the so many and great evils with which human life is beset, the best gift God has bestowed on man is the power to take away his own life."

Yet one more testimony to the same effect from one of the profoundest thinkers of more modern times, the admirable Pascal. Considering man in his state by nature, irrespective of the light of revelation, and as struggling after knowledge of the mysteries of his existence here by the help of his mere natural reason, he thus affectingly describes him. "When I contemplate the blindness and misery of man, and those amazing contrarieties which exist in his nature, when I observe that the whole creation is silent, and man abandoned as it were to himself in darkness in this corner of the universe, neither knowing who placed him there, nor what he came to do, nor what will become of him at death, I am struck with the same terror as a man who has been carried in his sleep into some desolate island; and who awakes without knowing where he is, or how he can make his escape. And on this I marvel how it is that so miserable a state does not produce despair. I see other persons near me of the same nature as myself. I ask them if they are better informed on these points than I am; and they tell me, No! And then I observe that these poor lost creatures, having looked round, and espied certain objects pleasant to the sight, give to them their thoughts and their affections. for me, I cannot stop there; nor seek repose in the society of these persons, like to myself, wretched as myself, weak as myself. I see that they will give me no help in death. I must die alone. It needs, then, that I act for myself, as if one alone. Now, if alone, I should not encumber myself with engrossing secular affairs and businesses of the world; or seek after human applause, as my great object. On one thing only should I be intent; and that the discovery of the truth."

As

So writes the profound Pascal, in reference to the

state of man in this world, considered, as I before said, irrespectively of the light and hopes of Christianity. No doubt, both in his case, and in that of the heathen Greek and Roman philosophers whom I have cited, there may have been a something due in their deeply sombre picturing of the case to a naturally sombre cast of mind. But sure I am that even those who are of a naturally cheerful tone, if really and seriously they ponder on their state in this world, irrespectively of the light of revelation,-even they will see good reason for sympathising in the same views and feelings respecting it. It is the strange inconsiderateness of men, and their almost absolute absorption in the secular businesses, pleasures, or society of the world, which can alone account for their being so generally indifferent as they are, and at ease, as to their present state. I have myself, in earlier days, gone through much of the same process of thought and feeling; and thus can well appreciate its truth and force. Surely, to have the glorious God evidently close beside us, as Him in whom we live and move and have our being, and yet to be shut out from any real acquaintance with Him,-to have the conscience moreover suggesting, with its still small voice, that this present separation of the Creator from the creature is the consequence of our sinfulness, and then to have death constant y before us, and the fear that after death we must stand with all our sins before that God for judgment, this is enough to sadden any one that realizes the fact, however naturally cheerful; and make him feel, with the royal preacher, in regard of all the world can offer of gaiety and pleasure, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." Did not a yet greater teacher than Solomon speak the solemn words, "What shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" And what but this must seem, to a really thoughtful man, darkly to loom Lefore him in the distance; save only for the light and hopes of Christianity?

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So now we come to speak of those hopes, as offered from God (conditionally offered) to each disciple baptized into the religion of Jesus Christ:-the hope and privilege, Ist, of nothing less than being adopted as children of God;-a blessing sufficiently intelligible, in a general way, even to a heathen: 2ndly, of what at first sight would to any one of the Roman heathens of old, or to any one of the Hindoo or other heathens now, when first told of the Christian Gospel, or good news, by a Christian missionary,seem mysterious and unintelligible, -the being made members of Christ; and, 3dly, that of being made inheritors of some glorious kingdom, called the kingdom of heaven.-Let me speak a little, and in the order just laid down, of these several wonderful and mighty blessings.

1. Being made children of God. Of course it is not in the poor and low sense of the heathen poet, who speaks of men as "God's offspring" simply because of their having been created by Him, that the Christian Scriptures set forth the thus offered fatherly relationship of God to true Christians, but in the sense of all that the human heart recognises as most delightful, most endearing, in the parental character. "Come out from an apostate world," is their language, "and as Christians be separate, not touching the unclean thing; and I will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord God Almighty." Henceforth a Christian man's feeling, and mode of address to God, it is declared, both ever may be, and ever ought to be, that expressed in the Christian prayer, "Our Father, which art in heaven;" or, as elsewhere, that which "in the spirit of adoption cries, Abba, Father." In proof that all that is most dear and cherished in the fatherly character is included, according to the Christian Gospel, in God's fatherly relationship to Christians, appears from multitudinous statements made in particular on the subject in the Christian books. Is it the case that a good father loves his children? So,

'Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God!” Does a good father care over, and seek to provide for, his children? Just so it is, and far more, as regards God. "Take no thought," i.e. no sadly anxious thought, "what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, or what ye shall put on; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of these things." Is there, on a kind father's part, an openness to his children's prayers? So too, says the Christian Gospel, is it on God's part to each true Christian. Which of you that is a father, if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone; or, if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good gifts to them that ask Him?"—Then, again, as to the father's sympathy with, and pity for, his children when sick, suffering, or in error; "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him." And once more, as to the future in another and unseen world;-" Fear not, little flock: it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom; viz. (as in the third baptismal blessing) his own eternal kingdom and glory. Oh! how different from the dark and fearful view of God suggested, as we have seen, by man's uneasy conscience, in the mere light, or rather darkness, of nature! How different from the cold, heartless views of Him offered, as if the very best that man could attain to, by the more hopeful of the old Greek philosophers; such as Plato! How different from the notions of Him even now in heathen countries like India, or West Africa; where the cruellest self-inflicted toitures, or bloody sacrifices perhaps of their fellow-men, are inculcated and practised as the likeliest means of perchance propitiating the Deity.And then the view becomes yet grander, and more blessed, from the conviction which reason itself can scarce fail of suggesting to a thoughtful mind to the

effect that, if once God stand to us in a father's relationship, the very infinity of God's nature must needs impart infinity toall His attributes; and that thus in regard of the feeling of parental love, it must needs abound with God (if He be really brought into the parental relation towards us) in no other measure than that of infinity itself. And so indeed the Christian Scriptures represent the case. As the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear Him." "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us." "The mercy of the Lord towards them that fear Him, is from everlasting to everlasting."

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Oh! wonderful, if indeed it be true. But can it be true? And, if true, how so consistently with what conscience, if at all enlightened, must suggest as to God's holiness; and as to our moral guilt and sinfulness, as the cause of that holy God's hiding Himself in displeasure from us?

Now as to the truth, and trustworthiness, of the offer to Christians,-its truth as coming from God Himself, I reserve the consideration and proof of this most important point to my next two Lectures. For the present my answer will be only to the second question, How can this be? And to this my best answer will be in speaking of another of the offered baptismal blessings:-a blessing which indeed comes first in order in the Christian doctrine, and Christian experience; but which I have thought it might be well here to speak of in the second place: viz., the being conditionally made in Christian baptism members of Christ.

2. "Members of Christ."-Here we come to the very pith and essence of Christianity. It is, according to the Christian system, through becoming members of Christ that we attain, and can alone attain, to the incomparable privilege of being brought into the relationship of children to God. But how so? The very