to receive you. Let there be joy in heaven concerning you. Now, now is the season for laying the foundation of useful life, respectable age, comfortable death. Al a sense of responsibility to God, to then pupils, to their country. The history under review presses one point upon you, as of singular moment, and closely connected with But what do I see? That youthful face every article of education and consequent already degraded by vice! so young, and so improvement; I mean the study of the happy, horrid! Unhappy youth, the depravity of but difficult medium, between excessive inthy heart is painted on thy forehead. The dulgence, and oppressive severity. The sight of thy own countenance filleth thee steady firmness of Hannah, the mother of with horror. Shame and remorse are prey- Samuel, furnishes an useful example. If ing on the marrow in thy bones. In the ever there was a child in danger of being hours of solitude and retirement, stretched corrupted by indulgence, it was he. But no on thy bed to which sleep is a stranger, thou symptom of it appears. He is treated as a ait constrained to reflect on the wretched- mere ordinary lad, and from his earliest years, ness of thy condition; thou feelest thyself to old age, evinces, by his conduct, the exunworthy of the praises bestowed upon thee, cellence of the precepts, and the steadiness by the partiality of those who know thee of the discipline which formed his character, not; thou blushest in secret, and art filled and laid the foundation of his eminence. He with indignation against thyself, on calling leaves home, and parts with his parents, to remembrance the innocence and simplicity while yet a child, with manly fortitude. of happier days. Thou givest up thyself as ready under habits of submission to parental lost. No, young man, do not abandon thy- authority, he cheerfully transfers that subself to despair: add not this to thy offences; mission to a stranger, to Eli. Untainted by there is help for thee, let it reanimate thy imaginary terrors, the darkness of the night, courage. Though "cast down" thou art the solemnity of the house of the Lord, silence "not destroyed.' However debased that and solitude, and sleep disturbed by extraface, it is in thy power to amend, to en- ordinary and unseasonable voices, excite in noble it. Thou wert not destined always to him no silly apprehension, draw from him no remain an innocent child, nor couldest thou: childish complaint, deter him from the perby stumbling and falling thou wert to be in-formance of no duty. In all this we cannot structed how to walk and run. Wert thou but recognize the wisdom, the constancy, the wounded and bruised; wert thou plunged fortitude of his excellent mother. Had she into the abyss? There is an arm nigh thee, been foolishly fond, he had been peevish, and which is able to raise thee up, to strengthen petulant, and timid, and discontented. Take and to heal thee. Multitudes like thyself a lesson from her, ye mothers of young chil have been recovered, restored, established. dren. If you would have these children "As a father pitieth his children, so the happy, they must betimes be inured to subLord" will have mercy upon thee, and for- jection, to privation, to restraint. To multigive and receive thee. The impure, the ply their desires by unbounded gratification, profane, the blasphemer, the chief of sinners, is the sure way to multiply their future pains have repented, have returned, have found fa- and mortifications. Reduce their wants and vour; there is hope also concerning thee. wishes to the standard of nature, and you Only for the Lord's sake, and for thy soul's proportionably enlarge their sphere of enjoysake, proceed no farther, persevere no longer ment. Let them contract no fear but that in an evil course. One step forward may be of offending God, and of committing sin. Let fatal; to-morrow may find thee in the place them learn to consider all places, all seasons, where there is no hope. "Behold now is the all situations as equal, when duty calls. Imaccepted time, behold now is the day of sal- press on their opening minds the two great vation." "Seek the Lord while he may be precepts on which "hang all the law and the found, call upon him while he is near." prophets," to love the Lord their God, and "The wind is boisterous," the sea rages, their fellow-creatures. Lead their infant thou art "beginning to sink," thou art ready steps to the Friend of little children, to the to perish; but shalt not, whilst thou art able Saviour of mankind; to the knowledge, the to exclaim, "Lord save me:" for behold "a belief, the love, the hope, the consolations of very present help in trouble;" that helping the gospel, and thereby preserve them "from hand which snatched Peter from the roaring paths wherein destroyers go." gulf. "And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?"* I conclude with calling upon parents, and guardians, and instructers of youth, seriously to consider the importance of the trust committed unto them; and to discharge it under *Matt. xiv. 31. The profligate character and untimely end of Eli's sons, on the other hand, afford a solemn admonition of the inevitably ruinous effects of unbounded indulgence to the passions and caprices of youth. Had they been early habituated to the wholesome restraints of piety, decency, and justice, they could not have become thus criminal, nor would have perished thus miserably. In the excesses which they committed, we clearly see the relaxed government, the careless inspection, the unbounded licentiousness of their father's house. Neglect, in this case, occasioned the mischief. And the neglected field will soon be overrun with noxious weeds, though you sow, designedly, no poison in it. Fathers, see to it that your instructions be Bound, that your deportment be regular, that your discipline be exact. Account nothing unimportant that affects the moral and religious character of your son. Precept will go so far, example will go farther; but authority must support and enforce both the one and the other. You cannot, indeed, communicate the spirit of grace, but you can certainly form youth to habits of decency and order: and habitual decency is nearly allied to virtue, and may imperceptibly improve into it. Do your part, and then you may with confidence "cast all your care" on God. So long as God "waiteth to be gracious," surely it well becomes man to "put on bowels of mercies, kindness, meekness, longsuffering, forbearance, forgiveness, and charity, which is the bond of perfectness." 66 Thus have I finished what I proposed, in attempting to delineate the female character, by instances taken from the sacred record. In these, and in the case of every virtuous woman, we see the great Creator's design fully justified, in making for man an help meet for him." That which is necessary cannot be despised; that which is useful ought to be valued; that which is excellent commands respect; that which is improveable calls for cultivation. Bad men only revile and undervalue the other sex: the weak and ignorant idolize and worship it. The man of sense and virtue considers woman as his equal, his companion, his friend, and treats her accordingly; for friendship excludes May it not be necessary to throw in a short equally invective and flattery. In the educaword of caution against the opposite extreme, tion and treatment of females, too much atthat of excessive severity to offending youth? tention has, perhaps, been paid to sex. Why This indeed is not so common as corruptive should they be for ever reminded that they indulgence; but this too exists. How many are females, while it is of so much more impromising young men have been forced into portance to impress upon their minds, that a continuance in an evil course, have been they are reasonable beings, endowed with driven to desperation, have become "harden- human faculties, faculties capable of pervered through the deceitfulness of sin," because sion or of improvement, and that they are the first deviation could find no mercy, be- accountable to God for them? Wherefore cause a father armed himself with inflexible, obstruct to them one path to useful knowunrelenting sternness, for a slighter offence? ledge, one source of rational improvement, Alas, how many amiable, excellent, promis- or of harmless enjoyment? If they are desing young women have been lost to God, to pised they will become despicable. Treated their families, to society; have been dragged either as slaves or as angels, they cease to into the jaws of prostitution, and infamy, and be companions. Prize them and they will disease, and premature death, because a fa- become estimable; call forth their intellecther's door was shut, and a mother's heart | tual powers, and the empire of science will hardened against the penitent: because her be extended and improved. native refuge was no refuge to the miserable? She returned to her own, but her own received her not. Instances, however, might be produced of wiser conduct, and happier consequences; of mercy extended, and the wanderer reclaimed; of human parents working together with "the Father of mercies," and succeeding in rekindling the sacred flame of virtue, in. restoring peace to the troubled breast, in recovering the fallen, to reputation, to piety, to comfort, to usefulness. | piety. And let them learn wherein their real value, importance, and respectability consist. Not in receiving homage, but in meriting approbation; not in shining, but in useful employment; not in public eminence, but in domestic dignity; in acquiring and maintaining influence, not by pretension, vehemence, or trick, which are easily seen through, and always fail, but by good temper, perseverance in well-doing, and the practice of unfeigned HISTORY OF JESUS CHRIST. LECTURE CVIII In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness: and the darkness comprehended it not. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God; even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.-JOHN i. 1—14. "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye Him." We are now therefore to comtemplate "him, to whom all the prophets gave wit mighty works; and, as the order of things prescribes, our contemplation must commence in what he was in the beginning, prior to the lapse of time, for "he is before all things, and by him all things consist." John, "the disciple whom Jesus loved," long survived the rest of his fellow-disciples. He knew what some of them had written. He lived to see the progress of the truth as it is in Christ. He saw the divine origin of Christianity demonstrated by its success, and he became a joyful martyr to the truth which he published to the world. A "brother and companion in tribulation, and in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ," in common with other saints, he retired into exile in THE idea of a beginning involves that of antecedent existence, from which that beginning originated. The beginning of a man's life implies parentage; the being of a tower of a city, necessarily supposes a pre-ness," in his own person, doctrine, and existent head to plan, and a hand to execute. The vast frame of Nature must have had its commencement from a preceding skill to contrive, and a power to perform. The Mosaic account of the Creation is the only one that sound reason can admit. If God created the heavens and the earth, GOD was before the heavens and the earth. Moses the historian, and John the evangelist carry us back to one and the same era, carry us up to one and the same all-wise, all-powerful Being. Nature and Grace issue from the same source, and tend toward the same grand consummation. The prophet and the apostle employ the selfsame terms to describe the same objects. "He that built all things is God." It has been remarked that the four Evan-"the isle that is called Patmos," a cheerful gelists introduce their great subject in a retrogade series of representation. Matthew's gospel opens with a display of the Saviour's humanity, and presents us with his descent as a man. Mark conveys us back to the age of prophecy, and "the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God" is traced up to the predictions of Malachi and Isaiah. Luke the beloved physician refers us to the Levitical priesthood, to the altar of incense, and the services of an earthly sanc-new." tuary, "a shadow of good things to come.' ." But John soars above all height; he recurs to the birth of nature, and ascribes that birth to a pre-existent, omnifick WORD, which in "the fulness of time was made flesh, and dwelt among us." We have beheld his glory displayed in the ages before the flood, in the persons and predictions of patriarchs and prophets, by whom "God at sundry times and in divers manners spake unto the fathers." But Moses and Elias have disappeared; the "voice crying in the wilderness" is heard no more; it is lost in a "voice from heaven," saying, victim to "the word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ." In that sacred retirement, more to be prized than all the blessings of society, he is visited with the visions of the Almighty, and becomes the highly honoured minister of unfolding the character, offices, and work of his divine and beloved Master, from the days of eternity to the final consummation, when He who sitteth upon the throne shall say, "Behold I make all things The Gospel, according to St. John, and the Revelation of St. John, may therefore be considered as together forming an abstract of the plan of Providence from the first dawning of light upon the world of nature to the perfect day of "the restitution of all things.' And one and the same Agent is represented as the animating principle which is before all, and through all, and in all. In the beginning. The mind, with all its powers, loses itself in surveying the works and the ways of God. I have a dark, indistinct recollection of my first emersion into thought. I can remember some of the im pressions made, of the sorrows and joys felt, when I was a little child. Soon after I began to exist, I began to perceive that I did exist, but for the knowledge of all that preceded I stand indebted to a father's intelligence, to a mother's tenderness. They were to me the beginning of days and the oracles of truth. Their own pittance of illumination flowed in the same channel. But there must have been a point when thought began. There must have been an intelligence which could communicate the power of comprehension; there must have been a spirit which could breathe into man's nostrils the breath of life; there must have been one without a beginning to make a beginning. And who He was the evangelist unfolds. into infinity it is overwhelmed and lost. If the wisdom which cries, and the understanding which puts forth her voice in the writings of Solomon, be the same with the WORD which was in the beginning, as a comparison of the two passages will render highly probable, we shall have a sublime and interesting idea of this pre-existent state. The evangelist says, The word was with GOD, as the deliberative, active, determining principle of the Eternal mind. The wise man expands the thought, and represents the plans of eternal Wisdom as digesting; the framing, arranging, supporting, governing, redeeming of a world, as in contemplation. As if admitted into the counsels of peace, he thus unfolds In the beginning was the WORD. Let us the purpose of Him who worketh all things not contend about the import of a Greek term. after his own will, that all should be to the If cur evangelist has not an intention to mis- praise of his glory: "The Lord possessed lead, but one idea can be affixed to that term. me in the beginning of his way, before his He is evidently describing God the creator, works of old. I was set up from everlasting, in the view of leading us to know and to ac- from the beginning, or ever the earth was. knowledge the Redeemer of mankind as one When there were no depths I was brought and the same with him. Who "was made forth; when there were no fountains aboundflesh and dwelt among us?" Who "came to ing with water. Before the mountains were his own and his own received him not?" settled; before the hills was I brought forth; Who was despised and rejected of men?" while as yet he had not made the earth, nor The WORD that was in the beginning, and the fields, nor the highest part of the dust of who has revealed himself by a display of so the world. When he prepared the heavens many glorious attributes. "Without con- I was there; when he set a compass upon troversy, great is the mystery of godliness: the face of the depth; when he established God was manifest in the flesh." Is this pro- the clouds above; when he strengthened the position to be rejected because it is myste- fountains of the deep; when he gave to the rious? For the same reason the system of sea his decree, that the waters should not nature, in whole, and in all its parts, is to be pass his commandment; when he appointed rejected. All is mystery; and all is revelation the foundations of the earth; then I was by and discovery, from the insect too small for him, as one brought up with him; and I was sight swimming in a drop of water, up to daily his delight, rejoicing always before yonder flaming orb which revolves at an im- him: rejoicing in the habitable part of his measurable distance over our heads. Is not earth; and my delights were with the sons man a great mystery to himself? But is he of men." Thus was the Word with God to renounce his being because he is unable from eternity taking pleasure in the prospect to explain it? Is he to call the union of mat-f the fabric which he was about to rear; of ter with mind an absurdity, because their mutual influence escapes his penetration? How many combinations actually exist of which we have no perception, and which we would pronounce to be impossible! In all the ways and works of the Most High there is a wonderful mixture of luminousness and obscurity, of minuteness and magnitude, of complexness snd simplicity. And Scripture exhibits the connexion of extremes similar to that which is apparent in the world of nature and in the ways of Providence. This is a presumption at least, if not a proof that they have all one original; and who can that original be but the divine person emphatically, called THE WORD, which existed in the plenitude of power, wisdom, and goodness "before the world was," but of whose pre-existent state very general ideas only are communicated. Indeed none other can be communicated, for when the mind launches the creature whom he was going to frame, and whose nature he was in due time to assume; that he might make the children of men "partakers of the divine nature," an union as mysterious and incomprehensible as that of soul and body, as that of the persons in the Deity, and as evidently matter of truth and revelation as these are. And the Word was God. Here "the disciple whom Jesus loved" recognizes in his Master, on whose bosom he leaned at supper, "all the fulness of the godhead dwelling bodily." Lest the expression, the Word was WITH God might be supposed to imply separation, difference, as a man who sojourns with his friend is nevertheless a different being from that friend, the evangelist speaks out fairly, fully, unequivocally, the truth which he himself believed, and which he was divinely inspired to deliver to mankind, that they also might believe. If St. John be not in these words delivering the doctrine of the real and proper Deity of Jesus Christ, he is either himself labouring under a delusion, or he intentionally means to deceive, or there is no meaning in language, and consequently no distinct and safe channel of communication between man and man. highest glory of human nature: but this la bouring and working is not in aid to feebleness, it goes not to the production of what had no previous being; it simply implies the adoption of the same views with God, and the imitation of his works of goodness and mercy. The united powers of angels and men are unequal to the formation of a single atom, for, to the ascription of the creation of universal nature to the Word, John subjoins his exclusive title to the cha not give to any other; "without him was not any thing made that was made." "He spake, and it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast." "God said, Let there be light, and there was light." And who but God could thus speak, thus produce? The same was in the beginning with God. John speaks as a prophet as well as an evangelist. Foreseeing that "false teachers" should arise," even denying the Lord that bought them," he employs a clearness, a co-racter of Creator: it is a glory which he will piousness, a force of expression on this momentous point, not to be misunderstood, not to be slighted, not to be explained away. When a master charges his servant with a message of peculiar importance, he repeats it again and again, he puts it into every different form, in order to avoid ambiguity and to prevent mistake. This is evidently the case here. It must not be made a question. "Of whom speaketh" the evangelist thus? "of himself, or of some other man?" The identity of the person is ascertained beyond the reach of doubt. He is the same before time began its race; the same who set time a flowing; the same through every period of duration; the same under every character and in every condition. "The In Him was life. In the vegetable world life is a state of expansion, a progress of fructification, a power of reproduction, but all issuing in the decay and dissolution of the parent germ. A grain of wheat in order to vitality must itself consume. "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." It has not therefore life in itself. It was the divine mandate which first generated, and which still supports the wonderful process. "God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, Where is the proof that the Word was the herb yielding seed, and the fruit-tree God! All things were made by him; and yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself upon without him was not any thing made that the earth, after his kind: and it was so : and was made. Behold the execution of the God saw that it was good." From the same eternal plan. The design is copied to an fountain of life proceeded animal nature: iota. It is the incommunicable prerogative" All sheep and oxen, yea, and the beasts of of Deity to create. He who creates cannot be himself a creature. By the WORD were all things made, the WORD therefore could not have been made. What God did by the Word of his power, he did by himself; and "through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God." Mark the universality of this creative energy; All things were made by Him. The apostle makes a splendid enumeration of those all things, in his epistle to the Colossians, ch. i. verse 16. "For by Him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him and for him." Wherever therefore there is "The light of the body is the eye;" and created existence, there is omnipotent, omni-a precious gift it is. Truly the light is present, creating, and sustaining virtue, and sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes there can be but One Omnipotent, Omni-to behold the sun." But the faculty of vision, present. Angels" are said to "excel in as well as some others, is bestowed in a highstrength," but that strength is imparted, ander degree of acuteness on certain of the aniit is exerted or restrained by a will not their mal creation than upon man. He however own; they "do His commandments, heark- possesses a light denied to the beasts that ening unto the voice of his word." Man is perish. "There is a spirit in man, and the capable of doing great things, but his power inspiration of the Almighty giveth them unis limited to the modification of materials|derstanding." "The spirit of man is the provided to his hand. Christians are indeed said to be "labourers together with God," and "workers together with him;" it is the the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of 66 candle of the Lord," by which he is distinguished from, and exalted far above the beasts of the earth and the fowls of heaven, |