"Forgive me, Lord, for Thy dear Son,
The ills that I this day have done,"

then you come to Jesus.

And so in private prayer, or in family prayer, when you bend before God's throne and think of Him Who is sitting there; and when you think that He who once died for you has now His eye upon you, and distinctly discerns you amongst the multitudes who are looking to Him; when you are conscious that to meet His gracious eye is to have your petition granted, or something better given you— your life spared, your soul saved-when you think this, or something like this, and pray to Jesus, or to God through Jesus, then you come to Him, then you obey that gracious call, "Come unto me."

But now we must consider, whom does He call? Now He says here, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden," and elsewhere His invitations are so exceedingly general, that of two expositions—one of which would extend His invitation as much as the words will possibly allow, and another which would rather restrict them-I am sure it is the safest to take the former; and, God willing, I shall do so in this case, and may God forgive me if I err in this respect. I think I do not.

"Come, then, unto me, all ye that labour;" to these words are generally added, " under a

sense of sin." "Come unto me, all ye that feel your sins a burden. Come unto me, ye that are labouring to establish your own righteousness and cannot ;" but, as I said again, I cannot put the least restriction on these words. I believe that they are addressed to every weary, sorrowing son or daughter of Adam, no matter whether the weariness or sorrow be for sin or not. I believe that the great second Adam here invites to Himself every one of His toiling and sorrowing fellow-creatures, provided, of course, that the sorrow be a lawful sorrow. If a man is downcast, or chafes because he cannot compass some bad end, as Ahab when he could not get his covetous desire for Naboth's vineyard satisfied, then, of course, he is not invited to bring such heaviness to Christ; but I say, again, whatever else be the sorrow that presses upon you, whatever else the toil or the burden that bears you down, bring it to Him; even though you may not be conscious that sin is, after all, the thing that makes the burden so heavy, or the toil so wearying, still bring your grief to Him.

In an old heathen writer we read a famous saying, "I am a man, and so I regard every thing human as something that I have to do with," or, "I am a man; I am interested in all that belongs to man." Now how supremely is this true of our Saviour. He is the Second

Man-the Second Adam. There is a link that binds Him to every human being. He knows the thing that presses down each soul, and the value of each soul.

Bring then, fretting soul, bring your thorn in the flesh, bring your human, your temporal-aye, your worldly-grief to Him. You cannot but receive good by having to do with Him in anything. I cannot but believe that if you come to Him as the comforter under any sorrow, the physician under any disease, the friend in any need-that if you thus honour His power and His fellow-feeling, I cannot but think, I say, that you would come away with a thing that you little imagine-you would come away with the best of gifts, the knowledge of yourself and of Him. I cannot but think that it is for this-viz. to invite us to come to Him always for all things--that we have examples of men coming to Him, in the Gospels, for the healing of mere temporal disease, and He sends them away with what they want, and with the forgiveness of their sins into the bargain. Not only do we hear the words, "Be whole of thy plague," but also, Thy sins be forgiven thee; go in peace."

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Come, then, to Him, ye that are steeped in poverty. Come to Him, ye that are unhappy at home. Come to Him, ye that are disappointed, neglected, oppressed. Come to Him, ye that have no friends, or

friends that

cannot help. Come to Him, Come to Him, ye that are slandered or deserted. He in His day had a taste of all these things. I do not think that you can be wrong in coming to Him about them.

Come unto Him, ye that labour, i. e., ye sons of toil. He was once a working man like you. He, during His youth and early manhood, handled the tools that some of you do. He carried loads till He was weary. His hands were hard with toil before they were pierced with the nails. How is it that working men can hold back as they do from a Saviour who was one of themselves-who once worked as they do? Shame, shame upon working men who stay away from the courts, and the house, and the communion of their Saviour, who neither read His Bible, nor hear His ministers, and jeer at those among them who do.

But we must now come to those whom the Saviour especially invites. He came to "save His people from their sins," and, above all, does He here invite those who want to be rid of

sin. Do you feel and know that you are not right with God-that you have hitherto lived without God in His own world, without Christ in His own Church? Do you feel that you have lived hitherto an unthankful life, receiving unnumbered mercies, without any surrender of yourself to the Giver? Do you feel that you have lived an unholy life, doing things

that it is a shame to mention, and allowing your heart to be polluted with all uncleanness? Do you feel that your converse, i. e., your conversation, has been unworthy of a Christian? Perhaps you have never said a really religious word, or reproved a single sin in your whole life. Do you feel all this? Are you grieved? sorry at heart for it all? Are you disgusted with yourself? disheartened when you think of the way to heaven? discouraged by repeated attempts to set out, which have come to nothing, or worse than nothing? Have you anything of David's mind when he said, "Withdraw not Thou Thy mercies from me, O Lord; let Thy loving kindness and Thy truth always preserve me. For innumerable troubles have compassed me about; my sins have taken such hold upon me that I am not able to look up?"

Then the case is clear. You are one whom the Saviour invites to come to Him that He may loose you from your bonds, and cleanse you and comfort you-in a word, give you rest—that peace which you have so often prayed for with your lips, but with no heart in the prayereven peace which the world cannot give, that your heart may be set to obey God's commandments, and that being delivered from the fear of your enemies you may pass your time in the rest and quietness of the Gospel.

But suppose that, instead of being fully