skill; and it is marked by this one criterion, it seeks nothing in the world but to exalt the creature. In no one instance does it put forth an effort to exalt Jehovah. Now then, let us look at the contrast"Exalt ye the Lord our God;" for it is the first principle of the gospel -it is the first principle of godliness; and Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, must be exalted alone in the plan of salvation. Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost must be exalted by redemption work. Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, must be exalted by the operations of grace in a sinner's heart. Suffice it, that I just glance at these three things, praying the Holy Ghost to fasten them on your memories, and write them on the tables of your hearts.

Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, must and shall be exalted in the plan of salvation. Well then, that plan must be the result of infinite wisdom in devising it. That plan must be positively infallible with regard to its success. That plan must be adapted to the ruined sinner's position, or else it would display want of wisdom and perfection in the Being who planned it. I must have the Lord my God exalted in the plan of salvation. But if I am to have set before me what some hieresiarchs would call a plan of salvation, in which God has left Himself to an uncertainty; in which God has not gone far enough in His infinite wisdom to adapt His salvation to the sinner's case; in which God has after all left Himself dependent upon the creature's will, and may be disappointed in every part and feature of ithow, I ask, does this exalt God? How does it honour and glorify His name? If it is in the power of the puny arm of a worm of earth to disappoint Deity, to overturn His purpose, and rob Him of His glory, and frustrate His plans, as one wicked infidel writer has told us, then Jehovah is not exalted. On the contrary, if the creature should be so good-natured-if the creature should be so very placid and kind in his free-will, that he will let God have His way, and help Him out with what He could not finish, accomplishing and completing for Him the plan of salvation which is revealed in His word, then it is the creature that is exalted, for it is his doing; He depended on him. matter was left contingent with him, according to that wicked system; and then our Lord God is robbed of all the glory which belongs to His precious name. It shall not be with my consent while I have a voice to lift up for God.

The

"Exalt ye the Lord our God," by ascribing to Him the plan of salvation, whereby millions upon millions of ruined sinners shall be brought home to glory as infallibly as Deity Himself shall continue to occupy glory; and that without any aid from the creature, without any possibility of failure, without a single contingency in the whole plan. Then God is exalted, honour is given to Him; His wisdom, love, and power are all exalted; His immutability, omniscience, omnipresence, all gloriously set forth in the plan of His salvation; and all the persons of Deity are equally exalted therein-for in that glorious plan, as I am continually telling you, the Father is exalted in the be. stowment, the Son is exalted in the responsibility, the Spirit is exalted in the efficiency-upon which we shall by-and-bye have to speak a little more; so that Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the one undivided, indivisible essence of Deity, Israel's one God, has all the glory of arranging, settling, decreeing, purposing, carrying out, bringing hoine, consummating, and Himself is glorified by the salvation of all the election of grace to all eternity.

I should not like to go to heaven at all if I thought I should then be obliged to glorify the creature. I would not go on any account if I thought I should worship the Virgin Mary there. I would not have anything to do with such a heaven, as would oblige me to exalt Peter and rob God of the honour that He has in sovereign grace, and give it to a poor fellow-worm. But my glory in the expectation of heaven lies in this, that I shall be occupied in joining with thousands of ransomed souls in saying, "Not unto us, not unto us, O Lord, but unto thy name be the glory, for thy mercy and thy truth's sake." While as long eternity is rolling on, the person of Deity will receive exaltation from the whole of the ransomed throng on account of a plan of salvation so beautifully adapted to the ruin of poor wretched sinners; to give everything freely, bestow everything on them, and secure everything to them, to render them capable of enjoying God for ever.

Moreover, "Exalt ye the Lord our God" in all the views you take of redemption-work. Now here again I must take very decided ground; and will insist upon it, that what is termed the universal redemption system brings no glory to God, it does not exalt Jehovah, it gives all the exaltation to the creature. You know I opened the subject with this point, and mean to keep to it, that that which exalts the creature in the way of merit, or of efficiency, is not God's religion; the religion of the Bible exalts God alone. The prophet Isaiah was commissioned to predict and promise "the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day." Now in the work of redemption there are two or three important points which tend to exalt the Lord; the first is its special purpose. Redemption was purposed, and designed, and accomplished for property that belonged to God before, or else it is not redemption; and if it be simply a purchasing, it might be a purchasing of persons or things that did not belong to God before; but to redeem is to buy back that which belonged to the buyer before. You all understand that in a literal point of view; then it comes to this special purpose, that the Lord has a people on earth everlastingly His own, chosen in His purpose, but who fell in the common ruin of the fall, became as filthy, polluted, vile, and rebellious as the rest of mankind, and as completely enslaved to the prince of darkness; but well, God says, "they are mine, and I will be exalted." He will never let the devil have one of His children; that is quite out of the question. Therefore, the work of redemption, which is included in the plan to which I have just referred, is to buy back, recover, and bring into personal possession and enjoyment all who belonged to God before. The Redeemer appeals concerning them while on earth, and while actually carrying on His work, "thine they were, and thou gavest them me." What for? for the special purpose of redeeming them, for they were His in common with the Father from everlasting. But they were given into His hand in solemn responsibility that He might be their Redeemer, pay the price due for their transgressions to law and justice, conquer the power by which they were held, recover them from the banishment into which they had voluntarily gone, recover them from their enmity and hatred against God, and implant life in their hearts; in fact, to do by them as the Saviour is represented as doing with His lost sheep in the wilderness, looking after it until He finds it, and not driving it back to kill it, but laying it on His shoulder and bringing it home in order to rejoice over it with all around Him.

Now this redemption is infallible, personal, and eternal; it has not a contingency about it or in it; it leaves nothing dependent on the creature; it does not ask his leave whether he will return and come back or no, but it puts a cry into his heart and makes him long to return. Omnipotence laying hold of the sinner, immutability refusing to let him go, eternal love fastening its three-fold cord in his heart, and drawing him to the cross of Christ, into communion with God, and giving him the hope of eternal glory. Is not God exalted in this, think ye? "Exalt ye the Lord our God," in His redemption work, and do not go to Rome to learn universal redemption, instead of what the Bible calls eternal redemption for us. The doctrine of universal redemption is abstract Popery, and I wish it were sent back again to Rome instead of deceiving so many thousand souls in our native land. Once more. "Exalt ye the Lord our God" in His operations of rich grace in the heart. The Lord our God must have all the glory of that. Here again I must mark a contrast. We are not to allow that there is a condition put for the sinner-that if he will but pray, if he will but repent, if he will but believe, God has provided everything else, that if he will but meet Him on these grounds he may possibly be saved, if he does not happen to sin away his grace afterwards, as some wicked creatures are base enough to say. If I were preaching to you about melting these iron pillars that support the gallery into honey for your use, you would laugh at me, and justly so; but it is just as easy for a poor sinner to melt his heart into repentance without the grace of God. And if he could, he should have the exaltation, and God should not have it. But every melting feeling possessed in a poor sinner's heart; every tear of genuine repentance he lets fall, every expression of contrition before God that comes from his soul is first put there by God the Holy Ghost; and He does it with an operation the most sovereign, undeserved and invincible, perpetually carrying on and carrying out His own designs of mercy. From the first touch with which He visits the sinner's conscience, to lay him in the dust to the end of his glorification, God never leaves him, never forsakes him. God is glorified in this. So that whether you view the plan, or the work, or the operations in the soul, it is all of God, from first to last.

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Who among my hearers can actually make up his mind to rob God of His honour? Who amongst my hearers dares lift an impious hand to tear the diadem from Jesu's brow? Who amongst my hearers will commit the sin against the Holy Ghost, by giving man to perform that which none but God the Holy Ghost can accomplish? such a rebel? Go and join the Arminian throng; go and join the Popish throng; go there at once. Reject the name of Christian, and tell whom ye belong to; for if Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is not to be exalted in your salvation, He will be exalted in your damnation to all eternity. Now I am clear of your blood.

II.-Pass on to look at the order of worship which exalts Jehovah, and which we are called on to do personally: "Worship at His footstool." Here is man's proper place. He has no business to assume Jehovah's throne of sovereignty-he has no business to assume God's "I will." I will pray when I please, I will repent when I please, I will turn when I please, and I mean to do it when I please. This is taking God's place, or attempting to do so. The sinner's right place

is at God's footstool. O, beloved! when the Holy Spirit gives us to think of our position at the footstool of Divine mercy we shall go lower and lower, with our mouths in the dust, and be ashamed even to lift up our eyes, astonished that the glorious Being, before whom we present ourselves, can bear with such worms of earth, with such weak attempts to worship Him "at His footstool." Conscious of guilt, aware of unworthiness, humble before Him, awed at His presence, overwhelmed at the thought that infinite perfections and attributes are surrounding us, what would become of all our volatile feelings and thoughts, all our vain wanderings with fools' eyes to the ends of the earth, if this overwhelming consciousness were maintained? You must bear in mind that the Holy Ghost must give the aptitude to do it. We cannot create it; if we could it would be a self-exalting principle. Where it is genuine, where it is real worship, the creature is laid low, less than nothing and vanity, and made to feel it. Moses must prostrate himself upon the ground when he worships and calls upon God amidst the rebels in the camp, and has the peculiar honour to get a vision, when he requested it, of Jehovah's glory; he could not get it, however, but by being put in the cleft of the rock. My hearers, we can never obtain a view of Jehovah's glory but at His footstool. Conscious of our nothingness, and making use of the name of Christ, appealing to Jehovah that He has put us in the cleft of that Rock, and then we may gaze on His glory; then shall come the realization in our personal experience of that blessed statement, "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

Now mark the position, and say, have you ever been there, so low at the footstool of Divine mercy as to be ashamed and confounded before God, respecting all that we find and feel in ourselves, and yet favoured with a glimpse of Divine glory in the face of Jesus Christ by a supernatural aid? Oh, wondrous position! Then, indeed, we may look on the world, with all its toys and trifles, as utterly contemptible. Beloved, if you fasten your attention at such a sacred moment upon the angelic host, you see them all veiling their faces with their wings, and crying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts." If you look at the glorious spirits above, you see them all casting their crowns at His feet; and does not your soul glow with longing anticipation to cast yours there also, and sing salvation to our God? Oh, the blessedness of that lowly position! And will you bear with me if I remind you, that this is not only compatible with, but the true consequence of, the highest attainments a Christian can make. We need not descend from the high places of the earth, nor from the high places of Israel, to find this posture, nor from the high doctrines everywhere despised, nor from the high privileges which belong to us, nor from the enjoyments with which we are favoured under the smile of Jehovah's countenance, we may still be abased and confounded at His footstool, and astonished at His marvellous dealings with us. Can you understand Daniel's language? "To us belongeth confusion of face, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against thee." See the humiliation of soul. He was at the footstool; and then, mark, I pray you, the additional sentence: "But to the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against Him.' There is the contrast.

Now, what a different position is that to what is assumed by modern idolators. Bowing to the host, and borrowing idolatrous customs from the mother of harlots, deifying a drop of water, and after a little while they will go on to deify by law the bread and wine. For if they have gone so far as to deify a drop of water, they will go on to transubstantiation, of course, and fall at once into the lap of the mother of harlots. They are very near doing so now. The pride of title, the pride of attainment, the pride of name, the pride of human dignity, the pride of being almost adored by the people-not at all like Christianity-are infidelity under a Christian name. Just the contrast of a Christian position. If you take the most eminent minister that ever lived upon earth, the most successful in winning souls to Christ, and the most advanced in personal enjoyment and assurance, you will find that man the most completely emptied of self, the most regardless of worldly honours; nay, even disgusted with them, and "choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season." Now do mark, beloved, a man must be in his proper place if he worships at all at the footstool of Divine mercy, deeply humbled before God, and stripped and emptied of everything that he could boast of or glory in, that God may be all in all.

Now what shall we say about the worship. The word seems to have, in most people's apprehension, a most extensive signification; I think we ought to narrow it a good deal. Some people will call saying long prayers worship; some people will call every description of monastical gesticulation worship; some people will call all the airs and freaks of antichristian apes worship. I must insist upon orthodox worship. If you would know what orthodox worship is, you must learn it of the great Teacher Himself, and you must learn it at His footstool. "God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." "Worship at His footstool." I beseech you here to mark, that the two prominent acts of worship are prayer and praise; and I do not know if they may not be said to include everything. But mark you, they must be in spirit and in truth; and if our offering of prayer is a mere ceremony, a mere repetition of words, a mere display of talent, it is rather mockery than worship. Prayer, whether it be in private, in the family, or in public, is nothing more or less than the engaging the powers of the soul under the mighty controlling influence of the Holy Spirit, immediately with Jehovah, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Asking for what we want, imploring what He has promised, begging for what we need, petitioning at the footstool of Divine mercy, grace for grace, in new supplies, according to the promises of the word of God, and in that act to be dealing with Jehovah Himself. I will not allow any to come between; I will not allow Peter to come between; I will not allow any of the saints or mock saints that have been set up to come between. I want none of their help. But let me come immediately to the throne. Let me draw near to God-let me have dealings with the heart-searching Being -let my soul be poured out at His feet-let my petition be presented to Him personally, and I will sit at His footstool till I get it answered; I want none to come between. If you want to go between, I shall be obliged to say to you, get out of my way. As often as you go to God remember me at court. Think of Paul's request, "Brethren, pray for us." But if you want to go as an intercessor between God and my soul, I shall