and he acts in this character, and maintains friendship, by exercising love, and giving proper tokens and manifestations of it, on all occasions. Solomon observes, that "a friend loveth at all times." And he is the greatest friend whose love is the strongest, and is exercised and manifested in the most difficult and trying circumstances.

Now, Christ has distinguished himself from all others in this respect, and has discovered himself to be infinitely the greatest and best friend. This appears from what was said under the last particular of what Christ has done and suffered for his spouse; for in all this he exercised and expressed his love, and that in the most trying circumstances, and to the highest possible degree. One thing that recommends a friend, and adds to his worth and excellence, and makes him dear to his beloved, is, that he is a tried friend; he has persevered in his friendship, and exercised and expressed his love, in the most difficult case imaginable; in doing which he has been at the greatest pains and cost, while he had the greatest temptations to give up his beloved. Jesus Christ is such a tried friend, and that to the greatest possible degree.

"Greater love hath no man," says this greatest and chief of all friends, "than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." But Christ's love and friendship has infinitely exceeded this. He has done and suffered more for his people than merely dying for them, a thousand times over. He drank the bitter cup for them, which was infinitely more than merely dying a violent death. He was made a curse for them, and suffered a sense of the wrath of God. This drank up his spirits; the foretaste of it threw him into the most amazing agony; and this made him cry out, in inexpressible and most astonishing anguish, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" What is the most cruel death that ever martyr suffered to this? The martyrs have been able to rejoice in the midst of all the keenest tortures enemies could inflict. They have sung in the flames, and found it the most happy, joyful hour they ever saw; and so might Christ have done on the cross, had he but their supports, and no more to suffer than they. But what he suffered in his death was something infinitely greater and more terrible. Under this infinite weight he hung on the cross, and at last bowed his head and gave up the ghost. This was dying in a sense and degree in which no other person ever did. To die thus was infinitely more, and greater, and more dreadful than the death of all the ten thou sand martyrs who have fallen a sacrifice to the cruelty of their bloody persecutors. Yea, it was as great a thing and equivalent to the eternal death and destruction which the redeemed

deserve and were exposed to, for he died in their stead; he took their death and eternal destruction on himself. On him it fell in its full weight, and he bore and went through it all. He knew what it would cost him to espouse the cause of sinners; yet he voluntarily undertook, put himself in their circumstances, (sin only excepted,) and went through with it without flinching in the least degree. Here is an instance of love and friendship, to which there neither is, nor can be, any parallel in the universe. This is the evidence and token of love which Christ has given to his people, which is infinitely the greatest that ever was, or can be.

Besides, the love of Christ to his people will appear yet greater, if we consider their native character and disposition towards him. He loved them, and died for them, when they were not only mean, worthless, unworthy, and infinitely guilty, but his enemies, disposed to hate, despise, and oppose him, in his whole character and in all his ways, and even in his most astonishing works of love and kindness to them. Herein he has commended his love to us, in that, when we were his great and inexcusable enemies, he died for us. It is a much higher exercise of love, and a greater testimony of it, to love and die for an enemy, a base, odious, injurious creature, than it would be to do this for an excellent, benevolent, and much-esteemed friend.

What higher evidence and testimony could Christ give of his love of benevolence to those whom he redeems than this? and what higher act of love and friendship can there be? Surely his love to his people cannot be doubted of. And if he thus loved them when they were his vile enemies, he will continue to love them now they are reconciled, and have chosen him for their best friend and patron; and this is an exercise and evidence of a strong and wonderful love, that will unspeakably endear him to them, and add an inexpressible sweetness to this friendship forever.

And, as the effect and further evidence of this love, he gives them his Holy Spirit to change their hearts, deliver them from the dominion of sin and the slavery to Satan, in which they naturally are, and implant lasting' principles of holiness and love to him, by which their hearts are purified, and unite themselves to him with the most perfect bond and union of love and friendship. This is another pledge of his great, everlasting, and unchangeable love to them; and the saints in this world, so far as they have the evidence that they are the subjects of such a work of grace, may well rejoice, and with unspeakably sweet delight give praise "unto Him that has loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood." What 54

VOL. II.

wonderful, sovereign love and grace is this, which overtakes and falls upon the guilty, sinful wretch, while in his full career to hell, running on in the most daring, mad opposition to Christ, and contempt of him, without the least disposition to hearken to the voice of wisdom, and turn at his reproof! Every true Christian ascribes all this to Christ, and is so affected with his preventing, sovereign love and grace, herein exercised and manifested, as to taste an unspeakable sweetness in it. With what sweet delight does he often say, "If I have the least degree of love to Christ, and a heart to know, submit to, and trust in him, this is the effect of his eternal preventing, sovereign love and grace, which alone has made the difference between me and those who run on in their mad course to hell! Not unto me, not unto me, but to thy wonderful, distinguishing love and grace, be all the glory!"

It may be also observed here, that Christ has given them his Spirit, by which they are sealed to the day of redemption, and as the pledge and earnest of their eternal inheritance, so a pledge and token of his unchangeable, everlasting love to them. He has, indeed, given himself and all things to them; he has made them heirs of the whole universe. He has made, and is doing, all things for their sakes. He says to his church of redeemed ones, "I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Savior; I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in my sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee; therefore will I give men for thee, and people for thy life." (Isa. xliii. 3, 4.) Surely Christ shows the greatest love imaginable to his people, since he gives them all he has to give, and withholds no one good thing from them. Now, the more love he has to his people, and the higher and more clear evidence he gives of it, so much the more excellent and valuable friend he is to them; and their happiness in him as a friend will be in proportion to this. How infinitely distinguished, in this respect, is Christ from all other friends! Well may the Christian say, "This is my beloved, and this is my friend."

5. Jesus Christ, the Christian's friend, is a person of infinite dignity, worth, and excellence. He has all this to the highest possible perfection and extent, so that no imagination can possibly exceed it. This, his true dignity, worth, and excellence, in himself considered, infinitely heightens his character and worth as a friend, and lays a foundation for the most sweet, exalted, and growing happiness in his love and friendship to all eternity. He who has no true worth and excellence cannot be justly valued and delighted in at all as a friend, and there is no foundation for a happy friendship with

such a one. Worth and excellence, therefore, come into the essence of the character of a friend; and the more any one has of this, the more is he to be prized as a friend, and the greater happiness is to be enjoyed in his love and friendship. A friend gives himself to his beloved; so that the more dignity, worth, and excellence he has, the more he gives to the person he admits into union and friendship with him. Therefore, the more worth and excellence any person has, the more we naturally and justly prize his love and friendship, and the more sweetness and pleasure we have in it. We prize and delight in the love of another in proportion to our esteem of him, and the sense we have of his true excellence, dignity, and worthiness. How much better is it to us to be the objects of the love of some dignified personage, who appears to us to have all the excellence and attracting charms of human nature, and to have him our friend, than to have the love and friendship of one who is in our eyes absolutely worthless and contemptible! I need not, therefore, yea, I cannot, say of how much advantage the dignity and excellence of Christ is in this friendship, in this view. The higher the Christian rises in his esteem of Christ, the more he sees of his dignity and excellence, the more pleased and delighted he will necessarily be in being the object of his embraces and love. Surely, then, he had rather, in this view, be beloved by Christ than by all the world besides; and nothing can fill his breast with such overflowing delight as to be able to say, "This is my beloved, and this is my friend." And this lays a foundation for esteem and complacency, without which there can be no happy friendship; and the higher this rises, the more happiness and enjoyment there is in a friend. Christ, in this respect, is distinguished from all other persons in the universe as the best friend, in union and love to whom there may be the highest happiness. We are in ourselves so mean and low, and of such little worth, that we cannot enjoy friendship to the best advantage with those who are our equals. The more dignified and excellent our friend is, and the more distinguished he is from us, and the more above us in this respect, the more happy shall we necessarily be in his love and friendship. In Christ, therefore, believers have all that can be desired in a friend in this respect. In him they have an inexhaustible fund for high and growing enjoyment, and, in a sense of his dignity and excellence, their ravished hearts will swell with ecstatic delight, while they feel and say, "This is my beloved, and this is my friend."

6. Jesus Christ is the most condescending, familiar friend. Where there is a great imparity in two friends, the one very

high, honorable, and worthy, and the other mean and low, it is inconsistent with the most sweet and happy friendship, unless he who is dignified and exalted, and is every way so much superior to the other, knows how, and is disposed, to exercise condescension equal to his true dignity and worth, so as to practise as great familiarity and intimacy with his friend who is so much beneath him as if he were his equal. But where this is the case, the great superiority of one to the other gives a great advantage to the friendship, and renders it more sweet and happy to the inferior, so that the more worthy and exalted his friend is, the higher enjoyment he has in the friendship. This imparity in station and dignity is commonly in the way of the enjoyment of true friendship among men in this world, because the great and exalted know not how to condescend and stoop to the mean and low in a manner and degree that is in such a case necessary, but are disposed to keep themselves at a distance.

But Christ is, in this respect, the most excellent friend; for his condescension and humility are equal to his high exaltation and dignity, and he admits his friends, however mean, unworthy, and despicable they are in themselves, to as great familiarity and intimacy as if he were but their equal; so that his superiority and dignity give great advantage to the friendship in this respect.

And here it is of importance to observe, that his incarnation, or union to the human nature, by which he is a real man, even Immanuel, God with us, is of infinite advantage with respect to this. God is infinitely the best friend; but it is impossible. he should communicate himself to creatures, and become their condescending, familiar friend in any other way so well, and to so great advantage, as by uniting himself to their nature so as to become one of them. In this view, as well as on many other accounts, the incarnation of the Son of God is a most wise and gracious contrivance, as it is adapted, in the highest possible degree, to promote the happiness of creatures, especially of the redeemed, in the love and enjoyment of God. God hereby comes down to creatures in a way and manner suited to their nature and capacity, and discovers and communicates himself to them to the greatest possible advantage; ⚫ and there is a foundation laid for that condescension to men, and intimate love and friendly familiarity between Christ and his people, which could not have been in any other way. The most high God is become a man, a most meek, humble, condescending man, able and disposed to take his people into the most intimate union and familiarity, while this man has all the dignity and honor of divinity. Thus the man Christ