elects those and that which elect him. Again, "He that honoureth me, him will I honour," says God. "He that loveth me," says Christ, "shall be beloved of me and my Father." This is the mystery of election, (N. B.), as it relates to salvation. At divers times, and in sundry manners, God may have, and has had, his chosen vessels for particular offices, messages, and appointments; but as to salvation from our fallen state, every son of Adam is his chosen vessel, and this as certainly, as that every son of Adam has the seed of the woman, the incorruptible seed of the woRD, born along with him; and this is God's unchangeable universal clection, which chooses or wills the salvation of all men. For the ground of all union, communion, or love, between God and the creature, lies wholly in the divine nature. That which is divine in man, tends towards God, elects God; and God only and solely elects his own birth, nature, and likeness in man. But seeing his own birth, a seed of his own divine nature is in every man, to suppose God, by an arbitrary power, willing and decreeing its eternal happiness in some, and willing and decreeing its eternal misery in others, is a blasphemous absurdity, and supposes a greater injustice in God, than the wickedest creatures can possibly commit against one another.

But truth, to the eternal praise and glory of God, will eternally say, that his love is as univer

sal and unchangeable as his being, that his "merey over all his works" can no more cease, than his omnipotence can begin to grow weak. God's mark of an universal salvation set upon all mankind, was first given in these words: "The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent." Therefore, wherever the serpent is, there his head is to be bruised. This was God's infallible assurance, or omnipotent promise, that all that died in Adam should have its first birth of glory again. The eternal Son of God came into the world only for the sake of this new birth, to give God the glory of restoring it to all the dead sons of fallen Adam. All the mysteries of this incarnate, suffering, dying, Son of God, all the price that he paid for our redemption, all the washings that we have from his all-cleansing blood poured out for us, all the life that we receive from eating his flesh and drinking his blood, have their infinite value, their high glory, and amazing greatness in this, because nothing less than these supernatural mysteries of a God-man could raise that new creature out of Adam's death, which could be again a living temple, and deified habitation of the Spirit of God.

That this new birth of the Spirit, or the divine life in man, was the truth, the substance, and sole end of his miraculous mysteries, is plainly told us by Christ himself; who, at the end of all his process on earth, tells his disciples what was to be the

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blessed, and full effect of it, namely, that the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, (being now fully purchased for them), should, after his ascension, come in the stead of a Christ in the flesh. "If I go not away,"

says he," the Comforter will not come; but if I go away, I will send him unto you, and he shall guide you into all truth." Therefore, all that Christ was, did, suffered, dying in the flesh, and ascending into heaven was, for this sole end, to purchase for all his followers a new birth, new life, and new light, in and by the Spirit of God restored to them, and living in them, as their support, comforter, and guide into all truth. And this was his "LO, I AM WITH YOU ALWAY, EVEN UNTO THE END OF THE WORLD."

FINIS..