273

SERMON XII.

THE GOSPEL OF SALVATION.

EPHES. i. 13.

"The Gospel of your Salvation."

THE Gospel is combined with a variety of terms, indicating a corresponding variety of character and of excellence. It is called the Gospel of God, to intimate that it comes from Him, and that it reveals his will. It is called the Gospel of Christ, to denote that Christ is the author of the blessings which it discloses, and that he brings the message which it contains. It is called the Gospel of the grace of God, to signify that its whole scheme, and all that it provides for the welfare of sinners, flow from his free and sovereign bounty. It is called the Gospel of peace, thereby declaring its purpose to be that of making reconciliation between God and man, and restor-. ing that harmony which had been broken and destroyed by the introduction of sin. And in the words of my text it is called the Gospel of our salvation, to draw our attention to it as unfold

T

ing the method by which it has pleased our Hea venly Father to save us from our sins.

All these different views of the Gospel suggest many important and salutary reflections. But at present we intend to confine your attention to it as the Gospel of your salvation.

Salvation in its proper sense means deliverance from something that is feared or suffered. As applied to temporal circumstances, it means deliverance from any of the various dangers and calamities to which we may be exposed, as mere sensitive beings and inhabitants of a present world. And as connected with our spiritual and immortal nature, it means deliverance from all those multiplied evils with which we are afflicted, in consequence of our departure from God and from righteousness, both as they affect our con-; dition here and as they are to be endured hereafter. For though salvation is sometimes taken to denote the happiness of heaven, yet still even then it directs our attention to those miseries out of which it is necessary that we be rescued, before heaven can either be attained or enjoyed.

That we may understand, therefore, the full import of this term, salvation, so frequently used and so vaguely apprehended, we must look to the situation in which we stand as sinners. We must look to it in its every aspect and in all its extent. We must judge of it and estimate it, not according to those loose notions which prevail

among worldly and unthinking men, but according to its real merits, according to established fact and right reason, according to the maxims, and principles, and declarations of the Word of God. And we must not turn away from any view of it that may present itself in the course of our contemplation, merely because it shows us to be involved in greater guilt, in greater peril, or in greater wretchedness than we had previously imagined, or than our self-partiality may be willing to admit. However bad, and alarming, and revolting any feature of our state may be, still if it be a real feature of our state, we must fix our regards upon it, and give it a place in our convictions, and cherish just and distinct impressions of its being a part of that mass of evil which lies heavy on our fate, and from whose overwhelming pressure it is requisite that we be emancipated. It is only by such a thorough survey of the subject, and such an honest determination of the questions, What are we-What is our condition-What is due to us and what is awaiting us, as the subjects of God's moral go. yernment ?—it is only in this way that we can see either the necessity or the fitness of any scheme that may be devised for our deliverance, that we can have an adequate sense of the worth and value of the deliverance that is wrought out, that we can make a particular application of the blessings which that deliverance comprises to the par

ticular necessities under which we labour, and that we can feel, and exercise, and manifest those sentiments of wonder and of gratitude, which an appropriate and complete deliverance is calculated to awaken in the breasts of all who are made partakers of it.

It is most evident, my friends, that such considerations are essential to those who are not yet brought into a state of salvation, or who do not know experimentally what is comprehended under that phrase. For if they have not a correct, or if they have not an impressive idea of the demerit which attaches to them, and of the dangers to which they are consequently exposed, and of the helplessness which is itself a great part of their misery—if they have not a correct and impressive idea of these things-if they are not convinced that such are the deplorable circumstances in which they are involved, and if they are not prevailed upon to look at them with seriousness and with interest, and to make them the subject of a very faithful self-application, how is it possible that they should recognise the importance of any salvation that may be accomplished for them, or that they should listen thankfully and obediently to the message in which it is set before them, or that they should humbly acquiesce in that method by which it is secured, and by which it is to be brought home to them? They must know and

4

they must feel that they are sinners, before the salvation of the Gospel can have any real meaning with them, or any real effect upon them. The more that they know and the more that they feel of what is implied in being sinners, both as to time and as to eternity, the more likely are they to become sensible of their need, to perceive the preciousness, to accept the offer, and to relish the blessings, of salvation. Hence it is, that in the sacred volume, from which we learn all that is given us to know about salvation, there is a plain, faithful, undisguised description of man's condition as an apostate creature-a description that pervades all its pages, that is addressed to the understanding and the conscience of every individual, and from which we are not permitted to turn away for an instant, as if it were not equally momentous and true. Hence it is, that whether we speak to transgressors in reference to their real welfare, or in reference to what the Bible has revealed concerning them, fidelity requires that we should keep back nothing which goes to constitute their unworthiness, or to aggravate their condemnation, or to bring upon them present sorrows and everlasting destruction. And hence it is, that when they shut their ears against "the terrors of the Lord," when they adopt a low standard by which to judge of the turpitude of their conduct, and the extent of their sinfulness-when they give heed to no