Love of the Father.

truth, to my heart. Lord, take thy poor servant's cause into thine own hand; plead it for him in the court of heaven; urge it for him in the court of his own conscience on earth; let him feel the comfort of thine intercession in all the sorrows of his present state; so that no trial nor outrage from his enemies, no humbling sense of his own infirmities, may be able to stagger his confidence in thee.

Though thou art in heaven, my Jesus, yet thou knowest where I am, and whereof I am made; and thou rememberest that I am but dust in a trying world. O leave me not, neither forsake me; lest my own heart, without any thing else, and especially my own heart with ten thousand evil things beside, draw me off from my only true hope, to some wretched, stupid, corrupting refuge of lies! Intercede for me, as for Peter, that my faith fail not. He needed an advocate not more than I. O thou, that didst plead his cause with everlasting success, plead and take care of mine; that I, together with him, and all the clients of thy grace, may rejoice in thy goodness to my soul, and may bless thy holy name for ever and ever!

CHAP. XVI.

THE LOVE OF THE FATHER.

IN this is manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. We could

Gift of his Son.

have had no life but through the Redeemer and we could not have had him but through the tender love of the Father. Nothing can more forcibly show the love of God towards us than this, that he should give up Christ to the deepest humiliation and sufferings for our rescue and redemption. Had there been any possible method of salvation beside this, consistent with the divine attributes; surely the bitter cup would have passed away from the blessed Jesus, and God would not have permitted him to drink it. But God did not, and therefore could not, in this case, spare his Son, but delivered him up to death for our sakes; and thus, in a most admirable manner and degree, commendeth his love towards us while we were yet sinners, who, therefore, as such, could have done nothing to deserve it. Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

All this ensued according to the covenant of grace, which was settled between the divine persons upon the throne of heaven; and when the Lord Jesus was sacrificed, then was this covenant ratified and established, Jehovah interposing himself therein, and, through the divided flesh and spirit of the Messiah, satisfying his law and justice for the remission of sins.

By this new testament in the blood of the Saviour, his people are not only admitted into fellowship with him as their brother, yea, as flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone, in a more than espoused nearness; but they are also entitled by a gracious right to approach unto God as their father. They are adopted into his family; and the covenant, established in the hands of the

Spiritual Freedom.

Mediator, is the testimony and the pledge of it. Hence they are no more strangers and foreigners, and much less slaves and enemies, but sons and heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ Jesus; aud so, when they look up and pray, they do not. take God's name in vain, and speak falsely, when they call Jehovah himself, Abba Father; but they utter what they have a right and privilege to utter, and what the Lord delights to hear.

O my soul, thou canst not be in a ten thousandth part so ready to be joyful in this matter, as thy God is to rejoice over thee. If he could regard thee so much, when thou wert dead in condemnation, and an alien, as to give up his Son for they sake, how much more, when thou art reconciled by such expensive means, will he pour forth his compassions upon thee? If he was kind to thee, when he stood as thy Judge and smote thy Substitute for thy sins; will he, can he, cease to be kind under the character of thy Father, thy merciful and gracious Father, in Christ Jesus? Lord, remove so wicked a thought, so diabolical a notion of unbelief from my mind! It is treason against thy love, thy justice, thy truth, and all those attributes, which are the shining rays of thy nature, to harbour so foul an opinion: it is atheism, madness, yea, the very falsehood and blasphemy of hell. Holy Father, drive by thy Spirit such base and abominable suggestions from my heart; and let me claim the privilege of my adoption, let me call myself thy child, though unworthy child, and thus honour thy faithfulness and truth by living in the sense of my nearness and dearness to thee!

When my soul can most ascend to this its proper station, then time and the things of time are

The Love of the Spirit.

most under my feet; the world and all its bustles annoy me less; my heart beats more freely for heaven; and I can look down from the hill, seeing the vanities, and pitying the follies beneath which carry men away in an over-bearing stream from God, and too often drown them in ruin and perdition.

CHAP. XVII.

THE LOVE OF THE SPIRIT.

IF God be love, then the Spirit is love, because the Spirit is God. He manifests himself as the God of love, by unfolding and bestowing such love as only God himself could have, and from himself could pour forth unto others.

The Holy Spirit, as one of the parties in the everlasting covenant, loveth his people with an everlasting love. By him they are spiritually circumcised, and so admitted in the bond or privileges of the covenant; that is, they are cut off from the state and nature of the world, and are brought into a new fellowship with God, and all that belongs to him. By him also they are made sensible of the love of the Father and of the Son, when he sheddeth forth his own love upon hearts; for it is He who enables each of them to cry, Abba Father, under the taste of his mercy, and to say to Christ, "Thou art my Saviour, my Lord, and my God," in the rich experience of his grace. Without the love of the Spirit, as they could not know, they could not come up to the love of the Trinity; for by him alone is this

their

love shed abundantly upon all that are his, both in earth and heaven.

If I were left to love God by my own fallen powers, and had not the continual help of the Spirit of love; I should fear that I could do nothing but hate him entirely. The carnal mind is enmity itself against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can it be. The law of God, is the pure life and love of God; and only by his Spirit can I delight therein, and then only after the inner man. Hence it must follow, that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. Without him, every man must remain as he was born, earthly, sensual, devilish.

O how deeply then am I indebted to this divine Agent, for taking up his holy residence in my unworthy soul! What loving kindness and mercy have I not feit and enjoyed by his blessed power within me!

How is it, that he, whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain, should vouchsafe to take up his abode in a poor sinner's breast? What marvellous love is this, that he should stoop to dwell with one, whose heart hath been the residence of the evil spirit, and the cage of every unclean bird! Surely, it must be infinite love, which could cleanse so unholy a tenement for himself, and keep it in any degree clean, against the manifold attempts to pollute it on every side.

Whatever I may lose then, O thou blessed Spirit, may I never lose the love of thee! Fame, riches, and other temporal things, are but of small account in themselves, and can soon be made up by thy power; but the loss of thee is the loss of more than life itself, the parting with the very anchor of my soul, and turning me adrift into a