THE EXALTATION OF JESUS CHRIST. unto you, but ye cannot bear them now," John If we are unable to digest public discourses of the description which we have been giving, much less are we disposed to bear with the private admonitions of a judicious and sincere friend, who is so faithful as to unveil to us our own heart. What a treasure is a friend, who keeps constantly in view, I do not say our honour only, our reputation, but more especially our duty, our conscience, our salvation! What a treasure is a man, who employs the influence which he may have over us, only for the purpose of undeceiving us when we are in an error; of bringing us back when we have gone astray; of assisting us to unravel and detect the pretences which the deceitfulness of the human heart uses to justify to itself its wanderings and weaknesses! What a treasure is a man, who has the honesty to say to us, according as circumstances may require: "Here it was your want of experience that misled you; there, it was the prejudice of a faulty education: on that occasion you was betrayed, through the seduction of those flatterers, in whose society you take so much delight: on this, it was the too favourable opinion which you had formed of yourselves, which would persuade you, that you are ever sincere in your conversation; ever upright in your intentions; ever steady in your fellowships!" Nevertheless, we usually look upon this precious treasure not only with disdain, but even with horror. It is sufficient to make us regard a man with an eye of suspicion, that he has discovered our weak side. It is sufficient for him to undertake to paint us in our true colours, to be perfectly odious to us. A real Christian employs all the means with which he is furnished, to unveil his own heart to himself. By dint of study, he acquires the knowledge of himself. Having acquired this important knowledge, he seriously and resolutely sets about personal reformation; and he makes progress in it. He examines this new state into which divine grace has introduced him; and finding within himself the characters of Christianity, he lays hold of its promises. He becomes assured of its being in the class of those to whom they are made. And what is it to possess such assurance? It is to have an anticipated possession of all the blessings which are the object of it. It is to be already quickened, already raised up, already made to sit in heavenly places together with Jesus Christ. III. Finally, the believer is quickened, he is raised up, he is made to sit together in heavenly places, by means of the foretastes which he enjoys of his participation in the exaltation of the Saviour of the world. Should any one accuse me, of myself running under this head, upon that rock of the marvellous, against which I cautioned my hearers, under a preceding branch of my discourse, I would request his attention to the following series of propositions, which I barely indicate in so many words. 1st Proposition. God possesses a sovereign empire over all perceptions of our souls; he is able to excite in them such as he pleases, either with the concurrence of external objects, or without that concurrence. 2d Proposition. In the order of nature, God to the more circuitous one of reasoning, for the 3d Proposition. It by no means involves a 4th Proposition. We are assured not only I am persuaded that many among you have Now, if you call upon me to go into a more particular detail on this subject, I will say to you, that however mysterious this operation of the grace of God may be; whatever difficulty may appear in exactly ascertaining the time of its communication, it is imparted to believers, in five situations chiefly. 1. When shutting the door of his closet, and excluding the world from his heart, the Christian enjoys communion with Deity. 2. When Providence calls him to undergo some severe trial. 3. When he has been enabled to make some noble and generous sacrifice. 4. When celebrating the sacred mysteries of redeeming love. 5. Finally, in the hour of conflict with the king of terrors. 1. When shutting the door of his closet, and excluding the world from his heart, he is admitted to communion and fellowship with Deity, in retirement and silence. There it is that a commerce is instituted, the charms of which I should to no purpose undertake to display, unless they were known to you by experience. There it is that the believer compensates to himself the time of which he has been constrained to defraud his God; and there it is, that God compensates to the believer, the delights of which the commerce of the world has deprived him. There it is that the believer pours out into the bosom of his Father and his God, the sorrow excited by the recollection of his offences, and that he sheds the tears of a repentance which love has enkindled, and expresses in terms such as these: "My God, I know that love is thy predominant character, and that it cannot be thy will I should perish: but I am ashamed of my own weakness; I am ashamed of the little progress I have made in religion, since the time thou hast been pleased to grant me a revelation of it. I am ashamed to reflect that such an accumulation of benefits as thou hast conferred upon me, should have still produced so slight an impression upon my heart." And there it is that God wipes the tear from the believer's eye, and heals up the wounds of the penitent, saying unto him, " I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions, for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins," Isa. xliii. 25. There it is that the believer avails himself of the tender access which God condescends to grant to those precious moments, and that conversing with him, " as a man speaketh unto his friend," Ex. xxxiii. 11, he asks him to bestow communications more endearing, more intimate: "Lord, I beseech thee to show me thy glory," ver. 8. "Lord, scatter that darkness which still veils thy perfections from my view; Lord, dispel those clouds which still intervene between me and the light of thy countenance." There it is that God takes pleasure to gratify desires so nobly directed: "Poor mortals, how unrefined, how debased is your taste! How much are you to be pitied, with that relish for the meagre delights of this world!" Is there any one that can stand a comparison with that which the believer enjoys in such blessed intercourse as this? 2. When Providence calls him to encounter some severe trial. I speak not here of trials to which appetite prompts a man to expose himself, under the specious pretext of promis ing himself the glory of a triumph, but in reality from the fatal charm which betrays him into defeat. We have no encouragement to expect divine support to resist and overcome temptation, when we rashly throw ourselves in the way of it: "He that loveth danger," says the Wise Man, "shall perish therein." I speak of those trials, which the believer is called to encounter, either from some supernatural interpositions, or simply from the duty imposed by his Christian vocation. How often do they appear to him so rude, as to awaken despair of overcoming? How often, when abandoned for a moment to his frailty, he says within himself, "No, I shall never have the fortitude to bear up under that painful conflict: no, it will be impossible for me to survive the loss of that child, far dearer to me than life itself: no, I shall never be able to fulfil the duties of the station to which Providence is calling me. How can I give my heart to what I hate, and tear it away from what I love?" Christian, be of good courage. See that thy resolution be upright and sincere, “to him that believeth all things are possible," Mark ix. 23. There are resources of grace with which thou art yet unacquainted; but which thou shalt know by experience, if thou pray for them, and make it thy unremitting and sincere endeavour to walk worthy of such exalted expectations. God himself will descend into thy soul with rays of light, with fresh supplies of strength, with impressions so lively, of the promised recompense of reward, that thou shalt not feel the pains of conflict, and be sensible only to the pleasure of victory; that thou shalt raise the shout of victory, whilst thou art yet in the hottest of the battle. 3. I said that those transporting foretastes are communicated to the believer, after he has been enabled to offer up some noble and generous sacrifice. I can conceive no transports once to be compared with those which Abraham felt, on his descent from Mount Moriah. What conflicts must he have undergone from the awful moment that God demanded his Isaac! What a dreadful portion of time, I was going to say, what an eternity was the three days which passed between his departure from his habitation, and his arrival at the place where this tremendous sacrifice was to be offered up! What emotions must that question of Isaac have excited in a father's bosom; "behold the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?" Gen. xxii. 7. Abraham comes off victorious in all these combats; Abraham binds his son with cords; he stretches him out on the wooden pile; he lifts up his hand to pierce the bosom of this innocent victim. God arrests his uplifted arm. Abraham has done his duty: he carries back his son with him; what a transport of delight! But this is not all. Will God be outdone in generosity by Abraham? He crowns the obedience of his servant: he accumulates upon him new marks of favour, he promises himself to immolate his own Son for the man who could summon up the resolution to devote his son at God's command. This is, according to St. Paul, the sense of those mysterious words; "by myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast THE EXALTATION OF JESUS CHRIST. not withheld thy son, thine only son; that in 4. While he is partaking in the sacred mys- It is true, nevertheless, that a participation of the sacrament of the supper is one of the situations in which a believer most frequently experiences those gracious operations of which our apostle is speaking in the text.. A soul, whose undivided attention the Holy Spirit fixes on the mystery of the cross; and on whom he lively manner, the is pleased to impress, in great events which the symbolical representation in the Eucharist retraces on the heart; a soul, which, through grace, loses itself in the abyss of that love which God has manifested towards us in Jesus Christ; a soul which has learned to infer, from what God has already done, what is still farther to be expected from him; a soul, which feels, and, if I may use the expression, which relishes the conclusiveness of this reasoning, "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not, with him, also, freely give us all things?" Rom. viii. 32. Is not a soul in such a state, already "quickened, already raised up, already seated in heavenly places, together with Christ Jesus?" "henceforth know I no man after the flesh," Witness, once more, those tender, those intake place between the dying Christian and structive, those edifying conversations which his pastor. The pastor addresses to the dying person these words on the part of God: "Seek my face;" and the dying believer replies, "Thy face, Lord, will I seek," Ps. xxvii. 8. The pastor says, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon thee," 1 John iii. 1, and the dying person replies; "the love of God is shed abroad in my heart, by the Holy Ghost which is given unto me," Rom. v. 5. The pastor says, "Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God:" the dying person replies, "I have a desire to depart and to be with Christ," Phil. i. 23. "My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?" Ps. xlii. 2. The pastor says, "Run with patience the race that is set before thee, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of thy faith," Heb. xii. 1, 2. The dying believer replies, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown whom I have believed, and I am persuaded against that day," 2 Tim. i. 12. "I know 5. But it is particularly when the believer is that he is able to keep that which I have comgrappling with the king of terrors, that he ex-mitted unto him against that day," 2 Tim. iv. periences those communications of divine grace, which transport him into another world, and which verify, in the most sublime of all senses, the idea which the apostle conveys to us of it, in the words of the text. Witness that patience and submission under sufferings the most acute, and that entire acquiescence in the sovereign will of God: "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it," Ps. xxxix. 9. Witness that supernatural detachment from the world, which enables him to resign, without murmuring, and without reserve, all that he was most tenderly united to: 7, 8. "Behold, I see the heavens opened, and Such are the wonders which the grace of What now remains for me to do, after hav- took delight in disclosing the most secret emoing employed my feeble efforts to draw you tions of my soul: and if it were still possible to God, by attractions so powerful: what re- for any thing to call me back, now that my mains, but to address my most fervent prayers God is calling me away, it would be the into him, and to entreat that he would be pleased clination I feel, to prolong the happy days to make known those pure and exalted de- which we have passed together. But though lights, to those who are, as yet, utter strangers the bands which unite us are close and ento them; and that he may, powerfully confirm, deared, they must not be everlasting. It was even unto the end, those to whom he has al- in the order of human things, either that you ready graciously communicated them. With should be called to close my eyes, or that I should this we shall conclude the solemn business of a be called to close yours. Providence is now deday of sacred rest. We are going, once more, claring the supreme command, that I should to lift up to heaven, in your behalf, hands pu- travel before you, the way of all the earth: it rified in the blood of the Redeemer of man- was my wish, before I undergo the irreversible kind. Come, my beloved brethren, support decree, once more to behold the persons whom these hands, should they wax heavy: perform I have ever borne on my heart, to call to refor us the service which Aaron and Hur ren-membrance the sweet counsel which we have dered to Moses, as we are attempting to render the service of a Moses unto you. Assist us in moving the bowels of the God of mercy.And graciously vouchsafe, blessed Jesus, who, on the memorable day, of which we are now celebrating the anniversary, wert "made higher than the heavens; set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens;" and who presentest unto God, in "a golden censer, the prayers of all saints:" vouchsafe, blessed Jesus, to give energy to those which we are about to put up, and to support them by thy all-powerful intercession. Amen. SERMON LXXVI. FOR A COMMUNION SABBATH. MALACHI i. 6, 7. A son honoureth his father, and a servant his master: if then I be a father, where is mine honour? and if I be a master, where is my fear? saith the Lord of Hosts unto you, O priests, that despise my name. And ye say, Wherein have we despised thy name? Ye offer polluted bread upon mine altar; and ye say, Wherein have we polluted thee? In that ye say, The table of the Lord is contemptible. THOUGH the spectacle, which the solemnity of this day calls to our recollection, did not directly interest ourselves, it would, nevertheless, be altogether worthy, separately considered, of detaining our eyes, and of fixing our attention. Men have sometimes appeared, who, finding their last moments approaching, collected their family, summoned up their remaining strength, expressed a wish, in a repast of love and benevolence, to take a last, a long farewell of the persons who were most dear to them, and to break asunder, by that concluding act of social attachment, all the remains of that human affection which tied them down to the world. What an object, my brethren, what a heartaffecting object does that man present, who, beholding himself on the point of being removed from all those to whom he was most tenderly united, desires to see them all assembled together for the last time, and, when assembled, addresses them in terms such as these: "It was to you, whose much loved society constituted the joy of my life, it was to you I taken together, the connexions which we have formed: and thus too it is, that I would take leave of the world. After having given away, for a moment, to the expansions of my love for you, I rise above all the objects of sense; I am swallowed up of the thoughts which ought to employ the soul of a dying person, and I hasten to submit to the will of the Sovereign Disposer of life and death." Jesus Christ, in the institution of this holy ordinance, is doing somewhat similar to the representation now given. His disciples were undoubtedly his most powerful attachment to the earth. The kind of death which he was about to suffer, demanded the undivided attention of his mind: but before he plunges into that vast ocean of thought which was to carry him through the sharp conflicts prepared for him, he wishes to behold again, at his table, those tender objects of his affection: "With desire," says he to them, "I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer," Luke xxii. 15. Had I not good reason for expressing myself as I did? Though this spectacle did not directly interest ourselves, it would be highly worthy, considered in itself, of detaining our eyes, and of fixing our attention. But what closeness of attention, what concentration of thought does it not require of us, if we consider it in the great and comprehensive views, which animated the Saviour of the world, when he instituted the sacrament of the supper! Behold him prepared, that divine Saviour, to finish the great work, which heaven has given him to do. He comes to substitute himself in the room of those victims, whose blood, too worthless, could do nothing towards the purification of guilty man. He comes to fulfil that mysterious prediction: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened; . .. Lo, İ come; in the volume of the book it is written of me; I delight to do thy will, O my God; yea, thy law is within my heart," Ps. xl. 6—8. He comes to deliver up himself to that death, the very approaches of which inspire the soul with horror, and constrain him to cry out, "Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?" John xii. 27. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death," Matt. xxvi. 36. What shall he do to support himself in the prospect of such tremendous arrangements? What buckler shall he oppose to those envenomed arrows, with which he is going to be transfixed? Love, my brethren, formed the ge FOR A COMMUNION SABBATH. nerous design of the sacrifice which he is ready to 'offer up; and love will carry him through the arduous undertaking. He says to himself, that the memory of this death which he is going to endure, shall be perpetuated in the churches, even unto the end of the world; that, even to the end of the world, he shall be the refuge of poor perishing sinners. He says to himself, that through the whole world of believers, whom the preaching of the gospel is going to subdue to his love and obedience, this death shall be celebrated. He himself institutes the memorial of it, and taking that bread and that wine, the august symbols of his body broken, and of his blood shed, he gives them to his disciples; he says to them, and, in their person, to all those who shall believe in him through their word, "Take, eat, this is my body; this is my blood of the New Testament, Drink ye all of it," Matt. xxvi. 26-28. "This do in remembrance of me: For as often as ye eat this bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come," 1 Cor. xi. 24-26. O shame to human nature! O the weakness, The prophet Malachi, whose voice God is We find traces of this shameful history, in How awfully respectable is a preacher, my But scarcely was the house of the Lord re- This idea of the circumstances in which the |