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with grief, oppressed and afflicted, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again, when he suffered, he threatened not, but committed himself unto him who judgeth righteously." When comparing himself with the fathers, who had trodden the path of affliction before him, he thus describeth his condition more hopeless, more helpless than them all: "Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people" (Psalm xxii. 4-6). Now he setteth an example that we should follow his steps; and he himself declared that the disciple is not above his Master, nor the servant greater than his Lord and how often warneth he his disciples of the afflictions they should have to endure for his name's sake; being cast out of the synagogues, and esteemed as the offscourings of the earth; yea, as fellows who deserved not to live; so that they who would kill us should think they did God service. And why this excess of suffering, he himself declareth: "These things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father nor me." Let the disciple of Jesus therefore prepare himself to suffer, for suffer he must, if he carry within him the love of God to sinful men: for however strange it be, it is not the less true, that a wicked man can bear any thing sooner than the love of him whom he hath wronged; and yet it is likewise true, that you shall not otherwise convert him from his wickedness than by manifesting the love, and bearing the malice which it awakeneth; for when the devil in the sinner hath expended the black poison of malice, the man beginneth to discover himself; remorse and repentance come apace, and the way is opened for righteousness and true holiness: for he who dareth to disturb the strong man in his house, must be prepared for the strong man's resentment; he must be armed with patience and with forgiveness, and with long-suffering love; he must besiege him with the artillery of love, if he would dislodge him; for the devil can bear any thing but the coals of love; this is the only charm against Satan, to dislodge him from the bosom of a sinful man; and forasmuch as we be sent into the world by Jesus for the same end, and on the same errand, as he was sent by the Father, we must be armed with the same weapons, and war the warfare on the same charges. Out of love is the fountain of our sorrow, to see our father's children so seduced and astray; and our sorrowful love leadeth us into every ingenious device, at all risk and hazard, at all expense of comfort and ease, to deliver these prodigals from their misery, and bring them back again to the communion and fellowship of their Father's love; who being recovered and forgiven, embraced, clothed, adorned, and shod with the preparation of the Gospel

of peace, do straightway catch the spirit of the family from the loving Father of it; and forthwith proceed on the same errand of toil and trouble, of labour and sorrow, to win back others of the family whom the enemy hath filled with the strong drink of his delusions: and thus the work of God, to reclaim and redeem his own, proceedeth in the way of love at the hand of those whom by love he hath won over from the ranks of his enemy into the bosom of his fatherly love; nor is there any other way whereby the work of God can proceed. He doth indeed make the wrath of man to praise him; but it is the love of man which he maketh to serve him. The faith of devils also doth make them tremble, because they know Him not as a Father, but as a Judge; but the faith of man doth make him love, because He in whom he believeth is nothing but love. Be it therefore fixed and settled in your hearts, O ye servants of the Lord, that ye must know God as a forgiving Father, and yourselves as his beloved and favoured children, ere ever you can do for him one act of right profitable service. While a man is standing in doubt and dread of God, the darkness and dismay which he suffereth within his own heart, the sadness and the gloom, are all against God, denying and confessing him not, telling of him as the hard master and the stern judge, and not, as a perfect Saviour from sin, and the most merciful Father of goodness to the sinner. He who serveth God in the bondage of the law, is no witness of the Father and the Son, but, contrarywise, is a witness against them; and that man's toil and trouble, that man's sorrow and sadness, are no fellowship of Christ's suffering, who was a Son before he began to suffer; and being a Son, volunteered to suffer because he saw his Father suffered from the sinfulness and rebellion of his creatures so if we would suffer with Christ, we must suffer generously, and not selfishly, for another's injuries, and not for our own, in another's cause, not in our own, in wretchedness for another's sin, not in repinings over our own. Peace therefore towards God, through the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, is the inlet to our Father's sorrow, and the beginning of our Father's service; and the continuance of it standeth in our freedom from sin; for if we commit sin, then stay we the current of our Father's love to men, by the barrier of our own concern for ourselves: instead of going out with the blessing, we have to go in for forgiveness, instead of shining forth with joy and peace, we are darkened with remorse. Oh, God's work of expressing through us His yearning love over sinners is sadly prevented by our unholiness, if we had the confidence of sons, and the obedience of sons, which Jesus had, the Father would fill us with the same mighty stream of pity, and compassion, and sorrow with which he filled him. Oh, sin doth harden the heart and turn it to stone, and God can make no use of it until, by

faith in the blood of Jesus, it be turned to a heart of flesh : then taketh he it up into his service, and sheweth what flesh is capable of; even of containing the fulness of God's love, and pouring it out in streams of sorrow over his abject perishing creatures. And God will have pity, before he will trust us with power, lest we should use his power for evil ends we must descend into the lower parts of the earth with Jesus, before we can ascend with him into the region of the Majesty on high; we must have of the fellowship of his nothingness, before we can have the fellowship of his almightyness; we must deny ourselves, before God will own us; the creature, must be out of sight, before the Creator can be seen; the vessel must be exhi bited as an earthen vessel, before the excellency of the power can be seen to be of God.

Now, if any one inquire, how this self-abasement is to be attained, the answer is, It is done under the hand of Jesus, who did ever thus abase himself from the throne of the Highest, from the bosom of the Father, to be the accursed man, hanged on a tree. He did it; the Son of God did it; and to Him it appertaineth to do it for ever. This is to believe on the cross of Christ; namely, to believe that Jesus, which is the same yesterday, today, and for ever, did for the end of salvation, abase the everlasting and unchangeable dignity of his place unto the level of the world. It is the wonderfulest action that even God himself did ever do; shewing how low his love can stoop to save. And the Son of God did earn for himself so excellent a name, did obtain the Father such acceptancy, that the Father has given him power over all flesh to bring out these excellent virtues which are in it, whereby it did sustain the Son of God when bent on such a stupendous undertaking. It gave Him scope to suffer; gave him room and range enough to shew the utmost compass of the love of God. Oh! what a creature is flesh; how noble in its creation, how much more noble in its redemption; how transcendently noble in its eternal glory. Ah! the Son of God hath indeed foiled Satan in that fall which he wrestled with flesh, and down, down, in the depths of mortality hath made it tell a tale of God, over which creation shall sing eternal anthems; the tale of God's love to the unloving, the tale of God's pathetic sorrow over the rebellious, the tale of God's purpose to save and to exalt the most worthless and ungrateful of his creatures, because he is good, because his mercy endureth for ever. Whoso therefore would re-echo the notes of mercy which filled the flesh of Jesus, must give himself into the hands of that Master of sorrow, to be attuned to his Father's mood. He must yield himself to the hand of the Divine minstrel, who will string his shattered harp, and breathe over it the Spirit of sorrow, the notes of the turtle wailing and dying of love. E

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say, Jesus must do it for us, and not we for ourselves: by yielding, not by striving, have we this as every other heavenly gift. And the way whereby he prepareth us for such blessed service, is by making us believe God's love to ourselves, which apprehendeth us for sons, all loathsome as we lie; and washing us at once in the blood of Jesus, doth lay us in the security and confidence of his own bosom, the nearest to him of all creatures, however honourable, more near to him than any creature, near to him as his only begotten Son. Which stupendous love, registered in every fibre of the heart, and working through all the regions of the mind, doth, as it were, give us the continual key note from which to start in the song of love, which he calleth for at our hands, in the hearing of angels and of

men.

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The church shall never attain unto the fellowship of Christ's resurrection, until she seek more unto the fellowship of his sufferings. The life of Jesus shall never be made manifest in our body, until we bear about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus. The life of Jesus shall not be made manifest in our mortal flesh, until we that live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. When we shall be able to say, "I through the law am dead to the law," we shall also be able to say, live unto God." When we shall be able to say I am crucified with Christ," we shall be able to add "nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." The Lord waiteth till we shall honour the office of his Son, and crucify the flesh; and then he will quicken us by the life and power of the resurrection of Christ. We must seal into the death, before we can be sealed with the life of Jesus. These things are true, and nothing to be gainsaid. Let every brother weigh them well, and lay them to heart, and glorify the name of Jesus hanging on the cross, by a life of self-denial and mortification to the flesh, that they may glorify the name of Christ, who sitteth at the right hand of God.

We would now both shew the truth of the doctrine, laid down above, concerning the connection between love and suffering, and a little guide into the practical details of the subject, by considering that delineation of love, which the Apostle Paul hath left upon record, in the xiiith chapter of 1 Cor. where, after having exhibited the manifestations of the Spirit, and the ministries of the Lord Jesus Christ in the church, he doth shew forth the operations of the love of God in the soul of every believer, declaring that without these all gifts and ministries are profitless and vain. Now, it is marvellous to observe how almost every one of these operations of love is after

the nature of suffering, "Love suffereth long and is kind," not only suffereth the contradiction of sinners, but is kind to them all the while; not only suffereth persecution and peril and death, but recompenseth them with blessing and prayers and well-doing; not only suffereth, but suffereth long, being thereunto called, forasmuch as Christ has suffered for us, shewing us an example that we should follow his steps. A servant of the Lord should lay his account with continual trials while the world lasteth, under its present prince, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience; nor should he count it strange when he falleth into divers temptations. It is our calling. Where should a man be found, but in his lawful calling?-Next, "love envieth not," but is contented with the lowest place, and meanest occupation; remembering the example of Jesus, and the words which he spake, "Let the greatest of you be as the least, and the chiefest as he that doth serve.' If we would not envy, we must be crucified to the world, and bear daily the reproaches of the foolish ones, who see nothing in man's life, but titles and honours and preferments, and riches and enjoyments of the flesh and of the carnal mind. From which if we would turn away, seeking after truth, righteousness, faith, and charity, then must we be content to be accounted fools and fanatics, and enthusiasts and madmen, which to bear, costeth no little suffering in the flesh, and from those whom we would wish to please. But to that suffering we must make up our minds, if we would be delivered from envying; for, while there lurketh one worldly desire, or ambition in the heart, there is room for envy.-Again, "love vaunteth not herself," but glorieth in the Lord, being like Jesus meek and lowly, the friend of publicans and sinners; willing rather to endure the contempt of others who contemn God, than to enjoy their approbation; and for herself, being self-crucified, she hath no living self to uphold or to glory in. Jesus is her all in all; Him she glorifieth, and she can endure no rival beside his throne.-Again, "Love is not puffed up" with those gifts which the Spirit may divide to us, with those ministries wherein the Lord may set us; because love teacheth us that these are not our own, but the Lord's goods entrusted to our stewardship, over which we watch, as those that have to give an account. Therefore are we not easily puffed up, because we are dead unto ourselves, and alive from the dead unto the Lord Jesus Christ; because we have nothing which we have not received, and, at the best, are but unprofitable servants; because we are filled with humility, are burdened with the common sin of man, and lie low in pleadings and intercessions for all.Next, "Love does not behave itself unseemly," being full of chastity and modesty, and courtesy and comely majesty; because the flesh, with its corruptions and lusts, is put to death; the