changeable?-Above all is it for us, who have had such recent demonstration of the antipathies that subsist between sin and holiness-is it for us, who experimentally know that under the government of the one there for the other can be no harbour and no toleration-is it for us, who have learned from our own history, that sin is not permitted so much as to breathe within the limits of God's beloved family, and that to keep it clear of a scandal so foul and so enormous He roots up every plant and specimen that is stained by it—is it for us who, have thus once been rooted up and once been swept away, but, by the stretching forth of a mediatorial hand, have again been summoned to the being and the birthright we formerly had in the inheritance of children-is it for us to repeat that abomination which is as uncongenial to the whole tone and spirit of the Divinity now as ever; and will remain as offensive to His eye, and as utterly irreconcilable to His nature through all eternity?

Now the argument retains its entireness, though the Mediator should interfere with His equivalent, ere the penalty of death has been inflicted-though instead of drawing them out of the pit of destruction, He by ransom should deliver them from going down into that pit-though, instead of suffering them to die for their sins and then reviving them from their state of annihilation, He should himself die for them: and they, freed from the execution of the sentence, should be continued in that life of which they had incurred the forfeiture. Still they

were dead in law. To die was their rightful doom, though this doom was borne by another, and so borne away from them. Had they actually died for sin, and by the services of a mediator been brought alive again-the argument would have been, How shall we who died for sin, now that we live, continue in that which is so incompatible with the divine government, that, wherever it exists, it behoves by death to be swept away? And the argument is just as strong though the services of the Mediator are applied sooner, and are of effect to prevent the death instead of recovering it. Such is the malignity of sin, that, under its operation, we would have been blotted out from the living universe-such is the sacredness of God that sin cannot exist within the precincts of His lovingkindness; and so we, who lay under its condemnation, would, but for a Redeemer's services, have been deposed from our standing in creation. were as good as dead, for the sentence had gone forth, and was coming in sure aim and fatality on our devoted persons, when Christ stepped between, and, suffering it to light upon Himself, carried it away. And shall we, who, because of sin, were then on the point of extermination from a scene for which sin had unfitted us-shall we continue in sin, after an escape has been thus made good for us? Shall we do that thing, the doing of which would have been our death, had it not been for a redeeming process whereby life was preserved to us; and is it at all conceivable, that this redemption

We

would have been wrought, and that for the very purpose of upholding us in the very sin which made our redemption necessary?

To use the term dead in a forensic meaning, is not a gratuitous or unauthorised interpretation on our part. We have the example of Paul himself for it, in that memorable passage of first Corinthians, where he says, that "we thus judge, that as Christ died for all, then were all dead "-not personally dead-not dead in regard of affection for what was sinful; but dead in law-dead in respect of that sure condemnation, which, but for Christ, would have been fulfilled upon all-not executed but on the eve of execution: and whether the Saviour prevent the accomplishment of the sentence, or revive and restore them after it, the argument of the apostle is the same. Christ by dying, and that to preserve them from dying, did as much for them, as if He had brought them back again from the chambers of death-as if He had put life into them anew, after it was utterly extinguished as if He had placed them once again within the limits of God's family; and given them a second standing on the platform of life, from which sin had before swept them off. It is making Christ the author of our life, which He is as effectually by preventing its extermination, as He would have been by infusing it anew into us after it was destroyed; and the practical lesson comes out as impressively in the one case as in the other -even that we should give up the life to Him

who thus has kept or who thus has recalled it, or that we should live no longer to ourselves but to Him who died for us and who rose again.

We trust you may now perceive, how impressive the consideration is on which we are required to give up sin under the economy of the gospel. For sin we were all under sentence of death. Had the sentence taken effect, we would all have been outcasts from God's family. Sin is that scandal which must be rooted out, from that great spiritual household over which the Divinity rejoices-so that on its very first appearance, an edict of expulsion went forth; and men became exiles from the domain of Almighty favour, just because they were sinners. It is conceivable that the sentence might be arrested, or that it might be recalled; but it were strange indeed, if, after being doomed to exile because they had been sinners, they should cease to be exiles and be sinners still. Strange administration indeed for sin to be so hateful to God, as to lay all who had incurred it under death; and yet when readmitted into life, that sin should be permitted, and what was before the object of destroying vengeance should now become the object of an upheld and protected toleration. Every thing done and arranged by God-bears upon it the impress of His character. And it was indeed fell demonstration of His antipathy to sin, under the first arrangement of matters between Him and the species, that, when it entered our world, the doom of extermination from all favour and fellow

ship with God should instantly go forth against it. And now that the doom is taken off-think you it possible, that the unchangeable God has so given up His antipathy to sin, as that man, ruined and redeemed man, may now perseveringly indulge, under the new arrangement, in that which under the old arrangement destroyed him? Does not the God who loved righteousness and hated iniquity six thousand years ago, bear the same love to righteousness and the same hatred to iniquity still? And well may not the sinner say-if on my own person such a dreadful memorial of God's hatred to sin was on the eve of being inflicted, as that of everlasting destruction from His presence-if the awfulness of such a vindictive manifestation was about to be realised on me individually, when a great Mediator interposed; and, standing between me and God, bare in his own body the whole brunt of His coming vengeance-if when thus kept from the destruction which sin drew upon me, and so as good as if rescued from that abyss of destruction into which sin had thrown me, I now breathe the air of loving-kindness from Heaven, and can walk before God in peace and graciousness-Shall I again attempt the incompatible alliance of two principles so adverse, as that of an approving God and a persevering sinner; or again try the Spirit of that Being, who, in the whole process of my condemnation and my rescue has given such proof of most sensitive and unspotted holiness?

There shall be nothing, says God, to hurt or to