(yea, so tenacious are the Jews that they never pronounce it, lest they should take the incommunicable name in vain) has no plural; so the other word which expresses the covenanting of the Deity is in the plural; fully confirming the Trinity in unity. "Hear, therefore, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord and thou shalt love Jehovah, Elohim, with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might." All men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father: and an Apostle says, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit, whereby ve are sealed unto the day of redemption."

These, my brethren, are the grand truths of our most holy faith, which we in common with the Christian Church this day commemorate; a doctrine, indeed, which is confessedly mysterious, beyond the ken of human knowledge; but not therefore to be rejected, but to be received in humble faith on the truth of God's holy word. May it produce in us more zeal, more love, a stricter conformity to the divine image; that when we have finished our course we may, by the influence of the Holy Spirit, having washed our robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, be received by God the Father. Then will Jehovah be our Elohim, and constitute our glory and crown of rejoicing: and we shall behold and dwell with Him in whose presence is fulness of joy, and at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

THE NATURE OF SALVATION AND THE MEANS OF ITS ATTAINMENT.

REV. S. ROBINS, A.M.

ST. JOHN'S CHAPEL, BEDFORD ROW, AUGUST 23, 1835.

"Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; by which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain."-1 COR. xv. 1, 2.

THESE verses lie at the commencement of the very powerful and eloquent chapter of this epistle in which St. Paul maintains the doctrine of the body's resurrection. This doctrine had already been impugned: there were those who, with Hymeneus and Philetas, believed that the resurrection was spiritually spoken of; was a resurrection only from a state of sin to a state of holiness, and that it was already passed. Others there were who, in the pride of human reason and human philosophy, altogether denied the truth of the future resurrection, but gave man over an entire and unredeemed prey to death, believing that the spiritual, as well as the material portion should find an everlasting sepulchre.

Now, in contradicting both the one and the other opinion, the Apostle maintains that there shall be a future resurrection; that the body shall be redeemed from the dust; that man shall stand forth in all the completeness of his complex being, to receive his everlasting portion. In the close of this epistle he recapitulates what he had already stated: "I declare unto you the Gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand." For although the Corinthian Church was one singularly marked by its disorders, yet upon the authority of the Apostle, we believe it to have been a Christian Church: they had received the Gospel, and they were standing in it.

We propose, in the application of these truths, to speak to you on the subject the most important to human creatures, and which St. Paul, writing, for aught he knew, the last letter he might ever address to his people, chose as his great topic: "By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you."

Now we propose, in the first place, to bring before you the nature of the salvation of the soul; and, in the next place, to speak of the means of its attainment.

As to the first head of our subject—THE SALVATION OF THE HUMAN SOUL—it

'On behalf of the Society for Visiting and Relieving the Indigent Blind.

is in truth that one great topic which may claim for itself the intelligent regardfulness of all creation. It is that which might well fasten down upon its detail all the understanding which God has given to his creatures. And truly do we know, that it is a matter which even the angels in the presence of God desire to look into: that they would stoop from their lofty and holy occupations to trace out the workings of this mighty design of God; because they know that herein his attributes receive their most entire vindication, and here, as it were, is paid unto God the largest revenue of praise and glory. It is the subject on which God's people on earth rejoice to dwell; it is that which shall occupy the enlarged capacities of the redeemed when they are brought within the borders of the kingdom that has been promised to them.

Salvation is the triumph of grace over sin; it is the victory of God over his great enemy; and we can conceive no matter approaching to it in its weight and eternal importance, whether we regard it in its general application or in its individual aspect; whether we consider salvation to mean the recovery of a lost world, the bringing back unto Jehovah a portion, an isolated province, of his empire, restoring it again to himself, that he may be loved, honoured, and glorified therein; or whether we consider the establishment of the divine authority, in the setting up of the influence of divine love in the individual heart, and the rendering back that heart, with all its bright and glorious endowments, and with the exercise of all its precious affections, unto Him who elaimeth the exercise both of the one and the other to himself.

Now it is a mighty work, whether to restore a world, or to restore one individual heart. It was a work which could be achieved by no putting forth of creature energy. All the borders of the universe would have been hopelessly sought over, and none should have been found fit for the championship of our race; there was only One who might bind this burden upon himself, God's own dear Son. It was only incarnate Deity who could undertake, and carry forward, and accomplish so mighty and stupendous a work. It was only Jesus who could thus wrestle with the foe, and overcome him, and restore the rebel province to its allegiance and to its loyalty: and it is only Jesus, in all the fulness of his character and his office, on whom the wicked sinner can rest for peace and comfort; for they are found, abundantly found, in him. He is as the well-spring of all spiritual and everlasting good to his chosen ones. Whatsoever there is of blessedness on this earth, it comes to us from Jesus: HE hath saved his people.

Now it is from sin that he hath saved them, and this in a three-fold aspect. They are saved from the guilt of sin. His blood is as the cleansing fountain, wherein all their defilements may be washed away. Yes, beloved, we may declare this to you as the blessed message from on high: and we will tell you in our Master's name, that there is not one, however conscious of guilt, however burdened the memory with past transgressions; though days and years have been passing away, bearing testimony to iniquity repeated again and again; though you may have trampled upon divine love, and though you may have rejected all the messages of heaven's mercy, though you may have rebellion chambered in your hearts, and defiance written upon your brow; yet if you will come to Jesus, and if you will ask that the holy and cleansing influences of his blood be upon you; if you be but content to cast away the pridefulness

of your nature, and to fling from you all self-dependence and self-trust; and if you will wrap yourselves in the robe of his righteousness; your guilt shall be remembered no more; but you shall stand as accepted, and as stainless, and as without blemish, in the presence of your reconciled God, as though sin had never tainted your nature, as though defilement had never come into your heart.

He saved his people from the condemnation of sin. "Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth?" The people of the Lord, brought into a close and intimate communion with him; living upon his fulness, enjoying the imputation of his righteousness, will never have a verdict against them, and will never hear the sentence of their condemnation. The gulf that separated them from God is as it were filled up; for the Saviour cast into it all the mighty power of his sufferings and his obedience; and the wall of separation had been pulled down, so that there is now an open way of intercourse between the Creator and his creatures. So far is he now from condemning them, that he suffers not the Accuser to be heard: they are complete in his dear Son; they stand before him without blame.

But Jesus hath, moreover, delivered them from the power of sin. Now of this most blessed deliverance we know nothing till the Lord enlightens the eyes of our understanding, and shews us that our birth state was a state of the bitterest, vilest, and the most debasing thraldom. But from this Jesus sets his people free. And it is a precious declaration of his own Word to them: "Sin shall have no more dominion over you; ye are not under the law, but under grace." That domination which was set up by the usurper within their hearts has now been put down by Jesus. The slave has had his emancipation; his fetters have been broken; his prison-house has been opened; and he comes forth into the region of light and liberty: he is free. The guilt, the condemnation, and the power of sin, are removed by the mighty working of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now this, you will mark, is spoken of in the Bible, not altogether as a future thing, but as a thing already commenced. It is not said, " By which Gospel ye shall be saved;" but it is said, " By which also ye are saved." Now if salvation, in its final accomplishment and results, was a thing that depended on the changefulness of human opinion, or the fickleness of human design; then there might be subsequent failure, and the bitterness of disappointment might be consequent upon the fulness of hope. But we have to deal with One who is unchangeably the same-yesterday, to-day, and for ever the same; over the brightness of whose eternity no cloud of variation has ever passed. The believer is already brought to the enjoyment, the foretaste, of those things which the Saviour bought for him, and which are treasured up for him within the borders of that land where sorrow cannot come. He is already saved: he hath the sure word of promise. He is built upon the faithfulness of the Eternal God: he is resting upon a rock; and the winds may blow, and the tempest may break on him; but he knows that his spiritual edifice cannot fall; for it hath deep and eternal foundations.

Now, the happiness of believers, both in time and in eternity, is in its characteristics the same. It is the presence of Jesus which gladdens him. He

might have all that earth could afford, all that imagination could depict, or the widest wish aspire to; but it would be as nothing if Christ were not with him. His citizenship is far hence; he is looking to other things; his hope and his soul's desire are in eternity. It is just in proportion that Jesus is present, revealing to his soul these bright hopes, that he enjoys present comfort, and peace, and joy; and it is just as these hopes will be fulfilled by the more largely manifested presence of Jesus, that heaven will be to him a place of perfect and unsullied happiness. O it is not that creation shall be restored to all that it was, and to more than it was; it is not that the dilapidations of its materials shall be built up; it is not that earth shall become what it was ere sin blighted, and cursed, and desolated it; but it is that he is come into a land where the Saviour will be ever present with him, and where he shall see him, with no cloud, and no darkness ever to intercept. To the believer, in the fulness of his faith and in the strength of his hope, heaven is already begun; and he will look away from his infirmities, and his trials, and his pains; his hope leaps beyond the dark hills which shut him in, and dwells in heaven itself, and he seems already to catch on his ear the sound of that celestial music, and he seems already to behold its blessed inhabitants, and already to breathe its pure, unburthened air. He is saved: he is able to take to himself, in a personal appropriation, that which Jesus hath done for his Church; and he is able to say, "It is for me that he died; it is to purchase my salvation: and every promise that the Father gives it is a gift to me. I have a seat in eternity; the title-deeds for it are in the Word of God: the charter of my inheritance has been written out by the hand of the Eternal, and hath been signed in the crimson blood of Jesus. Now this it is to enjoy salvation, and to be set free for ever from guilt, and condemnation, and spiritual slavery, to be brought into the circle of God's adoption, to be brought into the household of his dear children, to have bread liberally ministered to us day by day from out of our Father's store-house, to be refreshed on our weary journey, to be maintained by the ever-present Spirit, to have consolation living and dying, because we are Christ's and Christ is God's.

But now we go on, as we proposed, in the second place, to speak of THE MEANS BY WHICH THIS SALVATION IS ATTAINED. "By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you." The subject of Paul's preaching we have in the following verses: "I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures." Now there is no salvation without the acceptance of Gospel truth; and for the acceptance of Gospel truth preaching is God's appointed means. It is the instrument that he has chosen to select for the evangelization of the world.

Now the great subject of the Apostle's preaching was the death of Christ: and in exact proportion as that becomes the main topic in the ministry of any Church, that Church will be established and will be built up, and will subsist to the glory of God. In exact proportion, too, in which this great topic is ever presented, in one or other of its aspects, to the mind of an individual believer, there will be peace, and joy, and comfort. We affirm, broadly and