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Contemplate, again, the regard which must exist between himself and his people. Affection brought him down, and love bent his steps from heaven; and in the fulness of time he offered himself; he took upon him the robe of mortality; he laid aside his brightest glories; he emptied himself, as far as it was possible, and divested himself even of his greatest powers; he partook with us in our lowly condition; he laid down at last with us in our habitation of darkness, and rested his head with us on the pillow of the dust and thus did he display his affectionate and tender regard on our behalf; and now in heaven his eye is bent upon us, his heart still throbs in unison with ours, and he desires each moment to make us happy and blessed for ever. And can you wonder, when we return to him the affections of our hearts, our admiration, and our homage, ready to bow down our spirit in the dust before him, ready to shed our blood in testimony of our fidelity to his cause-ready even, when we are called upon, to acknowledge ourselves but nothing, but wholly and infinitely indebted to the riches of his grace-can you wonder that he should have looked forward in the fulness of his affection, and made his wisdom continually to exult in all which should thus produce events so blessed and glorious; and consummate, in the tenderest emotions of the heart, all which belongs to the relations and endearments subsisting between himself and his redeemed people?

man.

Recollect, my brethren, the glory he was to acquire. And in this one anticipation you have all which it is possible that we can imagine as having caused him thus to exult in the contemplation of the future circumstances and history of What is that glory? It is not for us, my brethren, ever to conceive; and, were it conceivable, it would be vain for us to attempt to describe or to speak of it: it is in vain to think respecting it; for our minds must be first brought to the maturity of celestial bliss, ere we can apprehend its very elements. We speak of cloudless light; but that is not uncreated: we speak of glorious and beautiful visions passing perpetually before the eye; but they arc not such as, when passing into a new form of being, we may anticipate to behold. Now we speak precisely in relation only to the affections of our being, and the things around us; but the very first correct conception concerning this happy and celestial form of blessedness, is utterly unknown. We have not so much as trodden one footstep in the course of thought which would lead us to this conception; we have not so much as formed one suggestion with regard to this glory. But this at least we know: it is a glory worthy of the Saviour; it is a glory that is to be enjoyed in the Saviour's presence. This we know it is a glory which is to accrue to the Saviour, and be reflected back perpetually to himself.

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These things being known, we perceive at once a reason for which, even from eternity, he might bend his eyes to earth; and well might we believe that every scene and circumstance of his earthly history would be presented to his uncreated glory before the formation of all things. The streets of Jerusalem, the desert shores of Jordan, the borders of Gennesaret and Galilee-those various scenes in which he breathed forth his prayers, or wept his tears of anguish— those scenes in which he watched by night over his slumbering disciples, and still continually revealed the problem of their history, and rejoiced in the anticipation that when, for a little season they should have sorrow, their joy should be restored, the joy which none could take away-those scenes in which

he developed all the tenderness, and love, and affection, and sweetness of that Spirit which dwelt continually within him, in its special purity-its peculiarly gentle and sympathetic character, testifying that it was human, while in its power it manifested itself divine; all these we may well believe to have been present to his view before this world was made, not less than the solitary mount on which he died, and which was made the altar for the atonement of the sins of the world, the central object for the gaze of an admiring universe.

Let us now consider THE INSTRUCTION THAT IS THUS IMPARTED IN THESE GRACIOUS WORDS; that thus the Saviour was with God, and was God; that he was with him as one brought up with him, rejoicing perpetually before him, rejoicing in all his perfection, and character, and excellency, but especially rejoicing in the habitable parts of his earth, and having his delights with the sons of men."

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We are taught, in the first place, what is the reverence and homage we should render to him. We are taught likewise in what manner we may calculate on the perpetuity of his regard: it was from everlasting to everlasting, and is yet eternally to endure.

We are taught, again, the confidence we may repose in him. We may present to him our feeblest services, in the anticipation of a rich return. Let us not be afraid to render to him whatever forms of obedience and gratitude he, by his grace, shall enable us to present. Oh, let us still remember this as that which himself has calculated as his proper recompense, which he considers as his glory, which he will perfume with the incense of his own intercession. Let us place our heart in his hand; let him offer it upon the altar of heaven; and let us come, my brethren, with our poor and feeble services, our imperfect conceptions, and our continual infirmities, and place ourselves in his presence, and offer to him whatever we have to render. What is it? Gratitude and love. What is it? Humble hope and steadfast devotion. What is it? Constant dependance upon his grace, power, tenderness, and compassion. What is it, but a heart, my brethren, so feeble, so polluted, so imperfect, as that we ourselves shrink from contemplating its character; but one which He was content to purchase, even with his own heart's blood? Let us come, then, and offer our heart before him, and he shall render it acceptable; he shall render it more worthy the regard of the Eternal Mind, more consistent with his own character; more consistent with what God requires than thousands of rams, or ten thousand rivers of oil, or the cattle upon a thousand hills, or all the glories and resources of the creation, if that heart were wanting.

In the third place we learn the security with which we may rely upon his foresight and protection. If, from eternity his eye has been fixed upon us; if, though in the heaven of love and joy that eye has been constantly resting upon us, and upon our condition, and circumstances, in order that he may understand and penetrate every thing which befalls us, and belongs to our progress; then, surely, we may revive ourselves with the thought that he will comfort us in every sorrow, provide for us in every necessity, and, finally, bring us to the full perfection and fruition of every joy.

We learn the nature of that felicity which awaits us as his followers. It is the reward of his own sufferings; it is that which he himself would delight in;

it is that which he believes to be a return, as suitable, as proper for such sufferings, and as their true issue. It is that whereon he rested with complacency, as well as that which he anticipated with affection; it is that which, in the character of divine wisdom, he foresaw and rejoiced in, as the proper result of every thing he was to endure. Now, tell me, my brethren, what is the amount of that blessedness which must arise for ever from his own character, and is to be a sufficient reward for his unspeakable woes! What must be that bliss which he would confess to be equivalent with the cup of bitterness and death, which once trembled in his hands! What must be the brightness of that glory which he will acknowledge to be equivalent in glory with the crown of thorns he once wore, and with the disgrace and infamy which assailed him on every hand! Tell me, my brethren, what must be that power which shall transform us into the very likeness of our Creator's purity and joy-when we shall see him, and stand the living receptacles, vessels created expressly in order that they may receive and contain, through eternity, the overflowings of its fulness, in permeated and transcendent bliss, with God for ever more! Tell me what must be that bliss, if he will acknowledge it to be a just return for those agonies which he endured, and continued to feel with greater and more awful intenseness, when he said, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." We need no other description, we need no other conception of the glories of heaven. We rejoice in the infinity of that delight, which by its comprehensiveness and its awful amplitude, stretching beyond all thought, defies all our attempts to comprehend it. We feel that it is enough to know that it shall be given by the same hands that were pierced for us, and felt by the same bosom that was lacerated by the spear for us, to be equivalent for every agony and every woe.

In the last place, if Jesus thus rejoiced in the mansions of heaven, on the throne of God, and in the days of eternity, surrounded by the choirs of light, and the armies of the blessed, to bend his eye to earth, how ought we to rejoice, to lift up our eyes from these habitations of sorrow, this pilgrimage of woe, this vale of tears, these houses of clay, to the glory and blessedness of heaven. If the Redeemer, anticipating and contemplating all this, and alone able to estimate the true character of all, would bend his gaze from on high, feeling the throb of ecstacy arise within his bosom as he sat on the throne of heaven, in anticipation of the woes he must endure for our sakes; then tell me with what species of anticipation should our hearts become familiar, and to what heights of glory and anticipated joy, certain hereafter and ere long to be our own, should we ourselves aspire, when we know that all which he can give, (and that, my brethren, how great and glorious!) all that he can give, and all we can enjoy, shall be our own throughout the ages of eternity; and when, as he exulted in the prospect of his earthly sorrows, he has set us an example of the way in which we, overleaping the bounds of time, and looking forward into the shadows of eternity, and grasping what is hid by the veil and the cloud, go in our delighted prospect onward, until, by realization and by faith, we come already to possess that which shall be ours for ever; when it is our own, to render it back to him, from whom for ever it will proceed in all its fulness, and in all its ecstacy, and in all the ravishment of its delights; and so, in uniting our emotions to his own, experience happiness denied to angels, unknown to seraphim, and which can only belong to the brotherhood of the Son of God.

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THE ANALOGY BETWEEN CIRCUMCISION AND BAPTISM.

REV. H. M'NEILE, A.M.

ST. JUDE'S CHURCH, LIVERPOOL, OCTOBER 19, 1834.

"For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God. What advantage then hath the Jew? or what profit is there of circumcision? Much every way: chiefly, because that unto them were committed the oracles of God. For what if some did not believe? shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid.* -ROMANS, ii. 28, to iii. 4.

My brethren, it has pleased God to teach us in the Bible, by the history of other people; not only by direct precept, which we may suppose addressed to ourselves, but indirectly, by the application to ourselves of the histories o others histories ordered in all their circumstances, and related in all their details, for the express purpose of being so applied by us for our instruction. Israel was a type; and the things which were written concerning Israel, were written for our learning. This is expressly stated by St. Paul, when, having enumerated a list of the particulars of the history of Israel, he declares that all these things were examples, and were written for our admonition.

One of the things written concerning Israel, I now wish to draw your attention to: it is circumcision. This, amongst others, was intended for our instruction; and in attending to the Scriptural account of it, we shall read the very best, the most satisfactory, and comprehensive comment, on what is, and must be, interesting to every real Christian, and especially to every Christian parent— the ordinance of baptisin.

The analogy between circumcision under the Jewish dispensation, and baptism under the Christian, is not a fanciful invention of human commentators, but is involved in the language of the inspired Apostle himself. Let me call your attention to the mode in which he addresses the Colossian Church in the second chapter of his Epistle to that Church, at the eleventh verse. Having told them that they were complete in Christ, he proceeds thus: "In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ: buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him, through the faith of the operation of God which hath raised him from the dead. And ye being dead in your sins in the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses." Observe here, their unconverted state of nature is called, "uncircumcision in the flesh;" and their renewed state in Christ is called "circumcision made without hands:" that is, spiritual circumcision.

And the same change in the same sentence is called being “buried” and “risen” again with Christ by baptism, "through the faith of the operation of God." Now it is to be remembered here, that St. Paul was not writing to the Jews: so that there is no pretext for saying, that this language was merely an allusion to the ancient ceremonies: he was writing to Gentile converts: and if there be no analogy between circumcision and baptism, it must certainly be admitted that the language the Apostle here used was calculated to mislead, to embarrass, to puzzle those converts, rather than to enlighten and instruct them.

This analogy, however, between circumcision and baptism, has not ever been denied in the universal and catholic Church of Christ. There has been a small secession from that Church, denying this analogy; but a secession almost (comparatively, as to numbers) insignificant; although ranking among its members men of very high attainments. On the ground, then, of this analogy, I proceed to shew you the Scriptural instruction, which we derive upon the subject of baptism, from, first, the institution, then the history, of baptism; and lastly, the abuse of circumcision amongst the Jews.

Of ITS INSTITUTION we read in Genesis, xvii. 9: "God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant therefore, thou, and thy seed after thee in their generations. This is my covenant, which ye shall keep, between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man-child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you." You observe, here is its institution. It is called," the covenant," and "the token of the covenant," which God established with Abraham and his seed. The only observation to be made upon this, which is of importance, is this-that circumcision was not of man's invention, but of God's appointment. So far the analogy is complete. Baptism is not a ceremony introduced into the Church by the invention of man; although the manner of administration, the particulars and details of its administration in the Church, not being specified in the Scriptures, being left open, were ordered by men in their wisdom for order and decency's sake. But the thing itself is to be distinguished from the particulars of its administration; the ordinance itself is the appointment of God. I need but remind you of the commandment of Jesus to the disciples, "Go and baptize all nations in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

We consider now THE HISTOry of the Ordinance of CIRCUMCISION. And first, it is to be observed, that it commenced with adults, as you may read in Genesis, xvii. 23: "Abraham took Ishmael his son, and all that were born in his house, and all that were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham's house; and circumcised the flesh of their foreskin in the self-same day, as God had said unto him. And Abraham was ninety years old and nine, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. And Ishmael his son was thirteen years old, when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin. In the self same day was Abraham circumcised, and Ishmael his son. And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with the money of the stranger, were circumcised with him." Thus the ordinance commenced upon adults. We do not read distinctly concerning the state of mind of all