utterance of a prayer and even although desire. should be indispensable to the success of it, we will not on that account lose our object in the present instance-for who is there that desireth not the salvation of his soul? Is there a human creature that breathes, who would not like to be assured of his exemption from the agonies of a hideous and intolerable hell, and who would not prefer to spend his eternity in the palaces of heaven? Put the question even to the most reckless and abandoned in all sorts of profligacy, would it not be his dread and his aversion to lie down amongst the everlasting burnings of the place of condemnation; and would it not be his choice rather, to be regaled throughout the unceasing ages of a glorious immortality, by those rivers of pleasure, and amid those sounds of jubilee, which cease not day nor night in the paradise of God? There is an instinctive horror of pain which belongs to all, and there is an instinctive love of enjoyment which equally belongs to all; and these, it may be thought, will be thought, will guarantee a desire and an honest desire with every possessor of a sentient nature for his salvation from the one, and for his secure inheritance of the other. So that if it be enough for the salvation of any that it should be his heart's desire and prayer to be saved

who after all wants the desire, and who is there that might not pray? This of all subjects, it may well be reckoned, should be one where the instigation of the heart is in unison with the utterance of the mouth; and thus while God wills the salva

tion of all, and man both wills and asks it, what obstacle can exist in the way of Heaven-or why should there be the distance of a single hairbreadth between any soul and the certainty of its salvation?

That you may apprehend aright how this matter stands, let me state to you the whole extent and import of the term salvation. We are aware of its common acceptation in the world—as if it signified but a deliverance.from the penalty of sin. Whereas, additionally to this, it signifies deliverance from sin itself. He shall be called Jesus said the angel, for He shall save his people from their sins-save them from a great deal more let me assure you than the torment of sin's penalty, even from the tyranny of sin's power. The one salvation is spoken of when it is said of Jesus that He hath delivered us from the wrath which is to come. The other sal

vation is spoken of when it is said of Him, that He hath delivered us from the present evil world. The first secures for the sinner a change of place. The second secures for him a change of principle. By the one there is effected a translation of his person, from what is locally hell to what is locally heaven. By the other there is effected a translation of his heart and spirit, from that which is the reigning character of hell to that which is the reigning character of heaven. The one is but a personal emancipation from the agonies of a tremendous suffering which is physical, to the joys of an exquisite gratification which is also physical. The other is a higher for it is a moral emancipation from the

thraldom of sensuality and sin to the light and the love and the liberty of a new heaven-born sacredness. This last is an inseparable constituent of the gospel salvation-or rather I would say that it is the constituting essence of it. The other is more the accompaniment than the essence. The essential salvation surely is that which stands related to the moral economy of man, even his deliverance from sin unto holiness. The subordinate or the accessory salvation is that which stands related to his animal or sentient economy, even his deliverance from the fire and brimstone of hell to the music and the splendour and the sensible enjoyments and the everlasting security of heaven. The one takes place after death. The other takes place now. At least it has its commencement in time, though its perfect consummation is in eternity.

You will now understand what the legitimate desire is which should animate the heart when the mouth utters a prayer for salvation. There is the desire it is true for a future and everlasting happiness—but there is also desire for a present holiness. There is no other salvation held out to us in promise or in prospect throughout the New Testament. It is the only salvation which man has a warrant to ask; and it is the only salvation which God is willing to bestow. Nothing more true than that if man really wills the thing which he prays for, and if the thing be agreeable to the will of God, he will certainly obtain it. Now God, on the

one hand, willeth all men to be saved; and if any one of these men, on the other, will for his salvation, every barrier appears to be done away, and the sinner is on the eve of a great and glorious enlargement. But be sure that you understand what this will for salvation means. It is not merely that the hand of vengeance shall be lifted off from you. It is also that the spirit of glory and of virtue shall rest upon you. It is not merely that you shall obtain a personal exemption from that lake of living agony into which are thrown the outcasts of condemnation. It is also that you shall obtain a spiritual exemption from the vice and the voluptuousness and all the worldly affections which animate the passions and pursuits of the unregenerate upon earth. It is not alone for some vague and indefinite blessedness in future. It is for a renovation of taste and of character at present. The man in fact who desires aright and prays aright for the object of his salvation, is not merely on the eve of a great revolution in his prospects for eternity. He is on the eve of a great moral revolution in his heart and in his history at this moment. His prayer to be saved embraces it is true the transference of his person on the other side of death, from the torments. of hell to the transports of paradise-but without a transference of character on this side of death the thing is impossible; and so there is enveloped in the prayer this cry of aspiring earnestness-" O God create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit within me.

19

LECTURE LXXVII.

ROMANS, X, 1.

"Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved."

MAN on the one hand might like to be put into a state of happiness without holiness; but God on the other hand does not like that such a happiness shall be conferred upon him. Let a sinner pray with all fervency for his deliverance from hell and translation into heaven-he prays for that which is not agreeable to the will of God, if he desire not at the same time to be filled with heaven's charity and heaven's sacredness. Heaven we are told is that pure and holy place into which nought that is impure and nought that is unholy can enter; and the sinner who cries for salvation yet would keep by his impurities, is wasting the desirousness of his heart on an object that is impossible. It is most assuredly not God's will that heaven should be peopled with any but those, who, of the same family likeness with Himself, reflect His own image back again upon that throne which is irradiated with the lustre and the loveliness of all virtue. It is said that when He first willed the visible creation into existence, and looked over that terrestrial platform which His hand had garnished with so many beau