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shall not make you ashamed, and a plea for the other, which shall not fail you.

Meditate on the assurances with which the Scripture abounds of God's care and mercy to them that seek him. "The meek shall eat, and be satisfied; they shall praise the Lord that seek him; your hearts shall live for ever. They that seek the Lord shall want nothing that is good." I do not say that you shall want nothing which you deem good; for fancy is often misled, and the humours of the heart are foolish and wayward; but you shall be denied nothing which God sees to be necessary to your welfare.

If, as I trust is the case, you have met with the Saviour whom you sought at his table, consider that this is a privilege of which you are altogether unworthy, and provoke him not to leave you by a presumptuous and wandering heart. If other objects solicit you to pursue them, let it be seen that you are too happy with your Lord to seek for felicity any where else. Christ's approbation is your crown, his law is your delight, and his smile is your felicity.

Long for heaven, where your Lord and you shall never be separated, and where you shall see him as he is. In vain shall death forbid your approach to Jesus, for in that flesh which worms shall destroy you shall see God. In vain shall the accuser of the brethren demand your condemnation, for in spite of all his charges he shall see the mercy of the Lord Jesus adjudging you to eternal life. And in vain shall the workers of iniquity try to prevent your separation from them, for it shall be effected by love directed by infinite wisdom, and armed by almighty power.

If there be any before me whose hearts are now complaining," I sought Jesus, but I found him not," I would say to them, let your inquiries be more hum

ble, affectionate, and earnest, than they have been, and the promise of God will be verified, "Ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye search for me with all your hearts." The termination of the solemnity may be more happy to you than its commencement. And however long he may delay his meeting with you, "it is good for a man both to wait and quietly to hope for the salvation of the Lord."

ADDRESS XXXIX.

1 THESS. I. 10.

"And to wait for his Son from heaven whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus who delivered us from the wrath to come."

THESE Christians at Thessalonica were striking evidences of the moral power of the gospel. They had been turned by it from the gross notions, the carnal superstitions, and the gloomy forebodings of idolatry, to the service of the living God, to that atonement by which guilt is expiated, and to a patient waiting for the second coming of our Lord. And I trust that by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus ye have been brought from the corruption, misery, and peril, of a state of nature, to the feelings, the sanctity, and the hopes of Christians.

Let your meditations be turned to the wrath to which you were exposed, that your gratitude may be heightened to your great deliverer. There are some who, led away by the flatteries of a deceitful heart, or by extravagant views of the divine mercy, reprobate the

idea of God's avenging justice, and stigmatise the representations which are given of it for the most salutary purposes, as the forebodings of a gloomy enthusiasm which loves to excite horror and alarm. But their views of the indulgence and indiscriminate mercy of the Deity are in direct opposition to his justice and purity, and are most pernicious in their influence. If, in the present scene, which was never intended for the full display of divine justice, we see the prosperous villain often covered with infamy, and wretched by remorse, and guilty nations made the tormentors of each other, what must be the case in a future state when the mystery of God shall be finished, and " he shall plentifully reward the proud doer ?" Revelation leads us to the side of the pit of destruction, clears away the smoke which issues from it, and gives us a glimpse of those who are dwelling with devouring fire, that we may gladly embrace the salvation which it offers.

How dreadful is the thought that this misery will never come to an end! The chains of darknes are never unloosed, the devouring worm never dies, and the smoke of torment ascends up for ever and ever. In this world we are visited by few calamities for the removal of which we may not hope. The world may do justice to the reputation which calumny has blasted, health may restore its bloom to the faded cheek, and reconciliation renew the intercourse of interrupted friendship; but while the ages of eternity are rolling, there will still be wrath to come.

None of you, I trust, is saying in his heart, "why are such dreadful contemplations presented to us? if they must be uttered in a Christian assembly, let them be addressed to those only who are enemies to God." The more vivid your impressions of the damnation of hell are, the more fervent will be your love to the Sa

viour, the more serious and solemn will your spirit be; and the more rapturous will be your joy in those blessings of salvation to which God, in the riches of his grace, hath brought you.

From this wrath Jesus delivered you. Actuated by the strongest pity, when he saw our utter wretchedness, and the impossibility of relief coming from any hand but his own, he engaged to rescue us by devoting himself to all the anguish of the curse. He assumed our nature, and closed a life of sorrow, which yet was distinguished by every moral beauty, by the death of the cross. Why did the blood stream from every pore of his prostrate body in the garden? and what made his soul exceeding sorrowful, even unto death? It would be to dishonour his fortitude, and to degrade his love, to say that this arose from the mere dread of death, which feeble mortals have often defied, or from the ingratitude and cowardice of the disciples, which he foresaw, and generously pardoned; it was his Fa ther's hand which bruised him, and put him to grief. What opened these lips in complaint on the cross which were sacred to the language of patient submission? it was because on him were laid the iniquities of us all. Thus was he made a curse for us, "that being justified by his blood, we may be saved from wrath through him."

O what gratitude do you owe to this Deliverer! You are grateful to the man by whose skilful attentions your life is rescued from the grave to which disease was hurrying you; but he is only the instrument of the divine beneficence, and relieves you without detriment to himself. The man who delivers a nation from bondage, or from peril, is celebrated in its annals from age to age; but we cannot compare this deliverance, or the sacrifice of ease, or of life by which it has been at

tained, to our redemption from utter ruin in soul and in body for ever; and to those agonizing sorrows by which it hath been accomplished, and which are now to be exhibited in expressive symbols. We must know the power of God's anger, and the intensity of Christ's sufferings, ere we can understand the value of this de. liverance, or the love which achieved it.

As a guilty sinner I deserved the pains of hell; and when my conscience was awakened, I felt its remorse and despair working within me ; and I thought, if thẹ beginning of sorrows is so overwhelming, what must wrath to the uttermost be? In this dreadful state I sought the Lord Jesus, and he heard me, he washed me from all my sins, and delivered me from all my fears; and instead of drinking of the wine of the wrath of God from the cup of his indignation, and being tormented with fire and brimstone, in the presence of the Lamb, the children's bread, and the wine of the kingdom are mine:-" I will praise thee O Lord with my whole heart, I will glorify thy name for ever more, for great is thy mercy to me, and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell."

After the Service.

Christians, the resurrection of your Lord from the dead, is a proof that the purchase of your deliverance from wrath is completed. If the price of your redemption had not been paid, your Surety would not have been taken from prison and from judgment. But to shew that every demand had been answered to the full, he was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father. His Father brought him from the grave, and received him to glory, not in obscurity and silence, 1

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