there charged with having perpetrated the deed.

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While this was going on, the poor creature's heart was wrought up to the highest pitch of gratitude to the man who was doing so much to save his life. Every drop of my blood thanks you," said he, "for you have had compassion on every drop of it. You are my redeemer, in one sense, and you have a right to me. If I live, I am your property, and I will be a faithful subject." Many other like expressions of gratitude he uttered, and said to his benefactor, "I will be yours-you may do with me what you please; for you have bought me by this kindness." And then he spoke of the delight with which he would see and serve him; and declared he would come once ayear from one end of the kingdom to the other, to see and thank him, and should be glad never to go out of his sight.

But the endeavours of his friend were unavailing. The law refused to recal its doom, which in a few days was carried into effect. Yet on his way to the place, as he passed along the street, he obtained leave to kneel at the threshold of his benefactor's door; and there, in the most earnest manner, did he pray for the man who had made

such exertions to deliver him, though with

out success.

Shall we need to apply this affecting instance to the subject before us? We leave the application to yourselves; only reminding you, that believers are not reprieved, but pardoned; not only pardoned, but made children and heirs. You are redeemed, not from temporal death only, but from death spiritual and eternal. You are not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ. With this great price are ye bought: and doth not every argument of reason, and every motive of gratitude, shut you up to glorify God in your bodies, and in your spirits, which are his? It cannot be denied. And yet how seldom does the doctrine of this redemption produce sentiments of devotedness to God, so full and so constraining as those which a mere attempt to save temporal life produced in the above recited example! Is it, then, that men do actually esteem a benefit the less, because it comes from God? Or is it that they do not believe that any benefit has been conferred? This last supposition only will account for their insensibility; and this, doubtless, is the fact. They do not believe them

They both

selves bought with a price. want conviction of their bondage, and belief of the ransom: otherwise they would feel and act towards a divine Redeemer, just as they feel and act towards a fellow-creature, on receiving some benefit through his generosity; with this difference, that as the grace of the Redeemer far surpasses all other kindness, as the benefit of redemption exceeds all other benefits, it will excite an ardour of devotion proportioned to its engrossing magnitude; and if this devotion be wanting, we conclude, that belief in the doctrine of redemption, which inspires it, is also wanting in the callous unsubdued heart,

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SERMON VI.

THE MOTIVE AND MEANS FOR GLORIFYING GOD.

1 COR. VI. 20.

"For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."

MAN being involved in danger and ready to perish, the first thing he needs, and ought to seek, is safety. Surrounded with peril in this present life, and with wrath to come, rising into appalling magnitude in the prospect of a revealed eternity, the great question that becomes his situation is, "What shall I do to be saved?" The regulations of after-life, and the means of future enjoyment, are things posterior to salvation. Deliverance from going down to the pit is the first concern. To tell a malefactor how he ought to live on his short way to the place of death, were highly inapplicable, and would yield him little consolation. But to

tell him how he may be respited and pardoned, and how his character may be retrieved, and the happiness of many days honourably realized, will be tidings as suitable as joyous.

Now, this is the method pursued in the oracles of truth. The sinner's lost condition is pressed upon his deep convictions, and he is bid flee from wrath, and seek safety in the first movements of an awakened conscience. To escape for his life is the first thing; for nothing profits until the soul is safe. And the way of safety is plain. ly revealed, and a place of refuge pointed out, into which whosoever entereth is unquestionably safe.

But is safety alone the final cause of man? or is a state of enjoyment, together with safety, all that needs be sought? This were to abandon the creature to its own selfishness, to act for itself, and live for itself, and rejoice only in its own joys. If our views terminate in safety and in personal enjoyment, we are under the power of a most detestable selfishness, and are fast receding from the true centre of creature-rest-which is God. We need safety; and, being saved, we are relieved from the pressure of painful fears, and our souls return unto their rest;