Christians are enjoined to

by complying with its demands. "do all in the name of the Lord Jesus." To perform a work in his name is, to do it with his warrant and by his authority; to do it under a sense of responsibility to him alone; to do it in his stead, as the representative, friend, and advocate of Christ; and to do it in the manner and in the temper, in which Jesus Christ himself would have done, had he been personally engaged in it. Unless our actions and efforts have the authority of Christ, our religious character is a forged currency: it is like stamping the royal name and image upon base coin. All acts of obedience to the authority of Christ must be done according to his will, and the directions which he himself has given. The rules of affectionate homage and practical obedience are supplied in his word, and beautifully exemplified and illustrated in his own example. To the question, "Who hath required this at your hand?" our only valid answer should be, "It is written."

The world attaches the name and character of Christian to every thing which Christians do, because they reasonably assume, that Christians would do nothing for which they had not either the instruction or the example of their Lord. If, therefore, we profess to be Christians, and exhibit a character and life unlike or opposite to Christ, it is caricaturing religion for the ridicule of men; it is exhibiting a portrait of deformed and distorted features, and undersigning it with the name of Christ. He will own and avow none "for an honor and a praise" to him, but those who imitate his character, and do his will in accordance with his word. Our best efforts and achievements will not glorify Christ, unless they are performed on his account and for his sake. "For Christians to live, is Christ." This was the language of Paul. And what kind of a life did Paul lead? It was a holy, laborious, and a happy life. And what made his life so happy? Not rich domains, pompous titles, or princely revenues; but a supreme, affectionate, and constant regard to the Lord Jesus Christ. Is my reader concerned to know the secret of this happy life? Hear it: :- "According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that, with all boldness, as always, so now also, Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death; for, unto me, to live, is Christ." Here is a thorough willingness to be employed for Christ, a renouncing of all former interests and delights, a separating of attachment from all competitors,

a readiness and unreservedness of mind for any work, and for every work, that has a tendency to glorify Christ. The interest of Christ is paramount in his estimation, and all other matters and pursuits are only in subserviency to this. To promote the designs of his mercy, and the claims of his authority in the present world, forms the business of his life. He deems not himself a loser by what he gives and does for Christ; and he views his own dishonor lighter than any slur on the name of Christ.

A Christian's high and pure ambition is to please Christ. He tries every measure by the test of its acceptableness to Christ. He acts as if every action were an inlet into the favor of Christ, and as if the glory and the happiness of Christ depended upon that action. He is careful to know the mind of Christ in the scriptures, that he may understand what is pleasing and what is displeasing to him. In the discharge of every duty he is more concerned that it pleases Christ than that it pleases man: if it pleases Christ, with him it is a small matter whether men are pleased or displeased. Pleasing Christ is his business, and pleasing Christ is his heaven. To the worldling it is sweet to seem good; to the Christian it is sweeter to be good, and sweeter still, to do good, because it is service to Christ. In the favor of Christ is his life. Though he does not please Christ as he would, yet, if he fail in this, nothing else can give him pleasure. This attachment is hearty and habitual; it is not the result of alarm, or the forced effort after a moving discourse, or after a painful sickness; it is the fixed habit and the stamped character of his soul. Such affection and devotedness, such thorough consecration of self, and such fidelity and activity must honor and glorify Christ; for whatever men of the world themselves may think of Christ, they feel that, in the estimation of his followers, he is "altogether lovely," that in all things he has the preeminence, and that they are determined to know nothing among men save Jesus Christ and him crucified.

2. Jesus Christ is glorified by direct efforts to increase and diffuse the knowledge of his worth and glory, that others might be brought to admire, honor, and praise him. By the ministry of the gospel, by multiplying and circulating copies of the scriptures, by religious conversation, and by benevolent institutions, Christians make manifest the savor of the knowledge of Christ in every place. They publish the glory of his

person, as God over all blessed for ever, as possessed of every divine perfection, as divine by nature and not by delegation. They announce the fact of his incarnation, as the stupendous proof of his love, as the means of triumph over him who had enslaved us, as the ground of his sympathy with his followers, and as investing our degraded nature with the most distinguished honors. They reveal the glory of his love as constituting his individuality on earth and in heaven, as the magnet to draw all hearts to himself, as breathed in words of mercy, and proved in deeds of kindness, as immutable in his sufferings, brightening in his tears, distilling in his bloody anguish, and in his death pronouncing the pardon of the world. They proclaim the adaptation of his mediatorial offices to all the realities of the case between God and man: as a priest who on earth made an atonement, which secures the honor of the divine character in forgiving the sin of the world, and who in heaven, far above all temples, ever lives to make intercession, and is able to save to the uttermost every applicant at the throne of mercy; as a prophet, who reveals the mind and will of God with clearness, and makes men wise unto salvation; and as a king whose universal power shall subdue all things to himself. And what shall I say more? for the time would fail me to tell of the perfection of his character, the amiable and benign tendency of his doctrine, the fullness and amplitude of his blessings, the certainty of his conquests, and the splendor of his final triumphs over the world, and a thousand other elements of his glory, which Christians present to the attention of the world. In all these efforts and ministrations Christ is all in all: they all exhibit "Him first, him last, him midst, and him without end."

3. The glory of Christ is the supreme motive to the impulse of which every Christian ought to yield. The glory of Christ is the main-spring that should set in motion all the machinery of Christian ordinances and religious institutions. Whatever is done from the influence of education, or the force of custom, from a desire of worldly advantage, or from a mercenary idea of merit, and from bigoted zeal and party spirit, will never be distinguished by the plaudit of Christ, "Ye have done it unto ME." It is the influence of the glory of Christ being felt and avowed as the motive, that constitutes the Christianity of an institution: it is this that marks and distinguishes the schemes and the enterprises of the church,

In this

from the plots and the enterprises of the world: this is the test of the church's sincere and steadfast fidelity to its charge and commission: this is the clearest and the surest index to the church's spirituality and superiority to the world; and it is this ALONE that answers the design of ministerial labors and evangelical institutions. If the ministerial labors, or if religious institutions secure every other conceivable and desirable end, and fail of the glory of Christ, they are as useless as the measures which would secure every thing to the farmer but the harvest of his toil, or the medicines which secured every thing to man except his life. In the surrender of our time, therefore, to religious duties, in the contribution of our property to benevolent institutions, and in the consecration of our persons to evangelical labors, we ought to scrutinize our motives with the caution and the honesty, that we would exercise amidst the dawnings of the day of judgment. process we may, indeed, be hypocrites, but we cannot be selfdeceivers. If we can prove any thing from consciousness, we can prove the reality of our motive to an action. An open heart will tell us whether we cordially approve of the glory of Christ as a prize worth gaining, whether we aim at it in our attempts and exertions, whether we disregard every thing which comes into competition with it, whether we grieve when we miss of it, and whether we count it our highest joy when we win it. God aimed at the glory of Christ in the entire system of mercy and the truths of revelation; Christ endured the cross in the prospect of it as the joy set before him; and the Holy Spirit seeks it in all the measures of his office and mission. A union of the church with the Holy Spirit implies that on this subject Christians feel like the Holy Spirit. He is grieved when Christ is treated with neglect, despised and rejected of men, and disesteemed and dishonored in the world. It grieves him to see Christians exalt and magnify other objects instead of Christ, whether they be the distinctions and the honors of the world, or even his own gifts, and graces, and ministerial endowment; how much more when they extol their own works, their own achievements, and their own merit! If these things grieve the Holy Spirit they ought to grieve us. Holy Spirit, and the commission of the church gain not their end, unless Christ be glorified in his saints, and admired in them that believe.

The office of the

The Claims of Christ to the Devotedness of his Church.

Claims so extensive and imperious as those of Jesus Christ ought to be based upon sound and large foundations, and to be clearly understood by all on whom they are pressed. The Holy Spirit, in supplying to the church the inventory of its possession, says, " All things are yours, and ye are Christ's." As the advocate of Christ, he employs no arguments to enforce his claims, but reasons which are altogether Christian : he does not plead so much the moral obligations which arise from Christ's being the Creator of the world, as the generous reasons supplied by Christ's being the Saviour of the world. The Holy Spirit rests the claims of Christ to the homage of the world, and to the service of his church to convert the world to his cause, upon the atonement of his cross. The cords of Christian obligation are cords of love, and the centre to which they are fixed, and from which they extend to all nations and to every man, is the cross of Christ. The cardinal plea of the Holy Spirit is, "Ye are not your own, for ye are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirits, which are his." As "no one knoweth the Father but the Son," so no one knoweth the Son but the Holy Spirit that reveals him. The Holy Spirit KNOWs the Son of God, comprehends the grandeur, the dignity, the worth, and the excellency of his person; forms a just estimate of the perfection of his character; understands all the relations of his official station in the universe; and therefore deigns to undertake his high mission to reveal his glory, expound his rights, and advocate his claims. In the execution of this mission he is not indifferent to the manner in which men are affected by the claims of Christ; but is concerned that they should be received according to the estimate which he himself had formed of them.

1. As members of the family of man, Christians owe every thing they possess to the mediation of Christ. "We thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead, and he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but to him who died for them, and rose again.” Had not Christ interposed his mediation, our first parents, on their fall, "dying would die," and the human race would not have been perpetuated; but its very existence would have perished from the universe. In this terrific crisis, when the