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nay, if it is really conducive to it, you shall be rich, and honourable, and great. Infinite wisdom knows, however, that, in ordinary cases, riches, and honour, and grandeur, instead of being a blessing to the people of God, would be a curse-would entangle them in snares, and seduce them into sin, and therefore has generally assigned them but a moderate portion, sometimes but a scanty one, of worldly goods. Yet the poorest of you enjoy the benefits conferred on you by a securer tenure than the richest and mightiest of the sons of the world: Ye" inherit the earth." What you have is yours by the charter of the new covenant, is the pledge of your Father's love, and the earnest of a better inheritance. Fear not want; for the all-suf ficient God assures you, that you shall not want any good thing: "What is good God will give: he will give grace and glory."

The best part of your inheritance, however, is that which is spiritual in its nature, and eternal in its duration. Whatever is necessary to remove the guilt, to purify the pollution, and to subdue the power of sin -to fill the mind with all necessary knowledge, and adorn the heart with all holy dispositions-to stimulate indolence, to assist weakness, to protect in dan

ger, to comfort in sorrow, will certainly be conferred on you. Comfort in life, safety in death, happiness for ever, are all included in your inheritance.

Do unbelieving fears rise in your minds, lest those delightful anticipations should never be realized? Look through these elements at the crucified Son of God, and be ashamed of your suspicions. God has given you his Son, and what will he refuse you? The gift of Jesus is incomparably more valuable than any other, than the aggregate of all his other gifts; and he who has given you the greater will not refuse the less. The bestowal of all that is requisite for your happi

ness, is necessarily connected with the gift of Christ. He was given for you, that these benefits may be given to you. Were these refused, the unspeakable gift of God would have been bestowed in vain. In truth, Christ and his benefits cannot be separated. He who has the one must have the other. He who has Christ, has of course "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." Ye are happy indeed, Christians, would you but believe your happiness, for ye may enjoy Christ in all things, and all things in Christ. When God gave his Son for you, ye were enemies; now, through the reconciling efficacy of his atonement, ye are friends. Most conclusively does the apostle argue on this subject, "God commendeth his love to us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Much more, being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled by the death of his Son, much more being reconciled we shal} be saved through his life." The gift of Christ Jesus, is a proof (what can be a stronger one?) of the love of God to those for whom he was given; and "whom he loves, he loves to the end." He resteth in his love: He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

"How great is his goodness! and how great is his beauty!" Let it ever be present to your minds, as the ground of your hope, the source of your joy, and the motive of your obedience: "Olove the Lord, all ye his saints!" And, in proof of your love, reverence his authority, and obey his laws. "Delivered out of the hands of your enemies, by the tender mercy of your God, see that ye serve him without fear, in righteousness and holiness all the days of your life."Go in peace.

EXHORTATION IT.

THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

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WE have thought of thy loving kindness, O God!

in the midst of thy temple." Christians, imitate the holy Psalmist's example, and think ye of the loving kindness of the great God your Saviour, now that, in the multitude of his mercies, he has brought you to his table. It is a delightful theme. Allow me for a few moments to guide your thoughts on it.

Think of the early commencement of his loving kindness. It is an overwhelming thought,-there never was a period when your Saviour began to love you. There was indeed a period, and ye may recollect the time, when ye hated him, when ye violated his law, contemned his authority, and trampled on his atoning sacrifice; and his love was first manifested, when he turned you from darkness to light, and, by the invincible power of his grace, sweetly constrained you to love him. But did he then begin to love you? No; your conversion was the consequence, not the cause of his love: "He loved you with an everlasting love: therefore with loving kindness did he draw you." That the eternal Son of God should from unbeginning ages regard with love the worthless, guilty, depraved children of men, is indeed an idea which may well confound us by its grandeur, and amaze us by its strange

ness; but, blessed be God, it is not more grand and astonishing than true and consolatory.

Think, Christians, of the inconceivable ardour and intensity of your Saviour's love. Human language cannot express its fervour and tenderness. Maternal affection is, perhaps, the strongest instinctive principle of the human constitution. None but a mother can tell the tender anxiety and watchful love which agitates the bosom of a mother, when, in speechless tenderness, she hangs over the cradle of her sick in-. fant; but a thousand times more ardent, a thousand times more tender, is the compassion which glows in the bosom of the Saviour towards all his people: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, she may forget, yet will not he forget thee." But the journey from heaven to earth, the toils and the sorrow, the wounds and the death, of the Son of God, are the most satisfactory proofs of the ardour of his loving kindness.

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Think, Christians, of the immutability of your Saviour's loving kindness. He is "the Father of lights, with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." He resteth in his love, and his name is "Jesus, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." He may not, he will not always bless you with equally clear manifestations of his love; and for this reason,"your sins often separate between you and your viour, and your iniquities hide his face from you." But, oh! you argue ill, Christians, if you conclude, because he afflicts you, therefore he loves you not. The opposite inference is the truth. He afflicts you because he loves you. His afflictive dispensations are the fruits of his affection. They are the fulfilment of some of the most precious promises of the everlasting covenant-the charter by which you hold all your

blessings. The cause of his love is not in you, but in himself; and while he continues the same, his love will remain unaltered, unalterable. Sooner will the everlasting mountains be plucked from their deep-seated foundations-sooner will the universe dissolve like a vision-as soon will the throne of the Eternal crumble into ashes, as thy Saviour vary in his love.

Think, Christians, of the endless duration of your Saviour's love: "Whom he loves, he loves unto the end." Ye are interested in the favour of the Eternal, and "who can separate you from his love? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things," if called to encounter them, ye shall be made " more than conquerors, through him who loved you." Be persuaded, Christians, "that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate you from the love of Jesus Christ, your Lord.”

Think, Christians, of the active and beneficent nature of the Saviour's loving kindness. It led him to labour, and suffer, and die for you. It has procured for you the favour of God, the delights of holiness, and the glories of paradise. All you have, all you hope for, flows from this love.

And O forget not, Christians, the free, unmerited, unsolicited character of the Saviour's love. The love of Christ to sinners is of a description altogether peculiar. It is a love, not to dignity, but to meanness; not to beauty, but to deformity; not to innocence, but to guilt; in one word, and nothing more extraordinary can be said about it, it is the love of an infinitely holy and just God to guilty and depraved sinners.

While you muse, Christians, does not the fire of love burn within you, and are you not constrained to

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