view of the dignity of the law. So fearful was the impression of the scene, that the man who immediately received the law, stood and cried out, 'I tremble and am terrified.' And after the tribes of Israel had taken possession of the land which the Lord had promised, they stood, with mount Gerizim at the right, and mount Ebal at the left, and the curse was sounded forth against every transgressor of 'the law of God;- Cursed be he who does not fulfil all the words of this law, to conduct himself according to them; and all the people said, Amen.'-And the child of man, who now surveys the faults which he has committed from the first to the present period of his life, his open and his secret sins against this holy law; should he not tremble? Whoever you are, man, you have a Sinai from which you have received the law of God; and you must bow down before the law with agitating fear. In your own heart is established a holy legislation; and is it not true that you can mention the hour, when with a loud sound of the trumpet, and amid tempest and darkness the law raised its voice within you, so that you could not help falling on your knees and trembling? And would you suppress the voice, which coming from flaming Sinai sounds aloud within your spirit? Even if you would, the same law stands recorded in the book of God; and it has been given to men from without, as well as from within, so that the external voice, which man cannot drown, may call forth the voice which belongs to the depth of his own soul.

And how is it with you? Have you experienced this trembling of the spirit? How large the number of those, who know nothing of it, and simply because they have been strangers to this fear, imagine that they have received that blessed spirit of adoption, of which the apostle speaks in our text! Let me above all things warn you against this error.-Beloved, not the man who is a stranger to the feeling of dread at the sacred voice of Jehovah, not the man who has felt neither terror nor shame before the Holy One of Israel, not the man who never trembles, but the man who prays, is the child of God. A melancholy perversion of a wholesome truth is common in our day; hearing as we do from so many the negative side of this truth, that the Gospel is not a religion of precept; and hearing from so few the other important side of it, the Gospel is a religion of prayer. You who know not what the trembling of the servant is, if you also know not what the praying of a child is, then you are not

a child, you are not even a servant; you are a faithless, truant slave, a rebel.

Prayer then is the testimony that we have been adopted as children of God: not every kind of prayer, however, but only that which comes forth from the depth of the soul, in the spirit of-Dear Father! Let us more particularly consider, first, how this prayer arises from the depth of the soul, and secondly, how it expresses itself. I. 'That mystery,' as the apostle calls it, which has been kept secret from the beginning of the world,' is the truth, which, wherever it has been preached to sorrowful and heavy-laden souls, elicits prayer. It is the gracious purpose of God, since his image is not restored in its original purity to any of our race, to look upon them who believe in the holy Son of his love, no longer as they are in themselves, but as they appear in his beloved Son, and to translate them into the kingdom of their Redeemer. The apostle calls this purpose a mystery, not because he would imply that it now remains hidden from the souls of the faithful, but because no mere human reason had formed any conception of it, until, in the fulness of time, it was developed as a truth. And yet it remains not the less mysterious to you, if you have not tasted of those powers of the world to come, which lie involved in it.3 The wonders of grace and love, which present themselves to view within the sanctuary, it is difficult to make intelligible to those who stand without at the door. As, when you bent over the dear person of a father that you loved, you even forgot the misconduct of your erring child; and while your eyes were fastened upon the countenance of your kind father's image, you threw your arms around your unfaithful child and blessed him; -lo, in the same way has your heavenly Father forgotten that you are a most recreant child. When you have thrown yourself into the arms of the Son of his love, and cleaved closely to his heart, then does the Father no more look upon you as you are in yourself, encompassed with all your sins, enveloped in your misery; he then loves you in the Son of his love, and the darkness within you is irradiated by the light that beams from his countenance. As you

are in yourself,' says the heavenly vine-dresser, you are a withered, useless stalk; but lo, if you will become a branch of the vine which I have planted for myself, then shall the living power of that 2 Eph. 1: 6, Col. 1: 13.

Rom. 16: 25.

See Note L, at the close of the Sermons.

vine diffuse itself through you; I will no more remember what you have been, a dry twig; you shall bloom and grow green as a branch of the vine of Christ, and shall bring forth much fruit.'

You have the story of the lost son. It stands recorded, that when he went back to his father's house, the father saw him a great way off, and went forth to meet him, and stretched out his arms to receive him. There are some who find in this narrative an argument against the assertion of Scripture, that sinful man is denied all access to God except through a Mediator. But, my friends, is it not always in the Son of his love, that the Father goes forth to meet a penitent transgressor? Is it not always in the Son, that he opens his loving, paternal heart? It is in Christ Jesus, that the Father falls upon thy neck, that he carries thee home to the feast of joy. Does it not stand recorded, 'God was in Christ, when he reconciled the world unto himself?" As then the penitent is in Christ, and Christ in God, it follows that the very person who is to be reconciled is in the Being who reconciles him. Great is the mystery, I say the mystery of the oneness of the Father with the Son.

It is the announcement of this love, which, when it enters through faith the afflicted and heavy-laden heart, calls forth the instant cry of amazement and of gratitude, and prompts us to exclaim with John, Behold what manner of love the Father hath shown us, that we should be called his own children!' 3 That love of God, which, while we were sinners, was exercised toward us, is shed abroad in our hearts; so says the apostle. And this assurance of having received the love, which was exercised by God toward us before we loved him, is the pledge of eternal life; it is the signet, with which the faithful are sealed for heaven. Amazed at this grace which they cannot comprehend, they reiterate the exclamation which was made by John, the disciple of love,—'Now are we the children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be!'

2. Having shown how prayer, which is the testimony of our having been adopted by God, is prompted in the soul, let us next inquire how it is expressed. All that can be said on this subject, the apostle has included in this one supplicatory word, which illustrates the nature of the prayer;- dear Father.-We will now, therefore, definitely ascertain what is the scriptural idea of a prayer. Prayer

11 Tim. 2: 5. John 14: 6.

31 John 3: 1.

22 Cor. 5: 19.

4 Rom. 5: 5.

is the pulsation of the soul. It need not be always expressed in words; for the apostle exhorts Christians to pray without intermission.1 But if the prayer must necessarily be uttered in audible language, how could Paul, yea how could Christ himself have prayed without intermission? No, my friends. There is a prayer which the faithful offer, and which like the pulse in the veins, never ceases its motion, not by night, not by day, and which can be heard by no human ear. In this inward silent supplication are the faithful continually exclaiming, Abba, dear Father! How is it with you, when some beloved friend is called away from you by death? Through all the hours that succeed his departure, do you not bear him constantly about with you in your heart? Yea, are you not wont to conduct a silent, uninterrupted dialogue with him, which is not audible to the ear of a companion? So it is with the ceaseless prayer, going forth from the man who has received into his own heart the testimony of his heavenly adoption. He cannot forget, what new and unmerited grace has been bestowed on him; he cries out continually,― See what love the Father hath shown us, that, we should be styled the children of God;' and in the inmost sanctuary of his soul the words are repeated incessantly, beloved Parent! precious Father!

6

But as the conversation which a man silently carries on with himself is converted into audible language, as soon as he is seized with a quickening feeling of pain or of joy, so likewise is the converse which a man silently conducts with his heavenly parent. When his soul is actively excited, he feels compelled to employ words. And so we read of the Saviour, in the moment of his deepest pain he cried out, Abba, dear Father !2 And all that the heart of a child of God has to say, when it approaches the throne of grace, yea all is comprehended by the apostle in this one word, dear Father.Dear Father! So cries the little child, when, conscious of its own guilt and ill desert, it yet receives a new overflowing of its parent's love, and sinks down on its knees, weeping. Dear Father! So cries the child, when full of trouble it folds up its hands, and would fain fly into its parent's bosom, and to his heart. Dear Father! So cries the same child, when it has a full tide of joys, and cannot bear to keep these joys for itself alone, and must share all the treasures of its heart with the parent, whom it loves.

11 Thess. 5: 17.

2 Mark 14: 36.

Is it not truly a blissful image ;-this image of an affectionate child of God? Who would not sigh in his spirit, and exclaim, Oh, that I were such an image! But do not fancy, beloved, that it is nothing more than an image. Our age will not believe the Scriptures, when they describe the depth of human corruption, and the greatness of human misery; but why will ye not believe them, when they describe the wonders of the grace of God to the poor sinful man, who has faith! It is a truth; God is able to make men thus blessed through the power of faith, to make them such, even here, if they be obedient to the word of his grace. He has made them thus blessed; he will make them so again. and Peter and Luther are witnesses of what he whosoever of you has a longing for this spirit, Lord stands open to you all the time, and his fountain of living water is always full. And, beloved brother, as you call to mind that brief hour, when your fitful vision will survey the long solitary path stretching onward before you,-a path along which none of your loved ones can conduct you, and of which you do not know whether or not it will lead you to a sweet home; as you think of that hour, your surest pledge for the eternity before you is the evidence, that you may have, of being adopted as a child of God.

Paul and John has done; and the door of the

This evidence is the surest pledge, for first, you are no longer flesh, you are spirit; it is the surest pledge, for secondly, whoever has this evidence, has already been translated from death to life.

1. The voice came to the prophet and said, proclaim! He asked, What shall I proclaim? And the voice said,-All flesh is grass, and all its goodliness as the flower of the field. My friends, the Scripture speaks very diminutively of man. Proud mortal, the

name which the word of God giveth thee is, flesh. I am well aware how many among you never see this application of the term in the Scriptures without repugnance of feeling, but will you charge the sacred oracle with a misrepresentation?-There is a wonderful power in the kingdom of nature which draws down every particle of matter toward one, single, mysterious, central point. There is the concealed operation of a rigorous power, which draws down the physical man, irresistibly, to the central point, to his mother, to the earth. But man, not only is the earth thy mother, the Father of spirits is also thy Father. There is another resistless power, a power full of mystery, pervading the kingdom of spirit. It is the