streams of worldly temptation, or the waters of conflict and trial, need only beat against it; the Lord need only for a moment hide himself, and withdraw from us the sweet consciousness of his presence, when our hearts begin to cool, and the melody of our soul to cease. Our love is fickle; it may cool and expire; we are faithless and inconstant. But Jesus is faithful; his love to his people is immoveable; the coals thereof are coals of fire; no streams, however violent, no floods, however turbulent, can extinguish, or even damp his love to sinners. Not the floods of our iniquities? No, not even these. How great was that flood of sin and transgression which David poured upon the love of his Surety! But, behold! his love burnt on, and maintained the superiority. He did not forsake the murderer and the adulterer, but kindly extended to him his arm, on which he had placed him as a seal, and mercifully assisted him out of the miry pit, and placed his feet again upon the rock; and David remained, what he previously had been, the man after God's own heart. The unfaithfulness of Simon passed as a flood over the love of Jesus! Another would have said, Now our friendship is at an end; with you I will have no further intercourse. But the love of Jesus is not a glimmering taper, that the first wind can extinguish. The coals thereof are coals of fire, which, though floods of inconstancy, coldness, and ingratitude pass over it, continues triumphantly to burn, and break through every assault. The look of wounded affection which he cast on Simon, frem the Judgment Hall, after he had denied him, still continues to excite our admiration and wonder; there was a magnanimity, a divinity

in it, which we can neither grasp nor comprehend. His love stands fast. The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord, that hath mercy on thee.' 'My sheep shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.'

But may not a man go on comfortably in his sins, if he knows he should not on that account lose the favor of God? Oh, how often are we obliged to listen to this miserable and foolish objection! A little reflection might teach, that the love of sin, and the thought of sinning that grace might abound, are incompatible with the life of one who is born again; they are utterly impossible. If you entertain a propensity to sin that grace may abound, you are not Christians; your new birth is a pretence; you belong to those who are without, and have not yet obtained the smallest interest in Christ. Let this sink deep into your hearts, and judge yourselves by it. But we rejoice, and praise God that our hope of salvation is founded on such a rock as the love of Jesus. Did our hope rest on our love to Him, it would weaken and die if ever our love dwindled and expired were it based upon our faith, we should be obliged to abandon it, if our faith became obscured: still less can it be grounded on our sensations and devotional feelings, for then we should sink into despair, whenever our hearts became cold and barren. No; our hope is founded on the love of Jesus to us; and here it has found a secure anchorage. It is based on

the love which is strong as death and firm as the grave; whose coals are coals of fire, which many waters cannot quench. It is founded on the love which pursues the sinner through all his deviations and wanderings, which loves him, though overshadowed by many inconsistencies; and which stands unshaken, though ours may waver and decline. His love to us is our restingplace, our sure foundation; it is the prop by which we rise when we have fallen; the staff which sustains us on our pilgrimage through this valley of tears. It is the source of our joy, the spring of our courage, and the fire by which we are refined; it is our sanctification and our life. But who can number all the blessings that are treasured up for us in the love of Jesus? Then take thy harp, O Israel! Believe and rejoice; for thou art encircled by the arms of Everlasting Love.

SERMON V.

SOLOMON'S SONG I. 7, 8.

Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? If thou know not, O thou fairest among women, go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.

THERE is scarcely any state of spiritual life that is not here and there described in the Song of Solomon, at least in the way of allusion. This little book is a true mirror of the heart of every child of God. The impure world, indeed, discovers in it only its own vile likeness. But is the stream to blame, that, when a Moor surveys himself in the pure and limped waters, an ugly black countenance is presented to his view? The fault lies not in the mirror, but in the face of the Moor; and were he on that account to censure the innocent stream, or, in imitation or a certain raging conqueror, to beat it with rods, would it not be absurd and unjust? Yet such is the procedure of unbelievers with the Song of Songs. But, let us not be turned aside thereby from this stream which flows from the rock of Zion, or suffer our pleasure therein to be corrupted. We drink water from it which springs up to everlasting life.

The text contains a conversation between Christ, the heavenly Bridegroom, and his Bride, the Church or the

soul of an individual believer.

The sentiment breathed

by the Shulamite, is that of longing for the coming of the Lord, and ardent desire to be near him. But the answer of Christ calms the longing soul, points out to it the way, and imparts wholesome advice. Many a soul amongst us is in the same state with Shulamite; many require the same refreshment. Let us therefore consider the words more fully, and reflect,

I. On Shulamite's state.

II. On her address to the Lord.
III. On her question.

IV. On Christ's counter-question.
V. On His advice.

I. We are already acquainted with the state of Shulamite's soul. She has herself, in the preceding words disburthened her heart, and discovered to us its inward aspect. I am black,' she complains, "O ye daughters of Jerusalem. Look not upon me because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me.' In the text she describes her appearance as that of noon-day -that is, she is exposed to the noon-day heat, when the sun has attained his greatest altitude, and shoots his scorching rays perpendicularly on the head. Tell me,' she exclaims, where thou feedest, where thou makest thy flocks to rest at noon?' The raptures of morning are past! For it is the morning in the soul, when it resembles a garden of spices, and the Spirit, like the south wind, blowing freshly through it, causes our fragrance to flow abroad; and we hear its sound, and percieve its influence. It is morning when the King himself draws near, and our spikenard sends forth its per

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