certain abfolute and irrespective decrees of God, and is effected folely by the grace of God, fo that no conditions are required to be fulfilled, no cooperation to be given on their parts, but that, however great and numerous may be their fins, they are eternally fure of falvation and that the great bulk of mankind are eternally doomed to perdition, no reference whatever being made to any faults of theirs; no poffibility whatever being allowed them of escaping their doom; the fole caufe of which is the pleasure, and the fole object of it the glory, of God.

Not fuch, we humbly prefume, was the tenor of thofe Hallelujahs, which the beloved difciple heard in the Spirit before the eternal throne: when " every creature in heaven, on "the earth, and under the earth," even "a 66 great multitude which no man could num"ber, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, "and tongues," joined in uttering praises to "the Lamb, who had redeemed them to God by his blood:" whilft "they who had the

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harps of God, fang the fong of Mofes the "fervant of God, and the fong of the Lamb; "Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord "God Almighty; juft and true are thy ways, "thou King of Saints!"

Rev. v. 19. vii. 9. v. 9. xv. 2, 3, 4,

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Now therefore "Amen: Bleffing and ho "nour and glory and power be unto Him that "fitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb

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"for ever."

DISCOURSE V.

JOHN vii. 37, 38, 39.

In the laft day, that great day of the feaft, Jefus food and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.

He that believeth on me, as the Scripture hath faid, out of his belly fhall flow rivers of living water. But this fpake he of the Spirit, which they that be lieve on him fhould receive.

IN this metaphor there are an appropriate force and beauty, which no doubt were immediately felt by the perfons, to whom the words were addreffed. Liable from their natural fituation to feel the mifery of occafional drought, and acquainted perhaps by their own experience, or at leaft by the narratives of others, with the horrors of the neighbouring deferts, the people of Judea would confequently perceive in the comparison all that expreffion, which our Saviour intended it to convey. The alteration to be wrought in the foul by the

Holy Spirit, thus prefented to their view under the emblem of a perennial fountain, would be fuggested by the refreshment, which water communicates to a traveller in a dry and fultry wilderness: the reviving vigour of the traveller would be confidered, as representing the renovation to be imparted to the believer by the enlivening influence of the Spirit: and they would be impreffed with a sense of the neceffity of that influence, by reflecting on the distress and dismay, to which one of their earlieft writers pathetically alludes; when faint from the paffage over the burning waste, and anxiously expecting to relieve their thirst at the customary fprings, which the heat had parched and exhaufted, "the troops of Tema "looked, the companies of Sheba waited for "them; they were confounded because they "had hoped; they came thither, and were "afhamed "."

It was in this light, that our Lord's declaration would probably exhibit itself to the minds of the Jews. And thus unfolded and illuftrated, it presents an appropriate and lively picture of that inward comfort, which the Chriftian derives from the agency of the Holy Spirit; of that invigorating principle, which he bestows; and of the general importance,

Job vi. 19, 20.

benefit, and neceffity of his aid, to fupport us in our earthly progrefs, and finally to conduct us to "the paradife of God"," more lovely than the garden of Eden, from which Adam by tranfgreffion fell where we "fhall hunger

no more, neither thirft any more, neither "shall the fun light on us, nor any heat. For "the Lamb which is in the midst of the "throne fhall feed us, and fhall lead us unto

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living fountains of waters," and shall "fa

tisfy us with the plenteousness of his house, "and give us drink of the river of his pleasures."

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There is not a doctrine in the facred volume, which is more clearly revealed, nor one which more abounds in motives to holiness of life, or in topics of rational exultation, than this, which attributes our ability to "work out our "falvation" to the preventing and affifting grace of the Holy Spirit of God. At the fame time unhappily there is not one, which has been perverted into a more overflowing fource of corruption and error. There is not one,

which has been wrested in former times into a motive or a fanction for more daring impiety and profligacy. There is not one, which has been more tortured in the present day, fo

Rev. ii. 7.

£ Rev. vii. 16, 17. Pf. xxxvi. 8.