circumstances may intervene, and cause the aid of those on whom you rely, to fail you just at the period of your greatest need. But can God fail? Can circumstances affect him? Is he not "a friend that sticketh closer than any brother ?" Can his wealth be exhausted, or his strength be weakened, or his wisdom be nonplused? Then, if you are sealed as his property, and assured of his proprietorship in you as one of his peculiar people, you may rejoice and be glad, for thou hast a friend adequate to every possible emergency. And he says to thee "I will never leave thee nor forsake thee; so that thou mayest boldly say, the Lord is my helper."

2. The other great blessing which follows faith in Christ, is the ❝earnest of our inheritance." An earnest is a part of the purchase money already paid down, to confirm the contract, and as a pledge that the whole amount shall be forthcoming in due time. This word the Apostle uses in a figurative sense, to represent the work already wrought in the heart of the believer, in relation to its future completion at the revelation of Jesus Christ. The import of this "earnest" is, that grace is incipient glory, and glory shall complete what grace has begun. This representation of the work of the Spirit in the hearts of believers, has a special value, as it serves to give a kind of definiteness to our ideas of the heavenly inheritance. Much of the gorgeous picturing of heaven which we sometimes read and hear, fails in vividness of impression and urgency of motive to our souls, because it is composed of features and hues to which there is nothing correspondent in the present realizations of our experience. But when we speak of a heaven on whose loveliness you have already gazed, of whose fruits you have already had a foretaste, and into whose fellowship you have already entered, then the shadowy gives place to the real, the indefinite to the distinct, the foreign to the familiar; then the land that is afar off is brought nigh, and the visions, the love, the purity, the high services, holy fellowships, and the sublime enjoyments of heaven, are antedated by the "earnest of our inheritance," which is heaven in miniature, and which all who have believed, and are partakers of the Holy Ghost, possess and enjoy, even in this vale of tears. You have now the disquietudes of your hearts calmed by "the peace of God which passeth all understanding" and what is this but a foretaste of that deep, sweet, unbroken calm, which is forever settled upon the paradise of God? Already are you changed into the image of Jesus-" from glory to

glory as by the Spirit of the Lord;' and is not this the beginning of that perfection which consists in your complete transformation into the image of God, and which is one of the brightest radiances of the celestial glory? John tells us of the blessedness that shall crown us, that "we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." Have you not in this, the land of your pilgrimage, some of those ravishing delights and elevated joys, which are forever in the presence, and at the right hand of God? "Whom having not seen ye love, in whom though now ye see Him not, yet believing ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory." In these works and fruits of the Holy Spirit, the Gospel blesses the believer with an earnest of his future heaven. These are the grapes of Eschol, which tell me how goodly a land my Canaan is. These are streaks of immortality breaking through the intervening veil, and kindling for me the beginnings of heaven upon earth. And if all this be but an "earnest," which is, as Chrysostom explains it, "a part of the whole," then what must that" whole" be? It will be these precious buds bursting into full blown flowers; these lovely streaks of the morning dawn melting into the splendor of meridian day. It will be my present knowledge, freed from its dimsightedness and uncertainty; my present holiness made stainless like the holiness of God; my present enjoyments expanding into all the perfection of bliss, of which my glorified nature shall be capable. And all this to be realized in that "new heavens and new earth," where sin shall never be, with its defilements and its curse; where there are no seeds of corruption to work decay, and whose bloom and beauty shall be immortal in their tints and hues of loveliness and splendor.

And this earnest is ours "until the redemption of the purchased possession." By the purchased possession, here, you are not to understand heaven, or your eternal blessedness, but the collective people of God, whom he hath purchased by the precious blood of Jesus as His own peculiar treasure. And by the redemption of this purchased possession, is meant the final restoration, when the graves shall give up their dead, and the whole family of God shall be presented faultless and complete before His throne. Of that glorious period of "the manifestation of the sons of God" Paul speaks in another place, and says of those who have the fruits of Spirit, "even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." When the trumpet

that heralds the second advent of our Lord shall sound its blast upon the ear of the universe, then shall the slumbering dust of his saints hear his voice, and come forth, in new and beautiful forms, fashioned like unto his glorious body, spiritual, incorruptible, immortal; robed in flashing sunbeams, fit abodes and organs for "the spirits of just men made perfect." Then shall be the redemption of the purchased possession; then shall the "earnest" be absorbed in the full "inheritance." Then for the foretaste, you shall have the rich and royal banquet. For then, the shout shall be heard, as the sound of many waters: "Let us be glad, and rejoice, and give glory to Him. For the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready."

"Yes, the prize shall soon be given;

We his open face shall see :

Love the earnest of our heaven,

Love our full reward shall be:
Love shall crown us

Kings through all eternity."

My brethren and fellow heirs of immortality, what is this Gospel to you? Has it given truth to your understandings, and salvation to your souls? Have you heard it with due interest, reflection and prayer? Have you believed in the Christ to whom it points you, as your only and all-sufficient Saviour? Have you the seal of God impressed upon your inmost souls? Have you, in the peace, the purity, and the gladness of your hearts, the earnest of your future heaven? Can you answer these questions affirmatively? if so, then I hail you, ye blessed people of the Lord! Learn to prize this Gospel more highly every day of your lives. You will never reach that point of progression in this life, at which you will be beyond the need of this grand old Gospel. Make it, then, more and more your Gospel every day of your existence. Study it; pray over it; adorn it; commend it. Breathe in its atmosphere. Drink of its living waters. Feast upon its heavenly manna. Thus shall ye grow up into a moral manhood, like unto Christ your living head. Thus pass a few interchanging days and nights, and then

"The joyful news will come,

Child, your Father calls, come home."

But if you are unable to claim the blessings of the Gospel as a

present possession, what shall I say to you?

What can I say, that
And yet, blessed be

has not been said a thousand times before? God, I have an abiding faith in the simple, old story of the cross. "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth." And as "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God," why may not that faith so come to you this day? Think of your sins, how deep their dye; how ponderous their weight of guilt; how revolting in the sight of your immaculate God; how deep the damnation they deserve. Think of the love that bled and died, in the person of the holy and loving Jesus, that your sins might not cleave as a withering curse to your souls forever. And can you thus ponder, and not turn and live? Behold the cross! Hear as from the quivering, dying lips of your crucified Lord and Saviour, these gladly solemn words: "Look unto me all ye ends of the earth, and be ye saved." One look! One glance of the eye of living faith, and thou art justified, and hast peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. May God grant you this grace for his name's sake. AMEN.