is come into His kingdom, He enjoys that exaltation as the recompense of His acts and services of filial submission, and zeal, and piety; recognises that name as a name "given" to Him by God; and administers that kingdom with a view to the glory of the Father, to whom, when the proper season shall arrive, He will solemnly resign it, that God may be all in all. In the mean time, He acts as a Minister of the heavenly sanctuary, and as the Head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all. The pleasure of the Lord-God's gracious purpose to pardon, and purify, and save the souls of men-is confided to His hands; and He is sleeplessly occupied in rebuilding in our world the ruined temple of Jehovah, and in gathering out of the nations of the earth a people who shall show forth His praise, and be presented to Him at last as a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. Thus every energy of the mediatorial kingdom is employed, in fact, for the one ultimate purpose of restoring and maintaining the rights and the sovereignty of God, and of raising a revenue of eternal praise for Him for whom are all things, and by whom are all things. At the name of Jesus every knee must bow, and every tongue must be made to confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; but all this is finally to issue in "the glory of God the Father."

These observations, illustrative of the sense in which the Mediator is the Father's Servant, are of practical importance, for this reason, among others,—that they remind us, that it is not to the Second Person only of the blessed Trinity that we owe our grateful acknowledgments for the stupendous work of human salvation. We are indebted to the Father, and to the Holy Spirit, as well as to the Son. The Father's wisdom, authority, and love are the fountain of that astonishing grace which, acting by the incarnation, teaching, atonement, and administration of the Son, and applied by the power of the Spirit, brings many sons unto glory. All things are thus of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ. We are not to conceive of the Father as of a stern, implacable,

the house of God, and be more ready to hear, than to give the sacrifice of fools for they consider not that they do evil. Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter anything before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few."* The reve

rential style of expression which I am now recommending is grievously violated by many: particularly, by such as do not hesitate to apply to God or to Christ, in their prayers and praises, those amorous and luscious appellatives, those epithets, expressive of the fondness of human passion, which, it has been well said, "must revolt a man who feels that he cannot meet the same Being at once on terms of adoration and of caressing equality." We Methodists are without excuse if we do not guard against this species of presumption, after the convincing testimony which Mr. Wesley has borne against it in his beautiful sermon "On knowing Christ after the flesh," -a sermon which every one of us should read and study, before taking any active part in conducting either our social or our public worship.-That reverential solemnity which should characterize our prayers, and our hymns, should also be maintained in the composition of those melodies in which the high praises of God are celebrated. "Religious harmony," says Jeremy Collier, quoted by Bishop Horne, "must be moving, but noble withal,-grave, solemn, and seraphic,-fit for a martyr to play, and an angel to hear." How contrary to this are the light and fantastic movements of some modern tunes,

-more suitable to the ball-room, or the theatre, than to those holy places and holy subjects with which they have been profanely associated! Under pretence of promoting Christian cheerfulness and zeal, they have excited a spirit of levity more akin to the mirth of fools than to the calm and chastened joy of saints. This error, I confidently hope, will be studiously avoided by those to whose lot it will fall to conduct the devotional harmony of this place.

(3.) In their whole demeanour.-Every part of our conduct. * Ecclesiastes v. 1, 2.

these acts depended materially on the spotless purity and infinite dignity of the sacrifice which was to be offered, and of the Priest who was to intercede. When only a typical priesthood was to be instituted, the high priest might properly be taken from among men. The law, therefore, made men high priests, which had infirmity; but the word of the oath (by which the covenant of redemption, as revealed in the Gospel, was established) maketh the Son our High Priest, who alone was fit to be consecrated for evermore. Finally, the government was to be on the shoulders of the Messiah. He was to redeem by power, as well as by price; and to undertake the administration of a spiritual kingdom, which requires, for the proper transaction of its vast and immensely complicated concerns, a wisdom and an energy such as no mere creature can exert. On all these accounts, when the Servant was to be chosen, to whom the business of salvation was to be intrusted, the Elect must needs be the FELLOW OF JEHOVAH. among created beings was found trustworthy in so weighty a concern. "He putteth no trust in His holy ones," or angels.* In His hands alone, who is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of His person, the honours of God and the interests of mankind were safe.

None

3. The Divine Person thus chosen by the Father, and appointed to save mankind, freely acceded, as we have already seen, to that choice and appointment; undertook the office assigned to Him; and appeared in the form of a servant, by assuming human nature into an ineffable union with the Divine nature which belonged to Him from eternity. Now, to qualify that human nature, in the person of the Mediator, for the momentous duties which the office involved, it was made the subject of an unexampled and peculiar anointing from the Holy One. To this the text refers when it says, "I have put my Spirit upon Him." To this other passages of Holy Scripture manifestly relate. "There shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out * Job xv. 15.

and that on scriptural authority, as manifesting toward their Maker the most profound veneration :

"Dark with excessive bright His skirts appear;

Yet dazzle heaven,-that brightest seraphim

Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes."

Now, were you naturally as holy as angels, it would become you to be as humble as they are in the presence of God. But how profound, then, ought that humility to be, when you recollect that you are, by nature, not saints, but sinners; children of wrath, even as others; dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked ;-and that you are even now but brands plucked out of the fire, and by grace ye are saved!

(3.) But consider more particularly your present character as saints.-How came it to pass that you were made such? In order to remove from you the curse of sin, and to procure for you the Spirit of grace, God was manifest in the flesh,-nay, God incarnate died! That you, who had deserved everlasting banishment from your Creator's presence, might again have the privilege of being " about Him," and be indulged with free access to Him in these religious assemblies, the precious blood of Christ was shed. The chastisement of your peace was upon Him, and it is by His stripes that you are healed. Salvation is, in itself, a joyous thing; but the means of procuring it, though wise and glorious, were most painful and terrible. The mercy which appears in its conception ought to excite our gratitude; but the terms of righteous severity, upon which it has been dispensed, should inspire us with penitent awe. Our pardon is written, as it were, in the blood of God's dear Son; on which account we see strict propriety in that saying of David, "There is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou mayest be feared." And as it is only while we look to Jesus crucified that we can scripturally rejoice in God, or worship Him with acceptance and comfort, it follows, of course, that all Christian joy is tempered with reverence and godly fear. If our rejoicing be genuine, it is "with trembling." For it is connected with

unmeasured abundance, directing, hallowing, and sustaining all the faculties of His human nature. "The rational soul in our Lord's human nature," says Bishop Horsley,* "was a distinct thing from the principle of Divinity to which it was united; and being so distinct, like the souls of other men, it owed the right use of its faculties in the exercise of them on religious subjects, and its uncorrupted rectitude of will, to the influence of the Holy Spirit of God." It is true, the Man Christ Jesus knew no sin, original or actual, and therefore needed not the Spirit to renew or to purify; but even He needed the Spirit to elevate and to sustain Him, to enrich Him with all holy dispositions, and to furnish Him for all holy services and sufferings. Such is the essential and necessary dependence of all created nature on the influence of God, for everything which constitutes its moral health, and worth, and beauty, and excellence: a dependence which existed in the case of Adam while in Paradise, and again in the case of humanity in that most perfect and glorious state to which it ever was or can be exalted,-its hypostatic union with the eternal Word. Even of that mysterious Person it is said, "I have put my Spirit upon Him." And it was in consequence of this unction from above, that, when He dwelt among men, He was seen and proved to be "full of grace and truth." Anointed," as St. Peter expresses it, "with the Holy Ghost and with power," He "went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with Him."

4. Thus chosen and qualified for the service of God, it is further stated that, in the discharge of His functions, He is upheld by His Divine Father.-This may refer partly to the personal succours afforded to our Lord in the course of His life and ministry on earth, at seasons of peculiar emergency and trial; as when, at the close of His temptation in the wilderness," angels came and ministered unto Him;" † and as when, during His agony in the garden, "there appeared an angel

* Sermon on Isaiah lxi. 1, 2.

Matthew iv. 11.