working faith in the heart,-lifting the eye out of, and off of the wound, and fixing it on the Lamb of GoD, pardon and peace flow like a river in the soul. O! stay not then from the gospel feast, because you are poor, penniless and unworthy. Why starve and die, when there is bread enough in your Father house, and to spare. See the provision how full!-see the invitation. how free! see the guests, the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind! Come then to Jesus just as you are. We stake our all on the assertion that, He will welcome you, that He will save you. There is too much efficacy in His blood, too much compassion in His heart for poor sinners -to reject you, suing at His feet for mercy. Then look up, believer, and you shall be saved, and all heaven will resound with hallelujahs over a sinner saved by grace!

CHAPTER V.

THE SYMPATHY OF THE ATONEMENT.

THE TRIED BELIEVER COMFORTED.

"We have not an High Priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." Heb. iv. 15.

COULD we draw aside, for a moment, the thin veil that separates us from the glorified saints, and enquire of each, the path along which they were conducted by a covenant GOD to their present enjoyments, how few exceptions, if any, should we find to that declaration of Jehovah, "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." Isa. xlviii.10. Each would tell of some peculiar cross-some domestic, relative or personal trial which attended them every step of their journey, -which made the vale they trod truly "a vale of tears," and which they only threw off when the spirit, divested of its robe of flesh, fled where sorrow and sighing are forever done away. God's people are a sorrowful people. The first

step they take in the Divine life is connected with tears of godly sorrow; and as they travel on, sorrow and tears do but track their steps. They sorrow over the body of sin which they are compelled to carry with them-they sorrow over their perpetual proneness to depart, to backslide, to live below their high and holy calling. They mourn that they mourn so little, they weep that they weep so little; that over to much indwelling sin, over so many and so great departures, they yet are found so seldom mourning in the posture of one low in the dust before GOD. In connexion with this, there is the sorrow which results from the needed discipline which the correcting hand of the Father who loves them, almost daily employs. For, in what light are all their afflictions to be viewed, but as so many correctives, so much discipline employed by their GoD in covenant, in order to make them "partakers of His holiness ?" Viewed in any other light, GoD is dishonoured, the Spirit is grieved, and the believer is robbed of the great spiritual blessing for which the trial was

sent.

There is something so remarkable in the

words of the Holy Ghost which we have quoted that, before we enter more fully into the discussion of our subject, we must again call them to the reader's mind. The passage is, "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction." With what is the Divine will, as stated in these words, connected, respecting the afflictions of the believer? Is it with the circumstances of time ?-Is it since they were brought into existence that God determined upon the circumstances that should surronnd them, and the path they should tread? O no! The trying circumstance, the heavy affliction stands connected with the great and glorious doctrine of God's eternal, sovereign and unconditional election of His people. They were "chosen in the furnace," chosen in it before all time-chosen in it from all eternity. Chosen in it, when He set His heart upon them,-entered into an everlasting covenant with them, and took them to be His "chosen generation, His royal priesthood, His holy nation, His peculiar people." O, thus to trace up every affliction that comes from GoD to His eternal choice of His people. To see it in the covenant of grace. To see it connected with His eternal purpose of

salvation. Thus viewed in connexion with His eternal love, in what a soothing light does it place the darkest dispensation of His providence.

But, there is another thought in the passage, equally blessed. "I have chosen thee,"-in what? In prosperity? No-In the bright summer's day? No. In the smooth and flowery path of worldly comforts? No "I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction."—"the furnace of affliction !"- Is this according to our poor finite ideas of love and tenderness? O no! Had we been left to choose our own path, to mark out our own way, it had been a far different one from this. We should never have thought of afflictions as a source of blessing. But GOD'S thoughts are higher than our thoughts, and His ways above our ways.

Our great object in this work has been, to keep prominently and distinctly before the mind of the reader, the absolute necessity of experimental religion. Without this we have shewn that, all gifts and knowledge, and profession were worse than worthless. That if the grace of GoD be not in the heart, the truth of GOD merely settled in the understanding, as to all holy, practical