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to those on the left. Blessed invitation! Dreadful banishment!—The blessedness of heaven is sometimes summed up in being with Christ—'Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world,' John xvii. 26.
Reader, it you have already tasted that the Lord is gracious, you will learn, from what you have been reading, to look upward with gratitude, for the exercise toward you of sovereign distinguishing grace—to look forward with humble confidence, your hope resting on the finished work of Immanuel—to look around you on your brethren in the Lord with fervent, pure, operative love—and on the world lying in wickedness, with tender, earnest, and active compassion.
1. Gratitude to God for his distinguishing grace, is one of the leading features of the Christian character. Fully persuaded, that salvation 'is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy,' Rom. ix.16. and that but for the free exercise of Divine mercy, he would have remained 'a child of wrath, even as others;' the believer's language is, and it comes from the fulness of his heart—'Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me, but to thy name give glory, for thy mercy and for thy truth's sake.' Psalm. cxv 1. 'I will praise thee, O Lord with all my heart; and I will glorify thy name for evermore: for great is thy mercy toward me; thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell, Psalm lxxxvi. 12, 13.—'Bless the Lord, O my soul.'—It is the delight of his heart to be an eternal debtor to the sovereign freedom of saving
