you must perish for ever by the sword of his justice, without a possibility of escaping. You cannot rebel against the crucified Jesus with impunity, for he is not now dying on the cross, or lying senseless in the grave. He lives! he lives to avenge the affront. He lives for ever, to punish you for ever. He shall prolong his days to prolong your torment. Therefore, you have no alternative, but to submit to him or perish.

I may also propose the immortality and exaltation of Christ to you, as an encouragement to desponding souls. So the apostle uses it, "He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth." Heb. vii. 25. In trusting your souls to him, you do not commit them to a dead Saviour. It is true, he was once dead, above 1700 years ago; but now he is alive; and behold he liveth for evermore. He lives to communicate his Spirit for your sanctification; he lives to look after you in your pilgrimage through this wilderness; he lives to send down supplies to you according to your exigencies; he lives to make perpetual intercession for you (which is the thing the apostle had in view), to plead your cause, to urge your claims founded on his blood, and to solicit blessings for you. He lives for ever to make you happy for ever. And will you not venture to trust your souls in his hand? you may safely do it without fear. He has power and authority to protect you, being the Supreme Being, Lord of all, and having all things subjected to him; and consequently, nothing can hurt you if he undertakes to be your guard. Ye trembling weaklings, would it not be better for you to fly to him for refuge than to stand on your own footing, afraid of falling every hour? He can, he will support you, if you lean upon him.

And does not he appear to you as an object of love in

VOL. II.-3

his exalted state? He is all-glorious, and deserves your love; and he is all benevolence and mercy, and therefore self-interest, one would think, would induce you to love him; for to what end is he exalted? Isaiah will tell you, "He is exalted, that he may have mercy upon you." Isa. xxx. 18. He has placed himself upon his throne, as upon an eminence, may I so speak, that he may more advantageously scatter blessings among the needy crowd beneath him, that look up to him with eager wishful eyes, like the lame beggar on Peter and John, expecting to receive something from them. And shall not such grace and bounty, in one so highly advanced above you, excite your love? Certainly it must, unless that the principle of gratitude be lost in your breasts.

Finally, May I not propose the exaltation and immortality of the Lord Jesus, as an object of congratulation to you that are his friends? Friends naturally rejoice in the honours conferred upon one another, and mutually congratulate each other's success. And will not you that love Jesus rejoice with him, that he is not now where he once was; not hanging on a painful and ignominious cross, but seated on a glorious throne; not insulted by the rabble, but adored by all the heavenly armies; not pierced with a crown of thorns, but adorned with a crown of unfading glory; not oppressed under loads of sufferings, but exulting in the fulness of everlasting joys? Must you not rejoice that his sufferings for you had so happy an issue with regard to himself? Oh! can you be sunk in sorrow while your Head is exalted to so much glory and happiness, and that as a reward for the shame and pain he endured for you? Methinks a generous sympathy should affect all his members; and if you have no reason to rejoice on your own account, yet rejoice for your Head; share in the joys of your Lord.

Thus you see Jesus Christ has obtained the richest reward in his own person. But is this all? Shall his sufferings have no happy consequences with regard to others; in which he may rejoice as well as for himself? Yes, for,

3. My text tells you, that he shall see his seed. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied; and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand. What an emphatical variety of expressions are here to signify the pleasure which Christ takes in observing the happy fruits of his death, in the salvation of many of the ruined sons of men!

He shall see his seed. By his seed are meant the children of his grace, his followers, the sincere professors of his religion. The disciples or followers of a noted person, for example, a prophet or philosopher, are seldom denominated his seed or children. These words are parallel to those spoken by himself, in the near prospect of his sufferings; "Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." John xii. 24. So unless Jesus had fallen to the ground and died, he would have abode alone; he would have possessed his native heaven in solitude, as to any of the sons of Adam; but now by his dying, and lying entombed in the ground, he has produced a large increase. One dying Christ has produced thousands, millions of Christians. His blood was prolific; it was indeed "the seed of the church." And, blessed be God, its prolific virtue is not yet failed. His spiritual seed have been growing up from age to age, and oh the delightful thought! they have sprung up in this barren soil, though, alas! they too often appear thin

* It was a proverb in the primitive times, that "the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church;" but never could it be applied with so much propriety as to the blood of Christ.

and withering. These tender plants of righteousness have sprung up in some of your families; and I trust, a goodly number of them are here in the courts of the Lord to-day. If you search after the root, you will find it rises from the blood of Jesus; and it is his blood that gives it nourishment. Jesus came into our world, and shed the blood of his heart on the ground, that it might produce a crop of souls for the harvest of eternal glory; and without this, we could no more expect it than wheat without seed or moisture. A part of this seed is now ripened and gathered into the granary of heaven, like a shock of corn come in his season. Another part is still in this unfriendly climate suffering the extremities of winter, covered with snow, nipt with frost, languishing in drought, and trodden under foot. Such are you, the plants of righteousness, that now hear me. But you are ripening apace, and your harvest is just at hand. Therefore, bear up under the severities of winter; for that coldness of heart, that drought for want of divine influences, those storms of temptations, and those oppressions that now tread you down, will ere long be over. Oh! when shall we see this heavenly seed spring up in this place, in a more extensive and promising degree? When you travel through the country, in this temperate season, with which God has blessed our country that was parched and languishing last year, how agreeable is the survey of wide, extensive fields, promising plenteous crops of various kinds! And oh! shall we not have a fruitful season of spiritual seed among us! May I accommodate the words of Jesus to this assembly, "Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest?" John iv. 35. Oh! is the happy season come, when we shall see a large crop of converts in this place? Then welcome, thou long-expected season! But alas! is not this a flattering hope? Is it not, on the other hand, a

barren season with us? Is not the harvest past and the summer over, while so many are not saved? Oh! the melancholy thought! If it has been so with us for some time, oh let us endeavour to make this a fruitful day!

We may perhaps more naturally understand this metaphor as taken, not from the seed of vegetables, but that of man; and so it signifies a posterity, which is often called seed. This only gives us another view of the same case. Spiritual children are rising up to Christ from age to age, from country to country; and blessed be his name, the succession is not yet at an end, but will run on as long as the sun endureth. Spiritual children are daily begotten by his word in one part of the world or other; and even of this place it may be said, "that this and that man was born here." And are there none among you now that feel the pangs of the new birth, and are about to be added to the number of his children? Oh that many may be born to him this day! Oh that this day we may feel the prolific virtue of that blood which was shed above 1700 years ago!

He shall see his seed. It is a comfort to a dying man to see a numerous offspring to keep up his name, and inherit his estate. This comfort Jesus had in all the calamities of his life, and in all the agonies of death; and this animated him to endure all with patience. He saw some of his spiritual children weeping around him while hanging on the cross. He looked forward to the end of time, and saw a numerous offspring rising up from age to age to call him blessed, to bear up his name in the world, and to share in his heavenly inheritance. And oh! may we not indulge the pleasing hope, that from his cross he cast a look towards Hanover in the ends of the earth: and that in his last agonies he was revived with this reflection; “I see I shall not die in vain: I see my seed dispersed over