him proclaim to them the glorious gospel:-Behold I bring you glad tidings. Jesus died for sinners, for the chief of sinners. I offer you pardon in his name. Thus let him preach to those miserable heathen, the unsearchable riches of Christ. And if the grace of God should touch their hearts, and bring them to repentance and if they should at length be seen at the feet of Jesus, weeping for their sins, and devoting their whole souls to him, and then going about to proclaim his abounding grace;Oh! this would be a spectacle, at the sight of which angels would rejoice, and the report of which would fill the hearts of ten thousand believers with gladness. And could those two missionaries, now we trust in heaven, hear the blessed tidings of the repentance of their murderers, how would they join with the angels in their rejoicing, while with a Christ-like spirit, they would feel willing to go down again to earth, and bear again the pains of death, for the joy of beholding such precious fruits of God's Spirit, and such glorious triumphs of his grace!

A SERMON

DELIVERED AT THE FUNERAL OF THE REV. JOHN HUBBARD CHURCH, D. D., WHO DIED AT PELHAM, N. H., JUNE 12, 1840.

BRETHREN AND FRIENDS; I stand here to-day in compliance with the request of that beloved brother, who now sleeps in death. I visited him near the time of his decease. During that visit, he requested me to preach at his funeral; then taking his Bible, which he had by his pillow, and pointing to a particular passage, he said, "I wish you to preach from that text." It was the second Epistle to Timothy, 1: 18, "The Lord grant unto him, that he may find mercy of the Lord in that day." He then said: "I want you to dwell particularly upon this idea, that we depend on the mercy of the Lord for our salvation; and that ministers of the gospel, as well as others, will need that mercy at the judgment day." He repeated it: "What I wish you to show is, that the salvation of ministers, as well as of all others, depends on the sovereign mercy of God; and that it is infinitely important that we obtain that mercy now and hereafter. Dwell upon the idea, that we shall need to find mercy of the Lord at the last day." He enlarged upon this sentiment in various ways; and in the whole of that interview he showed, that the doctrine of salvation by the free grace of God, through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, was the ground of his hope and the spring of his consolations on his dying bed.

Deeply impressed with the recollection of that last interview, I shall make it my object on this occasion to exhibit the doctrine of salvation by grace, as exemplified in the life and character of our departed brother. And permit me to say, that what I shall advance on this subject will not be a matter of conjecture; nor will it be made out from a mere general acquaintance with Dr. Church as a minister of the gospel; but will be the result of my intercourse and friendship with him for almost fifty years; an intercourse and friendship so free and intimate, that I have as true a knowledge of his mind and heart, as one man can have of the mind and heart of another in the present world. I speak too in the presence of a church and society for whom he labored in the ministry thirty-seven years, and who will judge of the correctness of my remarks.

Turn your thoughts then to the doctrine of salvation by grace, as exemplified in our beloved brother; particularly as it was the object of his faith, the matter of his inward experience, and the spring of his pious and useful life.

In the first place, the doctrine of salvation by grace was the object of his faith. He regarded this as the essence of the gospel the great truth, in which all other truths of revelation centre. He believed, as the followers of Christ in all ages have believed, that the salvation of men is wholly of God; that it originated in his eternal love; that it is entirely and preeminently a work of divine grace.

The nature and the method of salvation imply, that man is an apostate being, alienated from God, totally lost, without any power to atone for his sins, and without any spring of holiness or tendency to obedience in himself. This ruined state of the human family is pre-supposed in the work of redemption. Christ came to seek and save that which was lost; so that all to whom the work of redeeming mercy can apply are depraved and lost. The posterity of Adam, according to the Scriptures, are all sinners. The evil which is in them is moral evil, and it is their own, for which they are justly exposed to the divine displeasure; and their condemnation is an act of God's righteousness. Such

was the belief of our brother. He looked upon the law of God, and the plan of his government, as holy, just, and good. He believed the divine appointment, connecting the character and condition of Adam's posterity with his conduct, to have been an act not only of sovereignty, but of wisdom and righteousness. With his views of the divine character, he wanted nothing to satisfy him that the appointment, so plainly asserted in Rom. 5: 12-19, was just and right, but the simple fact that it was the appointment of God. And he wanted nothing to satisfy him that it was the appointinent of God but the declaration of an inspired writer. This was the end of the matter. He considered it a doctrine not to be made out by human reason and philosophy, but to be taught by revelation- a doctrine to be shaped and determined, not by the weakness and shallowness of the human mind, but by the unsearchable and boundless wisdom of the divine mind.

Here the work of salvation by grace comes in. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son to die for them. And the Saviour actually died for them. To deliver them from the curse of the law, he was made a curse for them. By his obedience and death he made propitiation for sin, and procured forgiveness and eternal life for all believers. This was the faith of Dr. Church. He believed the finished righteousness of Christ, consisting in his perfect obedience and vicarious sufferings, to be the only ground of our forgiveness, the grand, meritorious cause of salvation; as it is written, there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved, but the name of Jesus. And while Jesus is the only Saviour, he is also allsufficient, able to save the chief of sinners, and to save to the uttermost; so that no one need to despair on account of the greatness of his sins. The salvation to be obtained is a free, gratuitous salvation, not resting at all on any moral worth in us, but springing wholly from the eternal love and mercy of God. Such a salvation, and such only, is adapted to those who have destroyed themselves, and have not now, and never can have, any worthiness to entitle them to the divine favor. To those who

are in this condition Jesus Christ is presented as a complete Saviour; and those who are ready to perish, are invited to come to him and receive of his fulness. Thus the door of mercy is opened; a Saviour, unspeakably precious and glorious, and every way suited to our case, is revealed, and we are called upon by the voice of infinite majesty and infinite love to receive him. Oh! how many times, and with what affectionate earnestness has that tongue, which is now silent in death, proclaimed this glorious doctrine, this provision of mercy for the salvation of men! And how feelingly did he dwell upon it in that happy hour which I spent with him, just before his decease!

But it is implied in that doctrine of salvation which is taught in the Scriptures, and which our departed brother believed, that men in their natural state will not come to Christ that they may have life; that, while left to themselves, they are governed by that carnal mind which is enmity against God, and, consequently, that their recovery to holiness, as really as their forgiveness, must be of God. He calls sinners with a holy calling, not according to their works, but according to his own purpose and grace. They are born of God. The commencement and progress of their renewal to holiness is "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Their obedience springs not from any principle of action naturally in them, but from the divine Spirit. He works in them all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power. Every Christian virtue is the fruit of the Holy Spirit. The application of redemption to sinners is to be ascribed wholly to God. He gives them repentance. He works faith in them. He sheds abroad his love in their hearts by the Holy Ghost. So the apostles taught; and so our brother believed, and so he preached. Nor did he trouble himself to show how our entire dependence on the Spirit of God is to be reconciled with our free, moral agency. He knew them to be reconcilable, because he knew them both to be true. He left the actual reconciling of them to be made out where only it can be well made out, in the inward experience and consciousness of Christians.