loving one person more than another. Yet tlie world's objections to the doctrine are, as usual, weak and un- reasonable. Surely a little reflection might show us that a God who regarded good and bad, holy and unholy, righteous and unrighteous, with equal complacency and favor, would be a very strange kind of God ! The special intercession of Christ for His saints is agreeable to reason and to common sense.
Of course, like every other Gospel truth, the doc- trine before us needs careful statement and Scriptural guarding. On the one hand, we must not narrow the love of Christ to sinners, and on the other we must not make it too broad. It is true that Christ loves all sin- ners, and invites all to be saved ; but it is also true that He specially loves the " blessed company of all faithful people," whom He sanctifies and glorifies. It is true that He has wrought out a redemption sufficient for all mankind, and offers it freely to all ; but it is also true that His redemption is effectual only to them that be- lieve. Just so it is true that He is the Mediator between God and man ; but it is also true that He intercedes actively for none but those that come unto God by Him. Hence it is written, " I pray for them: I pray not for the world."
This special intercession of the Lord Jesus is one grand secret of the believer's safety. He is daily watched, and thought for, and provided for with un- failing care, by One whose eye never slumbers and never sleeps. Jesus is " able to save them to the utter- most who come unto God by Him, because He ever liveth to make intercession for them." (Heb. vii. 25.) They never perish, becauss He never ceases to pray for them, and His prayer must prevail. They stand and per- severe to the end, not because of their own strength and goodness, but because Jesus intercedes for them. When