to him, our sins would be subdued, and our souls would rejoice. I will now close, if the Lord please, with some suitable reflections.

What astonishing grace does the gospel discover to be hid in Christ! There is no sinner needs any mercy, or blessing, but it is to be found, and enjoyed in Jesus Christ. Nor is there any state or case, any sort or kind a sinner can be in, but Christ is almighty to save and deliver him out of it, and from all the evil and miseries of it. Some, when under a sight and view of their own sinfulness, are ready to cast away their hope in God; but alas! this is dishonouring Christ indeed! Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, yea, the chief of sinners; and all his love, mercy, and compassions, are to be exercised towards and upon elect sinners. The sinner needs Christ, none but Christ can do him good; and he is an hiding-place from the storm of divine wrath, a covert from the tempest; every one who is under the covering and application of his blood and righteousness are eternally safe and se

cure. They are fit to live, and fit to die. To such, to live is Christ, and death is to them an advantage. You are blessed indeed, because ye are Christ's! But may not such happy persons live low, and far short of their high calling? Verily they may, and do. Few of us make use of Christ, and live upon him, and upon what he hath done. We should contemplate Jesus as our friend, and live in the belief, that we are one with him, that he is eternally engaged for us, and hath promised never to leave us, never to forsake us. That he is ever mindful of us, and will never turn away from us from doing us good. God's dearly beloved ones are prone to look too much at their sins, corruptions, temptations, and miseries, forgetting that the proper use and practical experience of these, should make more room for them to receive Christ into their hearts. It is good to feel sin, and to be exercised with our own inherent corruption, when by it we learn more of our need of Jesus, and are led from it to Christ for him to subdue and dethrone it. It is a sign of growth

in grace when we feel sin, and loathe it, and ourselves for it, and we have no true sight of sin, when we are kept by it from the Lord Jesus....

....It should be one grand subject which should engage our minds, and employ our thoughts, the person, work, and offices of our Lord. As we contemplate him as -God and man, we learn and read what his heart is, and must be towards us. He hath taken our nature, our sins, the curse due unto us for them, upon himself. He makes our cases his own. Not a grief we feel, not a distress befals us, but he pities and sympathizes with us under it. There is no state we pass through but he follows us, preventing us with his mercy. As it respects our sins and sinfulness, he knows we look upon it as our greatest misery, and groan under it as an intolerable burthen, and he is our propitiation and advocate in heaven with his Father, and our Father, his God and our God.

He became incarnate on purpose to express and manifest his love. He was made a sin and a curse, to deliver his people from it. He laid down his own

life, shed his own heart's blood, and gave himself for them, as their sacrifice and ransomer. He arose from the dead with everlasting love in his heart, not abated by his sufferings, but rather increased. He lives in heaven as their representative, intercessor, and advocate, and says, "Because I live, ye shall live also." This is our security. O that he may look at this time on us, and give us to hear his blessed voice; "Look unto. me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God, and there is none else." May his blessing accompany what has been delivered; even so. Amen.

200

SERMON X.

ZECH. III. 2.

AND THE LORD SAID UNTO SATAN, THE LORD REBUKE

THEE, O SATAN; EVEN THE LORD THAT HATH CHOSEN JERUSALEM REBUKE THEE: 18 NOT THIS A BRAND PLUCKED OUT of the FIRE ?.

Ir serves greatly to a right opening and explaining the scriptures of the Old Testament, to consider how variously and copiously the discoveries of Jehovah the Father's grace towards his chosen are; and that in his revelation of Christ, with his testimony concerning him, it hath been the good pleasure of his will to suit himself to the various periods of time, the diverse states, circumstances, experiences, and cases, which his church and people have been in and passed through; which when rightly, though but briefly, stated and attended to, leads to a clear view of several passages, as well as this before

us,

in their simple, genuine sense and meaning. Without attending to this as