in these words delivering the doctrine of the real and proper Deity of Jesus Christ, he is either himself labouring under a delusion, or he intentionally means to deceive, or there is no meaning in language, and consequently no distinct and safe channel of communication between man and man.

highest glory of human nature: but this la
bouring and working is not in aid to feeble-
ness, it goes not to the production of what
had no previous being; it simply implies the
adoption of the same views with God, and
the imitation of his works of goodness and
mercy. The united powers of angels and
men are unequal to the formation of a
single atom, for, to the ascription of the
creation of universal nature to the Word,
John subjoins his exclusive title to the cha-

not give to any other; "without him was
not any thing made that was made."
"He
spake, and it was done; he commanded, and
it stood fast." "God said, Let there be light,
and there was light." And who but God could
thus speak, thus produce?

The same was in the beginning with God. John speaks as a prophet as well as an evangelist. Foreseeing that "false teachers" should arise, "even denying the Lord that bought them," he employs a clearness, a co-racter of Creator: it is a glory which he will piousness, a force of expression on this momentous point, not to be misunderstood, not to be slighted, not to be explained away. When a master charges his servant with a message of peculiar importance, he repeats it again and again, he puts it into every different form, in order to avoid ambiguity and to prevent mistake. This is evidently the case here. It must not be made a question. "Of whom speaketh" the evangelist thus? "of himself, or of some other man?" The identity of the person is ascertained beyond the reach of doubt. He is the same before time began its race; the same who set time a flowing; the same through every period of duration; the same under every character and in every condition.

In Him was life. In the vegetable world life is a state of expansion, a progress of fructification, a power of reproduction, but all issuing in the decay and dissolution of the parent germ. A grain of wheat in order to vitality must itself consume. "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.” It has not therefore life in itself. It was the divine mandate which first generated, and which still supports the wonderful process. "God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, Where is the proof that the Word was the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree God? All things were made by him; and yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself upon without him was not any thing made that the earth, after his kind: and it was so: and was made. Behold the execution of the God saw that it was good." From the same eternal plan. The design is copied to an fountain of life proceeded animal nature: iota. It is the incommunicable prerogative" All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of of Deity to create. He who creates cannot the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of be himself a creature. By the WORD were the sea, and whatsoever passeth through all things made, the WORD therefore could the paths of the seas." A higher species of not have been made. What God did by the life issues from the selfsame source. "The Word of his power, he did by himself; and Lord God formed man of the dust of the "through faith we understand that the worlds ground, and breathed into his nostrils the were framed by the Word of God." Mark breath of life; and man became a living the universality of this creative energy; All soul." In all these gradations we behold a things were made by Him. The apostle vital principle, but that principle derived, makes a splendid enumeration of those all standing in need of continual supplies, and things, in his epistle to the Colossians, ch. i. hastening to extinction. Here we are preverse 16. For by Him were all things sented with life underived, needing no excreated, that are in heaven, and that are internal support, inextinguishable. "In Him" earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him and for him." Wherever therefore there is created existence, there is omnipotent, omni-a present, creating, and sustaining virtue, and there can be but One Omnipotent, Omnipresent. Angels" are said to "excel in strength," but that strength is imparted, and it is exerted or restrained by a will not their own; they "do His commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word." Man is capable of doing great things, but his power is limited to the modification of materials provided to his hand. Christians are indeed said to be "labourers together with God," and "workers together with him;" it is the

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supereminently "was life;" a life of which man is in a peculiar sense partaker: and the life was the light of men.

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"The light of the body is the eye;" and precious gift it is. Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun." But the faculty of vision, as well as some others, is bestowed in a higher degree of acuteness on certain of the animal creation than upon man. He however possesses a light denied to the beasts that perish. "There is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding." "The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord," by which he is distinguished from, and exalted far above the beasts of the earth and the fowls of heaven.

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And this "light of men" is the gift of Him death;" on unbelieving Jews and the blind-
who has life in himself." He that planted posterity of Ishmael? Alas! "darkness
ed the ear, shall he not hear? He that form- still covers the earth," of lands denominated
ed the eye, shall he not see? He that Christian, "and gross darkness the people"
teacheth man knowledge, shall not he who bear that venerable name. What griey-
know!"
ous ignorance have we to deplore! what im-
Ma-pudent infidelity, what abounding iniquity,
what horrid profanation of the name, of the
day, of the book of God!
Sun of right-
eousness, arise" on these sinful lands" with
healing in thy wings," "deliver us from the
power of darkness," that we may be "light
in the Lord."

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The evangelist having displayed the glory of the WORD, as the source of all being, whether material, animal, or intelligent, adverts to the mission of John Baptist, his immediate forerunner, “the voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God;" the finger pointing to "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." Paying all due honour to that burning and shining light" which came in the spirit and power of Elias, he represents him as merely the harbinger of the LIGHT, the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. John Baptist came for a witness, and he faithfully delivered his testimony: "He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me-whose shoes' latchet I am not worthy to unloose: He must increase, but I must decrease," as the morning star "hides his diminished head" when the great orb of day appears.

And the light shineth in darkness. terial light necessarily dispels darkness; when the sun rises the shadows flee away. But mental darkness resists the clearest light. The great source of intellectual day has shined through every age and upon every land; but every age and every land have exhibited men grovelling in the dark, wilfully shutting their eyes, and then denying the existence of light. The history of mankind is a melancholy demonstration of this, "and this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil, for every one that doth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved." It is a corrupted heart that disturbs and misleads the intellect." If, therefore," O man, "the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!" On whom does this censure fall? On the ruder nations, and the grosser periods of ignorance and barbarism! Yes, and likewise on periods of illumination and refinement, on nations who, in the pride of their heart, appropriated all wisdom to themselves, and stigmatized the rest of mankind with the name of Barbarian: it falls on the boasted ages of Alexander and of Augustus, on learned Athens and imperial Rome. Of "Through faith we understand that the them it is that the apostle Paul thus writes: worlds were framed by the Word of God," "When they knew God, they glorified him but "the world by wisdom knew not God." not as God, neither were thankful, but be- He was in the world through the whole excame vain in their imaginations, and their tent of its duration, as the all-upholding foolish heart was darkened. Professing them- Word, the all-regulating power, but the men selves to be wise, they became fools: and of the world, even "the wise and prudent" changed the glory of the uncorruptible God discerned him not, acknowledged him not, into an image made like to corruptible man, adored him not. "The fulness of time" at and to birds and four-footed beasts, and creep-length came.. The Scriptures were fulfilled: ing things. Who changed the truth of God the day which "Abraham rejoiced to see" into a lie, and worshipped and served the began to dawn; the "Star out of Jacob" creature more than the Creator." This ac- arose. Surely man will fall down and worcounts for that earnestness of exhortation ship him. They surely, at least, "to whom employed by the same apostle in his epistle pertaineth the adoption and the glory, and to the Ephesians: "This I say, and testify the covenants, and the giving of the law, in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as and the service of God, and the promises, other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their whose are the fathers and of whom, as conmind, having the understanding darkened, cerning the flesh, Christ came," they surely being alienated from the life of God, through will flock to "the brightness of his rising." the ignorance that is in them, because of the This is a reasonable expectation, but it was blindness of their heart: who, being past not realized. The melancholy fact is, He feeling, have given themselves over unto came unto his own, and his own received him lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with not, and the prediction is verified by the greediness." Thus though the Light of event; "When we shall see him, there is the world shone, and still shineth, the dark-no beauty that we should desire him: He is ness comprehended it not. On whom does the censure fall? On pagans of ages past, and on pagans now walking in darkness, and dwelling in the land of the shadow of

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despised and rejected of men"-they "hid their faces from him; he was despised, and they esteemed him not."

This carries us forward, with our evan_e

of his divine excellence and perfection, but we may with him descend to the lowliest offices of beneficence and condescension! we may learn of him to "overcome evil with good."

list, to the great, the eventful day when the WORD was made flesh and dwelt among us. The Scripture term, flesh, it is well known means man, human nature, the human race. Thus in describing the universality of hu- On the other hand, to what height of eleman degeneracy it is said, "All flesh had vation may not the Christian aspire? Let corrupted their ways." Thus, in confidence not the idea of temporal elevation seduce you. of divine protection, the Psalmist exultingly Think not of “the kingdoms of this world and exclaims, "I will not fear what flesh can do the glory of them," which perish with the unto me." And the Prophet, viewing the using. Christ's "kingdom is not of this redemption of mankind as co-extensive with world." Let not the blind ambition of the mortality, while he declares that "all flesh sons of Zebedee suggest a dream of right and is grass," triumphs in the thought that "all left hand places by the side of an earthly flesh should see the salvation of God." To throne. Be it your study and ambition to these, innumerable instances might be ad- have this mind in you which also was in duced to prove that the evangelist, when he Christ Jesus." Let the avarice of the worldly says "the Word was made flesh" means to mind accumulate bag upon bag, add house to convey this idea, that the WORD, all-creating, house, field to field, but let a nobler avarice all-vivifying, all-illuminating, assumed hu- excite you, the disciples of the blessed Jesus, manity, was in the world," tabernacled to "add to your faith, virtue; and to virtue, among men, emitted a sensible glory, "as knowledge; and to knowledge, temperance; of the only begotten of the Father, full of and to temperance, patience; and to pagrace and truth." "Verily he took not on tience, godliness; and to godliness brotherly him the nature of angels; but he took on kindness; and to brotherly kindness, chahim the seed of Abraham"-" as the chil-rity." These are the titles, the stars, and dren are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same❞— "in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren"" for which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren."

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And thus, men and brethren we perceive one and the same animating principle calling worlds into existence, peopling them with angels and men, communicating intelligence, exercising unbounded empire-and making himself of no reputation, in the form of a servant, in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man, humbling himself to a mean estate, to the suffering of reproach and contempt, becoming "obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.' To what meanness of condition ought not we his disciples, therefore, cheerfully to submit? "For our sakes he became poor," and shall we be ashamed of honest poverty? Did he go by the name of "the carpenter's son," and dare a Christian ostentatiously to display the heraldry of his ancestors, or to blush at what the world calls low birth? "He hath not despised, nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, nor hid his face from him when he cried," and can one called by his name turn a deaf ear to the cry of distress, or hide his face from a poor brother? We cannot like him say "Let there be light"-"Lazarus, come forth;" we cannot like him walk on water or silence the wind: we cannot like him give eyes to the blind, or speech to the dumb. But we may with him be "meek and lowly in heart," merciful and compassionate, forbearing and forgiving: we can go about doing good, and ministering to the necessitous. We cannot attain to the height

the ribands in the kingdom of heaven, and "if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ." Let the spirit of adventure and science discover unknown regions and nations on the globe, and new planets in the firmament of heaven; be it your concern, Christian, your study, youremployment, to contemplate, through the glass of promise, “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." Suffer the man of the world to enjoy his triumph; suffer him to outstrip his rival, to run down his enemy; be thine the more glorious triumph to promote a rival, to spare an adversary, as knowing that "He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city."

Such, disciple of Jesus, be thy holy aspirations, such thy pride and ambition; and may such be thy blessed attainments even in time: thought is lost in contemplating "the glory that is to follow." The beloved disciple shall declare it, in the sublimity of his own conception and expression, or rather in the idea and diction with which the Holy Spirit supplied his pen: "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God! therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is. And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure."

HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST.

F J

LECTURE CIX.

Who shall declare his generation?—ISAIAH liii. 8.

appears simply to be a bold defiance given to all-created wisdom to investigate, to unfold the generations, the origin, the essence of that wonderful Person concerning whom such singular circumstances and events are predicted; it amounts to a strong and positive

THE history of countries generally com- consider, that this is the very passage of Scripmences with a geographical account of their ture to which Philip the evangelist was situation and extent; of the climate and soil; providentially directed, as a text for "preachof the names and the reason of imposing such ing Jesus," to the Ethiopian eunuch. I shall names; of the era and the means of discovery; not employ any part of your time in detailing of the original inhabitants, and of other cir- the various opinions which have been entercumstances tending either to communicate tained respecting the meaning of the passage useful information or to gratify curiosity. in general, or the precise import of the term The biographer, in like manner, in delinea-"generation" in particular. The question ting the life of his prince, statesman, hero, or philosopher, usually begins with tracing his pedigree and parentage, and enables the reader to form some acquaintance with his ancestors, in order to introduce the personage himself with greater advantage and effect. But both the general historian and the bio-affirmation, that it is impossible to declare grapher quickly lose themselves in research. The origin of no nation or individual can be traced up to its source. The light becomes fainter and fainter as we proceed, the object is rendered more obscure and uncertain, till time at length spreads his sable mantle over it, and we behold it no more. Who then shall declare his generation, who "was in the beginning with God, by whom all things were made and without whom was not any thing made that is made."

Him as he is, to trace his existence through the successive periods of duration up to its commencement, as you may do that of a mere man from the moment of his birth, or, through a series of ancestors. What in this view is the obvious doctrine of the text? That the generation of Him who the Spirit of prophecy, and the corresponding history represent as an innocent, patient, vicarious sufferer, extends beyond the sphere of created nature, eludes pursuit, spreads the glory of eternity around We are advancing, men and brethren, upon it, and conceals it from mortal eyes. It is holy ground, ground sacred as Eden's blissful worthy of remark, that the genealogy of our plains, as the region which surrounded the blessed Lord's humanity is more clear and disbush that burned with fire, as Sinai's awful tinct, and extended, than that of any other summit. Borne aloft on the pinions of the person. Two several evangelists have decelestial dove, we are aiming a bold, ad-clared it, pursuing it, through two different venturous flight into the heaven of heavens, to expatiate through the boundless regions of eternity, to contemplate objects which "angels desire to look into," to search into the "great mystery of godliness," to lose ourselves in seeking "to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge."

We are going to attempt a delineation of the Life and History of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of Men. My heart fails at the thought of the task which I have undertaken; my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth. Spirit of Grace, establish thou my heart

"O thou my voice inspire,

Who touch'd Isaiah's hallow'd lips with fire!" The question of the prophet which has now been read, and which suggested the idea that we mean to pursue through this Lecture, is interwoven with a variety of pointed and striking predictions which, whether taken separately or in their combination, can apply only to one person; and who that person is, no doubt can possibly be entertained, when we

but parallel channels, up to Abraham, and from him up to the common Father of the human race. In this respect, therefore, "the Spirit himself helpeth our infirmity ;" and he who by the mouth of Isaiah seems to forbid and defy all inquiry, by the pen of Matthew and Luke, makes a clear and full discovery, and enables us to trace the pedigree of Jesus Christ, like that of any other man. It is the peculiar privilege of the sacred volume to unfold the real history of human nature, of the globe, of the universe, to follow nature up to the hour of her birth, to declare" the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created; in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens ;" to exhibit the first man Adam in the plastic hands of the Creator springing out of the dust of the ground, and, inspired with the breath of life, becoming "a living soul." The same inspired volume represents to our attention one person, and one event, as of peculiar importance; as pervading, influencing, and

childhood; of a father's early care, and of a mother's tenderness; of the amusements, the companions, the solicitudes, the sorrows and joys of thy boyish days. But all beyond is a blank; to thee creation began a few years ago; the second or third, at most, of thy own immediate progenitors, is blended with the men who lived beyond the flood. We are ignorant of and unknown to each other. How much more so are the men of distant nations and of times more remote? But family tradition, national record, the inspired

affecting the whole course of Nature and Providence; as contemporary with every generation of men; as looked unto, and longed for by successive ages. In order that the truth of God might be fully justified and have its complete effect, the relation, in which this illustrious person stood to those who had received the promises of his coming, is distinctly ascertained and minutely described; so that at every period of the world we can say, lo He is here, and lo He is there. But the inspired volume likewise represents him as before all and above all.-page can supply the want of personal knowIf therefore this book be a Revelation from Heaven, it must contain real and important truth, and that truth clothed in plain, simple, and intelligible language; we must perceive, of consequence, in the "man of sorrows and acquainted with grief," a person whose generation no one is able to declare, who is "before all and by whom all things do consist:"| whom all the angels of God are commanded to worship, "the heir of all things," by whom the worlds were made and are upheld, whose "throne is for ever and ever:" in one word Christ Jesus, "who is over all, God blessed for ever."

ledge, can carry us back to departed forefathers, and bring them down to us. But what recollection, what tradition, what record, can carry us beyond the birth of nature, can convey us to a state of existence previous to the lapse of time? Now the person of whom the prophet speaks, as we saw in the preceding Lecture, is the WORD who spake all things into existence, who built the world, who spread the flood, who set time a flowing, who "breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life." Who then of the sons of men, which of the angels of God shall declare the generation of Him who made them what they are, who placed them in their stations, who prescribed to them bounds which they cannot pass? The slightest detail of nature, O man, presents a mystery which thou canst not solve, a world which thou canst not comprehend unto per

You are well aware that the doctrine, which we wish to establish, is in the present day violently opposed; and while it is maintained in this place, it may be perhaps in the next street the subject of profane mirth, or of serious argumentation. Thinking as we do, we will not enter the lists of controver-fection. That seed cast into the ground sy. We will not employ your time, nor en- cannot be "quickened except it die;" canst deavour to enlist your passions, by running thou declare the generation of this insect, todown one name, party, or opinion, and exalt- day a butterfly, yesterday a moth, the third ing another; but will simply and humbly, day a mere lifeless incrustation, and presumthough at the same time, firmly and unre-est thou to explain the great mystery of servedly, propose for your instruction and godliness, "God made manifest in the flesh;" improvement, what appears to be the mean- at so many different times, in such divers ing and object of Scripture; and, consider-manners made known unto the Fathers by ing the divinity of our Lord and Saviour the prophets; and in these last days unveiled Jesus Christ as the first leading object of all Revelation, we will uniformly bring it forward in every discourse. If therefore these exercises are at all frequented, or attended unto, it will be by such as expect, and are well pleased, to hear of the great Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, in his original, everlasting, unchanging glory, and in his humiliation, as the son of man, to the form of a servant, to the death of the cross, a propitiation for sin. To this, we trust, not unknown God, our altar is erected, and dedicated, and on it we would again present our whole selves a living sacrifice unto the one true God, and "our Saviour Jesus Christ; to whom be glory for ever and ever."

to us in the person of the Son, the brightness of his Father's glory, and the express image of his person? We repeat the question, understandest thou, and art thou able to unfold, the union that exists in thy own frame, between the clay tabernacle and the immortal mind; earth and heaven blended in thine own person? And shall "it be thought a thing incredible," that He who, in the uninterrupted course of his Providence, produces this union which every one is conscious of existing, though no one is capable of explaining, should form other combinations, unite other natures, to declare his power and manifest his glory? Wherefore should "it be thought a thing incredible," that He who unites himself to every one of

"Who shall declare his generation?" In-us, through the medium of reason and concapable thou art, O man, to trace back the short and slender thread of thy own existence and descent. Thou mayest have some faint recollection of weak and dependent

science, for carrying on the plan of nature, should have united humanity to himself in the person of the Redeemer, in a manner still more incomprehensible, for perfecting