the flesh, to be seen with the bodily eye, that his Spirit might be made manifest to our spirits, that he might be more than seen by those who willingly received him, and in whose hearts he found a temple, wherein he might continually abide. "He was received up into glory, and gave gifts unto men ;' "" the gift of his Holy Spirit, which, so long as he was manifest in the flesh, was not given. St. Paul himself has taught us to associate the ascension of Christ with the descent of the Holy Spirit; and, indeed, were we not so to associate it, it would rather be a subject of sorrow than of joy. The revelation of the Gospel ends then with its concluding and final truth, that the Son of God was taken up into glory, and that the Spirit of God was to abide with his people, till the Son shall again return from heaven, when all things are at last accomplished. He was manifested in the flesh to take away our sins, and was received up into glory when the kingdom of heaven was opened by his blood to all believers, and his Spirit henceforth was required to fit them for entrance into that kingdom, by forming them again after his image.

This then is the mystery of godliness;-this is the great truth, unknown and undiscoverable by our unaided reason, which the Gospel has now made known to us. For what we know of God the Father, although that too has mercifully been confirmed by his own word, yet, according to St. Paul, it was not undiscoverable by our own reason, but rather it is made a matter of blame that men did not make it out for themselves. The works of creation so clearly declare their author, that they who turned from the worship

of the one true God to make to themselves gods of things created, whether in heaven or in earth, are left, in the words of the Apostle, without excuse. The knowledge then of God the Father, I mean such knowledge of him as we have ever gained, or can gain,—is not called a mystery; because a mystery, in the language of the Apostles, means a truth revealed, which we could not have found out if it had not been told us. Yet, as experience has shown that men did not, in fact, make themselves acquainted with God the Father, so it has been mercifully ordered, that even what we could have discovered, if we would, has yet been expressly revealed to us; and the Law and the Prophets are no less full and plain in pointing out our relations to God the Father, than the Gospel is in pointing out our relations to God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost.

I would beg attention to these words, "that the Scripture is full and clear in pointing out our relations to God." For the revelations or mysteries of the Gospel, like those of the Law and the Prophets, never pretend to tell us any thing of the nature of God as he is in himself. This, indeed, is a mystery; not in the sense in which that word is used in the Scripture, but in the sense in which we commonly use it now it is not a truth revealed, which could not otherwise have been known; but a truth which has not and cannot be revealed, and which cannot be known at all. And mysteries of this sort, and in this sense, are indeed incomprehensible; but, then, they are no part of revelation, as it is in fact a flat contradiction to talk of revealing or making visible what is not and cannot

be revealed. Such points as this are no matters of belief; for it is folly to talk of believing what we cannot understand. I do not mean that we cannot believe a thing unless we understand how it is effected; but that we cannot believe it unless we understand what it means;—as otherwise, it is evident, that we can only believe that something is something: we can no more believe it, than we could believe a proposition in an unknown language. But far, very far, are the truths revealed in the Scriptures, from being of such a character as this. We cannot indeed understand how the divine and human natures were united in the person of Christ, nor how the Holy Spirit influences our minds; but we can full well understand, and know, and feel, what it is that is meant, when it is said, that He who was in the form of God, that is, whose being and nature were divine, "took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of man; "—or, when it is said, that “God so loved the world that he gave his only-begotten Son, that all who believe in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life;" or when, again, we are told that God "will give his Holy Spirit to them that ask Him,"-and that this Holy Spirit strives with our evil nature, is grieved by our wilful and ungrateful coldness, and is utterly blasphemed by our continued hardness and impenitence. We all can understand what this means: would to God that we all, in the Scripture sense of the word, believed it: that is, that it had entered not only into our understandings, but into our very heart of hearts, a daily living fountain of peace, and hope, and joy.

True it is, that this Bread of Life does not nourish us all; and instead of seeing that the fault is in ourselves, and that to our sickly bodies the most wholesome food will lose its virtue, we are apt to question the power and usefulness of the food itself. True it is, that if we were but good and holy, it would be an idle question to ask about our faith, when our lives sufficiently declared it. So, if a man were strong and healthy, it would be needless to inquire about the quality of his food. But not more foolish is it to suppose that a man can be strong and healthy without wholesome food, than to think that we can be good and holy without a Christian's faith. Even with that faith, how far are we from what we ought to beeven the best and holiest of us all! Yet those who have tried it know, that without that faith they would be nothing at all; and that, in whatever degree they have overcome the world or themselves, it is owing to their faith in the promises of God the Father, resting on the atonement of the blood of his Son, and given and strengthened by the abiding aid and comfort of the Holy Spirit.

SERMON XII.

GALATIANS III. 24.

The law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ.

In the sermon which I preached last Sunday from this place, I could not forbear from entering into some detail upon the great and peculiar truths of Christianity. The day seemed to call for such a choice of a subject, as it was set apart to commemorate, not one part only of the scheme of our redemption, like the feast of Christmas, or Easter, or Whitsuntide, but the whole of it together: all our relations to God, and all that God has done for us, are concentrated in a manner in the celebration of Trinity Sunday. Yet, even at the very time when I was thus dwelling on the great truths of the Gospel, I doubted whether my hearers were sufficiently advanced to receive them. I do not mean advanced in understanding,-for in that respect they are, indeed, easy,—but advanced in Christian feelings and Christian practice. By what strange error could it have ever happened that the doctrines