[Not only will love be exercised by a husband in a way of fond endearment, but it will shew itself in all its diversified operations, according as circumstances shall arise to call it forth. Thus will the Lord Jesus Christ evince his love to us in every possible way. Not only will he " delight in us," and " rejoice over us to do us goodg;" but he will sympathize with us in all our troubles'1, being himself afflicted in all our afflictions','' no less than participating in all our joysk. Cer- tainly I feel, that, in speaking these things, there may appear to be a danger of exceeding the bounds of sobriety and truth: but God himself has taken the very image, and drawn the very parallel; and that so strongly, that we are in danger rather of falling short by reason of our ignorance and unbelief, than of exceeding through an over-heated imagination. " Thou shalt no more be termed, Forsaken ; neither shall thy land be any more termed, Desolate: but thou shalt be called, Hephzi-bah; and thy land, Beulah : for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married. For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee : and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee1."]
Address —
1. Those who, through grace, have been brought
into this relation to the Deity —
[What terms can ever express the congratulations that are due to you? Would it be deemed a just ground of con- gratulation, if you were united in the nuptial bond to an earthly monarch ? How then must I felicitate you on having for " your Husband, your Maker," " the Lord of hosts," " the God of the whole earth"1?" O ! what honour has been conferred on you! and what blessings await you, both in time and in eternity! Remember what ye were when first he chose you : " Verily, your father was an Amorite, and your mother an Hittite : and in the day of your nativity you were cast out in the open field to the lothing of your person, in the day that you were born. And when he passed by you, and saw you polluted in your own blood, he said to you, Live : and then he entered into covenant with you, and made you his11." Think, too, how often you have given him occasion to put you away for your unfaithfulness towards him, and by a bill of divorce to dismiss you for ever from his presence. But he is "a God of all grace," and, for his own great name's sake, has borne with you even to the present hour0. Now, therefore, prepare
s Jer. xxxii. 41. h Heb. iv. 15. ' Isai. lxiii. 9.
k Zeph. iii. 17. ' Isai. lxii. 4, 5. '" vei. ">.
" Ezek. xvi. 3—8. » Ezek. xx. 9, 14, 22.