me," so may we say of these persons, that they are " seals," whereby God himself attests the mission of his servants, and the truth of the doctrine which they deliver.]
2. Of the efficacy of the Gospel — [It is not a mere external change which the Gospel effects, but a change of the whole soul, from sin and sorrow to holiness and joy. The "peace" which it introduces into the troubled mind, " passeth all understanding :" and the "joy " to which it elevates the repenting sinner, is " unspeak- able and glorified." In respect of sanctification, it does not produce absolute perfection ; for " there is not a man on earth that liveth and sinneth not ;" but it transforms the soul in a very wonderful manner, and changes it progressively, if not perfectly, " into the very image of God, in righteousness and true holiness." In short, it brings the Lord Jesus Christ and the believer into so near an union with each other, that they are one body ', and " one spirit'^," partakers of the same blessings in this world', and heirs of the same glory in the world to come™.
What other doctrine ever did, or can, effect such a change as this ? Not even God's law, which he wrote in tables of stone, could operate to such an extent as this : the Gospel alone is competent to such a task : as St. Paul has said ; " What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, did ; that is, he condemned sin in the flesh ; that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit"." Moreover, it is not on those only who are of a better and more pliant frame of mind, that the Gospel thus operates, but on the vilest of the human race ; as indisputably appeared in the
Corinthian Church" The instances too of such efficacy
are not rare, but frequent. On one day were three thousand such converts made ; and in every age from that period to the present has the same power been exerted to change the lion to a lamb, and " a desert to the garden of the Lord." Such converts " shine as lights in a dark world," and, by " holding forth the word of life " as epistles from Christ, they shew that " the minister has not run in vain, nor laboured in vaini'."]
Address —
1. Seek to have the mind of Christ more fully inscribed upon your hearts —
i Eph. v. 30. 5^ 1 Cor. vi. 17. ' John xvii. 13,22,23,26. »i Rom. viii. 17. " Rom. viii. 3, 4. "1 Cor. vi. 9 — 11. P Phil. ii. 15, 10.