reason to believe, if not positive evidence to assert, (D) that he remained in subjection to them for thirty years. The children of men delight in riot and dissipation; he in seclusion, in abstinence, and prayer. They are proud, overbearing, and revengeful, and think nothing so disgraceful as to submit to an injury or insult. He, who made man, and therefore knew in what the true dignity of man consists, was "meek and lowly of heart," patient and forgiving in everything. They, without any power to make effectual resistance, never quietly endure even the word of admonition, much less the infliction of severer punishments, however well merited. He, who possessed Almighty power; who could have called down legions of angels to his rescue, who with a word, or without a word, could have caused the whole of his enemies to fall to the ground, never to rise again; contented himself with shewing, for our sakes, that he possessed the power, by miraculously causing the sturdy band who came to arrest him to go backward and fall to the ground.4 And having thus shewn that "no man could take his life from him, but that he laid it down of himself, having power to lay it down, and power to

4 John, xviii. 6.

B

take it again," he suffered the band to rise from the ground, and lead him away," as a lamb to the slaughter."

Time would fail me to tell of all the horrid indignities that were heaped upon him in his progress from the Garden of Gethsemane to the accursed tree, and the astonishing patience with which he submitted to them all; the true extent of which submission can only be understood by those who bear constantly in mind, that He, who endured all this; who was buffeted and spit upon, hunted down by the clamours of an infuriate mob, scourged, derided, crucified; held the whole powers of nature in his hands, and could, with a single effort of his will, have swept that whole generation of vipers from the face of the earth. When he was called upon in derision by the chief priests, to "come down from the cross, and they would believe," nothing would have been more easy for him than to answer the summons, and change places with his exulting murderers. But how then could the Scriptures have been fulfilled? What then would have become of the fallen race of man, to purchase whose redemption he came into the world? No, the Son of

5 John, x. 18.

God was not to be turned aside by any provocation from his deliberate purpose of love, in the execution of which those wicked men were unconscious instruments. He exhausted the bitter cup to the very dregs. He paid the price of our redemption, to the last drop of his precious blood: And by thus humbling himself unto the most ignominious death, he crowned the example of human perfection, which it was one of the purposes of his coming to give us, as the want of such example was one of the evil consequences of Adam's trangression.

It is incredible that any person should hesitate for a moment which of these to take as the object of his imitation; the first Adam, whose pride and disobedience entailed a curse upon our race; or the second Adam, whose humility and submission removed the curse; our first parents, whose bodies are still mingled with the dust, as the punishment of their presumption; or our Redeemer, whom, because "he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross," God raised from the dead the third day; and hath, moreover, exalted him in his human nature, 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."

DISCOURSE II.

ON THE NATURE AND OFFICE OF THE HOLY

GHOST.

Preached on the Thursday before WHITSUNDAY, 1824.

JOHN, XVI. 7.

"Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.”

THUS did Jesus himself act the part of a comforter to his disciples, when sorrow had filled their hearts on the intimation that he was about to leave them. Many other powerful topics of encouragement he affectionately dwelt upon, for the purpose of preparing them for the great change that was at hand; but this is the one which he seemed most anxious to impress upon their minds. In St John's report of