and he bare them and carried them, all the days of old." Is. 63: 9. What expressions of sympathy, of solicitude, and of paternal care toward a gainsaying and disobedient people. And again, the apostle says, "We have not an High Priest who can not be touched with the feeling of our infirmities." The apostle's meaning is not that He sympathizes with the sinful infirmities of his people; he abhors their sins, but he sympathizes with them in their trials, in their afflictions, and especially in the persecutions which they may suffer for his sake, and the gospel's. When they fled "to the holes and caves of the mountains," his eye was upon them, his heart felt for them, and the banners of his love were spread over them. Never did an earthly parent manifest such affection and solicitude for his household-no, nor a thousandth part of what Jesus has manifested toward his church from age to age. He has placed under them his everlasting arms, and his walls of fire are about them-their names are on the palms of his hands, and their walls are continually before him. He sees their affliction, and flies to their relief with wings swifter than the dawn of the morning!
3. He is an able friend. I would here invite the attention of the sinner to this friend. Not only is he sincere and kind, but he is almighty. His name is "the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the ending, the Almighty." It was his hand that made the heavens and the earth, and all their hosts; and it is by the word of his power that all nature is sustained in existence. The wheels of divine providence are moved by his hands, the "powers that be" are in his
