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as Saul is saved. The same grace, sinner, that changed his heart, can change thine; the same grace, that pardoned his sins, can pardon thine; and it will do so too, if, like him, thy proud heart is brought down, and thou art enabled to say, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" This was his first petition; the dawn of eternal day in his soul. O that each of us might but say this from his heart! Can you follow me in these words?" Lord, I give myself up to thee. I have done wickedly, but would do so no more. O, what wouldst thou have me to do? Let me be led into a right way for knowing and doing thy will; that I may testify my repentance, honour thy name, and obtain the forgiveness of my sins." When Paul prayed thus, the merciful Saviour directed him to go into the city; and afterwards sent his servant to instruct and comfort him. So will he say to thee, Arise, wait upon God. Read and hear his word; and he shall visit thy soul with the light, power, and comfort of his great salvation.

As this text affords great encouragement to praying souls, and furnishes them with a plain and pleasing evidence of their conversion; so it marks out, as distinctly, the woeful state of a prayerless person. Dost thou live without prayer, man, woman, child?-Thou art no Christian. Thou art an Atheist; yea, much worse than an Atheist. He believes no God, and therefore cannot pray to him. You say you believe in God, but never seek him. If you can live without prayer, it is a proof of a blind mind, and of a hard heart; it shews ingratitude to God, and insensibility of want. It proves thou art a stranger to faith, to repentance, to hope, to love, to every christian grace; for as all these are exercised in true prayer; so, the prayerless person proves he is destitute of them all. What is he then? An enemy to God, and a destroyer of his own soul. "As the Lord liveth, there is but one step between thee and death." "Arise, O sleeper, and call upon thy God." "Turn or burn. Pray or perish."

Go on, praying, Christian. "The Lord never said to the seed of Jacob, Seek ye me in vain." He who said, Behold, he prayeth, and observed his first breathings for mercy. He was heard. He was pardoned. He was saved. He is praising now. Behold, he prayeth! He

has been praising Christ for 1700 years, and will do so to all eternity. Who would not pray now, seeing prayer shall be turned into praise, and issue in everlasting songs of joy and triumph?

John iii. 16.

SERMON XXX.

THE LOVE OF GOD.

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

IN these you have glad tidings of great joy to all

N these words you have the sum of the whole Gospel.

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people. They are the words of Jesus Christ, in his admirable discourse with Nicodemus, a teacher and a ruler of the Jews. This man being convinced by the miracles of Christ, that he was a teacher come from God," wished to have some conversation with him; but not having yet courage enough to declare for him openly, came to him, privately by night. Our Lord directly began with him on the subject of the new-birth. "Nicodemus," said he, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God:" for, observe, the knowledge of the corruption of our nature, and of the necessity of being inwardly changed by grace, is the very first thing we must learn in religion. Nicodemus, with all his learning, was as yet ignorant of this; and so are many of our teachers. But Christ insists. upon it, that a man must be born again; and from the doctrine of the new-birth, he passes on to that of faith in Christ, and salvation through faith. This he explains by a remarkable type or emblem of it, well known to the Jews, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have eternal life." Here Christ foretels his death upon the cross, and the benefit believers would derive from it. As the wounded Jew was healed by looking at the brazen serpent; so the perishing sinner is saved by looking at Christ crucified. And, that the sinner may not fear rejection, it is declared: in our text, that the salvation of all who believe, was the A a 2.

very thing that God designed in giving his Son. "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life." It is in the free and eternal love of God that our salvation begins. "The first of

God's gifts is his love; the first gift of his love is his Son; the first gift of his Son is faith; and faith is the root of all other graces, the principle of the new life, and the key which shuts up hell, and opens the gate of heaven.

It is the love of God we are now to meditate upon. But O, who is equal to the subject? "Can we by searching find out God; the love of God; God, who is love? Can we find out the love of God to perfection? It is as high as heaven; what can we do? Deeper than hell; what can we know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea. O that the love of God may now be shed abroad in our hearts hy the Holy Spirit ;" that we may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge." In order to this, let us consider the following things:

I. The LOVE of God-God so loved the world. II. The EVIDENCE of it—that he gave his Son. And, III. The END or DESIGN of it, that whosoever believeth might be saved.

First, let us consider the love of God. Consider who it is that loves, and who are the persons beloved. HE, who loves, is the great God, who was from everlasting, infinitely happy in himself, and whe needed not the aid of any creatures. He who made all things out of nothing by the word of his power. HE, "with whom the nations are as a drop of the bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance? they are before him as nothing, yea, less than nothing, and vanity." "Lord, what is man, that thou art mindful of him!" But what is more wonderful is, that God, who is infinitely holy, and "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity," should ever love creatures like us, who are full of sin. He loved the world; this world; not angels, but men; sinful men of all ages and countries. Not sinners of the Jews only, as some of them fondly dreamed. έσ Christ," saith the apostle John, "is the propitiation for

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our sins; and not for our's only," who are Jews," but for the sins of the whole world"-for all who shall hereafter believe on him, whether Jews or Gentiles, wheresoever they may be scattered throughout the whole world.

Nothing is so wonderful as the love of God to sinful man. When man was made at first, he was lower than the angels; how much lower is the sinner than the man ! In some respect he is lower than the brutes; for "he has the worst qualities of the brutes without their best." Yet, "God hath remembered us in our low estate, for his mercy endureth for ever." The love of creatures to one another, is generally founded on some real or supposed goodness or excellency; but there was nothing at all in man to excite the love of God, but on the contrary his hatred and wrath. "The whole world lieth in wickedness," or in the wicked one, the devil; under his rule and influence; full of ignorance, carnality, and enmity against God; in a state of actual rebellion against him, and without the least desire to know him, serve him, or enjoy him. Yet hear, O heavens, and be astonished O earth! God loved this world of sinners. But how much, no tongue can tell; no heart conceive; the love is so matchless, so unlike any thing in human affairs, that our text makes no comparison in order to describe it; it has no parallel or similitude among men; and therefore, it is only said, "God so loved the world, that he gave us his Son." In most cases human love is expressed better by words than deeds; but the love of God is such, that it cannot be expressed at all by words; words are too weak; it is by actions, that God commends his love towards us; and above all by this one--the gift of his Son and this is the second thing proposedII. The EVIDENCE of God's love; gave us his only begotten Son." Many are the grecious gifts of God to this world of sinners. The powers of our minds and bodies, the food we eat, the garments we wear, the health we enjoy ; ten thousand thousand precious gifts call loudly upon us for daily praises. But great as these are, they are all lost in this one, like a drop of water in the sea. St. John speaking of it says, " Herein is love, not that we loyed God, but that he loved us and sent his Son;" as if he said, this is love indeed; compared with this, nothing

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else deserves the name; and without it, what would all other gifts have proved? what do they prove to wicked men, who live and die "without Christ?" This is that

gift of God, promised to our first parents in the garden; and which Abraham, David, Isaiah, all the patriarchs, and all the prophets, looked and longed for. This was "The Mercy promised to the fathers," (Luke i. 72.)— This is the mercy that never could have been expected, never desired. It would never have entered into the heart of men or angels to have thought of such a thing, as that God should give us his Son. And certainly it never could have been deserved. Man deserves nothing but hell. The common blessings of life are all forfeited by sin; and therefore we properly call our food, raiment, and health, mercies, for so they are; but when we consider the greatness of that gift, they disappear like the brightest stars when the sun rises. It will be a matter of astonishment to all eternity that God should so love the world as to give us his Son.

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The greatness of this love appears in the greatness of the gift; in the glory and excellency of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is here called his only begotten Son. The angels are sons of God by creation; and believers are sons of God by adoption; but Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God. This is a name that we cannot fully explain; but it certainly signifies, that Jesus partakes of the same divine nature with his Father. "That holy thing that was born of the Virgin, was called the Son of God." Because we, when he came to save, 66 were partakers of flesh and blood, he likewise partook of the same nature.' He was truly man, "flesh of our flesh, and bone of our bone." But he was also as truly God. God and man in one person. "In whom dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." "He is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person." "The WORD who was made flesh and dwelt among us, was with God, and was God." And, indeed, this is the great mystery of godliness, that God was manifested in the flesh." "Emmanual-God with us." "The LORD our righteousness.' And although the Son of God veiled his glory when on earth, and "made himself of no reputation, and took upon himself the form of a servant," yet his true followers "beheld his glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Fa

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