hearted; he hath given me the tongue of the learned to speak a word in season to them that are weary." Are you an awakened soul? Then you may be quite sure Christ with you-bending over you. 2. Long time. Some persons continue under convictions of sin for a long time; some for months and years. This year, I doubt not, has seen many souls awakened. Now Christ waits long upon these souls. He stands at the door all the day: "I have stretched out my hands all the day to a gainsaying and disobedient people;" and then, when night comes, as he still stands and waits: “ My head is filled with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night." Are there any awakened souls hearing me? Christ has been long with you. The Bible has been his witness; it has been with you night and day. His ministers have told you of Jesus; they have waited and been long-suffering with you. Christ himself has bended over you. Never did a beggar stand at the door of a rich man so long as Christ has stood at your door. 3. Yet hast thou not known me. Although Christ be so long with awakened souls, yet many will not know him. It is life eternal to know him. It would heal all their pains if they would only look upon him; but they will not look. Some of you are in this state. It is your sin, and it is your misery. (1.) Christ has long stood at your door and knocked. If you had opened, you would have seen a bleeding Saviour-a surety—a righteousness. You would have looked to him, and been lightened; but you would not open. (2.) Christ has stood and cried: "If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink." You feel very thirsty, yet you do not come to Christ to drink. (3.) Christ has cried: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." You are bent down with your burden, yet you will not come to Christ in order to have life. (4.) Christ has cried: Follow me; he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness." You vibrate between him and the world. You cling to the world, even though you are miserable. How long shall it be thus? Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, poor anxious soul? Remember, some have lived anxious, and died anxious. Remember, it will only increase your hell, that Christ was so long with you, and you would not know him. Turn to Christ now. Let not another year begin without knowing Jesus. 66 III. Unawakened. 1. Christ is with them. In one sense, he is not with them. They are without Christ, and without God in the world. In another sense, he is with them: "I know thy works." (1.) He is with them in the house of God. It is wonderful to me how Christ persuades so many Christless people to come to the house of God; I never could explain it. Crowds followed Jesus; crowds follow him still. Ques. What brings you to the house of God? It is the constraining grace of Christ. Here Christ is with you. Christ unlocks his treasure, and says: "Come, buy, without money and without price." (2.) Christ is with them in providences. O it is wonderful to see the providences of unawakened souls! Every one of them is from the hand of Christ: "I stand at the door, and knock." In the year now past, Christ has striven with you in his providence. To some of you he hath come once and again. Christ is with you. (3.) With them in their sins. Christ is present at all their unholy feasts-unholy jests-desires-engagements: "I know thy works." Do you ever think, when you are engaged in some silly game, that Christ is by your side? He sees the smile of satisfaction on your cheek, but he sees also the deluge of wrath that is over your soul. He sees you sporting yourself with your own deceivings-sitting on the brink of hell, yet pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw. Ques. What does he say? He says: "How long, ye simple ones, will ye love your simplicity?" and again: "Lord, let it alone this year also." How long 2. So long time. There is reason to think that Jesus strives with the soul from its earliest years-that he strives on to the last. Some good men have thought that Christ doth sometimes give over striving, and leaves the soul to be joined to its idols; but perhaps it is more accordant with Scripture to say, that Jesus waits all the day. a time Christ has pleaded with some of you! another year of striving with you is finished. this. O the long-suffering of Christ! 3. Not known me. Ah! there is reason to think that many of you are as ignorant of Christ as the day I began my ministry among you; yea, as ignorant as the day you were born. If you knew Christ, it would break your heart with a sense of sin; but your heart is whole within you. If you knew Christ, it would drive you to seek an interest in him, but you seek him not. Hark how tenderly the Saviour pleads with you this day: "Have I been so long time with you?" O it will be one of the greatest miseries of hell, to remember how often Christ was with you in this house of prayer-in your providences-ay, in your sins; and you would not look at him! to remember how often he was set forth a broken Saviour in the sacramentpreached by his servants a free Saviour-how often he bended over you, and wept over you, and ye would have none of him! O, sirs, I fear this year will witness against you in the judgment-day! I fear there are many of you who will accuse me in that day, and say: Why did you not speak plainer-louder-oftener? Why did you not knock oftener at our doors, to tell us and our children of Christ, the way to glory?-ah! was it not worth more effort to save us from an eternal hell? Ah! dear friends, be wise. Many of you will not see another year come to a close. If there be fifty-O how dreadful!-you may be among that fifty; nay, if there be forty, thirty, twenty, ten, still you may be among the ten. If there be but one, you may be that one. O it will be an awful word in that day: "I was a long time with you, but you would not know me!" Amen. Dundee, Dec. 31, 1837. SERMON XLVIII. WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST? "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."-Rom. viii. 35–37. In this passage there are three very remarkable questions : 1. "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect?" Paul stands forth like a herald, and he looks up to the holy angels, and down to the accusing devils, and round about on a scowling world, and into conscience, and he asks, Y who are skilled in law and equity; he looks upwa holy angels, whose superhuman sight pierces dee into the righteous government of God; he looks u the judge of all, who must do right-whose ways and perfect righteousness-and he asks, Who s demn? It is Christ that died. Christ has paid most farthing: so that every judge must cry o is now no condemnation. 3. "Who shall separat the love of Christ? Again, he looks round a worlds-he looks at the might of the mightiest arc -the satanic power of legions of devils-the rage defying world-the united forces of all created thi when he sees sinners folded in the arms of Jesus Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? the forces of ten thousand worlds combined, fo greater than all. "We are more than conquero him that loved us." The love of Christ! Paul says: "The love passeth knowledge." It is like the blue sky, i you may see clearly, but the real vastness of cannot measure. It is like the deep, deep sea, i bosom you can look a little way, but its d unfathomable. It has a breadth without a bou without end, height without top, and depth wi tom. If holy Paul said this, who was so deeply divine things- who had been in the third he seen the glorified face of Jesus-how much mor poor and weak believers, look into that love a passeth knowledge! There are three things in these words: 1. E love of Christ. 2. Who would separate us from it shall not be able. I. I would speak of the love of Christ. 1. When it began in the past eternity: "T by him as one brought up with him: and I wa delight, rejoicing always before him; rejoicing in able part of the earth; and my delights were with men.”—Prov. viii. 30, 31. This river of love beg before the world was-from everlasting, from the or ever the earth was. Father's love to the Son. This river of light began to stream from Jesus toward us before the beams poured from the sun-before the rivers flowed to the ocean-before angel loved angel, or man loved man- before creatures were, Christ loved us. This is a great deep-who can fathom it? This love passeth knowledge. Christ's love to us is as old as the 2. And who was it that loved? It was Jesus, the Son of God, the second person of the blessed Godhead. His name is " Wonderful, Counsellor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace," "King of kings and Lord of lords," Immanuel, and Jesus the Saviour, the only begotten of his Father. His beauty is perfect: he is the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person. All the purity, majesty, and love of Jehovah, dwell fully in him. He is the bright and morning Star: he is the Sun of righteousness and the Light of the world: he is the Rose of Sharon and the Lily of the valleys-fairer than the children of men. His riches are infinite: he could say, "All that the Father hath is mine." He is Lord of all. All the crowns in heaven were cast at his feet-all angels and seraphs were his servants-all worlds his domain. His doings were infinitely glorious. By him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible. He called the things that are not as though they were-worlds started into being at his word. Yet he loved us. It is much to be loved by one greater in rank than ourselves to be loved by an angel; but O, to be loved by the Son of God!-this is wonderful-it passeth knowledge. 3. Whom did he love? He loved us! He came into the world "to save sinners, of whom I am the chief." Had he loved one as glorious as himself, we would not have wondered. Had he loved the holy angels, that reflected his pure bright image, we would not have wondered. Had he loved the lovely among the sons of men—the amiable, the gentle, the kind, the rich, the great, the noble-it would not have been so great a wonder. But, ah! he loved sinners— the vilest sinners-the poorest, meanest, guiltiest wretches that crawl upon the ground. Manasseh, who murdered his own children, was one whom he loved; Zaccheus, the grey-haired swindler, was another; blaspheming Paul was a third; the wanton of Samaria was another; the dying thief was another; and the lascivious Corinthians were |