masticate at thy leisure: "And if by grace, then is it no more of works; otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then is it no more grace; otherwise work is no more work." For if you mix the two together, you spoil them. both. Go home, sir, and make yourself a stirabout with fire and water, endeavor to keep in your house a lion and a lamb, and when you have succeeded in doing these, tell me you have made works and grace agree, and I will tell you, you have told me a lie even then, for the two things are so essentially opposite, that it can not be done. Whosoever among you will cast all his good works away, and will come to Jesus with this "Nothing, nothing, NOTHING,

"Nothing in my hands I bring,

Simply to thy cross I cling,"

Christ will give you good works enough, his Spirit will work in you to will and to do of his good pleasure, and will make you holy and perfect; but if you have endeavored to get holiness before Christ, you have begun at the wrong end, you have sought the flower before you have the root, and are foolish for your pains. Ishmaels, tremble before him now! If others of you be Isaacs, may you ever remember that you are children of the promise. Stand fast. Be not entangled by the yoke of bondage, for you are not under the law, but under grace.

SERMON IX.

THE EXALTATION OF CHRIST.*

"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."-PHILIPPIANS, ii, 9–11.

I ALMOST regret this morning that I have ventured to occupy this pulpit, because I feel utterly unable to preach to you for your profit. I had thought that the quiet and repose of the last fortnight had removed the effects of that terrible catastrophe; but on coming back to the same spot again, and more especially standing here to address you, I feel somewhat of those painful emotions which well-nigh prostrated me before. You will, therefore, excuse me this morning if I make no allusion to that solemn event, or scarcely any. I could not preach to you upon a subject that should be in the least allied to it. I should be obliged to be silent if I should bring to my remembrance that terrific scene in the midst of which it was my solemn lot to stand. God shall overrule it, doubtless. It may not have been so much by the malice of men, as some have asserted; it was, perhaps, simple wickedness-an intention to disturb a congregation; but certainly with no thought of committing so terrible a crime as that of the mur der of those unhappy creatures. God forgive those who were the instigators of that horrid act! They have my forgiveness from the depths of my soul. It shall not stop us, however, we are not in the least degree daunted by it. I shall preach

*First sermon after recovering from the illness produced by the accident at Surrey Gardens.

there again yet; ay, and God shall give us souls there, and Satan's empire shall tremble more than ever. "God is with us; who is he that shall be against us?" The text I have selected is one that has comforted me, and, in a great measure, enabled me to come here to-day-the single reflection upon it had such a power of comfort on my depressed spirit. It is this: "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

I shall not attempt to preach upon this text; I shall only make a few remarks that have occurred to my own mind; for I could not preach to-day; I have been utterly unable to study, but I thought that even a few words might be acceptable to you this morning, and I trust to your loving hearts to excuse them. O, Spirit of God, magnify thy servant's weakness, and enable him to honor his Lord, even when his soul is cast down within him.

When the mind is intensely set upon one object, however much it may, by divers calamities, be tossed to and fro, it invariably returns to the place which it had chosen to be its dwelling-place. You have noticed it in the case of David. When the battle had been won by his warriors, they returned flushed with victory. David's mind had, doubtless, suffered much perturbation in the mean time; he had dreaded alike the effects of victory and of defeat; but have you not noticed how his mind, in one moment, returned to the darling object of his affections? "Is the young man, Absalom, safe ?" said he, as if it mattered not what else had occurred, if his beloved son were but secure! So, beloved, is it with the Christian. In the midst of calamities, whether they be the wreck of nations, the crash of empires, the heaving of revolutions, or the scourge of war, the great question which he asks himself, and asks of others too, is this-Is Christ's kingdom safe? In his own personal afflictions his chief answer is-Will God be glorified, and will his honor be increased by it? If it be so, says he,

although I be but as smoking flax, yet if the sun is not dimmed I will rejoice; and though I be a bruised reed, if the pillars of the temple are unbroken, what matters it that my reed is bruised? He finds it sufficient consolation, in the midst of all the breaking in pieces which he endures, to think that Christ's throne stands fast and firm, and that though the earth had rocked beneath his feet, yet Christ standeth on a rock which never can be moved. Some of these feelings, I think, have crossed our minds. Amid much tumult and divers rushings to and fro of troublous thoughts, our souls have returned. to the darling object of our desires, and we have found it no small consolation, after all, to say, "It matters not what shall become of us: God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.”

This text has afforded sweet consolation to every heir of heaven. Allow me very briefly, to give you the consolations of it. To the true Christian there is much comfort in the very fact of Christ's exaltation. In the second place, there is no small degree of consolation in the reason of it. "Wherefore, also, God hath highly exalted him ;" that is, because of his previous humiliation. And thirdly, there is no small amount. of really divine solace in the thought of the person who has ex alted Christ. "Wherefore God also"-although men despise him and cast him down-" God also hath highly exalted him."

I. First, then, IN THE VERY FACT OF CHRIST'S EXALTATION THERE IS, TO EVERY TRUE CHRISTIAN, A VERY LARGE DEGREE OF COMFORT. Many of you who have no part nor lot in spiritual things, not having love to Christ, nor any desire for his glory, will but laugh when I say that this is a very bottle of cordial to the lip of the weary Christian, that Christ, after all, is glorified. To you it is no consolation, because you lack that condition of heart which makes this text sweet to the soul. To you there is nothing of joy in it; it does not stir your bosom; it gives no sweetness to your life; for this very reason, that you are not joined to Christ's cause, nor do you devoutly seek to honor him. But the true Christian's heart leapeth for joy, even when cast down by divers sorrows and temptations, at the remembrance that Christ is exalted, for in

that he finds enough to cheer his own heart. Note here, beloved, that the Christian has certain features in his character which make the exaltation of Christ a matter of great joy to him. First, he has, in his own opinion, and not in his own opinion only, but in reality, a relationship to Christ, and therefore he feels an interest in the success of his kinsman. Ye have watched the father's joy when, step by step, his boy has climbed to eloquence or fame; ye have marked the mother's eye, as it sparkled with delight when her daughter grew up to womanhood, and burst forth in all the grandeur of beauty. Ye have asked why they should feel such interest; and ye have been told, because the boy was his, or the girl was hers. They delighted in the advancement of their little ones, because of their relationship. Had there been no relationship, they might have been advanced to kings, emperors, or queens, and they would have felt but little delight. But from the fact of kindred, each step was invested with a deep and stirring interest. Now, it is so with the Christian. He feels that Jesus Christ, the glorified "Prince of the kings of the earth," is his brother. While he reverences him as God, he admires him as the man-Christ, bone of his bone, and flesh of his flesh, and he delights, in his calm and placid moments of communion with Jesus, to say to him, "O Lord, thou art my brother." His song is, "My beloved is mine, and I am his." It is his joy to sing

"In ties of blood with sinners one,"

Christ Jesus is; for he is man, even as we are: and he is no less and no more man than we are, save only sin. Surely, when we feel we are related to Christ, his exaltation is the source of the greatest joy to our spirits: we take a delight in it, seeing it is one of our family that is exalted. It is the Elder Brother of the great one family of God in heaven and earth; it is the Brother to whom all of us is related.

There is also in the Christian not only the feeling of rela tionship merely, but there is a feeling of unity in the cause. He feels that when Christ is exalted, it is himself exalted in some degree, seeing he has sympathy with his desire of promoting the great cause and honor of God in the world. I have