peace, before they be hid from his eyes (Luke xix. 42). It is no little step in the Divine life earnestly to make inquiry, to seek and to search, in order that we may find. There are some so obstinate and perverse that they will not hear; the occupations of the world, the love of sin, and a heart alienated from God through the ignorance that is in them, keep them back from anything like a serious consideration of death, and judgment, and eternity. "Why do ye not understand my speech?" says the Saviour; "even because ye cannot hear my word" (John viii. 43), "and ye will not come to me, that ye might have life" (John v. 40).

But, on the other hand, "he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst" (John vi. 35). "All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (ver. 37). To come to Christ, or to come to God, is to believe on him. It is the going out of the whole soul to God, it is the movement of the understanding, the conscience, the affections, the will, to God in Christ. "My son," says he, "give me thine

heart" (Prov. xxiii. 26). The great God, our Creator, Preserver, Benefactor, and Redeemer, will be contented with nothing less. "With the heart

man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation" (Rom. x. 10). What then is an inquiring sinner to believe? He is to believe that Christ is an allsufficient Saviour, "able to save unto the uttermost those that come unto God by him" (Heb. vii. 25). The sinner is to put his trust immediately in Christ, as "the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world" (John i. 29), as "the Saviour of all men, specially of those that believe" (1 Tim. iv. 10). The sinner is to take Christ as his teacher to instruct him, as his priest to atone and intercede for him, as his king to subdue sin and Satan under him. In one word, the sinner is to appropriate Christ; he is to take Christ, even now, as his own.

"

"Hear, and your soul shall live." To "hear or listen, is again repeated. The Lord insists much on this: "Hearken diligently unto me" (ver. 2), "Incline your ear," "Hear."

reason is plain, for a deaf ear is the

And the

very indica

tion of carelessness, and obstinacy, and unbelief. Deafness is the judicial judgment of God on a people that will not hear with their ears, lest they convert and be healed (Isa. vi. 10). But the command of God sounds loud and clear: all the senses are to be stirred up and awakened at his call. "Hear, ye deaf; and look, ye blind, that ye may see" (Isa. xlii. 18). And "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God" (Rom. x. 17). And yet not every sort or any sort of hearing for there may be a censorious hearing; there may be a prejudiced hearing; there may be a hearing of the ears, whilst the soul is deaf. But the hearing of which God here speaks, and to which he calls every sinner, is that hearing of intense earnestness to which a man is stirred up when anticipating the sentence of life or death: "Hear, and your soul shall live."

The sentence regarding the life of the body will stir up to intensity the ear of the body; but now the sentence is regarding the life of the soul: "Hear, and your soul shall live." And what sort of "life" is that to which the "soul" is called, and which comes as the result of the hearing of

faith? I answer, that as the life of the body arises from its union with the soul, so the life of the soul arises from its union with Christ. For as "the last Adam was made a quickening spirit" (1 Cor. xv. 45), so "he that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit" (1 Cor. vi. 17), and because Christ lives, the believer lives also (John xiv. 19). The union of spirits gives new life; friendship, affection, love will make of two human spirits one delighted existence. And, united to God in Christ, "the Father of our spirits," what must the happiness of a human soul be? All the high and gracious principles and experiences of a heavenly existence must there abound and flow forth. "I am the living bread," says the Saviour, "which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world" (John vi. 51). Once possessed of this life of the soul, it is deathless; it lives with Christ in time and throughout eternity. "I am crucified with Christ, 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 him

self for me" (Gal. ii. 20).

But this faith and

confirmed by God.

spiritual life are secured and

For, he adds, "And I will

make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David." The covenant that, on the exercise of a living faith, is practically made with believers, is the same that was made to Abraham when he believed in the LORD, and it was counted to him for righteousness (Gen. xv. 6); the Lord establishing "an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee" (Gen. xvii. 7); and it is also the same covenant that was made to David, and of which David speaks when he says, " Although my house be not so with God; yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure for this is all my salvation, and all my desire" (2 Sam. xxiii. 5). But the covenant made with Abraham had reference to Christ: for that is the seed in whom all the nations of the earth are to be blessed (Gen. xxii. 18, and Gal. iii. 16). And the covenant made with David had as decided a reference to him who is David's Son and