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ting fin under the Old Teftament, by offering facri fices, and fprinkling the blood of the victim upon the altar. But as this was in itself only typical of Chrift, How welcome to the foul is the glad tidings of the Meffiah, who did, what these facrifices could not do,-actually fave his people from their fins! By the atonement and blood of Chrift, the fins of men have been completely expiated. It is the voice of the Gospel of Peace, "Take, eat, and live forever." What relief will it give to the wounded mind, to hear of the blood of fprinkling, which speaketh better things than the blood of Abel! The Gospel being published to the world, and the offers of mercy through a Redeemer being made to all men, the fincere penitent accepts thefe offers, and flies for refuge to the hope fet before him. Then Jefus faves his people from their fins, he heals the mind which was wounded by remorse, and' bestows that peace which the world cannot give, and cannot take away. There is joy in heaven, we are told, over a finner that repenteth, and the joy of the heavens is communicated to the returning penitent. When he beholds God reconciled to him in the face of his Son; when he hears, in fecret, the bleffed Jefus whispering in sweet strains to his heart, "Son, be of good cheer, "thy fins are forgiven thee," he is filled with peace and with joy; with peace which paffeth all underftanding; with joy which is unfpeakable and glorious. His fins being forgiven, he is accepted in the Beloved. He is an heir of immortality, and his name is written in heaven; to him is opened the fountain of life. He has a title to all the pleasures which are at God's right hand; to the treasures of heaven, and

to the joys of eternity. He looks forward with a well-grounded hope, to that happy day, when he fhall take poffeffion of the inheritance on high; he anticipates the delights of the world_to come; and breaks forth into ftrains of exultation, fimilar to those transports of affurance uttered by the Apostle, "Who "fhall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? "It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemn"eth? It is Chrift that died, yea, rather, that is rif"en again, and who now fitteth and intercedeth for * us at God's right hand."

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For what fhall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own foul?

THERE is not a person in this affem

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bly, but who affents immediately to the truth of the maxim implied in the text. You all agree, that religion is the one thing needful, and that above all things you ought to feek the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof. But there is a wide difference between the affent of the mind to the truth of this principle, and that deep conviction of its importance, which, in Scripture, obtains the name of faith fufficient to influence the heart, and to determine the life. A great part of mankind feem to have no fteady belief that they are endowed with fouls which are immortal; an eternity to come is with them merely a matter of fpeculation, and their faith in a future world has little more influence upon their lives, than their idea of a distant country, which they are never to fee.. Hence fpiritual and eternal things are heard with little emotion or concern, while they are delivered in the houfe of God. Some can give themfelves up to liftlefnefs; and others foon lofe all remembrance of what they have heard, in the next amufement, or in the news of the day. Even he who fpoke as never man fpake, and while he difcourfed

on points of fuch importance as the lofs of the foul, had occafion often to take up the complaint, that in vain he stretched out his hands all day long to a dif obedient people.

To call your contemplation, then, to these subjects, for they need no more but to be confidered aright, in order to be felt, I fhall endeavour to fhow you the value of the foul, from its native dignity, from its capacity of improvement, from its immortality, and from its unalterable ftate at death.

Let us confider then, in the first place: The native importance and dignity of the human foul. It is the mind chiefly that is the man. Our fouls properly are ourselves. The bodily organs are the minifters of the mind; by these it fees and hears, and holds a correfpondence with external things. It is by our fouls that we hold our ftation in the fcale of being; that we rank above the animal world, and claim alliance with fuperior and immortal natures. As the foul is fuperior to the body, fo intellectual pleafures exceed the fenfual; as heaven is higher than the earth, fo the joys of a heavenly origin are fuperior to earthly enjoyments. I niean not in the common way, to depreciate temporal poffeffions, as being infignificant in themselves, and unworthy the cares or labours of a wife man. Such difcourfe is mere declamation; it is against nature, contrary to truth, and makes no impreffion at all. Let all the value be fet upon wealth and temporal poffeffions which they deferve, as affording a defence from many evils to which poverty is liable; as miniftering to the convenience, the confolation, and the enjoyment of life; as fupporting a station with decency and dignity in

the world, and as accompanied with an importance, by which a good man may find much pleasure arising to himself, and have the power of doing much good to his fellow-creatures; let all the value which reafon allows, be fet upon temporal acquifitions and enjoyments, ftill they are inferior to thofe of an intellectual and moral kind; ftill the maxim remains true, That he would be an infinite lofer who fhould gain the whole world and lofe his own foul. "Thou haft put more gladness into my heart," faith the Pfalmift," than "worldly men know, when their corn, and their wine, "and their oil abound." And do not your own feeling and experience bear witness to this truth? Who will not acknowledge that there is more excellence in wisdom, than in mere animal ftrength? Who will not own that there is more happiness in the improving converfation of the wife, than in the tumultuous uproar of the debauched and licentious? Are the rays of light as pleasant to the eye as the radiations of truth to the mind? Have fenfual gratifications a charm for the foul, equal to intellectual and moral joys? While the former foon pall upon the appetite, are not the latter a perpetual feaft? While the remembrance of the one is attended with no pleasure, is not the remembrance of the other a repetition of the enjoyment?

But great as the dignity of the human foul is, it may be still greater; for, in the second place, It poffeffes a capacity of improvement. This constitutes one effential difference between the intellectual and the material world. All material things foon reach the end of their progrefs, and arrive at a point beyond which they cannot go. Inftin&t grows apace,

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