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in reproving affection: affixing, as it were, His feal to our adoption, and giving the strongest proof that He receiveth us and acknowledgeth us as His own. "For what fon is there whom the father chafteneth not?"

In the words I have read to you as our text, Solomon appears to be giving a parental admonition. He is urging the neceffity of following the path of holiness, and of being aware of the falfe lips of the deftroyer. This is the primary acceptation of the verse, and many useful lessons might be gained from it in this fenfe. But this is not my present intention. Like many other paffages of Holy Writ, it is capable of affording us a double portion of instruction. Yea, a greater than Solomon is here fpeaking. Not his wifdom, but the Wisdom of God addreffes us, each one of us, with an individual application, and fays, "My fon, give me thine heart." God fpeaks to

us, my brethren; may He enable us to hear and obey! He tells us His will. He informs us how He would have us love and ferve Him. He gives us every encouragement. He holds out many promises to ftimulate us. He announces threatenings to warn us. He leaves us without excufe. We know of His doctrine; we know what fhould be the refult of this teaching in our lives; and if we know these things, happy, and happy only, are we if we do them.

How does the loving mercy of God shine forth in the opening words of the text! "My Jon." Parents well know what is contained in that expreffion. A loving child, alfo, will enter into its force. What a mutual tie of affection does it contain on the father's fide the yearnings of anxious love-the longfuffering which bears with much folly and ingratitude! "This,

my fon," said the father of the prodigal, "was dead, and is alive again." "I will arife and go," faid the erring child. To whom would he go? To his fo-called friends in the strange land-to those whose selfish, feigned regard, his profligate expenditure had allied to him with a feeling wrongly called friendship?-would he in his forrow go to them? No. There he would have met cold and cutting forgetfulness, and his broken heart would have been more bruised by the flinty hardness of his former companions. "I will go to my father," he faid. He faid it, and did it. We all know how he was received. The fatted calf was killed, the ring of forgiveness, the robe of re-adoption, were put on him, and he was restored to his former fonship. We have all erred and ftrayed from God's ways like loft fheep. We have left His fold, its green paftures, ftill waters, and cool fhade,

to parch and starve in the dreary wilderness of fin. In the blind pride of our deceived hearts we have quitted our Father's roof, and wafted our fubftance in riotous living. Our many fins have most justly deserved God's wrath and indignation. "Lord, to whom shall we go?" Shall we feek the fupply of our need on earth? Shall we flake our spiritual thirst at dry and broken cisterns which can hold no water? Shall we feed our starved fouls on the apples of Sodom and Gomorrah? Shall we folace our aching hearts at barren fources of comfort? Shall we clothe our dismantled fouls in the tattered garments of our own doings, and thus make our needy condition more apparent? Lord, to whom, then, shall we go? We have great and urgent wants to supply; we have cravings to fatisfy; we have immortality in us yearning for a fpiritual fatisfaction. "To whom shall

we go? Thou haft the words of eternal life."

But, my Chriftian brethren, how hard and how long it is before we arrive at this knowledge of our foul's wants, and of the infufficiency of aught elfe but God to fupply! How oft and how feverely do we need the scourge of our God! How often must the Saviour expel the base intruders from the temple of our hearts! How do we, inch by inch only, fubmit ourselves to His difcipline! Oh, how ftubborn and unyielding is our nature! But, even amidst all this, God still addreffes us in the language of forbearing love, and He is ftill graciously open to our appeal, "Our Father, which art in heaven;" and still addreffes us in the language of forbearing love, "My fon."

But how came we, who are born in fin, children of wrath, to be the fons of God? Did we do fomething good in our natural

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