giving WORD itself through whom and for Whom all the written word was given, come and potsess my soul! I long for nothing, and I would always long for nothing, but for toy wisdom and thee. O forgive my unsettled heart, which hath so often been taken up with a multitude of unprofitable things instead of being fixed wholly upon thee, who art the only Way, the Truth, and the Life! I can have no rest, no firm es⚫tablishment, but here alone. My nature is unstable as water; and I live moreover in a slippery world. Leave, O leave me, therefore not to myself, nor to the power of the evils, which are above, beneath, and on every side. Set me upon thyself, my blessed Rock, and order thou my goings in thy way, and lead me in the way everlasting. Who is sufficient for these things but thou, who art allsufficient? How can I, so poor a creature, hope either to stand or to prevail, but through that strength, which is made perfect in weakness; through that wisdom, which cannot be deceived by fraud; and that love, which is stronger than death, and durable as the days of heaven! O Lord, be thou on my side, and then neither my own flesh, nor the corruption of the flesh in others, no, nor all the powers of darkness, shall be able in the least to hurt me. I am thine, O save me now, pave me to the end, and save me for ever!

CHAP. X.

ON THE LIFE OF CHRIST.

THOUGH my Redeemer was to be, and was, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; though he was to have, and had, all our iniquities in his own body on the cross; though he was to bear the curse, and was cursed, for the transgression of his people, and, for a token of it, was hanged upon a tree; yet, in his own person, he was pure, harmless, and undefiled, and so was called typically the holy Lamb of God, without blemish, or any possible defect. He was perfectly without sin, from the manger to the cross. When Satan tried him in the desert, he found nothing in him of weakness of mind or defilement of body; and therefore his temptations had nothing to lay hold of, but fell to the ground. His enemies among men, stirred up by the malice of the adversary, could not, when he challenged them, convince him of sin; nor was any thing like guile to be found in his mouth. All his words were wisdom itself; and all his actions were purity and love.

There are three principal reasons why such a Reedeemer became us; and these are to be found only in Christ.

A sacrifice, in the first place, was necessary for our iniquities; for, without shedding of

the law of their God. It was for this end, that he lived so many years upon earth, and went through all the stages of human life to manhood; by which his people of all ages might have, through faith, a right of acceptance in him.

And, thirdly, the merit of the sacrifice for sin, and the substitution of righteousness for sinners, required some person to intervene, or to stand between God and sinners, and to offer these exchanges in their behalf. This office is the office of a priest, who is a mediator between God and man, and who must therefore be holy in himself. Christ was this perfect person; and so was such an High Priest as became us, holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, having an unchangeable priesthood, to which he is consecrated for

evermore.

These are the reasons of all his labours in love and righteousness; And he was able to merit and go through them, being Jehovah in man; as well as to suffer what he took upon him, being man in Jehovah.

O what a task of unparalleled grace and humility is here! Who could have done such unimpeachable works; but he who is perfect in himself! Who could have done them to render others perfect for ever before God; but one so much above all created perfection, as to have for others an unbounded perfection to spare?

Lord, help me to meditate upon thee, and upon all that thou hast done for my soul! O put on this garment of salvation, this robe of righteousness, which the blessed hands have perfectly wrought, that it may be my wedding garment in the day of my espousals, when I shail leave the world, and appear before the Majesty on high! This is the righteousness of saints, pure, white, and shining, in which they walk with thee in glory, and in which I also hope to walk, unworthy creature as I am, both with thee and with them. O then shall I appear without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, all-acceptable to God, all-illustrious in thee! Lord what hast thou wrought indeed? Thou hast wrought for me to entitle me heaven; and thou hast wrought in me to fit me for heaven; a work, as it seems to me, no less difficult than the other: so stubbern and vile am I, and so opposite to thy pure nature is mine. I marvel, and with tears of joy I marvel, at all the mysterious wonders of thy redemption, at thy plain and elcar yet unsearchable love, at thine awral just ce magnitiod even by grace frself, at the kindness thou hast showa and the goodness. then hast promised, at the thevée ending Ene of wisdom in the holy wờm, khô sa the unbounded scent of gly wet before me. I am overwhelmed, I am betonished m: 'the weight and grandeur of #z, d'oine banevolence. Accent the facu Bes o: mg body and soui, ali I am and al 1