And when the christian temple is thus sustained, "compacted by that which every joint supplieth," in the faith, purity, charity, and hopes of its worshippers, how fair, how glorious is the spectacle!

Let us remember, brethren, that this temple is holy, which temple we are. For we are not strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. May we become a spiritual house, so that "God himself may desire us for an habitation, saying, This is my rest forever, and here will I dwell.”

PRAYER.

Great and All-wise Creator, how shall we sufficiently show our gratitude to Thee for the frame of body and mind with which Thou hast endowed us! O, that we may never dishonor the work of thy hand! Grant us, merciful Father, thy gracious aid, that we may use in thy service the faculties which Thou gavest us in creation, which Thou hast cultivated by thy Providence, and which Thou dost design to regenerate and bless by the instrumentality of the gospel. May the soul of each of us become a temple not wholly unfit for Thee to dwell in. May all its emotions be fitly and harmoniously framed together, till it reflects the image of our honored and glorified Lord. Aid us each to grow up into his divine likeness, with his devotedness to thy will, with the ardor and purity of his attachment to Thee, with the expan

siveness and tenderness of his love to man, that we may, in our humble measure, share with him in thy divine. favor and in the fruition of endless glory. Inexpressibly great is thy love. Divinely good is the constitution of our nature. O may we rise to the full dignity of our calling. May we aspire to be as holy and blissful as Thou hast designed us to be, and as thy most effectual and benignant succor is fitted to make us. Called to be sons of God and heirs with Christ, may we steadily seek the great end of our present being, even the salvation of our souls: may we incessantly strive to divest ourselves of all evil, and to be filled with good, that when we die, and when we rise to judgment. Thou mayest remember the covenant of thy mercy, and receive us into everlasting mansions; and this we beg through thy wellbeloved Son, our Lord and Saviour. Amen.

SERMON XVII.

THE FATHER'S NAME GLORIFIED IN JESUS

CHRIST.

John rii. 28.

"FATHER, GLORIFY THY NAME. THEN CAME THERE A VOICE FROM HEAVEN, SAYING, I HAVE BOTH GLORIFIED IT, AND I WILL IT AGAIN."

GLORIFY

JESUS had entered in triumph the city, which, in four days, became the scene of his execution and his tomb. He had been hailed under the united titles of prophet and king by the acclaim of the multitudes, who presently muttered curses around his cross. At the moment when he breathed the prayer of my text, the dark picture of approaching suffering, peopled as it was with the horrors most oppressive to a soul graced by the affections of humanity and the tenderness of piety, was sunk into deeper gloom by the brilliant promises of glory that rested on its confines. Since the time when the tempter had "showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them," his beneficent ministry, spent chiefly amid the homes of his country, had presented no trains of thought to interrupt his labors of

heavenly love. But if there was anything that could re-awaken the visions of childhood, that could tempt out of their cells the slumbering thoughts of aggrandisement that could enkindle an earthly enthusiasm for national glory, it was that hour when he found himself the object of a triumphant procession, surrounded by the exciting voices of exultation, and called by thousands of glad hearts to fulfil the anticipations of ages; when to damp these expectations was inevitable and speedy death; when the choice was to be made between a splendid patriotism and a suffering philanthropy, and the step to be taken to the throne or to the grave. But the time when his imagination could even for a moment be dazzled by apparitions of greatness is past. The seducing spirit tries his once vanquished power in vain, though now he holds wo in the one hand as well as empire in the other. Jesus has taken up his purpose, the sublime purpose of self-sacrifice; he has accepted his commission, to exhibit human nature in its depths and in its elevation, to show forth the calmness of a perfect mind in all transitions of circumstance; and he walks down into the darker passages of his life with a spirit not indeed untouched by the gloom, but inwardly brightened by the remembrance of the light that stillstreams above. Hear his beautiful record of his feelings; "Now is my soul troubled: and what shall I say? Father, save me from this hour? But for this cause came I unto this hour: Father, glorify thy name." How would that troubled soul be calmed, how would its purposes of heavenly disinterestedness be invigorated by the approving and paternal voice, "I have both glorified it, and I will glorify it again!" Let us seek in the

life of Jesus for the truth of this announcement. It can hardly be necessary to remind you that, to glorify God does not mean to add to his inherent felicity: the prayer of Christ is offered, not for God, but for man; it is the outpouring of benevolence, not of piety only. God is glorified by every thing that makes him known and loved by his creatures; his glory is in their highest happiness; and there is no happiness like that of seeing him as he is.

I. God was glorified by the miracles of Jesus. They implanted in the minds of observers an impression of God's power and providence which nature never produced. They established his sovereignty over creation, and his presence amid its scenes. The inference was irresistible, that He who could delegate to another the power to rebuke the winds and the waves, must habitually raise the tempest and pour the blast, must make "the clouds his pavilion," and "his path in the great waters." He who could enable another to restore their lost functions to the blind eye and the useless limb, or to recal to the symmetry of nature the wild energies of madness, must hold and move the mechanism of life, and pervade and animate the world of mind. He who could send Moses and Elijah to commune on the Mount with the Messiah, whose coming had closed the perspective of their prophetic vision, must dwell in the realm of spirits, and make its "angels ministers" of human good. He who could breathe into a word power to summon back the dead, must be supreme over the laws of vitality; it must be He that "killeth and that maketh alive." No one who admits the miracles, can resist the inferWho that had witnessed the hurricane hushed

ence.