The unswerving truth of God, which to the impenitent sinner speaks the certainty of coming vengeance, to the believer, confirms the promises, which are "Yea and Amen, in Christ Jesus." The justice before which the sinner trembled, as sealing his condemnation, is now pledged to accept the returning penitent in Christ. The sovereign authority, which dooms the rebellious to irrevocable punishment, takes the believer out of the power of Satan and of self, and declares, "None shall pluck thee out of my hand." Thus the very perfections of Deity, which seal the fate of the rebellious, form a canopy of defence around the believer; the character of God, which is to the sinner clouds and darkness, is light and life to the believer: even as the pillar of cloud was darkness to the Egyptians while it gave light to all the tribes of Israel.

If, then, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead speaks peace to our hopes, while we look forward to eternity, our surety set free, and our ransom accepted, equally does the same fact support and nourish those hopes, and give them a substantial form, while we regard him as our brother according to the flesh; and read the promise, "that

as Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him." Oh! what a thought is this, to the widowed heart, to the bereaved parent, to the lamenting friend, to the orphan. Your treasures are removed from mortal sight; but “in the garden" of life "there is a sepulchre," and then your fairest plants, perhaps the parent stem on which you leaned; perhaps the flower just opening into blossom; perhaps your fig-tree and your vine, what seemed the very aliment of your existence, are all shut in there, and you see them no more on earth.

But “Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept;" and at his coming, he shall gather an abundant harvest. All that sleep in Jesus shall arise and sing," though now they "dwell in dust;" and the doors of the sepulchre shall be unclosed, and you shall behold your loved ones, not indeed as they removed from your sight, but "made like unto the Lord;"-glorified and fitted for the heavenly garden, where there is no sepulchre, no death, neither sorrow nor sighing. If they sleep in Jesus! Oh! what an awful if! It were worse than vain to carry the inquiry, "who sleeps in Jesus?" to the

silent tomb; or raise the shroud to examine the character, and thence adduce the fate we know not how the Lord may have remembered them at the eleventh hour. But oh! let us put this awful question to our own hearts, Am I found in Christ? If I am, I shall awake from the dust of the earth to everlasting life; if not, I shall awake to "shame and everlasting contempt." Oh! let us so live, that we may indeed fall asleep in Jesus, and be found his, when they that are Christ's shall arise to welcome his second coming.

These two doctrines, my friends, that is, the completeness of our redemption, and the resurrection from the dead, are especially presented to your consideration this day, which our church appoints peculiarly to commemorate that event, of which every Lord's day, the first day of the week, is a memorial.

The fields of poetry have been searched by orators, to find imagery to express the blessings it brings to remembrance. It has been compared to the first creation of light, as its radiance broke on a darkened world; to the renewing vigour of spring, when nature bursts from her winter sleep; but human eloquence sinks into nothing, when it attempts to add

decoration to such a truth as this. In all its glory, in all its sublimity, it stands recorded here: "He was delivered for our offences, and raised again for our justification;" and if we believe that Je. sus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." Let us answer in the language of Scripture, "This is the day that the Lord hath made, we will be glad, and rejoice in it; I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord. Thanks be to God which hath given us the victory through Jesus Christ. God is the Lord who hath shewed us light; bind the sacrifice with cords, even to the horns of the altar.Thou art my God, and I will praise thee; Thou art my God, I will exalt thee."

SERMON VI.

PREACHED ON THE SUNDAY AFTER ASCENSION,

1830.

MARK, XVI. 19.

So then, after that the Lord had spoken unto them, he was received up into heaven, and sat on the right hand of God.

COMPASSION-even divine compassion, would seem to have done its utmost, when the Lord Almighty veiled his glory in human nature; assumed a frame in all points like unto ours, and in that frame, filled with human sensibilities, acute in the sense of pain, for us endured "the cross and depised the shame."

That he should, even for a season, have inhabited such a house of clay, displays the loving-kindness of the Lord, in language beyond what the tongue of an archangel could express. And, had we traced his history to this point, and seen