of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus." All we have to do then is to commit the management of all our concerns to God, to seek first his kingdom and righteousness, to "pray without ceasing," and to "rejoice evermore."

his

II. Is God so mindful of us that he never turns

eye from us a single moment? How ungrateful then for us to be so unmindful of him. Though he never forgets his people, yet they daily forget him. Though his feelings towards them are such that it would be infinitely more difficult for him to forget them than for an affectionate mother to forget her darling infant, yet they suffer the least thing to draw their minds from him; yea they sometimes suffer sin, the most deformed of objects, to rival him in their hearts. Such returns to the best of beings and the best of friends, surely deserve nothing less than eternal burnings. It is reserved for the last judgment to lay open the infinity of that sin which the children of God daily commit against their heavenly Parent. "O that my head were waters and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for" this cruel ingratitude to the best and kindest of fathers.

III. What new and wonderful views does our subject give us of the love of God. After all our ingratitude, (which seems enough to make the stones cry out against us,) he still loves us with infinite tenderness, and would find it unspeakably harder to neglect us than a mother to neglect her mourning infant. O the unutterable, the boundless love

of God! Eternal research will not exhaust this subject. It was to bring out this love to the view of an astonished universe, that all these worlds were made. Nothing was so important as the display of this unbounded love in its own proper exercise. From this infinite ocean of love, of light, and of glory, have flowed down unceasing rivers of delight into all parts of the universe, save one, for six thousand years, without exhausting or diminishing the fountain. Why is not the wonder of this love more realized? It is infinitely the greatest wonder in the universe. Why is not this precious Being more apprehended when he shines in such amazing glories all around us? when his love appears so ineffable in his care of his creatures and in his kindness towards them? Henceforth let it be our supreme object to search into his adorable perfections and to make them known to creatures.And after all our sottish stupidity and ingratitude, let our lives hereafter be spent in advancing his kingdom and glory,-in gratitude, adoration, and praise. Amen.

SERMON XVI.

SON AND HEIR THROUGH CHRIST.

GAL. IV. 7.

Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Guilt and unbelief are prone to represent God as an implacable foe, and often check, even in Christians, that humble boldness and firm reliance with which a redeemed soul ought to cast itself upon a covenant God. The spirit most becoming a child of God is not servile fear, but filial confidence. "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba Father." "Because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant but a son." As the whole moral glory of God consists in love, and as the most precious exercises of love are mercy and truth, God is most glorified when these perfections are most

distinctly seen and most confidently relied on. He never is better pleased than when his children feel a strong confidence in his veracity and paternal tenderness. Such a trust is the choicest and most difficult effort of faith, and does more than all direct exertions upon ourselves, and infinitely more than all the glooms of guilt, to purify the heart, to overcome the world, and to procure from God all the strength we need. In this grace all other graces and holy habits are involved; as love, humility, repentance, and universal obedience. It is this operation of love which brings us into the closest union and communion with God, and leaves the deepest impression of his image on the heart. It is the very hand which takes of the things of God and transfers them to the soul. It is the very bond of union to Christ, and therefore the grand condition on which all blessings are bestowed. This then is the grace which it behooves us to cultivate with the most assiduous care. And that I may encourage you, my beloved brethren, to rise up to this filial confidence, I shall direct your attention to the high standing which believers hold as sons and heirs of God.

But first it is necessary to consider the ground on which this amazing privilege rests. It rests on the mediation of Christ. "If a son, then an heir of God through Christ." The principle of receiving privileges on account of another who stands in a certain relation to us, is familiar to you all. You constantly see children treated with kindness by their father's friend, without any reference to their

own merit. On this principle proceeds the whole system of divine grace. The unworthy receive blessings on account of another who has espoused their cause and assumed their responsibility. A deep impression of this truth must be fastened on your minds before you can rise up to a realizing sense of that stupendous system to which I am solicitous to draw your attention. And yet this impression cannot be made but by the simple exercise of faith, resting implicitly on the testimony of God. God has said that for the love he bears his Son, he will treat those outcasts whom his Son has adopted, with all the tenderness of a Father; and we must firmly rely on this declaration. In no other way can the impression be obtained.

Thus prepared, let us go back to the beginning, and contemplate this great subject step by step. In the ages of eternity a covenant was entered into between the persons of the sacred Trinity respecting the redemption of the world. The Son voluntarily assumed the office of Mediator and espoused the cause of a ruined race. He engaged to take our nature, to take our place under law, and to perform and suffer all that was necessary to support the authority of the law. He engaged to yield perfect obedience to its requirements, and in the nature which had sinned, to receive and obey a command from the Father to die on a cross as a substitute for man. The Father, who in this transaction held the rights of the Godhead, accepted the offer and engaged to receive that vicarious sacrifice in the room of the punishment of believing sinners. He en