unto Jesus: " there is no other name given under heaven whereby we can be saved, but the name of Jesus Christ." Observe then the weight of this argument also : it is as though Jesus had said, " To whom will ye go? I, and I alone, have the words of eternal life g : if you follow after righteousness in any other way, you will never attain unto ith: you have but one alternative, to look unto me, or to perish for ever." The Lord grant that, if we be not drawn by love, we may at least be impelled by necessity, to accept his invitation !]
We would yet further address this invitation to,
1. Those who are careless and indifferent about salvation —
[How lamentable is it, that Jesus should thus invite sin- ners, and they be altogether inattentive to his voice ! Ye careless and supine, consider Jesus as addressing you upon his first entrance into the world: ' Look unto me, and see how I have humbled myself for you : though I am God, yet have I taken upon myself your nature, that I might save your souls : I am come from heaven to seek and save you ; O let not such condescension and love be lost upon you.' Think again that ye hear him speaking to you from the garden of Gethsemane : ' Look unto me, and behold how I am overcome with agony, and bathed from head to foot in a bloody sweat : this, sinners, is for you ; it is your guilt that weighs me down, and your curse that I am now enduring : reflect a moment on the evil and danger of your state ; for " if these things be done in the green tree, what shall be done in the dry?" if sin has so over- whelmed your incarnate God, how will ye endure the punish- ment of it to all eternity ?' Suppose him yet again calling to you from the cross ; ' Look unto me, ye perishing world ; see what a multitude of sorrows encompass me ; and how my heart in the midst of me is even like melting wax, so utterly is it consumed by the fire of divine wrath : see, how I am forsaken by my own Father, and am shortly to expire in the midst of all this shame and torment: but it is for you; to save you from everlasting death : and I shall be satisfied with all the travail of my soul, if only you will look to me for salvation : let me but have the joy of saving you, and I am content : but O, let me not pay the price of your souls for nought.' Once more ; view him seated on his throne of glory, and consider him as addressing you from thence ; ' Look unto me ; it is for your sakes that I am exalted to this throne ; it is that I may impart that salvation to you, which once I purchased for you : as once I governed every thing in my divine nature, so now in
e John vi. G8. h Rom. ix. 31, 32.
943.]