is preached with life and power. How precious are the ordi- nances made ! What pastures are laid open in the word of God ! How strengthening and refreshing does that feast become, which the Lord Jesus Christ has prepared for us at his table ! The souls, thus richly fed, "grow up as calves of the stall:" the trees, thus watered by " the river of God," abound in all manner of fruits, even in " the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ to the praise and glory of God." Contemplate every " fruit of the Spirit6;" and that is what is produced by " every plant which God's right hand hath planted."]
Unutterable joy as the result of all —
[The expressions in our text fitly characterize the state of those who are brought out of darkness into the marvellous light of the Gospel : they " are glad, and rejoice, and blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing." Let any one who has ever beheld a desert brought by cultivation to a fruitful field, and seen it " standing so thick with corn as to laugh and sing ;" let him contemplate it awhile ; and he will have a faint image, though a very faint one, of " a wilderness" place or person that is " made to blossom as the rose." O that we might behold the picture realized in this place, and that every one amongst us might have the image of it in his own soul !]
But it is necessary that we should draw your at- tention to,
III. That particular view of the Gospel by which these effects are wrought —
It is not by a mutilated and perverted Gospel that these effects are produced, but by a simple exhibition of Christ crucified, and of the perfections of God as united and harmonizing in the work of Redemption.
To this it is uniformly ascribed in the word of God —
[Look at the prophets, and you will find it is " the glory of the Lord " that they speak of, as revealed to men by the Gospel,
and as seen by men in order to their conversion h Look
at the Apostles, and the same truth is attested by them all ; insomuch that they all " determined to know nothing in their ministrations, but Jesus Christ and him crucified :" the one object which they sought by all possible means to attain, was, so to preach, that " God might shine into his people's hearts, to give them the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ':" and till they saw " Christ formed
s Gal. v. 22, 23.
h Ps. cii. 1G. Isai. lx. 1, 2. and xl. 5. and Ps. xcvii. 0. Hab. ii. 14. I 2 Cor. iv. 6.