He keeps her in the hollow of his hand, and as the apple of his eye. "Can a woman," he cries, "forget her sucking "child, that she should not have compassion on the fruit of "her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget "thee."

Finally, Christ loves his children through eternity. He does not forsake them in death. On a dying bed, he speaks peace to their departing spirits, and his angels wait to conduct them to the bosom of Abraham. Their bodies are then sown in their original dishonour, weakness, and corruption, to be raised in incorruption, power, and glory.

In the final day, they will be raised with these splendours of immortality, and reunited to their minds, advanced in knowledge and excellence to absolute perfection. Then he will acquit them before the assembled universe, and confess them as his followers and friends. When the judgment is finished, he will convey them in triumph to heaven, and present them to his Father and their Father, to his God and their God, as the crown of his labour, his endless joy, and the objects of his eternal love. Then he will claim the unchangeable promise in the covenant of redemption, that they should endure for ever, and his dominion over them be as the days of heaven. Then he will make them kings and priests unto God; and of the increase of their peace, and his kingdom, there will be no end.

SERMON XVI.

CHRIST LOVES HIS CHILDREN TO THE END.

SERMON II.

JOHN XIII. 1.

"Having loved his own, which were in the world, he loved them unto the end."

In the preceding discourse I derived from these words the following doctrine :

Christ loves his children unto the end.

This doctrine I illustrated from the conduct of Christ to his Apostles, and observed that he manifested his love towards them, particularly,

I. In choosing them out of the world.

II. In teaching them the doctrines and precepts of his religion.

III. In bearing patiently with all their faults.

IV. In the act of washing their feet, recited in the verses following the text.

V. In instituting, the same evening, the Lord's Supper; and,

VI. In the discourses which he delivered after the institution of that Sacrament.

I then observed, that the love exercised towards his children in every age is equally intense, and endeavoured to illustrate this position from his declarations in the Scriptures, and from his conduct towards individual Christians and towards the church.

I shall now derive from this interesting subject several remarks, intended to be means of improvement in the Christian character.

I. How wonderful is the love of Christ.

This subject may be advantageously illustrated under the following heads :

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First, The love of Christ was disinterested.

“Jehovah,” said he, "possessed me in the beginning of his way, before his works of old; while as yet he had not made "the earth, nor the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of "the world. When he prepared the heavens I was there; "when he set a compass upon the face of the deep. When he gave to the sea his decree that the waters should not pass his "commandment; when he appointed the foundations of the "earth; then was I by him, as one brought up with him, and "I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him." "For "by him," saith St. Paul," were all things created, that are "in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible; whe"ther they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or "powers; all things were created by him and for him. And "he is before all things; and by him all things consist. And "he is the head of the body, the church; who is in the be"ginning, the first-born from the dead; that in all things he "might have the pre-eminence. For it pleased the Father "that in him should all fulness dwell."

It is impossible that he of whom these things are said should need any thing at the hands of any being whatever. If he wished to add worlds to his possessions he could create them with a word. If he wished to fill them with inhabitants, they would spring up in endless myriads at his bidding. Heaven is his throne, the universe is his empire; and all its virtuous inhabitants have from the beginning ascribed blessing, and glory, and

wisdom, and power, and might, and thanksgiving to Him that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb, for ever and ever. At the same time he rejoiced alway before his Father, and was supremely happy in his boundless and eternal complacency. How evidently must he, of whom these things can be said, be removed far beyond the existence and the possibility of wanting any thing which could contribute to his glory and happiness from the hands of any creature whatever?

But, whoever might be of importance to him, certainly men were not. As we have nothing but what we receive from him, it is evident, that if we should give him whatever we possess, we should barely return what he daily gives to us. Should we add ourselves to the oblation, we should only add one more gift, of exactly the same nature; for ourselves also are absolutely his. This, however, is far from being all. We are not only his, but we are of no value to him unless as mere objects of his beneficence; not beings which can do good to him, but objects to which he may do good; not as things valuable in themselves, but things which he is able to make valuable by bestowing on them worth foreign to their nature. Think how humble is our original and our end. From the dust we sprang, to the dust we return. Worms, and mites, and minims claim the same origin, and are destined to the same end.

Remember, beyond this, the whole race of man were sinners, vile, polluted, and abominable in his sight. Cast your eyes over the great world which we inherit, and mark what an appearance its surface has exhibited, from the apostacy to the present time. See a great proportion of it covered with idolatry, and the inhabitants worshipping demons and brutes, stocks and stones, and absolutely forgetting that there is such a being as Jehovah. See them rendering all their religious homage, and all their gratitude to these infernal, or to these stupid objects. See their worship, a compound of fraud and falsehood, of lewdness and blood. See their doctrines, a mass of folly and stupidity, at the appearance of which virtue sickens and reason stands amazed. Mark their treatment of each other. What a train of unfilial, unparental, unfraternal injuries, of frauds and thefts, of gross and monstrous impurities, of lies, slanders,

and perjuries, of quarrels and murders it has regularly involved from the beginning. From these private scenes of guilt turn your eyes to scenes of a more public and general nature. Observe how great a part of the public business of man has been formed of the mere repression of crimes. How many jails and gibbets frown over the face of every civilized country, and what a multitude of wretches are doomed to drag out life in the one or end it on the other. Ascend a degree higher, and see sceptred avarice snatching on the right hand, and devouring on the left, spreading want and woe through cities, provinces, and countries, and wrenching from the hand of verty its last mite. To finish the prospect, behold ambition laying waste the world, and with fire and sword emptying earth of its inhabitants to secure the privilege, the birthright of his kindred tigers, of roaming and ruling in a desert, and to acquire the glory of having his name indelibly written in characters of blood.

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From such beings what advantage could this divine agent expect? In what manner could they contribute to his pleasure or his praise? Could such hands ever be employed in promoting his pleasure? Could such tongues ever become vocal with his praise? Had they all been blotted out of existence, what chasm would have been made in his empire? what loss would he have experienced in his enjoyments? When, therefore, we find, that in the full possession of the glory which he had with the Father before ever the world was, he rejoiced in the habitable parts of the earth, and that his delights were with the sons of men, we are irresistibly forced to the conclusion, that he was drawn to this object solely by his own good will. He saw here a vast multitude of immortal beings, who were poor, and wretched, and miserable, and blind, and naked. He saw them lost in hopeless ruin, outcasts from the divine kingdom, and candidates only for perdition. He saw that there was no man to stand between them and destruction, and wondered that there was no intercessor to plead for them. Then his own arm brought salvation to him, and the time was indeed a time of his love. To these guilty, wretched beings, with a divine prescience, he looked down the immeasurable vale of futurity, and