am privileged to call my Father and

my

God. But as,

in the natural world, one generous boon - the blessing of light — brings into view and clothes with beauty all other objects, so God's gift of his Son to be my Saviour - to be the Saviour of the world — enhances, if it does not create, the true value of all his other gifts.

My soul, when wilt thou be able to calculate the value of this gift? The felicity of elect angels, given to them, as it is, of God, falls far short of that which he has conferred on thee. The happiness of Adam in Eden was but as the flowers that faded there, and is not to be compared with this. “His only-begotten Son,” the equal partaker of his nature, the “ very brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person," — he was the gift of God's unequalled and amazing love. “ He so loved the world !"* Every circumstance adds to the rich value of the bestowment, — the giver, the gift, and the receivers.

The Holy Spirit is also called the “unspeakable gift of God ;” † but this is included in Christ, to whom the Spirit is given without measure, for the benefit of his people. Every desire of my

heart, indeed, and every want of my soul, is provided for in Christ. If he, therefore, is mine, what can I lack? “The world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come, — all are mine.”*

Let me help me, O Lord, to adore the grace which enables me to call thee mine. Let me praise thee for the faith for that, too, is thy gift twhich makes thee mine. But may I ever be deprived of this gift? After reaching the pinnacle of spiritual wealth, can I be cast down to utter destitution? No; "for the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”‡ Jehovah is a stranger to "variableness.” revokes not his free gifts. The gift of God is my Saviour, and mine forever.

He

“ Come, mourning soul, dismiss thy fears;

I know thy heart's desire : And faith is beaming through thy tears ;

And I that faith inspire.

66 Thy hand on God's free bounty lay;

For all he gives is thine: Believe – rejoice! Now, mourner, say,

Was ever grace like mine!”

GLORY.

My SAVIOUR is THE GLORY OF THE LORD. Before whom is it that the pioneering prophet crieth in the wilderness? It is no less and no other than Jehovah. “ Prepare ye the way of the LORD; make straight in the desert a highway for our God."* That “more than a prophet,” John the Baptist, teaches me to understand this of my Saviour. But Isaiah added, “ The glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” Now, my Saviour was the grand object of revelation, and he is therefore THE GLORY OF THE LORD. In him and through him alone does Jehovah manifest his glory to our fallen race.

Considered abstractedly, the divine glory is the display of all the divine perfections in harmonious union. These perfections, however, in this harmonious union, are Jehovah

himself; and the glory of the Lord is but another name of Jehovah of the Lord Jesus, in whom "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."* "In him all the fulness was pleased to dwell." +

What can be so worthy of my contemplation, or of my most intense desire to contemplate, as the glory of the Lord? Compared therewith, what is the whole universe but a blank? Let me rejoice that the Lord has provided for the gratification of my soul's desire; for in him, whom I adore and love, I behold “the likeness of the glory of the Lord," yea, that glory itself.‡ In Christ, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, I may have a near and a safe view of that which, out of Christ, no man can see and live. When, in the full vision of my Saviour, I shall be entirely transformed into his image, I shall be able to gaze with ease and delight on that splendor which fills all heaven with its radiance.

It is related of Lord Nelson, that, at a critical moment of his early life, "a sudden glow of patriotism was kindled within him;" and that, "from that time, a radiant orb was suspended in

* Col. ii. 9.
+ Col. i. 19.

Ezek. i. 28.
§ Ex. xxxiii. 18-23.