Acts viii. 35-39. SI Thess. i. 6. ner's mind does continue for a time under painful and distracting convictions and fears. But this is not owing to any thing in the gospel; nor is it consistent with its own proper nature and tendency. To trace these fears to their causes is not my present object. I only say that the gospel itself is good tidings; and that good tidings, from their very nature, must be fitted, when understood and believed, to inspire, not fear but hope, not sorrow but gladness. "The law worketh wrath." It convicts of sin, and agitates the soul with well-founded terrors. The Gospel proclaims peace :-" I create the fruit of the lips,-Peace, peace, to him that is far off and to him that is near"-to Gentile as well as to Jew-and it must be owing to some remaining misapprehension of its nature, and of the gracious purpose of Him whose message it is, if immediate peace is not derived from it.-That which is "written," so full of simplicity, is, of itself, quite sufficient to introduce immediate joy into every spiritually enlightened and believing mind. Let it not be alleged, that when I speak of our “knowing that we have eternal life" as being founded in something written, this is to affirm all evidence of personal salvation to be outward, or extraneous to the sinner's own mind. This were a strange misapprehension. The truth is, there is none of the evidence outward; nor, in the nature of things, can it be. It must all, of necessity, be connected with conscious ness; which of course is inward. But what I insist upon is this, that the consciousness must have a respect to, and a correspondence with, something written. If it be a consciousness of believing, the faith of which the sinner is conscious must be the faith of what is written of the divine testimony :-if it be the consciousness of any of the effects of faith, it must still accord with what is written,-with the representation of these effects given in the word. But to enter on this, would be to anticipate the next branch of my subject. SECTION III. 2. The second of the three views of eternal life is that which consists in spiritual character. There has often appeared to me, on the subject of which I am now treating, by far too much of a disposition to dwell on the former view of our having eternal life,-on the way, I mean, in which we are to know that we are pardoned, or justified.-There is a natural propensity in our minds to think of this as the chief part of salvation; and it is the same as the propensity to desire deliverance from punishment or suffering rather than from sin, from physical rather than from moral evil: and the manner in which the subject has at times been treated, has seemed to me calculated to give countenance and encouragement to this propensity. But in the scriptures, the two appear inseparable,-life as to pardoned state, and life as to spiri |