[Behold how effectually every ground of doubt is removed from us ! Can we doubt Christ's poiver and authority to save ? He has risen from the dead, and thereby given the most con- vincing evidence that he is ordained of God to be the Saviour of the world : and his numerous appearances to his Disciples after his resurrection preclude all possibility of deception. Can we doubt his willingness to save even the chief of sinners? This astonishing exercise of grace to one out of whom he had cast seven devils, forbids us to entertain the thought. Let all then trust in him as both able and willing to save them to the uttermost.]
Mark xvi. 15, 16. He said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature : he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned.
IT is to be lamented that an unhappy prejudice subsists in the Christian world against the peculiar and most essential doctrines of our holy religion ; and that, while ministers defend with zeal and ability the outworks of Christianity, they are at little pains to lead their hearers within the veil, and to unfold to them those blessed truths whereon their salvation depends. Under the idea that moral discourses are more accommodated to the comprehensions of men, and more influential on their practice, they wave all mention of the sublime mysteries of the Gospel, and inculcate little more than a system of heathen ethics a. They would be ashamed, and almost afraid to make such a passage as this the ground-work of their dis- course, lest they should be thought to be contending for some uncertain, unimportant tenets, instead of promoting the interests of piety and virtue. But can any one read such a solemn declaration as that in the text, and account it unworthy of his notice ? Can any one consider the circumstances under which it was uttered, or the authoritative manner in which the
a See this exposed with great perspicuity and strength of argu- ment in Bishop Horsley's First Charge.