temple of fame. After the publication of Christianity, it was no difficult task to transfer the praise and veneration which was paid to these temporal deliverers, to that Divine Lover of mankind, and Redeemer of our race, who offered himself up a sacrifice for our sins, and died for the happiness of the world. Hence the atonement requisite for the sins of the world was finished.

IV. The sufferings of the Messiah were now finished, and nought but glory was to follow.

It seemed expedient to Infinite Wisdom, to set up the Son as head over the great family of God. It was in this capacity that he created the earth; for it is one of the doctrines revealed to us in the New Testament, that the Son of God was the Creator of the world. As he, therefore, was our immediate Creator, and as his intent in our creation was defeated by sin, there was an evident propriety that he himself should interpose in our behalf. The fall of man was the loss of so many subjects to Christ their natural Lord, in virtue of his having created them. Redeeming them was recovering them again, was re-establishing his power over his own works. In the epistle to the Colossians, the apostle Paul runs a parallel between the relation in which Christ stands towards us as our Creator, and the new relation he acquired in virtue of his redemption. In the first view he styles him the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature; for by him were all things created, and by him all things consist. In the second view, he calls him the head of the body, the church, the beginning, the first-born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence. "For it pleased the father that in him should all fulness dwell, and having made peace by the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things to himself."

The scheme of thought which runs through the passage, seems to be this; that, as we owed to Christ our first life, it was also expedient, that we should owe to him our second; that, as he was the head of the Creation, and made all things, so, when God thought fit to redeem the world, it pleased him that Christ should also be the head of this new work, the first-born from the dead himself, and the giver of life to every believer. This much we collect from the Apostle's reasoning, and plainly discern, that the preeminence of Christ, as head of the church, is connected with his pre-eminence as head of the creation, and his be

ing set over the great family of God. Jesus Christ thus consitituted the Redeemer of mankind, and the Captain of our salvation, in the discharge of his office, was to be made perfect through sufferings.

In the present state of humanity, the character cannot be complete without the virtues of adversity: we are made for suffering, as well as for action; there are many principles in the human frame, many faculties of the mind, many qualities of the heart, which would be for ever latent, were they not called forth to action by danger and distress; there is a hidden greatness in the mind of man, which afflictions alone can bring to light. When we are bereft of all human help, when heaven seems to forsake us, and the earth to fail beneath our feet, it is then that the soul asserts her native strength, summons all her virtue to her aid, and exhibits to heaven and earth an object worthy of their contemplation and regard. Afflictions thus supported by patience, thus surmounted by fortitude, give the last finishing to the heroic and the virtuous character. Thus the vale of tears is the theatre of human glory; that dark cloud presents the scene for all the beauties in the bow of virtue to appear. Moral grandeur, like the sun, is brighter in the day of the storm, and never so truly sublime as when struggling through the darkness of an eclipse.

SERMON XXXV.

66

JOHN XI. 25.

I am the Resurrection and the Life.*

“I SAW in the right hand of him that sat on the throne," said the Prophet of the New Testament,"I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne, "a book written within and on the backside, sealed with

* Preached at the celebration of the Sacrament of the Lo &'s Supper.

seven seals. And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, Who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the book, neither to look thereon. And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open, and to read the book, neither to look thereon. And one of the elders said unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Juda, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof."

In this myterious manner, the Apostle, who ascended in the visions of God, and saw into past and future time, represents the restoration of mankind to life. When man had fallen from his state of innocence, and all flesh had corrupted their ways, Almighty God, with eyes that for ever overflow with love, looked down upon the earth. He beheld the world, not as he had beheld it at first,' when the morning stars sang together, when all the sons of God shouted for joy, and when he himself pronounced that all was fair and good: that very world he now beheld involved in confusion and uproar; the original state of things marred: the order of nature destroyed; the laws of Heaven overturned: his once beautiful and happy creation defaced and laid in ruins. He beheld his rational offspring, whom he had adorned with his own image, whom he had appointed to immortality, fallen from their primitive innocence, debased with ignorance, depraved with guilt, subjected to vanity, and appointed to dissolution. Following the footsteps of sin, which had thus laid waste his works, he beheld death advancing with swift steps; extending his dominion over the nations, and shaking his dart in triumph over a subjected world. He saw, he pitied, and he saved.

Although offended with the guilty race, he would not cast them off for ever. His time of visitation was a time of love. In mercy to mankind he devised a scheme for our restoration and recovery. But man was not now, as in innocence, in a condition to treat with God by himself. Between sinful dust and ashes, and infinite purity, there could be no communication. A Mediator, therefore, was requisite to make peace between heaven and earth; and where was such a Mediator to be found?

Accordingly, at the declaration of the gracious purpose of God, for the future happiness of the world, when the

book of life sealed with its seven seals was brought forth, a strong angel proclaimed with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to take the book, and to open the seals thereof?" Who is worthy to mediate between an offended God and guilty man; to unfold the secret purpose of the Most High, and to give life to a world that is dead? There was silence in heaven, and silence in heaven there might have been for ever; but in that moment of mercy, the crisis of our fate, the Son of God interposed; "I am the resurrection and the life, by me shall the world live. I will forsake these mansions of glory and dwell with men. They who now wander in darkness, I will bring to light, and life, and immortality; they are now under sentence of death; that sentence shall be executed on me, and I will purchase for them life everlasting; they have now gone astray into the paths of perdition, I will point out to them. the way that leads to the heavens.'

In this manner did Jesus Christ become the resurrection and the life. As the Prophet of the world, he gave us the assurance of life and immortality; as the Priest of the world, he purchased for us life and immortality; and, as the King of the world, he set before us the path that leads to life and immortality.

I. As the Prophet of the world, he gave us assurance of life and immortality.

Curiosity, or the desire of knowledge, is one of the earliest and one of the strongest emotions of the human soul. No sooner does the mind arrive at maturity, but it proceeds to examine the objects around it, and to extend its researches wider and wider over the whole circuit of creation. With peculiar earnestness man turns his attention to his own nature, and becomes the object of his own contemplation. But here clouds and darkness surround him. He perceives himself a stranger in the wide world, where the plan of nature is imperfectly known, where the system of things is involved in much obscurity, and where the Author of the universe is a God who hideth himself. appears to him as an intermediate state; but he is ignorant of what was before it, and is as ignorant of what is to come after it. He observes symptoms of decay and marks of mortality on all the productions of nature, the human race not exempted from the general law. He sees his friends and companions, one after another, perpetually disappearing; he sees mankind, generation after

Life

generation, passing away; passing to that awful abyss to which every thing goes, and from which nothing returns. But whither do they go when they depart? Have they withdrawn into everlasting darkness? Or do they still act in another scene? We see the body incorporate with its kindred elements, and return to the dust from whence it was taken. But what becomes of the soul? Does it, too, cease so exist? Is the beam of heaven for ever extinguished? Is the celestial fire which glowed in the heart for ever quenched? Or, beyond the horizon which terminates our present prospect, does a more beautiful and perfect scene present itself, where the tear shall be wiped from the eye of the mourner, where the wicked shall cease from troubling, and the weary be at rest?

If we consult our affections, we will be inclined to believe in a future state. Nature is loth to quit its hold. The heart still wishes to be kind to the friends whom it once loved. Imagination takes the hint, and indulges us with the pleasing hope of one day meeting again with the companions it dropt in life. The perfections of the Deity favour these wishes of nature. If God be infinitely wise and infinitely good, he would not have brought us into being only to see the light and depart for ever. Would a wise builder have erected such a noble fabric to last but for a moment? On the other hand, if we consult the analogy of nature, the horrors of annihilation surround us. All the works of nature seem only made to be destroyed. The leaf that falls from the tree, revives no more. The animal that mingles with the earth never rises to life again. Appearances also make against us. The mind seems to depend much upon the body. The temper of the one arises from the state of the other. When the external senses decay, the faculties of the soul are impaired. When the blood ceases to flow, the spirit evaporates, the last stroke of the pulse seems to put a final period to the whole

man.

Between these fears and these wishes of nature, no conclusion can be drawn. After the maturest investigation, and deepest reasoning, all that we arrive at is uncertainty. We see the traveller involved in the cloud of night, but we know not of any morning that awaits him. The ocean spreads before us, vast, and dark, and awful, but we know not if it will waft us to any shore. What a disconsolate situation is this to a serious inquiring mind? These