able reception among men; that the majority would be offended in him, and that special blessings awaited those who would not be offended.* Having, therefore, appealed to his miracles as giving scriptural evidence of his being he that should come; this prophesied pecu liarity of his character and mission, formed a suitable conclusion to our Lord's public reply to so important an inquiry: Blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me!

It was not to Christ's personal ministry alone that this applied: no, my dear friends, the natural heart of man is the same in all ages and countries enmity against God: and the Gospel of Jesus Christ faithfully and plainly stated, meets continually with the same treatment that he himself experienced during his abode among sinners. A few there were then who stood forth to vindicate their injured Master, who dared to reply to his gainsaying adversaries, "these are not the words of one who hath a devil;" "can a devil open the eyes of the blind?" And the poor man who had been born blind, said nobly to the objecting Pharisees, why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes." But these instances were very rare; the vast majority were offended

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* Isai. viii. 14; liii. 1, 2, 3. Psalm ii. 12; cxix. 2. Isai.

xxx. 18.

in Jesus. And so it is now. A few there are who dare to avow whom they serve, who are renewed in the spirit of their minds, constrained by the love of Christ, and taking up their cross daily, willing to bear all its singularity and all its offence, for the sake of him who died to deliver them from the wrath to come. But, alas! these are comparatively few indeed: a fearful majority are still offended. The pride of the unregenerate soul rebels against the meek and lowly Jesus, accompanied by his train of humiliating doctrines and self-denying duties. Some men have a dislike to the Gospel of the grace of God, without being able to assign any reason for it, without having ever closely examined their feelings upon the subject: others dislike it, because they think it hostile to the interests and promotion of true morals: and very many deceive themselves with an idea that they love and have embraced the Gospel, while at the same time they are clogging all its free promises with conditions; and such conditions as they themselves (with strange inconsistency) acknowledge they cannot perform.

It is painful to be obliged to find fault. Faithful reproof is a trying part of the duty of God's ministers: but necessity is laid upon us. "Woe unto him, saith the Lord, who healeth the wounds of my people slightly, saying peace, peace, when there is no peace."

Cry aloud, saith the Lord, and spare not: lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgressions and their sins which are written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond." This is indeed painful: the Prophet Jeremiah felt it deeply when he said, "Oh that my head were waters and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night, for the slain of the daughter of my people!" Dear brethren, if you had a beloved and valued friend or relative suffering. under a lingering and dangerous disease: if a certain mode of treatment and a certain line of conduct were prescribed as indispensably necessary towards recovery: and if you perceived notwithstanding all your anxiety and care, that your friend persisted in doing again and again, what was evidently calculated to produce the most destructive consequences: what could you feel? or how could you act? would not your tender affection render remonstrance or reproof extremely painful to you? and yet would not this very affection urge you to reprove and remonstrate?

Is this true, and do your hearts acknowledge the justice of it in natural things? And shall those whose eyes are open to spiritual things, and who behold their friends labouring under an inveterate disease which threatens death not to the body only, but to the soul also: shall

they refrain from remonstrance when they see those friends persisting with distressing perseverance in what has a direct and obvious tendency to increase and strengthen the worst symptoms of their complaint? My dear friends, it is our bounden duty, a painful part of it indeed I repeat, yet still our duty, as ambassadors for Christ, to tear open the wounds which corrode about the sinner's heart, that he may feel sensibly their alarming depth, and cry with unfeigned earnestness for the balm of Gilead the healing oil and wine of the good Samaritan.*

Man is naturally proud, and "the truth as it is in Jesus" offends the natural man, because it is levelled against his pride. When he hears the Gospel, the whole stream of its doctrines and precepts is repelled by this barrier of pride; at each successive hearing the stream beats with fresh force, and pride raises fresh opposition; till at last either the enemy of his soul succeeds in turning the stream into another channel, withdrawing him from the hearing of the truth, and leaving him in his pride to perish; or else the Spirit of the living God bursts through the barrier, and the waters of life eternal flow into his ransomed soul.

Many of you, brethren, are just now waver

* Jeremiah viii. 22. Luke x. 33, 34.

ing: week after week the Gospel beats against you; but the Devil who was "a liar and a murderer from the beginning,' * he who has made you proud, wishes to keep you proud, and prevail upon you to resist and reject that Gospel, the one only possible mode of deliverance from his kingdom of darkness.

I. The Gospel of Jesus Christ offends you because it proposes in the very outset the doctrines of imputed guilt and inherited corruption. If you were told that we have no concern with Adam's sin; that children are born in a state of innocence; that under careful treatment, a judicious education, keeping them from bad example, and early inculcating virtuous principles, they have a natural power as they grow up, to avoid sin, to obey the commandments of God and ensure to themselves eternal happiness: if this be stated, pride is not opposed, and no offence is given.

Again, if you were told that although man is indeed fallen, yet he has contracted only frailty by it, and not absolutely corruption; that many things good in the sight of God remain still in fallen man; that he has a natural will to desire what is spiritually good, a natural strength to accomplish that desire, a natural capacity to ask with sincerity and ear

* John viii. 44.

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