the name of the Lord. All other means will be ineffectual. If heaven itself could be opened, and your eyes could behold its glory, and see our Lord upon his throne; and if your ears could listen to the praises of the thousand times ten thousand by which that throne is surrounded;-if the spirits of the damned that have died accursed could come and tell you of their torments, this would not-could not convert you. You would still go on in your slumber, till death at last overtook you, and plunged you down to hell. One only means there is which can ever prove efficacious; and that, because it is a means that moves the might of Omnipotence. What is that means? It is that for which we have pleaded-that you call upon the name of the Lord. Begin earnestly to pray, brethren. If heaven is worth your gaining, begin to pray. If hell is worth your escaping, begin to pray. If the world is not worth your loving, begin to pray. And if you pray, you shall repent. And if you pray, you shall believe. And if you pray, you shall be certain. And if you pray, you shall be saved. SERMON XXXIII. DIST. IV. INSTRUMENTAL. SEC. VII. CORNELIUS. Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.-Acts x. part of ver 4. THERE is one very numerous class of Scripture statements, which many persons who have embraced evangelical views of truth seem to feel difficulty in receiving. They are the statements which plainly assert that the Most High will deal with mankind, even under the Gospel and a dispensation of grace, strictly and exactly according to their real character. "Except your righteousness," said the Lord to his own disciples, "shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." "We must all," says St. Paul, 66 appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 66 Behold, I come quickly," says Christ to all his Church, in closing the canon of Scripture, "and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." And so says an angel of God, in the words of our text, even to one who was hitherto a stranger to the Gospel-to the centurion Cornelius VOL. II. M 5 the name of the Lord. All other means will be inef fectual. If heaven itself could be opened, and your eyes could behold its glory, and see our Lord upon his throne; and if your ears could listen to the praises of the thousand times ten thousand by which that throne is surrounded;-if the spirits of the damned that have died accursed could come and tell you of their torments, this would not-could not convert you. You would still go on in your slumber, till death at last overtook you, and plunged you down to hell. One only means there is which can ever prove efficacious ; and that, because it is a means that moves the might of Omnipotence. What is that means? It is that for which we have pleaded-that you call upon the name of the Lord. Begin earnestly to pray, brethren. If heaven is worth your gaining, begin to pray. If hell is worth your escaping, begin to pray. If the world is not worth your loving, begin to pray. And if you pray, you shall repent. And if you pray, you shall believe. And if you pray, you shall be certain. And if you pray, you shall be saved. SERMON XXXIII. DIST. IV. INSTRUMENTAL. SEC. VII. CORNELIUS. Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.-Acts x. part of ver 4. THERE is one very numerous class of Scripture statements, which many persons who have embraced evangelical views of truth seem to feel difficulty in receiving. They are the statements which plainly assert that the Most High will deal with mankind, even under the Gospel and a dispensation of grace, strictly and exactly according to their real character. "Except your righteousness," said the Lord to his own disciples, "shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven." "We must all," says St. Paul, 66 appear before the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad." 66 Behold, I come quickly," says Christ to all his Church, in closing the canon of Scripture, "and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be." And so says an angel of God, in the words of our text, even to one who was hitherto a stranger to the Gospel-to the centurion Cornelius VOL. II. M 5 -"thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God;" and St. Peter, when convinced of the reality thereof, confesses, in the 34th verse,— "of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but, in every nation, he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.” These, I say, are statements which some who are disciples to the doctrines of grace are not able to receive. They feel exactly the prejudice which the chapter records to have been in the mind of Peter; they are ready to say with him-"not so, Lord," even to a plain declaration of his own Word, or to think it, as he did, "a thing unlawful for a man that is a Jew"'-a man who is brought by the Divine benignity within the covenant of redemption—to extend the bonds of that covenant-to open the door of mercy -to those who are hitherto strangers to that covenant's virtue, albeit they be diligent, fervent, upright seekers after God and his truth and righteousness. Now, certainly, to a man that does exercise serious thinking, and with an upright heart, respecting revealed truth, there is no comfort whatever in acting the part which many such persons act with respect to such statements of Scripture. Having formed their own views and systems respecting the truth of Revelation, they either unfairly explain away every passage which seems to interfere with their scheme, or else they wilfully shut their eyes to it, and will not consider it at all. We say, without hesitation, that to an upright seeker there is no comfort in this ;there is nothing comes of it but a secret conviction that the Word has been treated unfairly. Depend upon it that all who are real disciples, and under the Spirit's teaching, will rather say of Revelation, and of all its statements, without reserve,—“ thy word is tried to the uttermost; therefore thy servant loveth it." They will take it in its length and its breadth,— |