marriage the relation is between the person of the man and woman; so, in the spiritual marriage, it is the person of Christ and the person of the believer that are married. And what thinkest thou, believer, of being married to the second Person of the glorious Trinity? To which of the angels did he ever say, Thou art "the bride, the Lamb's wife?"

2dly, Being married to the Son of God, thou art a partaker of the divine nature, as he is a partaker of the human, 2 Pet. i. 4: "The beauty of the Lord thy God is upon thee." The Bridegroom imparts and communicates his beauty to the bride; and then she looks "forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun;" and he says, "Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee."

3dly, The Bridegroom's Father is thy Father; John xx. 17: "I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God." Christ, as the second Adam and new covenant Head, says for himself, and all believers who are his bride, Psal. lxxxix.: "Thou art my Father, my God, and the Rock of my salvation." And the Father of Christ allows and requires his Son's bride to come to him with holy and humble confidence, and cry, Abba, Father, unto him: "Doubtless thou art my Father." "Wilt thou not from this time cry unto me, my Father? thou art the guide of my youth."

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4thly, The Holy Ghost is thy Comforter, to encourage and comfort the bride in the absence of the Bridegroom; John xvi. 6: It is expedient," says Christ, "for you, that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come; but if I go away, I will send him unto you," and he shall dwell in you, and abide with you for ever. The Spirit of the Bridegroom abiding with the bride is far better than if she enjoyed his bodily presence.

5thly, The very life of the bride is hid in the Bridegroom, Col. iii. 3: Your life is hid with Christ in God. Because I live, ye shall live also." Perhaps, poor believer, to thy own sense and feeling, thou mayest be brought to that pass, as to say, "My life draweth nigh unto the grave, I am free among the dead:" I am a dry tree, and like Ezekiel's dry bones: but remember, that the fountain of life is with thy Head, Husband, and Bridegroom; "because I live, ye shall live also."

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7thly, Having the Son, thou hast all the promises of the new covenant, as so many wells of salvation, out of which thou mayest draw waters with joy; for all the promises of God are in him, and in him they are to the bride of Christ yea and amen. Oh! how great and precious are these promises !

8thly, Having the Son for thy Bridegroom, the law, nor justice, nor the world, nor life, nor death, have any action or process against thee. You know, in law, the wife cannot be pursued for debt: the husband is liable for her debt; and if the husband pay the debt, the creditors have nothing to say against the wife. Well, this is the case with thee, O believer, who hast the Son for thy Husband: he has cleared scores with law and justice, and was discharged of it in his resurrection, wherefore "he was taken from prison and from judgment;" and therefore the soul married and betrothed to him, being under his cover, may lift up the head and cry, Rom. viii. 33, 34, “ Who can lay any thing to my charge? It is God that justitieth, who is he that condemneth ?"

9thly, Whatever deep seas or Jordans of trouble thou mayest have before thee, the Bridegroom has passed his word for it, that he will be present with thee in them, Is. xli. 10; Is. xliii. 2: “When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee," &c. When thou art laid upon a sickbed, or a death-bed, the Bridegroom will attend thee; for he has said, “ I will never leave thee nor forsake ,thee: yea, when thou liest down in the grave, thou shalt sleep in his bed and bosom; “ Them that sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him.”

10thly, Thy Bridegroom, believer, when thou art giving up the ghost, and thy soul departing from thy body; he, with a guard of angels, will be ready to receive thy spirit, John xiv. 3: “I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also.” O what comfort is it to a dying saint or believer, that no sooner he is absent from the body, but he is present with the Lord; and may welcome the wagon of death, that is come to fetch the bride home to the house of the Bridegroom, saying, with dying Stephen, “ Lord Jesus, receive my spirit !”

11thly. Though thou drop the carcass of the body into the grave, where it sleeps quietly until the morning of the resurrection, yet the Bridegroom says, I will raise them up at the last day. This promise he frequently repeats, particularly John vi., “I will raise him up at the last day.”. O lift up thy head, believer; for the day of thy complete redemption, even the redemption of thy body from the power of the grave, *draweth nigh. Thy beloved Bridegroom will, as it were,

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come to the bed-side of the

grave,

and
cry,

66 Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust:" and then the dew of the Holy Ghost, that quickened thy soul when dead in trespasses and sins, shall also quicken thy dead body, and thereupon the earth shall cast out the dead, Is. xxvi. 19, compared with Rom. viii. 11. Then, O then, believer, thou shalt "shine forth like the sun in the kingdom of thy Father;" thy vile body shall be made like unto the glorious body of the Bridegroom; upon which the nuptial solemnity will begin, which shall never have an end, each one crying to another, as Rev. xix. 7: “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready."

Thus you see what unspeakable ground of consolation and eternal triumph there is for the soul that is espoused to Christ : but the ten thousandth thousandth part of it cannot be told; for

eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath the heart of man conceived, what is laid up for her in Christ.

Object. 1. Oh! may some poor soul say, these are great things indeed; but I am afraid they do not belong to me; 1 am afraid I am not the bride; he is such a great and glorious person, and I am such a poor despicable worm, só guilty, so filthy, that I am afraid the match was never made between him and me; and therefore I am afraid to apply all that comfort that belongs to the bride of Christ.

Answ.. It is one of the properties of the bride of Christ to be humble, and lowly, and self-denied, and to be admiring the infinite distance between the Bridegroom and her. She is never taken up with admiring her own gifts and graces, her

, own beauty and excellence, but the beauty, glory, and excellency of the Bridegroom. She does not boast of what she has received, but all her boasting and glorying is in the Lord: And the more humble and denied the bride of Christ is, the more amiable and desirable she is in the eyes of the Bridegroom, Is. Ivii. 15, and lxii. 2.

Ohject. 2. I am so pestered with a body of sin and death, carnality, unbelief, and pride, and other heart plagues, that I doubt if my spot be the spot of Christ's bride.

Answ. You see how much the great apostle Paul was distressed with the law of sin which was in his members, Rom. vii.: “ Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death." Christ says of his bride, Cant. vi., “What will you see in the Shulamite? as it were the company of two armies;" grace and corruption continually struggling together; the flesh lusting against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and therefore do not draw rash conclusions

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Object. 3. I once thought my heart could rejoice in him as my beloved ; and I thought his left hand was under my head, and his right hand embraced me, and I could say, " My beloved is mine, and I am his." But, alas! he is gone; "The Lord hath forsaken me, my Lord hath forgotten me.”

Answ. " Why sayest thou, O Jacob, my way is hid from the Lord? Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the fruit of her womb ? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.” And therefore wait upon the return of thy Bridegroom,“ as they that watch for the morning, yea, more than they that watch for the morning :" for as sure as the morning light will arise, after a dark night, as sure will he return to thy soul in a way of grace. And therefore live by faith ; and let Israel, the true bride of Christ, hope in the Lord. And I give you his word as the ground of your sure hope, Is. liv. 7, 8: "For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee, for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer.”

Use fourth of this doctrine shall be by way of reproof and terror to all those, who, instead of closing the bargain, and going forth to meet the Bridegroom Christ Jesus, continue married to other husbands. But more particularly,

First, Some, yea multitudes of gospel-hearers, are married to the law as a busband; and this is the case with all lega. lists, and self-righteous persons, that are seeking lise, righteousness, and acceptance with God, by their own personal obedience, their prayers, and repentance, mortification, and this and that good thing that they have done, or some good qualification that they find in themselves. If this be the case with you, you never yet went out to meet the Bridegroom, you were never married to the better Husband, but continue married to the law.

Here I would do two things, first, Show who they are that are yet married to the law; secondly, Discover to you your miserable condition while it is so. 1. I say, I would show who they are that are married to

I the law; for all mankind are married to in Adam, and all mankind continue under Adam's covenant, until the power of grace make a divorce.

1st, If the law never slew you, you are yet married to it as a husband, Gal. ii. 19: “I through the law am dead to the law.;" Rom. vii. 9 : “I was alive without the law once, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.”' Every man by nature sits mounted upon the throne of an imaginary righteousness, he thinks himself a living man, and

that he can do well enough by his own endeavours for life; like the Jews spoken of, Rom. x. 3, who were ignorant of the righteousness of God, and went about to establish their own righteousness.

2dly, You that never knew what it was to mourn over, and wrestle against the legal set and bias of your hearts towards the law as a covenant, you remain yet married to it as a husband. A believer that is married to Christ, through the remaining legality of his heart, is many times looking back to his old husband, and ready to rest upon duties done by him, and his own frames and enlargements, as the ground of his acceptance with God, which is a putting these things in the room of Christ; and this is sad matter of mourning and bumiliation to him: and if you know nothing of this exercise, it is a shrewd evidence that you are not married to Christ, but under the law as a covenant.

3dly, When you are in any distress or perplexity of mind, where is it that you find rest, ease, and quiet ?' For you know

, it is but natural for a poor woman in her distress to run to her husband for relief. Just so is it with the believer that is married to Christ; when he is weary and heavy laden, he can never rest till he come to Christ, and then he “ sits down under his shadow with great delight.” But if you find rest in your own works, duties, qualifications, your personal covenants, your vows, repentance and reformations, it is a sign you are yet married to the law.

4thly, You that can be grieved for your gross sins and outbreakings, that perhaps wound your reputation before the world, but never yet had a sore heart for the corruptions of your nature, and ihe internal plagues of your heart, such as unbelief, enmity, pride, ignorance, and carnality; it is a sign that you are yet married to the law as a husband : and the reason is; because, if ever the law had come home in its extent and spirituality, it would have been "quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit

, and discovering the secret thoughts and intents of your hearts, which are only and continually evil.

2. I come to tell you of your misery while married to the law, and not to Christ.

1st, You are married to a very rigorous husband, who demands nothing less than a perfect and every way complete obedience, and that under the pain of death; like the Egyptian task-masters, the law, to which you are married, requires brick, but neither can nor will afford any straw. My meaning is, that it requires perfect working, but gives no grace, no strength, by which to obey. Yea,

:

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