obedience-rich as he thought himself in human merit, able to honour God, to earn all for himself, and to keep the law, in order to get to heaven, it is absolutely impossible for such persons to reach eternal glory; for wherever that confidence which ought only to be placed in the glorious Surety of the Church is placed in creature doings, an offence is offered to God, His salvation is rejected, and His eternal truth is insulted. This, however, seemed to fill the disciples of Christ with astonishment; they were greatly "amazed," and uttered the anxious inquiry, "Who, then, can be saved?"

Let us now attend to the question itself more immediately. The anxious inquiry embodies much in it; a solution of it ought to be thoroughly scriptural; and the knowledge of it in individual experience is attainable. Now we shall follow this plan, and offer a few thoughts upon these three particulars.

I. First, the anxious and all-important inquiry, "Who, then, shall be saved?" It seems of the same spirit and nature as that other question which the disciples put to their Lord, when they said, "Are there few that be saved?" and His reply was, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate, for many shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able." Again, our blessed Lord, in order to point out the discrimination between the Church of God and the world, says, "Broad is the road, and wide is the gate, that leadeth to destruction, and many go in thereat; but strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." Beloved, remember this is not my opinion merely-it is my Master's; it is not my declarationit is the declaration of the Son of God. If, then, there be but few, comparatively speaking, who find the strait gate, and walk in the narrow way, and, consequently, who are saved, it is important that you and I should bring our Christianity to the test this morning, and ask, seriously, "Lord, tell me, am I one of that few? Lord, tell me, am I one of those who shall be saved with an everlasting salvation?" or, to use the phraseology of the Psalmist, "Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation." O Holy Ghost! put deep solemnity into all our hearts, and give wisdom to the preacher to set forth thy truth.

Fallen man is a powerless creature. This solemn fact is not universally believed. If it were, there would be no such pretenders among men as this one who came to our Lord. Fallen man is utterly ruined, for the sentence went forth, "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," or "dying, thou shalt die." The great bulk of professors do not credit this. They think, and sometimes publicly own, that man is very far gone. I have often looked upon that as a very quaint phrase-very far gone from original righteousness. But, then, that is not saying that he is altogether gone. On the contrary, it is intimated that he is not so far gone but that he can return and retrace his steps. It is somewhat remarkable that, though this sentiment has been maintained for nearly six thousand years, it has never been verified in one solitary instance. Never, from the day that Adam fell, from the day on which Adam was turned out of Paradise, has there been an instance in which man, left to himself, has repented and returned to God. No, not one. And yet men are so stupid as to persist in a sentiment which has never had a single proof.

If I were called upon to give a condensed view of what human nature

is, I should put it in three words-poor, proud, and perverse. Probably I may give offence by amplifying this. No matter. I remember a saying-and bear with me for introducing an anecdote, because I know the truth of it—I remember a saying of an eminent servant of God, concerning my ever-revered friend, Alphonsus Gun. When the inquiry was made, "What made him so useful in preaching?" an aged and venerable servant of God, whom I much loved, replied, "He abased the creature, he exalted the Saviour, he preached the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, and that made him useful." I shall never forget that sentence as long as I live. I want this to be true with regard to your experience; and I therefore first discuss the abasement of the fallen sinner, in order to show the vast momentousness of the question, "Who, then, can be saved?" I have said that a condensed view of man may be given in the three words which I have named. He is poor-so poor, as to be utterly destitute: so poor, as neither to have bread to eat fit for the support of spiritual life, or clothes to wear fit to appear in at the court of the heavenly King; so poor, that he has not a friend who can help him until one cometh down from heaven; so poor, that he has neither the means, the will, nor the inclination to help himself. And with his spiritual poverty is associated a degradation of mind, low practices, earthly pursuits, grovelling in the dust, feeding on revolting food. The man who talks of the dignity of human mature, must be either a fool or a deceiver, or he would not allow such words to go out of his lips.

Then, again, man is proud. What has any man to be proud of? Why, the less he has to be proud of, the more proud he is. He is so proud, that he refuses, according to the Scripture which I have quoted, to submit to the righteousness of Christ. Should I not think any one proud who came to my door, starving with hunger, having only a few rags hanging about him, and yet offered to purchase of me a loaf of bread or a suit of clothes? And if, instead of listening to him, I were to offer to give him a suit of clothes and a loaf of bread, and he were to say, "Not I, indeed, accept your gifts; I can earn and purchase such things for myself," I should say, "The poor wretch deserves to starve, since he is too proud to accept what is freely bestowed.”

My hearers, the cause of the damnation of millions is, that they are too proud to accept the perfect righteousness of the Son of God and the full and free salvation of infinite wisdom and love, which the gospel everywhere proclaims. Moreover, poor fallen man is perverse. He is hostile to all God's revealed truths; he is at war with God in his very heart. Nay, his mind even is "enmity against God," is not subject to the law of God; neither indeed can be. He is always perversely opposed to whatever God marks out for him, either in Inspired Writ, or by His sent servants, who preach His gospel, or by the course of providence. This is but a faint picture of fallen manthat he is made up of poverty, pride, and perverseness.

Well, now, what shall we say about making overtures to such? The fashion, now-a-days, is to make overtures, proposals, and offers to these poor and proud beings. I consider it the very climax of folly. I consider it, to say the least, utterly useless. I might offer you all the blessings of the gospel-I mean you who have carnal minds, if there are any such here I might offer you all the promises of the gospel, all the grace that is pourtrayed, and all the glory that is to be revealed;

and, if I were presumptuous enough to do such a thing, you would reject it to the day of your death, if there were nothing but my offer to influence you. But I dare not make such overtures; for I consider that they amount to nothing less than a denial of Scripture. If Scripture says, "No man can come to me, except the Father draw him," and I go forward and urge a man to come, what is that but denying Scripture, and literally contradicting what the Son of God says? Poor fallen worms, that would be wiser than God! it is my business to proclaim, not to offer. Nor will I offer to any man what it is not in my power to give him; nor will I offer to any man, even at the low-priced bargain which is sometimes spoken of, what I have no power to sell and he none to purchase. I am only mocking this man's misery in talking about offering. Nor is this the worst; I count it an insult to God. Jehovah says plainly in His own Word, "I will have mercy upon whom I will have mercy." "No," say these offer-mongers, "you can go to God; His mercy is held out to you, and you can take hold of it." But where is God's sovereignty-God's grace? I wonder that mortals who have seen a Bible can have the temerity to contradict God's precious Word and insult the Most High Himself. This shows the vast importance of the question before you, "Who, then. can be saved?"

Another point which we must just touch upon, but only for a moment (for I am very anxious to go to the solution), is, that all these creature doings are hopeless and deceptive. You must bear with me for dwelling upon this point. Though it may not be much needed in Grove Chapel, it is needed all over the world, because there are millions upon millions who, instead of relying simply upon Christ, are at this very moment relying partly on their own doings, and partly on those of other persons, all of which will prove hopeless. You cannot be strangers to things as they now exist. Penances, ceremonies, superstitions, payments, bells, and priests, together with mor tifications, abstinences, and religious exercises, are considered by millions of mortals even in the British empire to be the highway to obtain heaven and to get to eternal glory. Truly there is no sort of Christianity in them; they are nothing more nor less than a mockery of God, a mimicry of Christianity. And because there are millions in this perilous position, the inference is unavoidable, that saved souls are rare. Many of these think themselves very rich to purchase God's mercy; many of these are also among the rich of this world; many of these even assume something like the boasting of the Pharisee of old when they look at others around them. Did many of the Pharisees believe in Christ-men of education, men of learning? How common is the notion, that those men must be right who have been trained and educated at colleges, and have studied theology in every department! "If these are not right," it is asked, "who can be?" And yet my dear Lord says that these are the very persons who are excluded. The rich. How hardly shall "a rich man enter into the kingdom of heaven!" "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."

Now, here I beg your close attention to this solemn fact, which, probably, may induce the anxious inquiry in your minds," Who, then, can be saved?" Let me breathe out my anxiousness, if you please to call it so. If we look only at Christendom, passing by Paganism, what millions are there who pass under the Christian name

because they live in a Christian country, who have no more thought of being saved than a heathen. If I come to what are called Protestants, what a large proportion of them shall I find as open devotees of the old harlot of Rome, trying hard to throw this country into her lap; and, again, if I come to those who are more orthodox, more consistent with Scripture, those who are commonly called "Nonconformists," with what multitudes does a dull round of formalism make up the whole of Christianity! And if I come more closely-bear with me while I let out my thoughts-if I come to really regenerated characters, really regenerated partakers of grace, why how small a portion of these are constant, zealous, holy, fervent, active devotees of the glory of Christ! Oh, my brethren, if you will take this analytical view of what is called Christendom, you will be alarmed at the anxious inquiry contained in the text, "Who, then, can be saved?"

II.—Oh, my soul, enter now with all thy powers into the solution, which can only be found in Scripture. It is of infinite importance. My Lord has encouraged me to amplify it a little by stating, that salvation is possible to God, but that everything like salvation is impossible to man; that, if the matter of entering into the kingdom of God be left with the creature, "impossible" is stamped upon it. The heart is averse to it; all the notions are perverse against God. The powers are brought into subjugation to the sovereign sway of the "prince of the power of the air." Rebellion is interwoven with the very nature of man. "Who, then, can be saved?"

My first answer from Scripture is, "the chosen of God." After man has been laid in the dust, stripped of all his plans, and had his ornaments taken from him, then comes in the doctrine of election to life eternal, and I hear what the Holy Ghost taught the apostles to say, "We are bound to give thanks for you alway, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath, from the beginning, chosen you to salvation." There is the solution of the question, "Who, then, can be saved?" "Those whom God hath chosen to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit." I pray you look at this; it is not mine; it is the inspired Word of God. "Hath chosen you to salvation.' Again, the apostle was commissioned to say, "We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world." Consequently, it must follow that the doctrine of election is the foundation, yea, nothing less than the grand source and first cause of all the salvation which the saved inherit connected with eternal glory. I beseech you, beloved, follow this closely. In all probability, some weak Christians are ready to say, "How am I to know that God hath chosen me?" Now, I should reply in a very simple manner to this question, if it were proposed to me, "How do you know that God has chosen you?" I should reply, "Because I have chosen Him. I should never have chosen Him, as an absolute sovereign; I should never have bowed down to Him for pardon and salvation, if He had not chosen me." Hence our Lord says, "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." The plain matter of fact is, that they did not choose Him till long after He had chosen them; although in His eternal councils they were already His disciples, and had chosen Him as their Master. "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, He may give it you" (John xv.

16). They were chosen to salvation. Oh! how illustrious a first prin. ciple is this in the gospel of Jesus Christ, that Jehovah-the infinite, self-existent Jehovah-upon His own exalted and glorious throne, in His own settled councils, should have made His own choice before He made the world, before angels fell, before sin existed. And, with regard to these His vessels of mercy aforetime prepared unto glory, is it possible for any man who believes in the existence of the eternal God to suspect that He will lose one vessel whom He hath chosen? If you had chosen any article of furniture, or any article of dress, or any enjoyment or companion, and you did not possess the object of your choice, it would be either because you had altered your mind, or because you had not the power to obtain what you desired. If you had altered your mind, you would not claim to be immutable; if you could not obtain what you desired, you could not claim to be omnipotent; and because God is immutable, He cannot alter His choice of one of the objects of His love; and because He is omnipotent, He cannot be deprived of any of the objects of His love, but will conquer their hearts, and keep possession of them. Why, beloved, that Popish thing which is commonly called Arminianism, goes far to deny all the attributes of Deity, leaving man still under the law. But salvation is to glorify Jehovah's precious name; and, therefore, we allege that His sovereign choice of His people lies at the bottom of all that He does for them and reveals in them in the fulness of time. Why did He bring them to a sense of their depravity? Because He had chosen them for Himself. Why did He give them a new life? Because He had chosen them for Himself. Why did He forgive their sins and justify their persons? Because He had chosen them to everlasting, unchangeable glory. Why did He separate them from the world, and make them a "peculiar people, zealous of good works?" Just because He had chosen them for that express end and with that express design. This, then, is the first answer to the inquiry, "Who, then, can be saved?"

But now I have a second answer, drawn equally from Scripture, which will probably better assist my hearers in the grand business of self-examination. It would be the very climax of absurdity to wish to go to heaven without being heaven-born. To wish to go to heaven when we leave this world, as thousands do, merely to escape hell and eternal wrath, is most absurd, because if the wish were granted there would be no enjoyment there. Every sinner of Adam's posterity must have a heavenly birth, or he could never realize heavenly enjoyment if he got there. But our Lord tells us that he could not get there: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born again he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." Here, then, is the answer to the inquiry, "Who, then, can be saved?" The man, the woman, the child, that is born again, and none else. The man, that is born again will soon make it manifest, because the powers and faculties are ripened to a capacity of speaking His praise who hath called them out of darkness into His marvellous light. But the infant, who also must be born again and regenerated by the power of the Holy Ghost, or it could never enter heaven, does, I believe, in millions of instances, receive regenerating grace and the communication of new life, though it is not spared upon earth to make it manifest. We cannot see, but God can work it. I believe in my soul that many chosen infants die and go to glory, regenerated by the Spirit of God,

the woman,