labour and conflict, with the animating hope of the inheritance made over to the saints in light, by the unchangeable faithfulness of their covenant God. His beauty, and the liberty of his service then begin to be understood. That service is known to be perfect freedom and the more close the soul's communion with its Saviour, the more clearly will his glory, and the true happiness of his service, be discovered; and the more purely will love reign over the mind, to impel its obedience. "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God!"1

It was even thus with St. Paul, when the riches of the love of Christ, brought him forth into that mighty change whereby he became the ministerial glory of the Church, which he had so fiercely persecuted. "When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach Him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." When the secret, but Omnipotent power of the Holy Spirit, had made an internal discovery of that Son, as God's salvation, and

1 Psalm xlii. 1.

2 Gal. i. 15, 16.

This

of his own personal interest in the great redemption, the inwrought change was total; and thenceforth it was Christ to him to live. is the high, the mysterious, the energetic principle of a believer's life. The love of Christ constrains him: and all the hindrances of the world, the flesh, and the devil, are bidden to get behind him. No influence, short of this moving power from heaven; no motives, less powerful than those which are called into exercise, when Christ is thus formed in the soul, the hope of glory, can subdue its earthliness, and carry it above all temptations, whereby it may be solicited to remain in idolatry and sin. Carnal reasons, counsels, friends, arguments, solicitations, ease, and interest, may plead long and loudly: but their claim will not be admitted. Motives may be urged, as painful to oppose, as would be the plucking out of a right eye, or the excision of a right hand. But when the person of the Saviour, the nature of his service, and the price of his salvation are understood and received, as the revelations of his grace impress them upon the heart, He will gain Himself the victory over its affections.

And when a divine command, with all its promises, and all its privileges in the gospel of

redeeming grace is made known, immediate obedience is the only wisdom. Hesitation is equally guilty and dangerous. "O not so, my Lord," should be far from those, whom the God of grace hath visited with salvation in his Son. Flesh and blood are subtle counsellors; and they have a powerful advocate in the heart's deceitfulness. They are totally unfitted to advise us in spiritual duties: for "the carnal mind is enmity against God." If they cannot hinder obedience entirely, they will gladly deform it, and represent it as the Christian's slavery, rather than his joy and liberty. They will endeavour to turn the mind from choosing the word of God, as the only rule, and the Holy Ghost, as the only Guide; and to transfer all confidence from both to the darkness and delusions of that wisdom of this world, which is foolishness with God. They will endeavour to subdue the life of faith, to the life of sense; and to make the professor of Christianity, when summoned to go forth from his unholy rest, resist the call, and cry, "This is a hard saying, who can bear it?"

"If God then, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in any heart, to give the light of the knowledge of his own

glory in the face of Jesus Christ:" and if that heart's approbation hath by faith welcomed the disclosure, as the dearest blessing which a lost creature could experience, or the Most High God communicate, out of the stores of his incomprehensible mercy, when the command to forsake all and follow Christ is given to such a believer, what should be his delighted answer, as he rises in God's strength and his soul's gladness, to make the sacrifice? "What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ; yea, doubtless, and I count all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." "I will make haste and delay not, to keep thy commandments." When God restores Ephraim, the first spiritual breath should be employed in crying, "What have I to do any more with idols?" If any of you have learned to say, "God forbid that I should glory save only in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ;" it becomes you to make known, that you have been the Apostle's follower in that happy experience of his conformity to Jesus

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Whereby the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." Nothing can be so effectual

1 2 Cor. iv. 6.

2 Phil. iii. 7, 8.

3 Hosea xiv. 8.

as the revelation of a crucified Saviour, made within the heart, to wean it from sin, and to unite its affections in love to the way of a reconciled God.

(II.) Abram's obedience to the divine command, exhibited a feature quite inseparable from the character of a true believer-I mean HIS DEEP SOLICITUDE FOR THE TRUE WELFARE OF THOSE, TO WHOM HE STOOD RELATED IN FAMILY BONDS "He AND CONNEXIONS.

took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran: and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan." The servants whom he had bought, they who were born in his house, and they also it would appear, whom he had indeed spiritually gotten, as instrumentally the cause of their conversion, to that faith which wrought so actively within his own heart, were brought out with him. He spared them not a portion in his own trials, through a false and fatal tenderness: but led them forth towards the blessedness of that country, which gleamed so brightly in his own eye and heart of faith.

The promise of the Father, made unto his Son in the sure and everlasting covenant of grace,