Genesis viii. 21, 32. yet not a word do we read in the history of it concerning Jehovah's oath. But in the days of the prophet Isaiah, a period of sixteen hundred years after the flood, the Lord made known his oath, which had laid hid in his own mind, and probably known to none but himself, being made like the one before Abraham, to himself, that the church might be comforted with the assurance of it. "For this is, (said God) as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee," Isa. liv. 9.

Reader! pause over the consideration of such unspeakable mercy. What grace must it have been in Jehovah, first to make the oath; and what repeated grace at a period so distant to publish it? Had the Lord not been pleased to have it confirmed, never would he have brought it to light. And had he not intended that his church and people constantly should remind him of it, never would he have caused it to be handed down to the present hour. Oh! what an unanswerable evidence it is, that Jehovah loves his oath ; loves that his people should know it, should depend upon it, and bring it for payment continually before him. Yes, yes, thou gracious condescending Lord! thy church in Christ will long to hear and live upon thy sweet unalterable oath. We still hear thee say, "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord!" "Oh! for the father to the children to make known thy truth!"

"YEA."-Jer. xxxi. 3.

Here is one of the smallest words in the bible, and at the same time one of the greatest in the world. It is composed but of three letters, but when used as in the instance here recorded, includes the act of the Holy Three in One: and in point of blessedness, security,

and comfort, when pronounced by Jehovah to his people in Christ, becomes the Lord's seal to his charter of grace. I had rather,' said one of the old fathers of the church, when contemplating this subject, (and so say I too) have God's yea and amen, than a promise from all the great men and princes of the earth.' Let the reader stop and look at it every way, and mark some of its blessedness.

And here to begin in the blessed instance before us. Here is God's love to his people marked with an emphasis the most decided, to shew its greatness and its unchangeableness for ever and ever. "Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting love!" And this is the greatest yea, to the greatest blessing in the whole revelation of God. Because it refers to the greatest blessing God ever put his yea to, namely, God's everlasting love to the church in Christ. To which there hath never been the smallest interruption, neither can be. Ps. ciii. 17. And in proof of it, the Lord adds, "therefore with loving-kindness have I drawn thee;" or, as the margin beautifully renders it, "have I extended loving-kindness unto thee."

his

And if the reader looks to the many yeas and verilys of the Lord Jesus Christ, they are all over the bible. Yea, Christ himself is Jehovah's yea and Jehovah's verily, eternally and for ever. Jesus puts his yea, verily, to every thing which concerns the security and happiness of his people. Yea, yea, verily, verily, I say unto you, and the like, to his whole Person, offices, relations, and characters. "I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father which gave them me is greater than all, and none can pluck them out of my Father's hand; I and my Father are one," John x. 28, 30. Oh, the blessedness of the Son of God's yea to the interests of his people from their union with him, and security in him! "All the pro

mises of God in him are yea and in him amen, unto the glory of God by us," 2 Cor. i. 20.

And no less the sweet yea of God the Holy Ghost. He indeed is the Spirit of promise, and therefore his yea is most essentially necessary, both as a seal and as the sealer, to make the whole effectual in Christ Jesus, 2 Cor. i. 21. But in the close of scripture, as if to leave on the mind of the church the certainty of the Holy Ghost's yea, the voice which John heard from heaven, which commanded him write," blessed are the dead which die in the Lord," God the Spirit immediately, as soon as the command had been given to John, put his almighty yea to it. Yea, saith the Spirit, or as the margin more strongly hath it, from henceforth saith the Spirit. As if the Holy Ghost in every renewed instance of the blessed dead, confirmed that glorious truth to every one with his divine yea, (nai) Rev. xiv. 13.

The redeemed of the Lord, who before their entrance into life are interested in the everlasting love of God the Father, and in his almighty yea to that love; betrothed to Jesus before time, saved in time by his blood, and interested in all his promises of yea and amen, during the whole of their eventful pilgrimage here below, at their departure into the world of spirits, among the blessed dead which die in the Lord, have the Holy Ghost's yea to seal their safety to the day of eternal redemption !

Reader! what think you of Jehovah's yea! What value do you put upon it, that hath no ebbings, nor withdrawings, but one everlasting ocean of blessedness overflowing, and making all things sure, in time and to all eternity! Oh! blessed unchangeable yea, of our most blessed unchangeable God.

III.

"HIS DEAR SON;" OR, AS THE MARGIN RENDERS IT," THE SON OF HIS LOVE."-Col. i. 13.

The apostle in this scripture seems to have had his mind led out by God the Holy Ghost, to speak of Jesus in the most affectionate and endearing manner. And our translators unable to convey the full sense of Paul's words by one rendering, have in the margin of the bible given another: "his dear Son," or, " the Son of his love." But there is a third which the original words admit of, yet more literal, and perhaps every thing considered, becomes the fullest of the three," the Son of love," (wiostes agapes.) For if beheld as one with the Father, and the Holy Ghost, in the essence of the Godhead, Jesus is, and must be, the object of everlasting love, yea, love itself, according to that blessed scripture, "God is love," 1 John iv. 16. And in relation to his Mediator nature, Jesus is also "the Son of love," in whom Jehovah is eternally well pleased, Matt. iii. 17. But in each sense, and in every sense, the Lord Jesus Christ is the Son of love, the Son of his love, yea, God's dear Son. And, indeed, the whole three put together, yea, all that can be said of him of whom this is spoken, falls infinitely short of what he really is; for there is no end of his love, as of his greatness, Ps. cxlv. 3. And the child of God, if under the unction of the Holy Ghost, while contemplating the Lord Jesus in this lovely view, will not barely find a morsel, but a full feast to feed on, and his "meditation of him be sweet," Ps. civ. 34.

In offering a morsel to the godly reader on those words, I dare not venture to say any thing more than what the word of God saith, in relation to the Godhead of Christ. No doubt in the essence of Jehovah, each Person possessing an equal right, in one common participation of glory and blessedness. The belief of

this fundamental article of our holy faith is the province of man: the apprehension of it can be only the province of God. Indeed, Jehovah in his Trinity of Persons, would cease to possess those gorious distinctions of invisibility and incomprehensibility, if any mere creatures, and of the highest intellect, had knowledge of them. On this sublime subject I dare not advance a step.

But if we contemplate on scripture ground this glorious Person, God's " dear Son, and the Son of his love," as God-Man Mediator, some of the most blessed and soul-satisfying prospects are opened at once to our view, by him, whose gracious office it is to glorify the Lord Jesus, in taking of the things of Jesus and shewing to his people.

Let us consider his person. If we contemplate him simply as he is in his person, in his double nature God and Man united; and before we consider him performing a single act of his mediation; here he appears" the altogether lovely and the chiefest among ten thousand." I do not presume on a subject of such an infinitely sublime nature to speak decidedly, but I would most humbly ask the question,—did not Jehovah in predestinating the Son of God into an union with the human nature, propose to himself an object of inconceivable love to delight in, more than in all the works of creation? And was not the first and ultimate design for himself, and his own glory, to higher purposes than any thing beside? And is it not in this high sense and degree the Son of God speaks when he saith," The Lord possessed me in the beginning of his ways before his works of old; I was set up from everlasting. Then I

was by him as one brought up with him, and I was daily his delight," Prov. viii. 22-30. And was it not in the same high sense and degree Jehovah calls him, "the Man my fellow!" Zech. xiii. 7. I propose these questions, but I go no further to answer them.