“ Behold my Saviour! mine ELECT, in whom my soul delighteth.” Let me be watchful and careful to keep up in my soul a sense of his supreme value, that so my delight in him may not be as the rapture of passion, or the glow of imagination, but the settled habit of my soul. Nor let me be less anxious about the character of other objects on which I

may

fix
my

choice. These must be chosen and delighted in subordinately to

my Saviour.

you?”

And is not the fact of Christ being the Elect and delight of my renewed heart, an evidence that I am elect of God in him? Has he not said, “ Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen

Is not my choice of him a result of his choice of me? He has an elect people. They are elect in him; and, for his sake, the Lord delighteth in them. O my Saviour! what privileges are mine, since thou art mine ! ever show my sense of their inestimable worth, by the holiness of my walk and conversation, since thy people are “ elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ." *

May I

O happy day, that fixed my choice

On thee, my Saviour and my God!
Well may this glowing heart rejoice,

And tell its raptures all abroad.

O happy bond, that seals my vows

To him who merits all my love!
Let cheerful anthems fill his house,

And echo through his courts above.

'Tis done; the great transaction's done :

I am my Lord's, and he is mine:
He drew me, and I followed on,

Charmed to obey the voice divine.

Now rest, my long-divided heart;

Fixed on this blissful centre, rest :
With ashes who would grudge to part,

When called on angels' bread to feast?

High Heaven, that heard the solemn vow,

That vow, renewed, shall daily hear,
Till in life's latest hour I bow,

And bless in death a bond so dear.

a

Thus sang and thus felt that eminently holy man of God, - Dr. Doddridge. His whole life, even from childhood, manifested that Christ was the Elect of his soul, - the supreme delight of hi

affectionate nature. He has been with the object of his love for near a century, and is constantly discovering fresh manifestations of the Redeemer's excellence. Let me pour out my admiration of the Lord Jesus Christ in sacred verse. My pen may, indeed, in vain attempt to rival his; but, when I meet him in glory, my voice shall not be inferior to his, in Emanuel's praise.

It was not that Eternal Mercy saw
A choice of agents, in redemption's plan,
That, after balance due of varying claims,
He fixed upon his everlasting Son,
To work that wondrous scheme into effect.
No need had he to ponder o'er the roll
Of heaven's nobility, - in council close
T inquire through all the innumerable host
Of high, angelic peerage, to discern
If a created arm could undertake
The labor infinite of saving man.
Could they have merged their merit and their power
In one great master-spirit, then, even then,
All vain had been their love and their attempt;
Vain as the effort of an infant hand
Some mountain to upheave and reinstate,
O'er whose sunk mass old ocean deeply rolls.

The dread alternative lay here – between
Man's total, irrecoverable doom,

And death transferred to Deity itself.
God chose, as man, for man to die the death.
And who but man impeaches the resolve ?
Hear it amazed, ye heavens! and thou, earth,
Tremble from thy deep centre to the poles :
The only being that dis ates the choice
Is man — infatuate, besotted man!
Celestials in its praise attune their harps,
And demons gnash their malice at its power.
Ah! once I saw no wisdom in it too;
Though I admired its love, and wondered oft
What principle of rigid justice could
A compensation so immense demand.
Now, one bright beam thrown downward on the law,
And one upon the manger and the cross,
And both reflected on my prostrate soul,
Unveils the truth, and justifies the choice.
Not light itself so fitted to the orb
Of mortal vision, nor the vital air
To nourish and maintain the breathing frame,
As my loved Saviour to redemption's work.
My soul, enraptured with the Elect of God,
Rejoices in the grace that makes him mine;
My own Elect, and I elect in him.

FATHER,

eousness arose.

MY SAVIOUR IS THE EVERLASTING FATHER.* This name is one bright star in that constellation of the prophetic heavens, which threw so much light upon the church, before the Sun of Right

It is not a title of Christ considered as a second person in the Trinity, and in his relation to the Father and the Holy Ghost, but in his relation as God to man.t Christ, being God, is the everlasting Father of the universe, and, in an especial manner, of the whole family of his redeemed. He is the author of existence to all, and the author of a new and spiritual life to his people. “For, have we not all one Father? hath not one God created us ? ” I In this relation of my

Saviour to me,

I

perceive another of his many crowns, which shines