love, to experience the full and yet growing tide of that which we have experienced in our awakening, our conversion, our progress in sanctification, in being kept from falling, and in communion with God here, will be an eternal weight of glory. Will the love of Christ end with our salvation from hell? "Having loved his own which were in the world, he will love them unto O, what shall we say? There will be no end. "O, give thanks unto the Lord of lords; for his mercy endureth forever;" "who remembered us in our low estate; for his mercy endureth forever." He who began his peculiar manifestations of love by washing his disciples' feet, and finished by dying for us on the cross, will know you personally, speak to you, love you, admit you to greater intimacy with him than you enjoy here, and do things for you which will express a love and kindness equal to that which was expressed in washing the disciples' feet. Well said the beloved John, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." As a man of immense wealth, about to be married, pours upon his bride a profusion of gifts, searches the treasures of France and Italy for something worthy of his love for her, spares no expense in fitting up his mansion and its environs to please her, so the Lamb's wife will receive from her Lord expressions of affection, the sight of which, now, would make us feel like the Queen of Sheba, when, at the overpowering splendor

of Solomon," there was no more spirit in her." You are going to be a king and priest unto God. All that Christ did for you by dying will be exceeded by what he will do for you by his life. Recall that fourfold use of the term, "much more," in the fifth of Romans, where Paul teaches us what the past history of redemption may lead us to expect. The love of Christ did not reach the last climax of its manifestation when he died; there is more to come, of which his death was only the beginning. We are "begotten again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you." These are the words of the man who once said to his Saviour, "Thou shalt never wash my feet."

The word of Christ is true concerning each of us: "If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me." We must have feelings toward Christ responding to his feelings toward us, receive him as a Redeemer, being willing to confess our infinite need of him, and apply to him even for those feelings toward himself which we ought spontaneously to cherish, but which it is our deepest shame and the most affecting proof of our ruin that we do not possess. Pride alone will

keep us from thus applying to him.

But what a con

trast have we here- a proud sinner, and a Saviour willing to wash his feet!

I have before me a message to one of you from a dying friend. It seems to me the most affecting message I ever heard from dying lips. I shall violate no secrecy if I deliver it in public, though I need not mention the name of the friend.

The message is in these words: "Do this in remembrance of me."* Is this all? I hear you say. Yes, it is all which will be of any lasting interest or importance. When you see that dying Friend upon the great white throne, and the earth and the heavens flee away, "Do this in remembrance of me" will involve all that will be of any consequence to you. And can you slight him? Shall he be born, live, die, rise again, for you, and must he plead with you, or need to ask you more than once, "Remember me"? You will hereafter and forever remember him. In heaven he will be to you "the light thereof;" in hell your sorest pain will be that you remember him. Consider what you have heard; accept him as he stoops to love and save you. Soon he will stoop thus no longer, but must lay aside those signs of condescension wherewith he has girded himself, and put on robes of judgment. Remember his word" If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with me."

* Communion Sabbath, November 6, 1853.

SERMON XII.

PAUL.

GALATIANS II. 20.

WHO LOVED ME, AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME.

THE friendship of Christ would seem to have reached the highest possible summit in this world in the case of the Apostle Paul. This, however, was not owing to any difference in the natural endowments of the Apostle from those of other men. When natural gifts are joined with great moral qualities, and both are under the influence of religion, it is true there is, in one sense, more to love than in one of inferior capacity and acquirements. But sincere piety, in connection with humble talents and attainments, secures for its possessor the love of Christ in a proportion beyond the mere ratio of comparative greatness, as men would reckon it; for He who, looking at the heart, regards the intention, the motive, the desire, loves a humble woman casting all her living, in the form of a farthing, into his treasury, with an affection as strong of its kind as that excited by the love and service of the

angel. If any are disposed to question this, we may ask if they have ever loved a little child; and if they have, whether that love was at all in proportion to intellect or attainments. It is an interesting and encouraging feature in the grace of God, that the degree of love which we excite in him is not dependent upon natural gifts, nor upon attainments differing with circumstances over which we have no control. So far as natural gifts and acquirements enable a man to love and serve God, so far, and no farther, do they make a difference in his love to us. Nothing is meritorious unless it be voluntary. The natural gifts which God bestows, and every thing which is merely the result of accidental advantages, confer no merit; but the voluntary choice, the heartfelt consecration, the all-absorbing love excite a corresponding regard and love in him, to whom the difference in understanding or learning among men is of small importance, but who looks at the heart. It was because the Apostle had a heart which swayed his mighty intellect, and brought his great soul into full subjection to his God and Saviour, that he was a peculiar object of love with Christ. As a Friend, Christ appears in his preeminent excellence in connection with him whom we join with Peter and claim as "our beloved brother Paul;" for if we but love and serve his Redeemer, there is no one of us whom this great servant of Christ would not be happy to own as a brother and friend, and without condescension; for