Let us contemplate them a moment. Reconciliation with God through the blood of the cross, is the first that obtrudes itself upon our notice : and O ! who can tell how refreshing this is to a weary heavy-laden soul ? With this, peace is intro- duced into the conscience, even that " peace of God which passeth all understanding." Friendship being thus cemented between God and man, the person who was till lately an enemy to his God, and an object of his everlasting indignation, is now adopted into his family, and enabled to look up with a spirit of adoption, crying Abba, Father! To the Lord Jesus Christ he now looks as his friend and his beloved ; and to the Father he draws nigh with confidence, saying "O God, thou art my God/" Now he has access to God at all times, with a liberty to pour out his heart before him, and an assurance that " whatever he shall ask shall be done unto him." Now also he enjoys an union with the Lord Jesus Christ, even such an union as a branch has with the vine, or a member with the head : and, by means of that union, he receives constant communications from the fulness that has been treasured up for him in that living Fountain of all good. The Holy Spirit is now poured out upon him as a Comforter, and is imparted in all his sanctifying operations, to mortify all his corruptions, and to transform him into the Divine image. Assured prospects of glory are now opened to him, so that he has both the earnest and foretaste of his heavenly inheritance. But where shall we end, if we attempt to enumerate one hundredth part of the blessings which the Gospel makes over to us, and which are here characterized as " hills flowing with milk, and mountains dropping down new wine?" Suffice it to say, that all the blessings of the ever- lasting covenant, all that Christ has purchased by his blood, and all that are made over to us in the exceeding great and
precious promises, all are ours, if we are Christ's3 But
to declare fully their richness and variety exceeds the powers of any finite intelligence.]
2. Their universality and abundance —
[These blessings will not be so limited as they now are, either in the measure of their communication, or the objects on whom they are bestowed : they will " flow " in all the abundance of the most majestic "rivers," and that even " to the valley of Shittim ; " which being situated on the borders of Moab, and the shores of the Dead Sea, may well be considered as characterizing the most distant and barren places of the earth. There shall not be a human being to whom its
a The blessings here enumerated should not be treated distinctly and separately, but collectively ; and at the close of them, a few obser- vations should be made on their richness and variety.