dungeon? Christ was in such a state and case as to say, "All thy waves and storms are gone over me. Thy fierce wrath goeth over me, thy terrors have cut me off." Must they pass through the grave and gate of death? Christ hath passed through before them, and by his death he hath abolished death, and by his rising to life again, hath restored to us everlasting life. Oh! what infinite compassions, what depths of mercy, what boundless grace, what matchless love is Jesus Christ the subject of! O Sirs, Christ is as ready to forgive sin, as it is natural to you to be sinful. And Oh! that ye could but apprehend this blessed truth, that Jesus Christ is just exactly what you as poor sinful people need him to be. He can have compassion on the ignorant, on such as have lost their way to heaven, and know not their right hand from their left in scripture matters. Some of you it may be though under some influence of the Holy Spirit, yet know not what 'ye want. Ye think ye would fain be saved by Christ, yet you know not how to come to him. Ye feel some emotions and de

sires after him, yet ye cannot tell, it may be, how to express them to Christ, nor to such as ye think belong to Christ. When ye would pray, it may be, you cannot utter your desires at the throne. When ye read the word, it may be, ye complain ye cannot understand it. Be of good cheer, beloved; Jesus, the compassionate Saviour esteems it his glory to prove to a demonstration that he can have compassion on the ignorant. Come and give up thyself to him, for teaching, pardon, salvation and life everlasting. He saith, "Ask and ye shall have, seek and shall find, knock and it shall be ye opened unto you." He teacheth and makes the simple wise unto salvation. He is every way qualified for his office, which is to preach the gospel to the poor, to bind up the broken-hearted, to comfort all that mourn. Oh! that through the grace of the Holy Spirit, ye may each of you, let your cases be what they may, apply this day to Jesus, and find in your souls by blessed experience, the power of the Lord present to heal, that in him, the fatherless and friendless, the sinful, guilty,

N

polluted, and undone, findeth mercy. Our Lord Jesus, as the high priest over the house of God, hath not only compassion on the ignorant, but also on such as are out of the way. By such as are out of the way are to be understood such as being left to themselves, have willingly and wilfully forsaken the Lord the fountain of living waters, by willingly and wilfully sinning against him. It pleased God under the ceremonial dispensation to ordain and provide a sacrifice for sins of ignorance, and also for wilful sinning ; to point out the profession and all-sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice. To shew it was to be a personal one, an atonement including and comprehending each, all, and every particular sin of the elect, and to declare that his blood cleanseth from all sin; and, as I think and conceive, the apostle Paul glances at it here, has it in view, and from hence proceeds to set forth Christ in the highest meridian of his mediatorial grace, mercy, and clemency.

Our Lord having once been compassed with the sinless infirmities of his people, covered with their sins and surrounded

with their sorrows, encompassed round about on every side by their enemies; is so feelingly touched with a sense of every sorrow and misery which befals them, and his bowels are so inwardly moved, that they break forth into such expressions, as prove that he is rich in mercy to them. His bowels roll within him to do them good. He has in our nature, which he wore by personal union, felt every sort of grief which can possibly befal any of his beloved ones; his heart is towards them, he having on their behalf, and for their benefit experienced sorrows inexpressible! tasted all sorts and kinds of death for them, been tempted, tried and forsaken as their head and Saviour; he is therefore out of his own heart, with a pity and affection peculiar to himself, experimentally affected with the case of his people, and always disposed to exercise pity and compassion towards them; let their cases be what they may. So that I go on, and will,

Thirdly, observe what a blessed account is here set before us, and given us, of the heart of Christ in heaven, towards

his people upon earth, of his bowels of mercy exercised towards them under all and every circumstance of sin and misery which can possibly befal them in this vale of tears.

The people of God being the invariable objects of Christ's love, the travail of his soul, the joy of his heart, his crown and diadem, must be remembered by him, though he is exalted far above all blessings and praise, with everlasting kindness. He saith expressly, "All my delight is in the saints which are on the earth." When he was about to die for them, he gave an instance how that having loved his own which were in the world, he would love them to the end, or for ever, by performing a servile act, as recorded in the thirteenth of John's Gospel. Teaching us thereby, that when in heaven his heart would be so continually engaged and concerned about his beloved on earth, that in the midst of all his glory it would as it were cause his heart to leap for joy to be again in the world to evidence his love, even in the least and meanest instance of it. So

4