will keep my commandments: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and will make our a.bode with him." 'fo the ea.me effect we read, "that Chriot may dwell in your hearts." Love bas e. thousand devices for expressing itself. IV. MARK THE ADORATION WHICH BEl'ITS THE Krno. "Go forth, ye daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon." In some respects David was the type of Christ. "He was despised and rejected of men," e.nd yet a mighty king. But, in respect to the magnificence of bis kingdom and the peacefulness of his reign, Solomon better prefigures Jesus. 1. To appreciate Jesus as King we must know him. "Go forth, then, e.nd behold him." Look into his excellences. Examine his claims to Kingship. Note carefully the unstained purity of his character. Behold his hands, bearin"'0 the marks of the nails-marks of love I Behold his feet, firm "as fine br0.11s; as if they glowed in a furnace," e.nd set upon the serpent's head. Behold his heart, still pulsating with everlasting love for the fallen sons of men. Learn well all his kingly qualities; for no true loyalty, no complete consecration, can spring up in us until we know him. 2. Note especially that he is crowned. He is appointed to this supreme throne as the world's King by the Eternal Father. "By the right hand of God he is exalted." Yet the symbols of his reign we place upon his head. On his head are already "many crowns." Every ransomed sinner is another ornament in the diadem of our:King. Never did king wear such a crown as this. He is crowned already with world-wide renown. Every thorn in that crown, which impious mockers thrust upon his brow, is now transmuted into a ray of peerless glory. To-day kings and princes bow before him, and already his "enemies lick the dust." From a. hundred empires the shout ascends, "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord I" We do not hail and welcome him simply as the Victim of the cross; we bow to him as our soul's true King. 3. This coronation of Jesus is attended with gladness of heart. It is not always so. Sometimes the heir to a nation's crown is very unfitted to wear it. He is too young to sustain its cares. He would prefer a. life of pleasurable ease. Or the crown itself may be disgraced. The throne is planted with sharpest thorns. The empire is reeking with discontent. That coronation may be no better than a crucifixion. Not so with King Jesus. To be crowned means success for his great redemptive mission. "For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross." As his grief v-as unexampled, so shall be his joy. The globe shall be his empire. BecaUEe his ea.pa.city for joy is infinite, his joy shall rise until the capacious heart is full. The joy will be eternal, because the triumph can never be reversed.-D. Ver. 1.-The soul's love. Thie whole book is a glorification of love; it teaches that human love, if true, is sacred, ennobling, and inspiring; it shows the excellence of human love, that it is worthy of being the emblem of that love which is spiritnal an<l Divine. As St. John has taught us, "He that loveth not knoweth not God: for God is love." The Object of the Christian's love is Christ, in whom the love of God has been revealed and communicated to us. I. THE GROUNDS OF THE souL's LOVE TO CHRIST. The soul that loves the Redeemer is not prompted by blind, unreasonable impulse; such love as that expressed in the language of the text is rational and justifiable. 1. The soul loves Christ for his own Divine, unapproachable excellence, for what he is in himself. He is worthy above all to be thus loved. With an "intellectual love," as the English Platonist phrased it, does the illumined and living soul love him who is the Effulgence of the Father's glory and the Revelation of the Father's heart. 2. The soul loves Christ in gratitude for Divine compassion, ministry, and sacrifice. The cycle of Christian doctrine concerning the Person and mediation of the Redeemer is an exhibition as much of God's love as of his holiness and his wisdom. What our Saviour has done for us is an appeal to the soul which awakens the response of grateful affection. 3. The soul, loves Christ because of the revelations of Divine friendship made to the individual nature. The language of the Canticles is rich in portraying the personal element in the relation between the Lord and humanity as redeemed by him. And every Christian is prompted to affection by those intimate displays of Divine affection which experience records in the recesses of the spiritual nature. II. THE PROOFt'I OF THE souL's LOVE TO CHRIST. An emotion such as this cannot take possession of the mind, and dwell in the mind, without becoming a principle. PO THE SONG OF SOLOMON. [err. III. 1-11.
controlling And inspiring the nature, end })rompting to m11.nifestations of marked, decisive import. 1. The soul keeps him whom it loveth in perpetual memory. 2. The soul t:lkes an en,r-growing delight in his society; places .the highest happiness in spiritual fellowship with Christ 3. The soul proves the sincerity of its love to Christ by treasuring up his precepts, b_v seeking to live under the inspiring influence of his presence and character, by yielding to him a cheerflll, constant, and unquestioning obedience. Whom the soul lovcth the hand serveth, the tongue witneseeth,unto, the whole life honoureth by obeying and glorifying......T. •