out of free sovereign mercy. There is none so vile | covered out of sight in a moment. This is good news for thee, O vilest of menfor thee who hast sinned against light and against convictions. I do not know that God will save thee, but I know that if he does, it will be in perfect accordance with his nature. 'He delighteth in mercy.' 2. With him is plenteous redemption. When the manna fell upon the face of the wilderness round the camp of Israel, there was a plentiful supply for the many thousands of Israel. He that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack.' So it is with Christ. He is freely offered to every creature. We are not straitened in Christ, but in our own hearts. "With him is plenteous redemption.' No sinner ever came to Christ, and found the Fountain of forgiveness dried up. One of the texts that was instrumental in the conversion of John Bunyan was this, 'Yet there is room,' Luke xiv. 22. Undone sinner, let this text lead thee to Christ. Many have come to Christ since the days of Abel. Thousands have entered through the strait gate, and are now his believing people on earth, or his glorified people in heaven. 'But yet there is room.' There is room for thee under Christ's wings. With him is plenteous redemption.' Brainerd once asked one of his converted Indians, 'Do you see enough in Christ for the greatest of sinners?' She replied, "O enough, enough, for all the sinners in the world, if they would but come.' And when he asked her if she would not tell others of the goodness of Christ; turning herself about to some poor Christless souls who stood by, she said, 'O there is enough in Christ for you, if you would but come. O strive, strive to give up your hearts to him.' Sinner, let the words of this poor believing Indian sink into thy heart. There is enough in Christ for thee, for with him is plenteous redemption. O! take up the words of the returning prodigal, 'How many hired servants of my father's have bread enough, and to spare, and I perish with hunger; I will arise and go to my father.' 3. He redeems from all iniquities. If you drop a pebble into the bosom of the ocean, it is But if you were to carry an immense rock and plunge it into the same ocean, it would be equally covered. So is it with the least of sinners, and the chief of sinners, when they come to Christ. There is no difference. The ocean of the blood of Jesus covers both equally. All sinners that come to Christ are equally justified in the sight of God. He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Christ is no half-saviour. His work is perfect. Dost thou believe in Christ? Then 'all the transgressions that thou hast committed shall not be mentioned unto thee.' Canst thou say the sweetest words that human lips ever uttered, 'My Beloved is mine? Then on the authority of him who cannot lie, I say to thee, As far as east is from the west, so far hath he removed thy transgressions from thee.' But perhaps thou sayest, However far removed, God's all-seeing eye may still be fixed on them. This cannot be; for thou canst say with Hezekiah, ‘Thou hast cast all my sins behind my back.' Nay, they are not only behind God's back, but out of sight, for it is written, Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.' But are they not to be found in God's book of remembrance? Listen to his own gracious declaration, 'I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins.' But God can remember my sins, even though he has blotted them out of his book. Hear again his own word, 'I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.' But surely if God were to search out my sins he would find them somewhere, and condemn me in the judgment. Fear not, O troubled soul, this cannot be; for it is written, 'The iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found.' ELEVENTH DAY.-EVENING. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's,' 1 Cor. vi. 20. IN these words we have the history of a believer. 1. There was a time when he did not belong to God. This is implied when it is said, 'ye are bought with a price;' for a man does not buy what is already his own. An unconverted soul does not belong to God. In one sense, indeed, all things belong to God; for the earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof.' He says, 'Every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand hills.' And again, the Lord | liarly dear to God. Since thou wast precious hath made all things for himself, yea, even the in my sight, thou hast been honourable, and I wicked for the day of evil. Still, it is also true have loved thee.' God puts more value upon that the wicked do not belong to God. They one believer than upon all the ungodly in the are not his portion, his inheritance, his purchased world. He is very kind to the ungodly; he possession. They are lost. They are sold under gives them food and raiment; houses and riches, sin. When a fisherman draws his nets, and health and pleasures, sunshine and showers; and finds a great many bad fish among the good ones, yet he gives a child of God more in one day than he does not count the bad ones as his own. He he gives to all the ungodly during their whole gathers the good into vessels, and casts the bad existence. He gives his own children-forgiveaway. So does God look upon lost souls. He ness, peace with God, and the Holy Spirit. says to them, 'Ye are not my people, and I will Truly we are not our own, we are bought with not be your God.' a price. 3. The blessed duty flowing from this. 'Wherefore glorify God,' &c. This duty is simply the resignation of soul and body into his hands, for time and for eternity. Take an example in one of the holiest and most eminent divines that ever lived. 'I have been before God, and have given God does not reign in unconverted souls. It is true he reigns over them, as he does over the wild beasts of the forest, and over the wild waves of the sea. He makes their wrath to praise him. He holds them in with bit and bridle. But God does not reign in their hearts. The devil reigns there, and not God. The heart of an uncon-myself, all that I am, and have, to God; so that verted man is the devil's house,' Mark iii. 27. O! it is good for me to look unto the rock whence I was hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence I was digged. Truly I can say, like Hezekiah, 'Thou hast loved my soul from the pit of corruption.' Should I not add, 'I shall go softly all my years in the bitterness of my soul?' 2. The happy change. Ye are bought with a price.' When a man has bought anything, and paid for it, more especially if it has cost him a great price, he says, 'This is mine.' So it is with God and the believer. He has laid down a price for him, the pearl of great price. And now he says of every believing soul, 'Fear not, for I have redeemed thee, I have called thee by thy name, thou art mine.' The moment that Jesus spreads his skirt over a poor dying polluted sinner, the voice of the Father is heard saying, 'Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom.' There never was a possession so completely belonging to any one as a redeemed soul belongs to God. We are his by creation, 'He hath made us, and not we ourselves. We are his by preservation. 'In him we live, and move, and have our being. How many years he preserved us when we were cutting at the hand that kept us out of hell. We are his by election. 'Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you.' 'Fear not, O Jacob, my servant, and thou Jeshurun whom I have chosen.' We are his by redemption. I lay down my life for the sheep.' This is my body broken for you.' We are his by the indwelling Spirit. I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Accordingly, we are pecu I am not, in any respect, my own. I can challenge no right in this understanding, this will, these affections which are in me. Neither have I any right to this body, or any of its members— no right to this tongue, these hands, these feet; no right to these senses, these eyes, these ears, this smell, or this taste; I have given myself clean away, and have not retained anything as my own. I gave myself to God in my baptism, and I have been this morning to him, and told him that I gave myself wholly to him,' (President Edwards). Or take the example of a dear boy who died about eight years old, and who was evidently taught by the same Spirit. One evening, near his death, he said to his watchful mother, 'Mother, I think I belong to him.' She asked, 'To whom, my child?' He replied, "To God, mother; my will, my understanding, my affections; I am God's boy altogether, mother.' When O my soul, dost thou know anything of this? Canst thou say, 'I am my Beloved's, and his desire is toward me?' Is it the chief desire of my heart to glorify God by fleeing from all sin? When the world comes and says, Come with us, stolen waters are sweet; my soul replies, Sinful world, I am not yours, I am the Lord's. Satan says, Come with me, thou shalt not surely die; my soul cries out, Get thee behind me, Satan, I am not yours. I was once yours, but now I am bought with a price; I am Christ's. When my own wicked heart says, Come and taste a little worldly pleasure; my new heart replies, Old man, I am not thine-I am not my own, I am bought with a price-therefore will I glorify God in my body and my spirit, which are his. TWELFTH DAY.-MORNING. the fields of Bethlehem came and kneeled to him; and the wise men saw and adored the infant • He came unto his own, and his own received him King; but the most despised him. He is not,' John i. 11. In this chapter John describes the coming of the Son of God into the world, and his rejection by those whom he came to save, in three different ways. In ver. 5. he says, 'The light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.' When Jesus came to this world, it was like the rising of the bright and morning star;' but the hearts of men were covered over with murky vapours, like those that settled over Egypt in that night when the darkness might be felt,' so that the heavenly radiance of Immanuel was not allowed to shine upon their souls. To those that knew him he was 'the light of men,' the morning Star,' the Sun of righteousness,' the 'morning without clouds;' but all the rest of the world comprehended it not. despised and rejected of men.' 'She wrapped him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger, for there was no room for them in the inn.' They knew him not during his life. Few believed on him. They called him glutton, wine-bibber, deceiver. Once they sought to cast him over the rocks. Often they plotted to kill him. He that had all things now wanted every thing. Certain women ministered to him of their sub stance,' Luke viii. 3. He had no money to pay his tribute. The creatures of his hand had a warmer bed than he. The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.' 'Every man went to his own home; Jesus went to the mount of Olives. Another time he sat wearied on a well, and said to a poor woman, ‘Give me Is it not still the same? 'We know that we to drink.' He that was God over all, blessed for are of God, and the whole world lieth in wicked-ever, could say, 'I am a worm and no man.' The ness.' On many souls Christ has arisen with world know him not to this hour. The offence healing in his wings, so that we can say to them, of the cross has not ceased. The way of salva'Arise; shine, for thy light is come, and the tion by Christ for us is still despised by most. glory of the Lord has risen upon thee.' But, ah! He who is a sanctuary to all them that believe, the most have never admitted the sweet, soft, is a stumbling-stone and rock of offence to most. peace-bringing beams of Jesus to shine into their O my soul, canst thou believe on Jesus when the dark hearts. The God of this world hath world despise him? Canst thou be one of the blinded the minds of them that believe not, lest little flock? Canst thou enter in at the strait the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is gate, and walk on the narrow way,' with an the image of God, should shine into them.' They unbelieving world on every side? know not whither they are going. Their feet are ready to stumble on the dark mountains. The path of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they shall stumble.' Again, in ver. 10. it is written, 'He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.' Strange visit to this fallen world! He who 'hung the earth upon nothing' he who said, 'Let there be light, and there was light-he who formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life'-he 'by whom were all things created that are in heaven, and that are on earth' -that glorious being came to his own world, 'God manifest in the flesh.' Surely all his creatures will run to worship and adore him. Surely they will worship and bow down; they will kneel before the Lord their maker.' Not so: 'the world knew him not.' They knew him not at his birth. He left the hallelujahs of the heavenly world for the manger at Bethlehem. No angel bowed before the infant Saviour. No seraph vailed his face and feet before him. The world knew him not.' A few shepherds from 'Obey the gospel call, And enter while you may; Again, in ver. 11. it is written, 'He came unto his own, and his own received him not.' In John xix. 27, the same words are rendered more fully, to his own home. To see the full meaning of the passage before us, we must adopt the same reading here: He came unto his own home, and his own family received him not.' The Jews were, as it were, his own family; and when he came to them, it was like coming to his own home. It was he who called their father Abraham, and separated them from among the nations to be a peculiar treasure: He said, Surely they are my people, children that will not lie: so he was their Saviour. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his saved them: in his love and in his pity he redeemed them; and he bare them, and carried them all the days of old,' Isa. lxiii. 8, 9. He was the substance of all their types. He was the true pillar-cloud that guided their fathers, the presence true bread from heaven; he was the rock that followed them. He was the true Isaac the child of promise, the prophet like unto Moses, the David the beloved, the true Solomon the prince of peace. Though to all the world he may appear 'without form or comeliness, having no beauty that they should desire him;' yet surely his own Israel will receive him as the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys.' Ah no! He came unto his own, and his own received him not.' They cried, "Not this man, but Barabbas.' 'Away with him, away with him, crucify him, crucify him.' 'His blood be upon us, and upon our children.' The rulers derided him. The very thieves railed at him. They shoot out the lip, they wag the head, they give him vinegar to drink. Ah! Did To this day his own receive him not. think, sinner, whom it is you are despising. you ever see the son of a king lay by his robes and his glory, become a poor man, and die in misery, and all for nothing? Do you think the Lord Jesus Christ left his Father's love and the adoration of angels, and became a worm and died under wrath, and all for no purpose? Is there no wrath lying upon your soul? Have you no need of such a Saviour? Why then do you delay to flee to him? 'Ungrateful sinners! whence this scorn Of God's long-suffering grace? And whence this madness that insults The Almighty to his face?' TWELFTH DAY.-EVENING. 'No man can come to me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him: and I will raise him up at the last day,' John vi. 44. I. How amazing is the depravity of the natural heart! The scriptures abundantly teach us this. All faithful ministers lift up their voice like a trumpet to show the people this; and it is the first work of the Holy Spirit on the heart to convince of sin. There is not in the word of God a more fearful discovery of the depravity of the natural heart than in these words. David says, 'Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me,' Psal. li. 5. God says by the prophet Isaiah, 'I knew that thou wouldest deal very treacherously, and wast called a transgressor from the womb,' Isa. xlviii. 8. And Paul says, 'We were by nature the children of wrath, even as others,' Eph. ii. 3. But here we are told that the impotency of a natural man, and his aversion from Christ, are so great that they cannot be overcome by any power less than divine. No man can come unto me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him.' There never was a teacher like Christ. Never man spake like this man.' He spoke with such authority, not like the scribes, but with a heavenly dignity and power. He spoke with such wisdom; he spoke the truth without any imperfection; his teaching was pure light from the Fountain of light. He spoke with such love, with the love of one who was to lay down his life for his hearers. He spoke with such meekness, bearing the contradiction of sinners against himself, when reviled, reviling not again. He spoke with such holiness, for it was 'God manifest in the flesh.' And yet all this did not draw them. There never was a more precious gift laid at the feet of sinners. My Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.' The very Saviour their perishing souls needed was now before them. His hands were stretched out to them. He was within their reach. He offered himself to them. Yet they would not come to him. Oh! the desperate blindness, hardness, deadness, and wickedness of the unconverted heart. Nothing but Almighty grace can change it. Oh! graceless man, your friends warn you, your ministers cry aloud to you, the whole bible pleads with you; Christ, with all his benefits, is set before you; and yet, unless the Holy Spirit be poured upon your heart, you will remain an enemy of the cross of Christ, and the destroyer of your own soul. No man can come unto me, except the Father, which hath sent me, draw him.' II. How invincible is the grace of Jehovah! No creature power can draw the sinner to Christ. Demonstration, miraculous evidence, threatening, invitation, may all be used in vain. Jehovah alone can draw the soul to Christ. He pours out his Spirit with the word, and the soul is sweetly and powerfully inclined to run to Jesus. Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power.' 'Is any thing too hard for the Lord?' 'The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water; he turneth it whithersoever he will.' Take an example:-A Jew was sitting at the receipt of custom, near the gate of Capernaum. His brow was furrowed with the marks of covetousness, and his jealous eye exhibited all the low cunning of the publican. Very probably he had heard much of Jesus; perhaps he had heard him preach by the shore of the lake of Galilee; still his worldly heart was unchanged, the operations of the Holy Spirit, have very for he remained at his wicked trade, sitting by often appeared to me as sweet and glorious docthe receipt of custom. The Saviour passed that trines. These doctrines have been much my way, and as he bent his eyes upon the busy Levi, delight. God's sovereignty has ever appeared said, 'Follow me.' He said no more. He used to me a great part of his glory. It has often no argument, no threatening, no promise. But been my delight to approach God and adore him the God of all grace breathed on the publican's as a sovereign God, and ask sovereign mercy of heart, and he was made willing; 'he arose and him.' followed him.' It pleased God, who worketh all things according to the counsel of his own will, to give Matthew a saving glimpse of the excellency of Jesus; a drop fell from heaven upon his heart, and melted it; he smelled the sweet savour of the Rose of Sharon. What is all the world to Matthew now? He cares not for its gains, its pleasures, its praises, any more. In Christ he sees what is sweeter and better than them all. He arose and followed Jesus. Let us learn that a simple word may be blessed to the saving of precious souls. Often we are tempted to think there must be some deep and logical argument to bring men to Christ. Often we put confidence in high-sounding words. Whereas it is the simple exhibition of Christ carried home by the Spirit, which awakens, enlightens, and saves. 'Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.' If the Spirit be breathing on the people, these little words, Follow Jesus,' spoken in love, may be blessed to the saving of a whole congregation. Let us learn to give the whole praise and glory of our salvation to the free, sovereign, efficacious grace of Jehovah. An old divine says, 'God was so angry with Herod for not giving him the glory of his eloquence, that the angel of the Lord smote him immediately, and he died a miserable death; he was eaten of worms, and gave up the ghost. But if it be very sinful in a man to take to himself the glory of such a qualification as eloquence, how much more a man's taking to himself the glory of divine grace, God's own image, and that which is infinitely God's most excellent, precious, and glorious gift?' How many times, in the 1st chapter of Ephesians, does Paul insist upon it that we are saved by free, unmerited grace? And how fully does John ascribe the whole glory of salvation to the free grace of the Lord Jesus? Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever. Amen.' How solemn are the words of President Edwards, in his Personal Narrative! 'The doctrines of God's absolute sovereignty and free grace, in showing mercy to whom he would show mercy; and man's absolute dependence on 'O! to grace how great a debtor Daily I'm constrained to be ! THIRTEENTH DAY.-MORNING. come, he Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is I. Let us meditate on the glorious person here He |