" to the feers fee not, to the prophets pro"phecy not, cause the Holy One of Ifrael to 66 ceafe from before us." Now this is our state by nature, the Apostle tells us it was the state of those who were now the diftinguished monuments of the grace and of the power of God; and you (hath He raised " from the dead and fet at his own right " hand in heavenly places) who were dead "in trefpaffes and fins; wherein in time " past ye walked according to the course of "this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now "worketh in the children of disobedience, " among whom also we all had our con" versation in times past, in the lufts of our “iếsh fulfilling the desires of the flesh and W .3 L "of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath even as others.". They who are taught of God, and who have read their Bible to any purpose, must feel thefe truths; they must feel what the prodigal L ; د is represented to have felt, when he found himself ready to perish; and knowing by fad experience that to depart from God is to depart from happiness, and that to persevere in fin is to pursue destruction, they resolve like him, " I will arise and go unto my father, and I will say to him, father, I " have finned against heaven and before "thee, and am no more worthy to be called "thy fon." Thus repenting and thus returning to the Lord their God in the way which he hath fet before them, they will have cause to acknowledge that a "Father of the " fatherless is God in his holy habitation." This brings me to the second head of enquiry, namely, what is the "mercy," which the fatherless are faid to find. And what can this mercy be but to be restored to the condition and privileges of the children of God? Is not "he thy father that bought "thee?" So God's children are " bought "with a price, not with corruptible things : 66 "as filver and gold, but with the precious 1 Pet. i, 19. • Ephef. ii, 10. c Rom. v, 1. " appear what we shall be: but we know "that when He shall appear we shall be "like Him, for we shall fee Him as he " is.” Our aftonishment at this mercy must increase, if we confider the methods which were taken to render it's designs effectual; and of these we are informed in the fourth chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians. " Now the heir as long as " he is a child differeth nothing from a " fervant though he be Lord of all, but " is under tutors and governors until the " time appointed of the father. Even fo " we when we were children were in bond age under the elements of the world." That is to fay, God put us under the law as under a school-master, not to justify us, but to give us the knowledge of fin, that we might be trained up and prepared for receiving the glad tidings of the gospel. -The “law is our "school-master to bring us to Chrift that " we might be justified by faith," and " by a 1 John iii, 1. ► Gal. ii, 24. C2 "the "the law is the knowledge of fin.. But " when the fullness of time was come, God "sent forth his Son, made of a woman, " made under the law, to redeem them that "were under the law that we might re"ceive the adoption of fons." Here are the methods which God has taken in order to effect the designs of his mercy; after having given the law (" long before which the gof 66 pel had been preached unto Abraham," in confequence of a purpose and grace " given us in Christ Jesus before the world began") after having given us the law to convince us of fin, and so to teach us our need of a Saviour, " when the fullness of " time was come God fent forth his Son." -And if you ask who this Son is, whom God fent into the world-you are told that He is "the heir of all things, by whom " also God made the worlds, that He is "the brightness of God's glory, the exprefs " image of his person, upholding all things Rom. iii, 20. b Gal. iii, 8. c 2 Tim. i, 9. " by |