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to rank, for "now are we the sons of God," but simply nearer as to taking full possession. It is "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, that we also shall appear with Him in glory;" of which glory we may say, no eye hath yet seen, nor ear heard, the honour, the power, the beauty of the glory we shall then have in association with Him. Thus it is-God gives Christ; then gives Him everything as Son of man; all things are put into His hands, that He might give everything to us in virtue of our association with Him; we are joint-heirs with Him, and all things are ours. Oh, what a salvation is this! How goodly, how vast! 'Tis a broad land of wealth unknown! I cannot even speak of it; I am but a mere finger to point to it and say, great is this salvation, with resurrection in it! with the glorified body in it! with everlasting adoption into God's family in it! with everlasting glory in association with Jesus in it! being a king, a priest, a jointheir, a son in it! What a salvation! How I fail to disclose its greatness; I know only in part, and I can speak only in part, of its fulness and glory!

But I want you to have it-to have its joy and its peace. Since 1857, God has been converting men in a very remarkable way. In poor America, what thousands of souls in that year were brought into the knowledge of Jesus! In our own land, in Ulster, and on our own loved shores, in different parts of England, and Scotland, and Wales, you remember the shower of blessing God gave to a multitude of souls. In the midst of such times, are you still unsaved? Are you? What in the midst of such life, yet dead?

Travelling the other day I saw one of the most beautiful of woods, but there was one tree whose branches were naked, it had no foliage, and it bowed to no breeze. Ah! there is nothing so manifest as death in the midst of a scene of life. You, my dear hearer, who are here an unsaved, an unmoved soul, you

are like that tree, as having your place like a barren one in the midst of the luxuriance of the garden of the Lord's time of awakening and refreshing. Oh! I beseech you, if you are conscious of being unsaved, go unto God! go now from this moment! Say to Him"My Father, my God, from this time I will take Thee, Thou art what I want." But you say "I am dead, I am cold." I know what you are, but God is the salvation of such. If you could make out you had all iniquity, all crime, all vice concentrated in you that every lost soul ever had when on earth, I could still point you to Christ, and show you that if you were a million times worse, "the cup of wrath" you deserved was taken on the cross. Oh! come to Jesus to-day! let the vilest come! let the guiltiest come! let the oldest come! let such as have had no hope come! come to Him now! come to Jesus! Come just as you are—

"Let not conscience make you linger,

Nor of fitness fondly dream;

All the fitness He requireth

Is to feel your need of Him."

Put out your hands, sinner, and take this salvation now. It is a present salvation; its rest is a present rest; its joy is a present joy, its life is a present life. Oh, blessed to have salvation!-much in present possession-more in reserve. We are now in a state of minority; we shall soon be of age. Take it all. It is yours by taking it, it is yours by believing. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be SAVED."

I conclude as I commenced. Life is passing; death works; the grave works; Hell is open; men give up the ghost; and oh :

"Oft as the bell with solemn toll
Speaks the departure of a soul,
Let each one ask himself, Am I
Prepared, should I be called to die?"

In a little time the garment you wear will be changed for the funeral shroud, and the body it covers be the prey of the worm. May my God give the dead among you to live! May the Lord bless you! Say O men, O women, who are not living at rest and secure-has not God reminded you? Are you content ? Do you not need Him? Say-have you no difficulty? have you no sorrow? have you had no bereavement? Are you as young as you were? Are you not as a last rose of autumn-yourself dying, and your companions dead around you? Are you not saying, "I shall soon have nothing; I am now a stranger in the world. I am miserable-the way I am; I am nothing, I have nothing." Beloved, God is just the God for you. Friend of the friendless is our God! I love that name- "I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob-I am the God of the pilgrim-I am the God of the stranger." I delight to feel I am a pilgrim. Oh, the salvation, (the peace one gets, the glory one anticipates,) takes us away from everything else, both of sorrow and joy, and makes us pilgrims here! It is enough to hear Him say, I am the God of Abraham, the God of the pilgrim. But first He is for the sinner; and, O sinner! if salvation is for a sinner, as a sinner take it; and if a present salvation, take it as a present salvation. May the Spirit of the Lord enlighten you! May the Lord bless you! May God bless you! Can you not now sing—

"Though I grow poor and old,

Jesus is mine," &c.

ADDRESS X.

SALVATION TO THE UTTERMOST.

"But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him."-Heb. vii. 23, 24.

CHRISTIANITY is a system founded upon facts; take the facts away, and Christianity crumbles away.

Foremost among these facts is the incarnation of the Son of God. He came down from heaven into our world, and was God here manifested in the flesh. If you rob us of an incarnate Saviour, our whole Christianity goes for nothing, and we have no Christ, no God; for the only God we have is the God who was "manifest in the flesh."

Consonant with this fact is the death of the Lord Jesus Christ; that death came of the necessity there was for man to die. Man had sinned, and must die. Christ came and died-which death removes the doom due to us. Hence, if you rob us of the death of Christ, you take away from the whole fabric that which makes it of any worth.

Among these glorious facts on which our Christianity, and of course our salvation and eternal happiness, rest, is the ascension of the Son of God to heaven.

K

The reason why He became incarnate was, that He might take on Him our sins; that having laid them down in death on the cross and in the grave, He might take up His life again; and in virtue of His living for ever, give us, in association with Him, the power of an endless life. Rob Him of His resurrection, and we have no receipt whereby we may have assurance of the discharge of our sins. Rob Him of His ascension, and we have a Christ who has failed in His work, and who does not go back with an accomplished work into the presence of the God with whom we have to do. These are three great facts-the incarnation, the death, and the ascension of the Son of God, on which rests the whole fabric of Christianity. Let the daring hand of the infidel meddle with but one of these, and the whole house of redemption (if his hand were to meddle successfully) crumbles away into a heap of ruins.

Ah, it is delightful to look on any one of these pillars for each fact is a pillar of strength-and read their inscriptions! I will not take the first, nor the second, but the third-viz., the pillar of the ascension into heaven. Jesus said, "I go to my Father." And in the thirteenth of John, " He was come from God, and went to God." Then in the fourteenth of John, "I go;" and again, "If I go, I will come again." To Mary Magdalene He said, "I am not yet ascended," implying that He would ascend. Of the actual event, we are told, in the Acts of the Apostles, that, "He led them out as far as to Bethany." Thence he ascended.

Blessed Bethany! How He loved to linger, even in ascension, around the calm summit of that mountthe very spot, by-and-by, which He will cleave in twain. Yea, that spot will witness His glorious majesty, which once heard His prayers and saw His tears. "And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he

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