branches: first, These words are full of encouragement as spoken by Christ; and, secondly, As containing in themselves a most gracious assurance of success.

First, we have great encouragement to prayer, if we consider these words as spoken by Christ.-Here we may observe the following things:

1. When the poor and needy hear any thing which appears to encourage them, they justly reckon it of great importance to know who said it, and on what grounds. The case is the same with the man who feels himself spiritually poor. When the awakened sinner, or the dejected saint, hear of any thing apparently for their comfort or encouragement, they ardently desire to know if there is any truth in it, and if the speaker be a person of known veracity. For this, among other reasons, the divine message by the inspired writers is often introduced in these words, so much calculated for confirmation, "Thus saith the LORD." Christ proceeded on the same grounds when he introduced himself thus, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." The encouragement in this text is spoken by one who neither could nor would deceive. Christ was sent of God as the great teacher, to reveal the Father's mind, and was equal to the work, having been in his bosom from all eternity. Thus qualified, he could with precision declare what the Father was willing to bestow on all who would apply to him. He is the faithful and true Witness, and came to declare that eternal counsel between him and his Father, in which every thing was adjusted concerning the various blessings to be bestowed, the manner in which they should be conferred, and the time of communicating them.

The words of Christ may be depended on; and to give them their just weight, we should carefully remember who and what he is. He is the true God. in our nature. Though equal with God, in order to atone for sinners as their High Priest, and teach them as their great Prophet, he took their nature upon him, and in common with the rest of the children was a partaker of flesh and blood. Great was his love to his disciples, and he always declared to them what was infinitely for their advantage. Thus they had the highest reason to take encouragement from the assurance in the text as the words of their best friend. Justly here, as elsewhere, might he say, "Counsel is mine, and sound wisdom; I am understanding: my mouth shall speak truth, and the words of my mouth are in righteousness."

2. These words afford great encouragement to prayer, if we consider them as spoken by Christ in his state of humiliation. Then he was a pattern to the believer, who must be in this world as Christ was in it. When he affirmed that the Father would give the Spirit to such as ask him, he spake from experience. Under all his sufferings, he applied to Him for help; and was heard in that he feared. Once he declared, that had he prayed to his Father he would have sent him legions of angels; and he always had whatever his lips did crave. Christ himself had great need for the Holy Ghost. He was unparalleled for greatness of sin by imputation, for peculiar temptations, arduous work, and extreme sufferings. Under all these, every thing he did and suffered was through the eternal Spirit bestowed by his Father.

We have the same encouragement to ask the Holy Spirit which Christ had. He and his people are one. While God is his God and Father, he is the God and Father of every believer in him. The promises of the Spirit, and other blessings, are the same to him and to us. They were all originally made to him. They are sealed in his blood, are yea and amen in him, and flow to sinners with the strongest confirmation. In this view the text is as if Christ had said, "I stand greatly in need of divine influences; I have applied to my Father for the Spirit; he has heard my cry in this as in other things I have set you an example: be sure to follow the same course, and you will experience the same success; for the Father himself loveth you."

3. They are very encouraging as spoken by Christ when he was opening the only channel in which the Holy Spirit and his influences could flow to sinners. He was then working out that righteousness which removed all the obstacles which prevented the effusion of the Holy Ghost. All the children of Adam had contracted a debt of obedience and suffering which they could never pay; and being guilty, they lay under the curse. God will by no means clear the guilty. Two cannot walk together unless they be agreed. In this situation it was impossible that God could pour out his Spirit, or confer any saving blessing. In his love the Lord Jesus assumed our nature, stood in our place, and paid our debt. Divine justice being thus satisfied, and the law magnified, saving blessings flow to sinners with facility, propriety, and continuance, as streams from a fountain.

This channel Christ was now opening. It was opened in his eternal stipulation. It was more visibly opened in the typical sacrifices; and he was now walking through the land of Judea as "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world." All his sufferings were a part of that righteousness which he finished on the cross. His bloody baptism was ever in his eye and his heart. Well might he assure his disciples that his Father would give the Spirit. In figurative language he was at that time fitting out the ladder which opened the communication between heaven and earth, and on which not only the angels ascended and descended; but on which the Holy Ghost descended to take possession of the hearts of sinners, and implant his grace; and on which he would make their fervent breathings after spiritual blessings ascend, and their souls also at death, conducted by himself and under the tuition of angels. Thus employed, with great propriety might Christ assure them that, if they would ask, they would receive the Spirit, especially as he always taught them to pray in his own name, saying, "Whatsoever,” from the greatest blessing to the least, " ye shall ask in my name, I will do it."

4. They afford great encouragement, if we consider them as spoken by Christ, when he and his Father were directly and immediately giving the most illustrious and incontestable proof of love and faithfulness. When God had "sent his Son into the world, made of a woman, made under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons," there was the highest reason to conclude that he would also "send

forth the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying Abba, Father." When Christ had actually come, and in the likeness of sinful flesh was undergoing a life of sorrow and suffering, we might with certainty conclude that no other blessing was too great for us to ask, or God to bestow. In this manner did the apostle argue, Rom. viii. 32, "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" The death of Christ is every where justly mentioned as the most illustrious display of divine love: thus reasons the apostle, Rom. v. 6-10, "For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth his love towards us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." Could such an extraordinary event be found among men, as a person dying out of generosity for another, still it would fall infinitely short of Christ laying down his life for sinners. The apostle John asserts the same thing in his first epistle, chap. iv. 10, "Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins."

Justly might Christ assure them that they would receive the Spirit, when he made this assurance in his human nature in the land of Judea. The force of his reasoning is, If the promise of God's sending his Son into the world has been fulfilled, no other promise