obliquities in their course, but his faithfulness is pledged to rectify them; there are sins to which they are exposed and will commit, but that same faithfulness will purge them away. "I have made a covenant with my chosen," saith the Holy One of Israel; "I have laid help upon one that is mighty; I have exalted one chosen out of the people. His seed also will I make to endure forever. If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments, if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments, then will I visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes; nevertheless, my loving kindness will I not take from him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail.”

The Father's engagement with the Son was a bona fide engagement; and so long as God is on the throne, and is able to control their hearts and govern their condition and destiny, their unfaithfulness shall never be allowed to "make the faith of God of none effect." Dangers may stand thick around all the paths they are traveling, and they may often tremble lest they fall by the hand of the enemy: but from that altar of intercession, he who bled on Calvary looks down and says to them, "Fear not, little flock; it is my Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom!". Nor could there be any such thing as the full assurance of hope, in this covenant and promises, if believers ultimately fall. No present evidence of a change of heart, be it ever so convincing; no consciousness of love to God and faith in his Son, be it ever so strong and infallible; no indications of a pardoned and justified state, be they ever so conclusive; could warrant that full assurance of hope possessed by the saints of the Old Tesrament and the New, expressed by Abraham, sung forth so often and so devoutly by David, and gloried in by Paul, had there been any un

certainty as to their holding out to the end. No living man can know that he will not at last lie down in hell, if he once admits the hypothesis that he may fall away. The assurance and certainty of salvation, so often enjoyed, and so uniformly required in the Scriptures, were a state of mind absolutely impossible, were not the attraction of the Cross powerful enough to keep all whom it once

attracts.

Let this great doctrine of the Cross, then, be, as it was designed to be by its Author, for the comfort and edification of all who truly fear God and love his Son. Here, Christian, is the pledge of your security. "Cursed is the man who trusteth in man, and whose heart departeth from the Lord his God!" Go on your way, and rejoice as you go. The Cross of your Redeemer is not so powerless as to be unable to keep you from falling, and present you faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy. The feeblest lamb is safe, once housed within the fold of the great Shepherd. There is no uncertainty as to the issue of this spiritual conflict, though it be sharp and long. Despondency is not one of the elements of advancement. Christ received is heaven begun. He who is the Author is also the Finisher of your faith. Away with your discouragements, and look to Jesus. Away with your weakness, and look to Jesus. Away with your darkness, and look to Jesus as the light of life. Look back to him on the Cross; look up to him on the throne; look forward to him at his second coming. Your Saviour, your counselor, your righteousness, your strength, the captain of your salvation, your portion hung on that Cross, is now on that throne, and will soon come to judge the world in righteousness. If you have Christ, you have all. Heaven itself is not so great a gift as God's own Son. "What shall we say to these things? If God be for us,

who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how shall he not, with him, freely give us all things?"

Nor is it less in keeping with the whole design and spirit of the truth here presented, that we say to you, that there is no well-grounded hope in Christ, without perseverance in holiness. I entreat you to give this thought that place in your hearts which it deserves. Past efforts, past hopes, past experience, will be of little avail, if you now become weary, or ever cease to remember that “he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." In retirement and in the world, therefore, in prosperity and in adversity, on the mount and in the vale, "watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." You will have "manifold temptations," and trials of your faith; "therefore fear, lest, a promise being left you of entering into that rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.”

Nor may I conclude this chapter, without a word of affectionate admonition to those who are still out of Christ. My beloved friends, if all true believers must and will endure to the end, in order to be saved, what will become of you? If "the righteous," though saved, saved infallibly and forever, are saved with so much effort, "where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?" You have come in sight of the Cross, and have turned from it. You have to begin and persevere to the last, and you have not yet entered upon the path that leads to life. You have to fight the good fight of faith, and you are not only without your armor, but asleep on the field. And can you hope to reach the goal, to gain the victory, and wear the crown? When so much is to be done, can you be safe in doing nothing? Oh, when will you receive Christ Jesus the Lord and enter upon that course in which you have something more than human assur

ance, that

you

shall hold on to the end? Once in Christ, always in Christ—what a motive is this to seek an interest in him! No falling amay from the Cross-what a motive is this to flee to the stronghold, as prisoners of hope!

CHAPTER XVI.

FULL ASSURANCE OF HOPE AT THE CROSS.

NOTHING is more natural, or more reasonable, than that the strength and ardor of hope should be regulated by the importance and magnitude of the objects on which it terminates. It is when the objects of their pursuit are vast and important, that the hopes of men become the stimulus to their greatest efforts. No man acts with a view to the past; and if a wise man, he even quits the stronghold of the present, and carries his designs into the future. He acts for the next hour, the next day, the next year; and if truly wise, he acts for eternity. This is one of the points of difference between the Christian and all other men, that he acts under the influence of the highest and the strongest hopes. He is the creature of presentiment—the purest and the noblest presentiment. Sometimes, like the Father of the faithful, "he hopes against hope," and where everything seems to be against him. If he has no hope in creatures, he has hope in God, and out of weakness is made strong." The Cross is the emblem of hope; hope constitutes one of its powerful attractions. At the Cross, the field of hope is amplified; it is ever opening wider and wider. There is no grief to which it does not furnish mitigation, no evil for which it does not yield an antidote, nor any good which it does not promise. It is not so much over ter