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the Lord Jesus pleased with those Jewish children in the temple? and is he not also pleased with his christian children in his church? Did the Lord accept their hosannas then; and will he not accept your hallelujahs now? The same grace Jesus manifested in Jerusalem to the children, he will manifest to them in Zion; for he is Jesus Christ, "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." (Heb. xiii. 8.) Let any and every sweet child therefore, while reading this Scripture of the hosannas in the temple, take confidence from the favour of Christ, and the gracious assurance the Lord then gave, which is the same now: "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings, the Lord perfecteth praise."

The triumphant entrance of our most glorious Christ into Jerusalem, a few days before his humiliation and sufferings in the garden, and on the cross; leads to some very weighty and sublime considerations. The hosannas were no unsuitable prelude to the cries which soon after followed: "Crucify him! crucify him!" The redeemed and regenerated church of Christ will find from divine teaching, ample scope for improvement under both. These different views indeed, to a natural man, must always create, as it hath invariably in all ages done, subjects of inexplicable difficulty. For what the Scripture asserts, the uniform history of the world constantly proves : "The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. ii. 14.) As in a state of nature, there is no possibility for any one to have real, spiritual, and scriptural apprehensions of the total depravity of our fallen state; so neither can there be any proper knowledge of the person and salvation of Christ, until a supernatural work is wrought in the heart. To all such, therefore, the person of Christ

in his triumph on entering Jerusalem; and the subject of Christ in his finished salvation, by his sufferings and death at Jerusalem; both are alike undiscoverable, and unknown. But to the taught of God, nothing can be more intelligible and productive of more joy.

I pray the reader to have both in contemplation, as he views and reviews the wonderful subject. The consciousness that in him, who thus entered Jerusalem, dwelt all" the fulness of the GODHEAD bodily ;" and who, by the taking our nature into union with his divine, gave a full and complete efficacy to the one offering of himself on the cross; whereby "he put away sin by the sacrifice of himself," affords to the truly regenerated mind, taught of God, a perfect apprehension of the completeness of salvation, and the church's security therein. Hence believers of the present hour, as truly as believers who then beheld Christ in his triumphant entrance, can, and do, by faith, mingle in the throng which went before, and that followed, and say as they did: "Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is he that cometh in Hosanna in the highest."

the name of the Lord.

And by connecting the whole of the Lord's stupendous advents into one and the same view, as forming one and the same chain of grace, link by link, from one eternity to another; we form a true scriptural statement of the marvellous subject; "His goings forth of old, from everlasting, and his delights with the sons of men before all worlds:" sweet and frequent visits he made to his chosen under the Old Testament dispensation; the openly tabernacling in substance of our flesh under the New; the spiritual manifestations he is now daily making of himself to his people," otherwise than to the world ;" and the promised assurance he hath given of his shortly coming, "to be glorified in his saints, and admired in all that believe ;" all these serve to shew, that the

very

heart of our glorious Lord is with his people; and he is, as he said, when he had finished redemption work, and was on his return to glory; "Lo! I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." (Matt. xxviii. 20.)

The Lord give grace to all his people, to be always on the watch tower for the Lord's return; that when all his redeemed ones shall be gathered together, who who during the several ages of the churches have been scattered abroad, but will then form one immense body; the glorious event which John saw in vision, will then be realized; and the Almighty Head of his body, the church, will be as the sun in the centre of the ransomed host; and they, as satellites, shining from the reflection of his glory put upon them. "After this, I beheld, (said John,) and lo! a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and cried with a loud voice saying, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders, and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen, blessing and glory, and wisdom, and thanks-giving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God, for ever and ever." Amen.

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THE

LORD JESUS WASHING THE FEET

OF HIS DISCIPLES.

HOLY SCRIPTURE.

"Now before the feast of the passover, when Jesus knew that his hour was come, that he should depart out of this world, unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.

"And supper being ended, (the devil having now put into the heart of Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray him ;

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Jesus knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he was come from God, and went to God." (John xiii. 1-3.)

NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS.

In order to enter into a scriptural apprehension of the very interesting subject here proposed to us, in the view of our most glorious Lord washing the feet of his disciples; we must first take into connection with it, the contemplation of our Lord's person, and his union with his church and people; tracing the history back to the period which the Holy Ghost had stated in other parts of his divine word, and which commenced before the world began. We must behold the Lord of life and glory, as the Head and Husband of his church, before he entered upon that

lovely and all-loving part of his divine character, when tabernacling openly in substance of our flesh, he stood up as our Surety and Redeemer, to do away sin, and all the evils of sin, by the sacrifice of himself. Indeed we must contemplate him in his everlasting love; embracing not only the whole time state of the church, but running from one eternity into another, before we can fully understand, and as fully appreciate the blessedness of what is here said in the opening of this Scripture, that "having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end."

I stay not however in a work of this kind, necessarily confined within narrow limits, any longer than just to observe, than when the Son of God, one of the holy Three in One, which bear record in heaven, was pleased from covenant engagments in the GODHEAD, to be the one of the sacred Three that would assume unto himself that holy portion of our nature for the purposes of grace, and to betroth to himself the church for ever; the Scriptures describe him as that Almighty One, "whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." (Mich. v. 2.) Hence he is described as speaking himself, under a well known name of his, Wisdom; as "being set up from everlasting, from the begining; or ever the earth was." And then he saith; "his delights were with the sons of men." (Prov. viii. 22-31.) Hence the glories of his person as God, and the glories of his person as God and man, Mediator, must be traced to this inherency, and essential dignity in himself, in order to have a proper conception of the infinite love he bore to his church; and the infinite humiliation of the act described in this Scripture, of washing his disciples' feet.

And when we have thus had our minds directed back to the eternal state, to take though but a

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