ty, transcending mercy; and of grace, tranfcending grace, that he might bring us to glory, transcending glory.

In this ftupendous work of redemption, I fay, Jefus makes himself as it were little, that we may become great; he stoops into manhood, that he may exalt us into God. He came not arrayed in the fool's coat of the luftre of this despicable world, nor in the weakness of its power, nor in the meannefs of its dignity; but over his immenfity he threw the appearance of limitation, and with time he invefted his eternity; and his omnipotence put on frailty; and his fupremacy put on fubjection; and with the veil of mortality, he fhrouded his beauty, that he might become familiar to us, that we might behold and converse with him face to face, as man converfes with man, and grows fond of his fellow.

Before the incarnation, God was feared in his thunders, and adored in the majefty and magnificence of his works. But it is in the meek and lowly Jelus that he becomes the object of affection; in the bleeding, the fuffering, the dying Jefus, we behold him with weeping gratitued, we love him with a love of paffion and burning, a love that languithes for him, that cannot bear to exit without him.

How

How could that perverfe people fhut their eyes to the divinity of their gra cious Meffiah, while he gave fuch hourly and ocular proofs of the power and extent of his Godhead in and over all things? while he went about doing good, carrying healing in his breath, in his touch, in his garments; while the lamb fprung up as a bounding roe at his bidding; while the tempeft heard his voice and was ftill, and the fea spread itself as a carpet beneath the foot of its Creator; while the deaf ear was opened, and the dumb tongue loofed to utterance; while he poured the beams of his light upon the new-opening eyes of the blind-born gazer; and while in death, and amidst the tombs, his word was life and refurrection.

Thus, my Harry, you find yourself united to your Saviour by many endearing and intimate connections; by creation, by redemption, by brotherhood, by fatherhood, in the flesh, in the spirit; by his being bone of your bone, and spirit of your fpirit; by being the "first born of "many brethren," and by being the divine father of a new and celeftial progeny.

But what need we further? the world, from the beginning, is fraught with him, and fpeaks of him. The world is, in it

felf,

felf, no other than a hiftory of the two capital and eternally important truths, THE GREATNESS OF THE FALL in Lucifer and Adam, and THE GREATNESS OF THE REDEMPTION in Jefus Christ. These truths are engraven in the rocks as deep as the centre; they are written on both fides of every leaf in nature. All that is within us, all that is without us, utters forth the fame language, proclaims the fame tidings aloud. All ceremonials, all inftitutions of divine authority, all ancient predictions and prophecies, were pregnant with, and in travail of the GREAT DELIVERANCE to be atchieved by the Shiloh who was to come. They give us a previous hiftory of his whole procefs upon earth, from his birth to his refurrection, as circumftantially, as minutely as though it were a bare tranfcript of what had recently paffed before their eyes. But I fhall only dwell a minute on three principal articles, first that Meffiah was to be God; fecondly, that he was however to be a fuffering Meffian;- --and thirdly, that he was to give ninfelf to death for the falvation of unners.

FIRST, with refpect to his Divinity, Daniei fays, "I faw in the night-visions, " and behold, one like unto the SON OF "MAN came with the clouds of heaven, VOL. IV. X "and

"and came to the ANCIENT OF DAYS, "and they brought him near before him. "And there was given him DOMINION, "and GLORY, and a KINGDOM, that all "people, nations, and languages should " ferve him; his DOMINION is an EVER◄ 66 LASTING DOMINION, which fhall not "pafs away." Again Ifaiah: "Behold, "a virgin fhall conceive, and bear a fon. "For unto us a child is born, unto us a "fon is given, and the government shall "be upon his fhoulder; and his name "fhall be called WONDERFUL, COUN

SELLOR, The MIGHTY GOD, The EVER"LASTNG FATHER, The PRINCE OF PEACE. Of the increase of his GO"VERNMENT and PEACE there fhall be "NO END, upon the throne of David, " and upon his kingdom, to order it, "and to establish it, with JUDGMENT

and with JUSTICE, from henceforth 66 even FOR EVER."

SECONDLY, with refpect to his character of rejection and fuffering : "Who "hath believed our report? and to whom " is the arm of the Lord revealed? He " is defpifed and rejected of men, a man " of forrows and acquainted with grief: " and we hid as it were our faces from "him; he was despised, and we efteem"ed him not. He was oppreffed, and

"he

he was afflicted: he is brought as a "lamb to the flaughter, and as a fheep "before her fhearers is dumb, fo open"ed he not his mouth. He was taken "from prison and fron judgment; and "who fhall declare his generation? for " he was cut off out of the land of the "living; for the tranfgreffion of my "people was he ftricken. And he made "his grave with the wicked, and with "the rich in his death.” Isaiah liii.

David too fays, "Dogs have compaffed 66 me, the affembly of the wicked have " inclosed me; they pierced my hands "and my feet. They part my garments "among them, and caft lots for my "vefture. But a bone of him fhall not "be broken. They fhall look on him "whom they pierced."

THIRDLY, with refpect to his being a willing offering for fin: Isaiah says, in the fame chapter; "Surely he hath borne "our griefs, and carried our forrows; 66 yet we did efteem him ftricken, fmit"ten of God, and afflicted. But he "was wounded for our tranfgreffions, he "was bruised for our iniquities; the cha"ftifement of our peace was upon him, "and with his ftripes we are healed. "All we like theep have gone aftray; we have turned every one to his own

1

66 way,