this which binds my conscience, restrains my appetites, subdues my passions. It is this which has made me all I now am, little as my attainments are. If I did but love holiness more, and practise my duties more consistently, I should be more happy. I have peace within only when I do so. Let me employ all the aids of Revelation to strengthen me in this course, and I shall have more and more the testimony of my conscience, in addition to all the external and internal evidences, to assure me that a religion with such a morality cannot but be divine.'

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LECTURE XVII.

THE PRE-EMINENT CHARACTER AND CONDUCT

OF OUR LORD.

MARK VII. 37.

And were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well.

IN reviewing the constituent parts of Christianity, it is natural to ask if any light can be cast upon them from the character of the founder of the religion? Did he appear publicly before men? What was his deportment? How did he support the claims which he advanced?

These questions lead us to consider the conduct of our Lord as the Divine Author of the Christian faith.

We have already adverted more than once to this subject,' but we enter on it expressly now,

1 Lect. vi. vii. ix.

as furnishing a powerful internal evidence of the truth of the Revelation which bears his

name.

To consider it aright, we must first distinctly call to mind what manner of person our Lord professed to be; what were the offices and relations which he undertook to sustain.

For Christ, be it remembered, was not merely the founder of a religion; but he appeared publicly as such amongst the people to whom the Scripture prophecies had for four thousand years promised his advent, and at the exact time designated by those prophecies.' He claimed, not only to be a messenger sent from God, but to be the MESSIAH, the Son of God and Saviour of mankind.

We may well suppose, then, that this peculiar character involved qualities new, various, and exalted. This is, in truth, the case; and a just estimate of the argument derived from our Lord's conduct, will depend on a consideration of the number and difficulty of the relations he bore, and of the manner in which he sustained them.

What, then, were the chief claims which he advanced?

Professing himself to be the Messiah, he assumed the titles of the Saviour, the Re' Lect. ix.

deemer, the great Prophet of the church, the King of Israel, the appointed Judge of quick and dead. He declared himself also, for the same reason, to be the Lord of David, the Mighty God, the Prince of Peace, Jehovah our Righteousness. He performed in these characters, moreover, miraculous works, in support of his pretensions -he healed the sick, raised the dead, expelled demons, suspended the laws of nature, and exercised in his own person a creative power. Again, he assumed, as the consequence of all this, to be the teacher of truth, the light of the world, the expounder and vindicator of the moral law, the authoritative legislator of mankind.

Notwithstanding these exalted pretensions, his office as the Messiah involved the most apparently contradictory characteristics. It required him to be the son of man, the servant and messenger of his heavenly Father, subject to human infirmities and sorrows, obedient to all the ceremonial requirements and moral injunctions of the Mosaic law—a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. All this, therefore, our Lord professed himself to be.

Still he scrupled not to hold forth to his followers a heavenly reward, the presence and enjoyment of God, a recompense for their suf

ferings in his cause, which should in this life be a hundred fold beyond their sacrifices, and should in another consist of perfect holiness and inconceivable bliss.

Claims so numerous and so various, necessarily implied correspondent relations as arising out of them. He had to conduct himself as the Son of God and Messiah, in all the elevated and all the lowly offices involved in those titles. He had, at the same time, to sustain all the relations that sprung from the peculiar characters belonging to him as Redeemer, teacher, and rewarder of his disciples.

But this is not all: besides these offices, our Lord assumed another and distinct function, demanding an apparently different conduct and deportment. He proposed himself as the pattern and example of every human excellence to his followers. He assumed to embody the moral precepts of his religion in his own life, and to be himself all that he required of his followers. He reduced all his rules to the one direction of following his steps.

Finally, he claimed, on the footing of all these qualities and testimonies, to be the FOUNDER OF THE CHRISTIAN DISPENSATION, the Author and Finisher of the faith of the Gospel; to introduce the last and most perfect and uni