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SERMON VI.

JOY FOR SPIRITUAL MERCIES.

ACTS viii. 8.

And there was great joy in that city.

THE cause of the joy that prevailed in the city of Samaria, as we formerly observed, was twofold. Philip miraculously cured the diseases of the people, and thus restored health to individuals, and comfort and independence to the families with whom they were connected. And he preached Christ, through whose power and name he performed those miracles of healing, as the promised Messiah, the expected Redeemer. There was joy on account of temporal mercies ; and there was joy on account of spiritual mercies. The first of these we have already considered.

II. We are now to consider the joy that was felt in Samaria on account of spiritual mercies.

Philip preached Christ to the Samaritans-he delivered to them the message of salvation-he sounded in their ears, and addressed to their hearts, those glad tidings, by which they were as

sured of the pardon of sin, acceptance with God, and in the end everlasting life. And then they believed in what Philip said to them-they gave a cordial reception to the doctrine of reconciliation by the cross of Jesus-they embraced him who was offered to them as an all-sufficient Redeemer and their faith was made so strong by the miraculous demonstrations with which the servant of God accompanied his discourses, and by the inward teaching and influence of the Holy Spirit, that they consented to be baptized, and by undergoing this rite, vowed to undertake all the duties of their Christian profession, and to expose themselves to the severe persecutions, which at that period were almost necessarily connected with it. Thus instructed in the "exceeding great and precious promises" of the Gospelthus appropriating these by a strong and living faith-and thus renewed and sanctified, so as to be conscious subjects of divine grace, and animated with the hope of life and immortality, they naturally felt a joy with which they had never before been touched, and which equally in its sources, its degree, and its permanency, was unspeakably great.

Now, if the Gospel has been made known to us as it was to the Samaritans, and if we have welcomed it as they did, we must be similarly affected with joy. The circumstances to whose operation we are in this case subjected, do necessarily pro

duce that effect. So necessarily are the two united, that if the effect is not produced, the inference is unavoidable, either that the cause has been prevented from bearing upon us at all, or that it has been thwarted and counteracted by unpropitious interferences. It is very true that, even where the cause operates aright, and the effect is really produced, various things may occur or exist to modify our feelings. In one individual the joy may be even ecstatic, and in another it may be at the lowest ebb; and in the same individual it may undergo many variations in degree, and sometimes alternate between the one extreme and the other. But still the Gospel is of such an interesting description, and is so essentially calculated to work upon the constitutional principles and susceptibilities of our nature, that whenever it is correctly unfolded, and meets with the belief and obedience of those to whom its truths are conveyed, it mustit cannot fail to render the heart more or less joyful. So much is this the case, that Christianity is called, as its peculiar and distinctive appellation, "good tidings of great joy." And every representation given of it in the Bible conveys the same idea of its nature and tendency, so that while we continue to be what we are as human beings, it cannot come into close contact with our minds, and be received by them in the faith and love of it, without recommending and prov

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ing itself to them as a fountain of consolation and gladness. It is a remedy for them that are spiritually diseased. It is deliverance to such as are in danger and distress. It is the assurance of divine mercy, where, without that mercy, ruin is inevitable. It is the emancipation of the whole man from a thraldom the most degrading and miserable. It is the promise of a felicity whose certainty and perfection justify the highest hopes that man can entertain. And, therefore, wherever Christianity is allowed to find its way into the heart-in that heart into which it has penetrated, in its native power, and with corresponding acceptance and submission, there must be joy, whether it be a joy that barely overcomes the sorrows with which it is intermingled, or whether it be "a joy that is unspeakable, and full of glory."

Let us only think of the information which Christianity conveys, that we may see how necessarily it excites gladness, on the common principles that we rationally and practically acknowledge in the more ordinary events by which we are moved. Do we rejoice to learn that some worldly disaster-some temporary evil that we greatly feared, has been so averted from us, that we are no longer in any danger? Well then; we learn from the Gospel, that infinitely the greatest of all calamities, the everlasting destruction of the soul, is provided against so effec

tually, that there neither is nor can be "condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." Do we rejoice to be assured that some earthly friend to whom we had given just offence has relented, is willing to overlook our fault, to be wholly reconciled to us, and to re-instate us in his favour? Well then; the Gospel assures us that our friend in heaven, even God himself, whose favour is life, whose displeasure is death, but against whom we had sinned, so as to be under the curse of his law, has exercised compassion, and made such arrangements that our iniquities may be blotted out, and our peace with him regained and secured. Do we rejoice to be told that a distemper which threatened to be mortal may be arrested, and that our abode in this world may yet be prolonged for a few passing years? Well then; the Gospel tells us that death, which we so much dreaded, is deprived of its stingthat it is so completely stripped of its terrors as, in the language of the Bible, to be abolished and destroyed-and that it need not be feared any more. Do we rejoice when we are informed, that through the unmerited kindness of some relative, we are to have the reversion of a fortune or an estate which we must soon leave to others? Well then; the Gospel informs us that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of his abundant and undeserved mercy, has reserved for us "an inheritance in heaven, which is incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.'