Hence, like grace, which, in its own nature and essence, is among the incommunicable attributes of God, this work of the Lord Christ is in itself incommunicable. But the effects of grace, like the effects of any other perfection of God are communicable; and such are the effects of Christ's sacrifice and righteousness to his people. The work is solely his-the blessed consequences are our's! And God the Holy Ghost, as if to state and settle this important point, hath in a short, but most decided manner, shewn the church the vast differences between cause and effect: He calls the one "the grace of God," and the other," the gift by grace." "If (saith the Lord) through the offence of one, many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded unto many," Romans v. 15. Here the matter is most plainly defined. The grace of God, as manifested in the death of Christ for salvation, was and is his incommunicable act, and the sole cause of it. The gift by grace is the effect coming to his people; and this, when given, is our's. Hence, therefore, our joy, our confidence, when rightly placed, ariseth not from the effect, but in the cause. Not from any supposed work wrought on our minds thereby, for these are but testimonies of the work, and not the work itself: our joy, our assurance, is in the Lord. And to this purport is that sweet prayer the Lord put into the mind of the apostle to offer for the church, "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, (not in feeling) that ye may abound in hope, (not experiences) through the power of the Holy Ghost," Rom. xv. 13. "Christ is the hope of Israel, and the Saviour thereof! In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory." Jer. xiv. 8. Isa. xlv. 25.

Precious Lord Jesus! I am come to thee in my present visit, as empty and as poor as ever. My first

act of faith, and my last act of hope, are, and will be to the close of life, just the same. Yea, Lord, I am only learning more and more my nothingness. Indeed, indeed, thou dear Lord! I delight so to do; for by it I discover, more and more, thy fulness, suitableness, and all-sufficiency. And do I not hereby also learn that this is the cause from whence, my life being hid in thee, the life of grace is not extinguished? Surely Satan without, and corruption within, would long since have choked the incorruptible seed, but for thy quickening and renewing influences! Oh! what springs of grace must be for ever flowing from my Lord, to keep alive the tender bud! Now do I see, and feel, the blessedness of that scripture, "they shall revive as the corn, and grow as the vine." And wherefore, but because my Lord saith, "from me is thy fruit found ?" Hosea xiv. 7, 8. Oh! how doth the very thought refresh my soul! Truly, Lord, it is blessed to come to thee-blessed to visit thee-blessed to receive of theeblessed to live upon thee! And will not my God get glory by me, when my emptiness and want give occasion for the Lord to fill in his grace in me? Shall I not love his name in thus getting grace from him, while Jesus gets glory by me? Shall not the glory be his, while all the benefit is mine? Yes! yes! my person, my life, my safety, my happiness, my present peace, my everlasting joy; all, all, are in thee, and from thee, and by thee!" All my springs are in thee.” Do any ask, where are my evening visits? to whom is my morning song directed? Tell them Jesus is the first, and the last, the Alpha and Omega of all my thoughts, affection, and desires. "In the morning, and evening, and at noon-day will I pray, and thou shalt hear my voice. Thou art my hiding-place; thou shalt preserve me from trouble; thou shalt compass me about with songs of deliverance! Selah." Psalm xxxii. 7.

DAILY VISITS TO THE PARDON OFFICE OF JESUS.

I have often thought, when passing by some of the public offices about the inns of court, and beholding the multitude waiting without at the gate, what a profitable lesson the child of God might gather from hence. How are those places thronged with petitioners! what eagerness and solicitude are pictured in every face! How long and unweariedly will they wait, from day to day, and still hope, amidst numberless disappointments; sometimes even frowns, and not unfrequently absolute refusals; yet, nevertheless, they hang on, and hold out, while the smallest probability remains that they shall at length get the smile of some great man in office! And of the few, the very few which succeed, compared to the great majority of applications which fail; to what doth their success tend? and who shall form the arithmetic of the disappointed? Who shall tell us of the secret groans, yea, curses, not loud, but deep, of the slighted at those levees, which attend, perhaps, the greater part of their life at this worldly chace, and are constantly thrown out into the back ground of disappointment!

Precious Lord Jesus! how opposed to all such courts of earthly pageantry is thy pardon office of heavenly condescension! Interest, intrigue, and power, are too often the necessary qualifications to obtain the favour of men; but to be friendless, poor, and miserable, under the deepest sense of undeservings, become the truest recommendations with my God! It is a fruitless attempt for a poor stranger to go to an earthly court, or to seek the favour of some great man in office, without an introduction: but the most forlorn state of nature needs no other recommendation to the heavenly court, than their sense of want; yea, the Lord is said to be "nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and will

save such as be of an humble spirit!" The high and mighty of this world carry themselves proudly towards those that are seeking any favours from them; and very often long silence, and a time of much suspense, go before their grants, even when, perhaps, from the first they intended them. But with "the High and Lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity, and whose name is Holy," his - gracious manner of receiving petitioners at his throne, is the reverse; he saith himself, "It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear," Isaiah lxv. 24. Men cannot go before princes and the great ones of the earth at all times; but for the most part they are appointed, and the hours for receiving and answering suits are limited. But it is not so with Him who is "Prince of the kings of the earth❞—access to him is for ever; Jesus is always upon the throne, and his ear always open to the cries of his people; yea, it is sweetly said of him, that "he waits to be gracious," Isaiah xxx. 18. And the way not only to his throne, but to his heart, like the gates of that blessed city spoken of in scripture, stands everlastingly open, and is never shut, "day or night." Rev. xxi. 25.

Such then, being the vast superiority of an heavenly court to an earthly, it should seem to require no higher recommendation, to induce every poor distressed creature to go there, than what ariseth out of a conscious sense of his own need, and the assured welcome he will find. One might expect to see the pardon office of Jesus thronged with petitioners, and all hastening to a throne, whose very object is to give out mercy. And so it is, indeed, by every one who is brought acquainted with the plague of his own heart, and hath the smallest apprehensions of the immense compassions of Jesus; for the mercies there dispensing are in the daily, yea, the hourly necessities both of saint and sinner. The child of God renewed by grace, requires continually renewed acts of that grace, without which his best spiritual state

doth soon languish; and hence the Lord, speaking of his church, under the similitude of a vineyard, saith, "I will water it every moment," Isaiah xxvii. 2. And well is it for his redeemed that he doth; for though our souls do not always feel the momentary need, neither are we conscious, in ten thousand times ten thousand instances, of Christ's watering; yet, were it not that our " inward man is renewed day by day" by the Lord, our body of sin meeting with the temptations of Satan, and the world at large, would make sad waste in the church of God!

It was not without an eye to this, in the constant necessities of God's children, the apostle prayed for the church, that "grace, mercy, and peace might be multiplied," 1 Pet. i. 2. Jude 2. And certain it is, that grace, which is the fountain of all mercies in God's heart, is multiplied by the effect of it, in mercy and peace in our's: for as we multiply our offences, the acts of divine grace are multiplied in giving pardons. And while every truly regenerated child of God finds cause to be often looking back, and contemplating with holy joy that blessed hour when, from God the Holy Ghost quickening him to a new life in Christ, he was "forgiven all trespasses," Col. ii. 13. so doth he daily discover, in the circumstances of renewed errors in his walk of life, to be no less looking for the multiplications of grace in renewed pardons to renewed offences. Oh! how very precious in this view is the pardon. office of the Lord Jesus!

Reader! have you duly considered these things? Hath the Lord the Spirit brought you into a daily acquaintance with the plague of your own heart? Hath he made you completely out of love with yourself, and all your own attainments? Yea, hath the Lord so fully done this, as sometimes to make it appear to your view as if there were growing imperfections in you? These are very humbling, but very profitable lessons of God's