EXALTATION OF Christ. 492 nour; for he hath set him at his own right hand in the hea venly places, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come. Of this glory and honour which Christ now enjoys at the right hand of God, our feeble minds can fort no conception; for eye hath not seen, not ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived what God hath prepared for them that love him, even after the many discoveries afforded of it by the light of the gospel,-much less can our minds rise to a full and perfect apprehension of that glory and honour with which Christ is now clothed in the presence of God. It is the highest to which he could be advanced. 'He is set down on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.' Christ, at the right hand of God, 'is invested with supreme authority and power. All power is given to him in heaven and in earth. God hath thus exalted him, that to him every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth; and every tongue confess that he is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Who is gone into heaven, says Peter, and is on the right hand of God; angels, principalities, and powers being made subject to him.-When the apostle Paul says he is set at God's right hand, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world but in that which is to come, he adds, And hath put all things under his feet; and given him to be Head over all things to the church.-Thon madest him a little lower than the angels, thou crownedst him with glory and honour, thou didst set him over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.' Finally, This exaltation of Christ at the right hand of God, Is the honourable reward of his work on earth. God glorified his Son Jesus, in that he raised him from the dead; and he glorified him in setting him on high, and committing to him all judgment and power, as the reward of his work and sufferings in his humbled state. With this reward in view, did Christ thus express himself while he was on earth:-'I have glorified thee on the earth; I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do; and now,O Father, glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.' He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and set him at his own right hand; and we see Jesus, says the apostle, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death, now crowned with glory and honour,' ADJUTOR Sir, ANTIJACOBIN OPINION OF DISSENTING WORSHIP. To the Editor. I submit the following Specimen of Antijacobin Knowledge and Candour for insertion in the Evangelical Magazine, accompanied by Annotations and Inferences, with Figures of Reference, for the edification of your numerous plain readers. Yours, &c. ANNOTATOR. QUOTATION, OR TEXT. It is a remarkable fact, that the Presbyterians and Dissenters have, correctly speaking, no public worship (1); for, although they have public meetings on Sundays, one makes a discourse, called A Prayer; in which his mind is wholly occupied in arranging his words (2); while his auditors are equally engaged in criticising and judging the merits of that discourse (3). To call such operations of the human mind worship, would be to pervert the plainest terms, and burlesque true religion and piety (4); yet the Calvinists and Dissenters are always proclaiming, That religion is a personal thing, without considering that it is also a mental and spiritual, and not a mechanical duty (5). If the heart were filled with gra, titude to the Divinity for manifold blessings, or the mind entirely engrossed in contemplation of the divine attributes, neither the speaker nor his critics could so egregiously deceive themselves (6), and misemploy their time under the delusive ANNOTATIONS. (1) Correctly speaking, it is a remarkable fact, that two millions of people should meet on a Sunday, and yet have no public worship! — an anomaly the world never saw till this Antijacobin discovery! What is the discovery of a comet to this? (2) Correctly speaking, this discourse, called A Prayer,' is nothing more nor less than syntax. Dissenting Ministers are sole proprietors of syntax ! (3) Yet these men of syntax are in a poor plight, being placed before none but critics and judges, wealthy or plebeian, learned or ignorant, male or female, adult or minor, all making a critical burlesque of true religion! and we vouch all our Antijacobin knowledge of the motives, the worship, and the conduct of Dissenters on what we say. (4) What barbarous absurdity, to eall such operations of the human mind,' as sy ntar and criticism, by the name of Worship. (5) How ridiculous to suppose, that what is personal, as the operation of the human mind, can be mental and spiritual! Surely, extemporary prayer must be all mechanical, because it consists of nothing but arrangement; while praying by a form must be altogether a mental and spiritual duty. No mechanism in this, although it has been made and dealt out one hundred and fifty or sixty years ago. (6) Astonishing, that successive generations of Dissenters should have XIX. 3 T notion, that they are performing public worship, when, in fact, they are both only talking or most assuredly not performing it. might, with equal propriety, be arguing about it (7); but Sermons, or moral essays called Devotion, as well as the Meeting-house Service of the Calvinists" (8) *. INFERENCES. Here let the Annotator request the serious attention of the reader to the Inferences that follow. I. How lamentable is it, that men, at the present day, should be so grossly ignorant, or rather be guilty of such pal pable misrepresentation! II. You smile at their weakness, laugh at their logic, and despise their bigotry; yet their imbecility, their want of right reason, and their bigotted attachments and aversions, are, more properly, the objects of your pity and prayer. III. Let the pious reader bless God for his emancipation from the prejudices of education, and for his admission into that glorious liberty, wherewith Christ has made him free.' IV. Bless God that you have not such Antijacobin rulers, whose combined ignorance, prejudice, and power would soon abridge and annihilate your civil and religious liberties. V. While we indulge in gratitude for our advantages, let us not abuse them, our enemies being judges, if they judge fairly. Let not your good be evil spoken of.' VI. While you enjoy free prayer for its tendency to promote spiritual feeling, and think it has much advantage every way,' guard against all formality and irreverence in its exercise, that if there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned, &c. he may worship God (with you) and report that God is in you of a truth.' so awfully deceived themselves. and have misemployed their time merely in arranging words, judging of their propriety, and then to have called this Worship! What a perversion of terms ! (7) Correctly speaking, the speaker and his critics,' are both talking, or arguing about worship, even though one is speaking, and the other listening to criticize! Can Antijacobin logic or grammar make the matter plainer? We trow not. (8) Meeting-house prayers, though addressed to the Deity, might. with equal propriety, be called Sermons, &c. which are addressed to ment because all prayer that comes not from a bishop, or a convocation of bishops, can have no devotion in it; for if it have, there is an end to all our Antijacobin logic. Miserabile dictu! Such is our logical decisier, And such our wondrous knowledge; And though it may excite derision, ◆ Antijacobin Review, for Aug. 1811, p. 296. A MEDITATION FOR CHRISTMAS-DAY. God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. John iii. 16. WONDER, O heavens! and be astonished, O ye inhabitants of the earth, at the unparalleled love of the adorable Jesus! Angels, in their most exalted strains of harmony, and men, with all the ardour of the most fervent praises, cannot sufficiently admire, nor fully celebrate, the condescending love of our glorious Immanuel, our incarnate God and Saviour! Such was the stupendous boundless love of the adorable Jesus to mankind, who were dead in trespasses and sins, that, though he was the Ancient of Days, he became an intant of days! O how great the condescension! He, who is the everlasting Father, in whom dwells the essential fulness of the Godhead bodily, is born of a Virgin! He who filleth immensity with his presence, whom heaven, yea, the heaven of hea vens cannot contain,' is encircled with flesh and blood, wrapped in swaddling clothes, and reposing in the inhospitable man ger! O deep humiliation of the Son of God, the Creator of the World! He who possesseth the adoration of angels, before whom the glorious hierarchies of heaven, cherub and seraph, potentates and thrones, veiled their faces! and unto whoin ten thousand times ten thousand did minister, is now associated with the herds of the stall! What astonishing humility! What unexampled meekness was here! A coarse stable, instead of a superb palace, entertains the infant Deity! and the horned brutes reside with him who is King of kings and Lord of lords! How fluctuating is all worldly glory, and what reason have men to be proud of an illustrious lineage, when they contemplate Joseph and Mary, of the royal house of Judah, sojourning in a stable! and yet behold the glory! A star directs the wise men of the east to the honoured spot, and a multitude of ministering spirits hymn the birth of the adorable Jesus! Never was the birth of any earthly prince so highly honoured. O glorious and pleasing truth! God was manifest in the flesh! He, the most high God, blessed for evermore, consented to become man, to save a guilty race from destruction, and open to them the gates of eternal life. What inconceiv able pity filled his beneficent mind, when, as our glorious Sponsor, he engaged to become the Son of man, to take upon him the humble form of a servant, to magnify the holy law by his life, and to satisfy its penal demands by the unutterable agonies of crucifixion and death. O! love, beyond example or degree! O! for this love, let rocks and hills And all harmonious human tongues The Saviour's praises speak !" Oh, the fathomless depths, amazing heights, lengths, and breadths, of the love and condesension of the dear, divine, and holy Jesus! O the grace and love of the blessed Saviour! Grace that has passed by angels, some of the first-born sons of light, who are reserved in everlasting chains of darkness unto the judgment of the great day! whilst man, worm of the earth, is the object, the chosen object of love! the sovereign, saving, unmerited, unconditional, everlasting love of Jehovah ! Surely, we have the greatest reason to join with the beloved disciple, and with every intelligent being in the exclamation, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us!" Love, matchless, special, and peculiar, not common to all, but to the chosen race in Christ Jesus only. Oh for a glow of ardent gratitude! Oh for a burst of universal praise! Join the loud chorus, all ye ransom'd join, It was decreed, That without shedding of blood there could be no remission;' therefore when the Prince of glory laid aside the splendors of ineffable divinity, and stooped from heaven's etherial height, he said to his Father, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no plea sure; then said I, Lo, I 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 in my heart.' This was the Father's will. He ac cepted the sufferings of the just for the unjust; and when the holy Lamb, through the Eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, he was an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour. The Son of God, as our substitute, underwent all that the law demanded from sinners; the rigorous, righteous conditions of which he undertook to perform as the federal head and public representative of all the elect, who lay under its tremendous curse. The obedience of our adorable Sponsor was as perfect as divine rectitude could require; and as excellent as eternal wisdom could desire. Its purity, its spirituality, its extensiveness, could find in him no transgression in thought, word, or deed. By the sacrifice of himself he hath exhausted the curse, removed the vengeance, and procured pardon, peace, and heaven for sinners. For sinners! Ocharining word! for perishing sinners: for sinners of all kinds and all degrees, the guiltless Lamb was slain. Redemption's work is finished! Shout, ye inhabitants of Zion, for the Captain of salvation is made perfect through sufferings! God spared him not! From Calvary, with dyed gar |