eternal life is also bestowed upon us: God hath given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son; he that hath the Son hath life. These privileges and blessings are in Christ Jesus for the use of our fallen race, as in a treasury to which all are invited to come. If any come not, the fault is wholly in themselves, ye will not come unto me that ye may have life. If any come, the praise is wholly to be ascribed to God, who draws them by his grace. All that the Father giveth me shall come unto me, and him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out. The Saviour freely invites the whole human race he is sincere in the declaration of his love to all; he directs his ministers to preach the good tidings to every creature, and whosoever will may take of the water of life freely. Christian reader, despise not all this grace: now in this accepted time and in this day of salvation be ye reconciled to God, who shews such love to you as passes knowledge. The Holy Spirit himself will come to you with all-sufficient grace, through Jesus. Do you say, How am I to receive these rich privileges? Simply by faith. Give God credit for the truth of his word. Believe that he has provided a Saviour for you, as he has again and again testified. Believe God's gracious promise of his own Spirit. Believe that all these spiritual blessings are in Christ for you by God's appointment, as your God has again and again assured you. Receive freely the things freely given of God; as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name. You must honour God's veracity before you can be healed by his truth. Faith is the spring both of holiness and of comfort. You will get neither while you refuse to venture your hope on the blessed word of Almighty God, and give way to those doubts and fears which in truth proceed from the enmity of a proud will, and the carnal lusts of an evil heart, and which are the grossest insult you can put on Him who is truth itself. But if you say I still cannot remove those doubts, I see the excellence of the gospel, and long to live in its holy and happy light, but I feel a constant weakness and helplessness. And what Christian cannot sympathise with you, my reader? And what is the lesson? Let David speak it. Read the 62d Psalm. Read the 130th Psalm. Wait, wait on the Lord. You will get strength there imperceptibly, perhaps, but really and efficaciously. None that ever 'waited patiently on the Lord were ashamed of their hope: in due time you will have to say, in God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength, and my refuge is in God. Prayer for a waiting spirit. O thou who art the God of patience and consolation, and the giver of every good and perfect gift, draw my heart to thy Son Jesus Christ, give me to believe in his name; give me grace to wait for him, and so attain his salvation here and his glory hereafter. Hear, for his name's sake. 7. THE EFFECT OF CHRISTIAN PRIVILEGES. Behold what man St. John beautifully states this. ner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew not him. Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is, and every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as he is pure. Being made like Christ is the blessed consequence of Christian privileges. Being in our measure a blessing to others by self-sacrifice; being meek, holy, humble, full of love, spiritual, pure and heavenlyminded; the very epistle of Christ written by the Spirit of the living God: nothing less than this is the holy and happy state to which gospel grace calls all its blessed receivers. See in the 12th, 13th, and 14th chapters of Romans, to what a heavenly state of mind, and to what a pure, practical, and most holy life the mercies of God constrain the true Christian. The gospel raises us far above all the petty narrow and grovelling objects of this world's ambition, such as to be great in the eyes of men, to have mere temporary pleasures of this life, or accumulate its riches. It sets us also, by its glorious and free salvation, at liberty from the slavish spirit of working out a righteousness by our own obedience, which we can never attain, and frees us from the mere selfish consideration of seeking our own safety by the strong consolation and the good hope through grace which it gives to all who have fled to Christ for refuge. Thus we are free with the freedom which the Son of man gives, to sow to the Spirit, to seek for glory, honour, and immortality; to labour for that crown and glory which is worthy of pursuit, saving the souls of our fellow men, and having the joy in the day of Christ of seeing countless numbers brought to him through our faithful love. O see, Christian reader, if the love of Christ be not a more constraining, quickening, and ennobling principle, leading to more self-denial and more devotedness than any other ever presented to your mind. It is this wonderful love that makes us not live to ourselves, but to him who died for us. Taste this love then. Pray that the Holy Spirit may shed it abroad in your hearts, and live in its light and warmth all your days. Prayer for the experience of Christian Privileges. Almighty Father, give me, I beseech, eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to understand and embrace the great things which thou hast freely given to us in Christ Jesus. May I inherit that blessing of my Redeemer, Blessed are the eyes that see the things that you see, and the ears that hear the things that you hear. O may I know and believe the joyful sound, and find in my own heart and life all its purifying and heavenly power, through Jesus my Redeemer. Amen. PASSAGES OF SCRIPTURE. Deut. xxviii. xxxii. Josh. xxiii. Judges v. 2 Sam. vii. 1 Kings iii. Job xlii. Psalm viii. xv. xvi. xviii. xxiii. xxv. xxx. xxxii. xxxiii. xxxiv. xlvi. lxxii. lxxxiv. xcviii. ciii. civ. cxvi. cxlv. Isaiah xi. xl. lx. Matt. v. Acts ii. 41-47. Rom. iv. v. viii. Eph. i. ii. iii. Col. i. ii. Heb. xi. xii. 1 Pet. i. 1 John i. ii. iii. Rev. i. ii. iii. v. xx-xxii. BOOKS. Romaine on the Life, Walk, and Triumph of Faith. Good Tidings of Great Joy to all People. (Glasgow.) Alleine's Heaven Opened. Case's Mount Pisgah. Bridge's (Wm.) Sermons on Faith. Howe's Blessedness of the Righteous. Bradford's Letters. Gammon's Christ a Christian's Life. CHAPTER XI. CHRISTIAN GRACES. 1. The sermon on the mount.-2. The poor in spirit.-3. They that mourn.-4. The meek.-5. The hungering and thirsting.-6. The merciful.-7. The pure in heart.-8. The peace makers. 1. THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT. THE graces of the Christian form a large and extensive subject that much exceeds the limits of this work. To give a brief account of them, the beatitudes with which our Lord commenced his sermon on the mount, and the tempers there commended and blessed, will alone be considered in this chapter. This sermon contains, as it were, the royal constitution of the spiritual kingdom of Christ. It sets before us those graces and that character which are to be attained, and the conduct which is now to be followed, in order that we may be made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. It was given by our Lord, after he had chosen his apostles, at the commencement of his ministry, to great multitudes of people, who were gathered together to hear him. We have then, in this discourse, the most solemn and important instruction as to the true na |