understanding, fall into errors, fail in their course, or die almost doubting and despairing.

O my soul, seek thou the substantial wisdom, which cometh from God, and which time, or rather eternity itself, cannot diminish, but will brighten and improve. Though other knowledge may be valuable for the purposes of this world, yet this alone can ripen for heaven, and is therefore most earnestly to be sought by thee, whose business and calling, whose citizenship and hope, are most principally there.

And, O thou, who art the living and life giving word itself, through whom and for whom all the written word was given, come and possess my soul! I long for nothing, and would always long for nothing, but for thy wisdom and thee. O forgive my unsettled heart, which hath so often been taken up with a multitude of unprofitable things, instead of being fixed wholly upon thee, who art the only Way, the Truth, and the Life! I can have no rest, no firm establishment, but upon thee. My nature is unstable as water; and I live moreover in a slippery world. Leave, O leave me, therefore, not to myself, nor to the power of the evils, which are above, beneath, and on every side. Set me upon thyself, my blessed Rock, and order thou my goings in the way, and lead me into the way everlasting. Who is sufficient for these things, but thou, who art all-sufficient? How can I, so poor a creature, hope either to stand or to prevail, but through that strength, which is made perfect in weakness, through that wisdom, which cannot be deceived by fraud, and that love which is stronger than death, and durable as the days of heaven ! O Lord, be on my side, and then neither my own flesh, nor the corruption of the flesh in others, no, nor all the powers of darkness, shall be able so much as to hurt me. I am thine, O save me now, save me to the end, and save me for ever!

CHAPTER X.

ON THE LIFE OF CHRIST.

THOUGH my Redeemer was to be, and was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; though he was to have, and had, all our iniquities in his own body on the cross; though he was to bear the curse, and was cursed for the transgression of his people; and, for a token of it, was hanged on a tree; yet, in his own person, he was pure, harmless, and undefiled, and so was called typically the holy Lamb of God, without blemish or any possible defect. He was without sin, from the manger to the tomb. When Satan tried him in the desert, he found nothing in him of weakness of mind or defilement of body; and therefore his temptations had nothing to lay hold of, but fell to the ground. His enemies among men, stirred up by the malice of the adversary, could not, when he challenged them, convince him of sin; nor was any thing like guile to be found in his mouth. All his words were wisdom itself, and all his actions were purity and love.

There are three principal reasons why such a Redeemer became us; and these are to be found only in Christ.

A sacrifice in the first place, was necessary for our iniquities; for, without shedding of blood there is no remission of sins. The justice of God required atonement; because it is inconsistent with the holiness of his nature to spare the guilty. No truth, in all his word, is more plain than this. But nothing could be substituted in the room of sinners, which was sinful in itself; for this would only increase the wrath of the Most High. And, therefore, as his love was pleased to provide and accept a substitute; such an one appeared, as was without spot, or defect of any kind in himself, and had

nothing to answer for of his own. This is the signification of all the pure sacrifices under the law, which speak aloud, that they are altogether vicarious, or one offered in the stead of another.

In the next place, the redeemed, as sinners, wanted righteousness, without which they cannot appear with acceptance before God: And, as a perfect righteousness can only be pleasing to him, and all men are incapable of producing such an one, and as therefore it can only be obtained by accounting the righteousness of a substitute for their own; Jesus Christ was Jehovah in our nature, in order to be Jehovah our Righteousness. God is well pleased for his righteousness' sake, which is infinite and everlasting, capable of justifying from all things, and through all times, even into eternity.Christ, not for himself, but for his people, fulfilled all righteousness, and upon their account magnified the law of their God. It was for this end, that he lived so many years upon earth, and went through all the stages of human life to manhood; by which his people of all ages might have, through faith, a right of acceptance in him.

And, thirdly, the merit of the sacrifice for sin, and the substitution of righteousness for sinners, required some person to intervene, or to stand between God and sinners, and to offer these exchanges in their behalf. This office is the office of a priest, who is a mediator between God and man, and who must therefore be holy in himself. Christ was this perfect person; and so was such an High Priest as became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, having an unchangeable priesthood, to which he is consecrated for evermore.

These are the reasons of all his labors in love and righteousness: And he was able to merit and go through them, being Jehovah in man; as well as to suffer what he took upon him, being man in Jehovah,

O what a task of unparalleled grace and humility is here! Who could have done such unimpeachable works; but he who is perfect in himself? Who could have done them to render others perfect for ever before God, but one so much above all created perfection, as to have for others an unbounded perfection to spare?

Lord, help me to meditate upon thee, and upon all that thou hast done upon my soul! O put on this garment of salvation, this robe of righteousness which thy blessed hands have perfectly wrought, that it may be my wedding garment in the day of my espousals, when I shall leave the world, and appear before the Majesty on high! This is the righteousness of saints, pure, white, and shining, in which they walk with thee in glory, and in which I also hope to walk, unworthy creature as I am, both with thee and with them. O then shall I appear without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, all acceptable to God, all illustrious in thee! Lord, what hast thou wrought indeed? Thou hast wrought for me to entitle me to heaven; and thou hast wrought in me to fit me for heaven; a work, as it seems to me no less difficult than the other; so stubborn and vile am I, and so opposite to thy pure nature is mine. I marvel, and with tears of joy I marvel, at all the mysterious wonders of thy redemption, at thy plain and clear, yet unsearchable love, at thine awful justice magnified even by grace itself, at the kindness thou hast shewn and the goodness thou hast promised, at the never ending line of wisdom in thy holy word, and at the unbounded scene of glory yet before me. I am overwhelmed, I am astonished, at the weight and grandeur of thy divine benevolence. Accept the faculties of my body and soul, all I am and all I have; and let them be found to thy praise, and honor, and glory, both now and at the day of thine appearing! Amen.

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CHAPTER XI.

ON THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

"BEHOLD, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD afflicted me, in the day of his fierce anger."

Thou

No, my Jesus, never was sorrow like thine. bearest the griefs of millions; griefs, which would have sunk those millions into unsufferable wo. Omnipotence itself groaned under the tremendous load, which forced from thy pure and perfect body, not common sweat (the curse, inflicted with human labor,) but a dreadful sweat, bursting forth in great drops of agonizing blood. O what a doleful cry didst thou utter; and who but thyself can conceive those to us unknown pangs and sufferings, which forced from thy sacred lips, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!

The meditation of thy sufferings and death is painful in the sympathy of nature; yet I cannot wish that thou hadst not endured them, nor didst thou fully wish it for thyself. Thou wast contented to be betrayed into the hands of sinful men for this very purpose. It was by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God, that all the parts of this solemn event were transacted. And it is for the everlasting interest of me and of thousands, that all the scriptures concerning thee were thus awfully fulfilled.

Lord, what is sin, that thou thyself couldest not be spared; when from the souls of thy people it was taken off, and laid upon thee? Can any thing more solemnly describe the hatred of the divine nature to sin, and the severity of the divine justice upon account of it, than the pangs, the horrors, the cries of thee, my Jesus, thou suffering Son of God? And if thou wert sacrificed