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Are we Christ's? Then we have given ourselves to Him in a full and voluntary surrender. Then it is the joy and gladness of our enlightened will, corrected judgment, and sanctified affections, to say, each in his individual experience, "I am my Beloved's, and my Beloved is mine." Then He is welcomed to the heart in all his offices of salvation, and all the glory of his double nature. Then, although the votaries of an unbelieving world, the sceptics who idolize a vain and infidel philosophy, bearing the same resemblance to the Gospel of Jesus, as the rudest image bears to the living, thinking, feeling man, see no beauty in Him why they should desire Him, his people are made willing to receive Him in the day of his power over their hearts. They own Him as their Lord, and adore Him as their God.

will be written in their minds.

His new name

He will be the

living centre of all attractiveness to their desires. It will be their joy and best delight to have fellowship with Him; here in his word, his way, his promises, his comforts, nay in his reproaches and persecutions; as well as hereafter, in the kingdom of his glory. His Gospel hath an effectual might to transform them into his image,

1 Song of Sol. vi. 3.

and make them anxious to perfect holiness in the fear of God. And if the Gibeonites, when delivered from the sword, were willing to become hewers of wood, and drawers of water to the congregation, so are they whom the Saviour hath rescued from the utter 'death of sin, and reconciled in will to God, making peace between them, not only contented, but joyful to glorify God in the calls of that service which is perfect freedom. "The love of Christ constraineth them; because they thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that He died for all, that they who live, should not live unto themselves, but unto Him who died for them and rose again."1 The devils are his vassals; the wicked of this world are his prisoners. The faithful dependents upon his person and merit are his subjects and followers, in all the unrivalled preference of their hearts' affection. They are his jewels, his brethren, his sons, they are his by every title of endearment that can be named or imagined.

And therefore, it may be added, they are his by a mystical and perfect union-members of his body, of his flesh, of his bones; animated by one soul, and constituting one body; for

1 2 Cor. v. 14, 15.

"he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit." 1 This union then, is not a mere union of love and affection; as we speak of a friend being to us another self. Such a oneness of heart and desire does indeed exist been the Redeemer and his members, between the Vine and the branches: but this partakes of a still higher nature. That is a moral, this a mystical oneness. That engages our affections; this joins our very persons to the Lord. "The church is his body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all." Here is the dignity, here the excellence, here the security, here the sanctification, here the hope that maketh not ashamed; here the unsealed and open fountains of a joy unspeakable and full of glory. For if we thus are Christ's, then doth He care for us, as the Good Shepherd for his sheep. Then doth his Father, the great Husbandman, prune the branch of the true Vine that it may bear fruit. Then will He spare us in the hour of judgment and visitation, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then will He intercede for us, that if 66 any sin we may have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Then will He teach us as we are able to bear the lessons of his love;

2

and give rest to our souls in the instruction. Then will He rebuke our wanderings with gentle chastisement, and restore us in pity to his fold. Then will He guide us with his counsel, and afterward receive us to glory.

It may now be asked, What are the privi leges of this happy state? If nothing can separate the members from the body, then, what shall separate Christians from the love of Christ? If in virtue of this union they have an interest in all that He possesses, what, except their own restraint in prayer instead of the open-heartedness of filial pleading and petition, can prevent them from being filled with all the fulness of God? If He is their Shepherd, how can they want? If they have communion with Him, as the bride with her Husband, how high their distinctions, how inestimably rich their dowry! If they have been planted together in the likeness of his death, how surely also in the likeness of his resurrection! If they have been made kings and priests unto God, in virtue of that communion, and of his double office, how infallibly shall they sit on his throne, and serve in his temple world without end! If their worst things are his, even their sins which He hath accounted his own, taken upon Himself by imputation, and hidden from the eye of

a sin-avenging God, as in the depths of the sea, how securely may they rest in the persuasion that these iniquities, mourned over, hated, and forsaken, shall not be laid to their charge! If in all their afflictions He is afflicted-if He bore their griefs, and carried their sorrows-if He is reviled in their reproaches, and hath the unfailing kindness of an intimate sympathy in all their sufferings, how needfully must the light affliction which is but for a moment, work for them a far more exceeding, and eternal weight of glory! If on the other hand, they have communion with Him in their best things(every one of them derived, and only derivable from that fulness which filleth all in all) then must all that good be sure and perfect. Their temporal mercies will be real blessings, in the covenant of their Father's love,-streams from the nether springs of his providential goodness; and yet communicating by mysterious channels with the unfathomable depths of the upper springs, in his kindness towards them through Christ Jesus. Their instatement in spiritual mercies may never be successfully challenged. A violated law cannot condemn them; for they are made the righteousness of God in Christ. Satan may plead against them, as the unwearied accuser of the brethren; but their cause hath