crucified Redeemer. The elect are chosen for a fellowship in sufferings with Christ, as much as Christ himself was chosen for the cross. They are "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus," 1 Pet. i. 2. Peter began his epistle to the saints catholic with that assurance; and then rightly adds, that they greatly rejoice in the knowledge of this truth," though now, for a season, they are in heaviness through manifold temptations." It is necessary to lay the foundations of the Gospel first, that the followers of the Lord may be enabled to sustain the great afflictions of the Gospel; for if the foundations of the faith are not first secured, it is impossible to calculate on any stability, or to anticipate final perseverance. Hence the repeated expressions of being "rooted and grounded,” and “built up in Christ and stablished," and "grounded and settled," and other figurative descriptions of the fixedness and security of the people of God; and hence the assurance of this perseverance, or rather the triumphant rejection of doubt on the subject, which concludes the noblest chapter of the word of truth-the eighth of Romans; when Paul, having first carefully propounded the faith and privileges of the elect, asks, in a full certainty of victory," Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us: for I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

But we are persuaded, that in discussing these points it has been far too common for the advocates of the doctrines of grace to concern themselves chiefly in answering their opponents, and in establishing the controverted truth with sound arguments, (which, indeed, they have done successfully,) without teaching, at the same time, that the new covenant insures the cross to believers, whilst it assures them of their final perseverance. This mode is quite. unknown in Scripture, and foreign to the whole purport of the Gospel. Mere dry doctrine, abounding only in arguments, but without application to the daily, hourly, never-ceasing wants of the church, is nothing more than controversy-it is a cloud without water; it may pass over the head, and cause expectation of fertility by its approaching shadow, but it has no refreshing properties to impart, it has no "small rain for the tender herb," and no "showers for the

grass;" whereas the word of God is supplied from "that river which is full of water," and it fertilizes that which a Divine hand has already planted.

Let it, then, be well understood that there is no final perseverance promised but to those who are ready to suffer with Christ in any way that the heavenly Father may think proper: for a soul that is truly in love with Christ, and has his image fixed deeply upon his heart, and is justified by faith, gives an universal, and not a partial consent to the terms Christ proposes, when he enters into covenant with him; he takes Christ for righteousness, and gives up himself to his entire disposal: his self-denial is universal and perpetual, for all times and conditions; for, as the new covenant of grace is an everlasting covenant, so must the consent unto all its terms be for all time,―never to look back unto Egypt, but to the very end to consider the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; remembering continually that this is the golden rule of the covenant, that "if we suffer with Christ, with him also shall we be glorified."

And now let us apply these truths.

1. Grace is not an ephemeral gift; it is the manifestation of a purpose or plan, which is to be complete in all its parts; and the completion of this plan is in the donation of glory: "The Lord will give grace and glory."

2. God will sustain and uphold his people to the end, in their trials and obedience. "He will withhold no good thing from them that walk uprightly;" and this upright walking is effected by the grace of him "who chose them in Christ before the foundation of the world, that they should be holy and without blame." He directs them in the paths of holiness; he compels them to apply to him for continued grace, by all the trials which he had prepared for them, and then he withholds no good thing from them.

3. The cross is a sign of God's favour, it is part of his covenant blessing. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has chosen many sons for glory; but they are to be made perfect through sufferings, in imitation of the Captain of their salvation. We are to be like our Saviour in moral character, in our present sufferings, and our future glory.

Believer, true, faithful, humble, suffering believer, consider these things. See how great pains the God of Israel has taken to lay the foundations of your faith. Well may we say with the psalmist," If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?" Psalm xi. 3; but they are indestructible, for on them is the church built, and

the gates of hell shall never prevail against it: and as, when we see preparations for making a great edifice, we wonder at the vast expense and labour required in laying the foundations before a stone is placed above ground; or as, when endeavouring to root up a tree, we are amazed at the enormous munition of roots, and fibres, and subterranean ligaments, which the Creator has devised for that which he intended to stand firm in the midst of tempests; so may we admire the foundations and the roots of the faith of God's elect, which their Creator intended to abide unshaken in the midst of those furious tempests which he knew would assail it. They that have never felt the force of the hurricane may despise the costly, deep-grounded foundations, as superfluous; but they who have been in the storm, or are now in it, or expect often to be assailed by it again, will rejoice to think that the church of Christ is so deep-rooted, and will often be examining them to see that all is right, and that "whom God did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son; and whom he did predestinate, them he also called; whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified."

Consider that your ultimate victory is set before you on the same promises, and in the same covenant, that were the support of Paul, John, and Peter; and therefore study that covenant, and arm yourself with those promises; for "this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life;" 1 John ii. 25.

Consider that he who hath the Son hath life; hath the life of glory assured for him; for God the Father hath raised us up together, and made us to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; Eph. ii. 6. He is ascended to his Father and our Father, to his God and our God; John xx. 17. He is gone to prepare a place for us. In earth he was our surety to answer the penalty of our sins; and in heaven he is our advocate, to take seisin and possession of that kingdom for us; our captain, and forerunner, and high priest, who hath not only carried our names into the innermost sanctuary on his breast-plate, but hath broken off the veil of the sanctuary, and given us access to the holiest of all.

Remember the force and nature of the prayers of the great High Priest in behalf of his people: "Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me; for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world;" John xvii. 24. This is the unsealing of the fountain of grace, whereby believers are enabled to live the spiritual life. Christ's intercession must at least be as powerful now that he

is exalted in heaven for the express object of beholding every knee bow to him, and of having every tongue confess him Lord, as when he was upon earth: and yet, when he was upon earth, and an hour or two before they were dragging him to the cross, he prays in a lofty manner for the final beatitude of his people: "I will-[EA]—I desire-it is my wish, that those who are mine by gift should come to heaven, to be with me, and to perceive and enjoy my glory." This was not like the other prayers of Christ to his Father: for, when he was offering up petitions for himself, it was in the tone of a humble suppliant: "Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me;" or, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit;" but when his prayers are for the objects of his grace and his Father's, he says, "I will;" or even still more decidedly, as to the dying thief on the cross, for whose salvation, as the time was short, he did not take up the form of prayer, but at once assumed the tone of promise, and said authoritatively, "To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise;" though even in this authoritative tone he was but executing a command which he had received. "For this," he had said, "is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day: and this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day;" John vi. 39, 40.

This, then, is he who prays for his people, "I will that they be with me where I am." And you know that the apostle Paul sums up the series of arguments for a believer's assurance, by the fact that Christ intercedes for us at God's right hand. See Rom. viii. 34.

Whatever, then, may be between you and your rest; whatever trials you are now exercised withal, or in your apprehensions may anticipate; whatever may be the corruptions with which you have to contend, or the dangers with which you are surrounded, do not fall back on your own weakness, or despond in calculating your own strength: the voice of Jehovah, in the covenant of grace, is, "Fear not, for I am with thee; I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." The voice of Jesus is, "Fear not, little flock; it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." The voice of the Spirit is still louder-louder and more earnest than we can express; " for the Spirit itself maketh intercessions for us, with groanings that cannot be uttered."

But, they who do not acknowledge, or faintly apprehend, or dimly discern, or sadly forget these supporting truths of the Gospel, are often

left, as it were, in the shadow of death and the very belly of hell; for miserable indeed is the lot of that person who, in a great fight of afflictions, has no refuge but his own powers of patience, and has nothing to support him but those general notions of Divine things which, in the unmeaning phraseology of the world, are called, religion-a religion of general piety, without the faith of God's elect; and of a general assent to Christianity, without any savour of its life-giving doctrines and its Divine power.

comes.

He that has not a clear insight into the intercession of Christ for the labouring church, is in a state of nakedness when the wintry storm He is quite unprepared to meet the malignity of Satan in his errand against Job, and may soon, perhaps, curse the day in which he was born: but it is not so with the saint who reposes in confidence on the covenant ordered in all things and sure, and who can discern the hand of Jehovah to a beloved child in the midst of the severe chastening, and knows that he is now on the right road to Zion, needing now no guide-post; "for we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of heaven;" and it is to this very thing that the called saints are appointed, 1 Thess. iii. 3.

Finally, then, believer, remember that Christ has the names of the chosen tribes on his breast-plate, and never forgets them; that he has a commission "to save them to the uttermost;" that he knows his sheep, and they follow him, and he gives them eternal life, and they shall "never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of his hand;" but that the way to glory is through grace, which includes all manner of temptations, even to the being thoroughly sifted like wheat by Satan, the accuser of the brethren. And though the Redeemer wills that his disciples should be with him where he is, which is, in fact, a promise of their final perseverance, yet his intercession is not always for keeping off a temptation from us; for he many times suffers fierce ones to invade us for gracious ends, both for his glory and our good; but then he does provide that this temptation shall not utterly sink us, and mortify our grace. He is content that we should be in an evil world, but not satisfied unless we be "preserved from the evil," or rescued in due time after it hath assaulted. With the temptation or trial he furnishes a way to escape; but if the trial is to be even unto the death, it is but as the entrance to a crown of glory; for the promise is, "Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” Thus has he crowned the martyrs, and all those who have come out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.