And yet with what FORBEARANCE AND WISDOM was all the matter of his instructions tempered! How gradually did he introduce the more humiliating parts of his doctrine! He first establishes his mission by his divine works, and then follows them by the simpler truths of the gospel. He begins with the call to repentance. He goes on enlarging the boundary of his lessons with the widening knowledge of the people. He reserves the doctrine of his sufferings till the one half of his ministry is expired.' He leaves the details and consequences of his death for the dispensation of the Spirit. He knows how to vary his matter, sometimes communicating truth obliquely, sometimes directly; at one time in plain terms, at other times covertly, as wisdom pointed out and occasions suggested. He did not put new wine into old bottles, nor insert a new cloth into an old garment, by teaching doctrines for which his disciples were not prepared: he hastened nothing; forestalled nothing; but taught precisely those lessons which a perfect wisdom dictated.

Never was there such a teacher as Jesus Christ. I speak not now of the miraculous works which attended his doctrine; that is not our topic; but of those excellencies in sustaining his claims of a divine instructor, which

̧1 Matt. xvi.

* Matt. ix. 17.

win the heart-which give the impression, not only of the truth of the religion which he taught, but of that union of grandeur and condescension, of zeal and wisdom, of dignity and forbearance, of gentleness and authority, of sublimity and plainness, which was most exactly agreeable to the preceding parts of his character as the Son of God and the Saviour of the world, and which most clearly confirmed all the direct proofs of his mission.

3. But it may be asked, How did our Lord support the most difficult of all parts, THE STATE OF HUMILIATION to which he likewise professed himself to be called? Nothing is so rare as the bearing with dignity a continued state of sorrow, woe, degradation. Yet in nothing was our Lord's character more admirable, than in the whole manner in which he sustained his lowly condition upon earth. The ineffable dignity and meekness of all he did, were rendered more conspicuous by the very meanness of his circumstances, and even by those sufferings of his life and death, which would have tarnished or obscured the virtues of any one else. Mark the humble Saviour as he passes through his state of voluntary abasement. Observe him, before his public ministry, subject to his reputed parents. See him, at his entrance on it, led into the wilderness, to be tempted forty

days of the devil. Follow him afterwards into his retirements, his solitude, his mountainoratories. He shuns popularity and display. He dwells at the despised city of Nazareth, or the little fishing town of Capernaum. He refuses to be called rabbi. He commands those whom he had healed to conceal his mighty works. He rejects all appearances of flattery, not willing even to be called good, when the reason of the appellation was misconceived. Thus willingly and determinately does he descend into the valley of humiliation, and proceed in it throughout his ministry. We wonder no longer that the marks of his divine glory were no brighter nor more frequent; all is with him designed abasement and concealment. View the man of sorrows enduring the contradiction of sinners against himself! See him the object of contempt and scorn! Hear him calumniated as having a devil and being mad! Even his brethren reject him. Observe, he has not where to lay his head! Mark the people eager to cast him down from the precipice.-And notice how he sustains all this treatment, how he walks in the lowly tract of depression, without murmuring, without despondency, without degrading his divine person, his heavenly design, his heavenly Father, his heavenly home! From this very darkness, burst forth from time to time the softest rays of light and glory.

But who can meditate on the last scene of our Lord's sufferings, without perceiving the calm dignity with which he sustains them! He lays aside his garment, he girds himself with a towel, he washes his disciples' feet,' at the moment when any other sufferer would have been wrapt in thought, and been working himself up to an effort of silent fortitude. He proceeds in the mighty woe. The garden of Gethsemane witnesses his agony, and the resignation which sustained it-the traitor approaches-the bar of Pilate follows-Calvary closes the tragic scene.-And what meekness appears throughout, what composure, what faith, what self-possession, what pity for his disciples! Humiliation was never seen so deep, nor supported with such magnanimity. Search all the records of history, and nothing can be found so touching, nothing so elevated, as the manner in which our Saviour conducted himself during his state of abasement, and vindicated this part of the claims which he made.

4. But it is important to consider the conduct of our Lord as to the HEAVENLY REWARD THAT HE PROMISED TO HIS DISCIPLES. We cannot better judge of the bearing of any one's real character who professes to found a reli

How then does

gion, than by considering the end which he sets before his followers; the reward he holds forth at the close of his undertaking. the divine Jesus support his pretensions to the distribution of final recompenses? What is the sort of happiness which he proposes? What description does he present of it? How does it stand related to himself?

Now the very nature of the reward which our divine Lord proposes, is a confirmation of all his claims. For the happiness which he promises, is to flow exclusively from holiness, purity, an immediate access to God, the full attainment of that obedience which was sincerely though imperfectly practised on earth; the completion of the gracious sanctification of the Holy Spirit, in all its principles, exercises, and effects; unimpeded by a body of sin and death, and carried out into all its blessed consequences and fruitsa reward this, the whole character of which is an attestation of his divine mission.

And yet, in the description, or rather hints which our Lord gives of this heavenly state, he confines himself to a few brief points of information. He gives no detail, he gratifies no curiosity, he tells us nothing of the invisible world, and the system of things there carried on. He just opens enough to animate our hope and sti