ratified as it has been by the Redeemer's blood, and confirmed as it is by his predicted resurrection and his glorious ascension.]
Behold, then, how certain are God's promises to those zvho rely upon them !
[If any promise could have failed, methinks it was that which related to the exaltation of the Messiah. See him dying on the cross, and sealed up in the grave : what is now become of all God's promised mercies ? Wait but a little, and they shall be acknowledged to be sure and certain. So your case, brethren, may appear as desperate as his : yet, in the appointed hour, shall you surmount your every difficulty, and be glorified with your Messiah at the right hand of God ■]
Acts xiii. 38 — 41. Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the for- giveness of sins : and by him all that believe are justified from all things, from which ye could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware therefore, lest that come upon you, ivhich is spoken of in the prophets ; Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish : for I work a work in your days, a ivork which ye shall in no wise believe, though a man declare it unto you.
NO one can read the New Testament with atten- tion, without seeing that there is one point to which all the discourses of the Apostles tend, namely, the exhibition of Christ as the Saviour of the world. In Him all the lines meet, as in their common centre. The discourses of St. Paul embraced the whole circle of divine truth ; yet he justly says, that " he deter- mined to know nothing among his converts but Jesus Christ, and him crucified." In the chapter before us is contained his address to the Jews in a synagogue at Antioch. He begins with a subject ever gratifying to a Jewish ear, a rehearsal of the distinguished mercies vouchsafed to that nation from the time of their departure out of Egypt to the time of David, from whose seed they all acknowledged that their Messiah should spring. He then declares, that that Messiah was come, even Jesus, in whom the pro- phecies had been literally fulfilled, both in the peculiar