fore the world hateth them." Persecution, in one form or another, every truly loyal subject of the king of Zion will receive from ungodly men. But their Sovereign holds these men perfectly in his hand, and restrains, and bounds, and defeats their rage, at his pleasure. Their power, their swords, their tongues, their efforts, are all subject to his control. He will not permit them to do his people any real injury. They shall live while Christ has work for them to do; they shall suffer no more than he pleases to permit; all that they do suffer shall moreover but brighten their eternal crown; and death itself shall but bring them to his immediate and blissful presence. Over death he has himself triumphed, and this last enemy he enables them also to vanquish. Often they expire with the conqueror's song" O death where is thy sting! O grave where is thy victory! Thanks be to God who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

Christ as king, especially restrains and bounds the malice of Satan, and all the infernal powers. But for this restraint they would speedily destroy his subjects; for his subjects are, in themselves weak, and their enemies are strong. The adversary of souls had power and subtilty sufficient to destroy sinless man in paradise. But man then stood in his own strength. Now every Christian, even the weakest, is under the protection of the Lord Jesus; and therefore, with all his imperfections, he is safe. Christ will keep him. The adversary cannot go beyond his chain-He may tempt but he cannot compel. He may threaten but he cannot injure. He may terrify, but he cannot destroy. He is a conquered enemy, and every saint shall triumph over him.

But it is pleasing to think of the conquests which the king of Zion is yet to make, by the influence of his Spirit and grace, in our guilty world. The empire of Satan, since the fall of man, has been extensive indeed, and so it continues still. But the period is advancing-perhaps it is not far distant-when Satan is to be bound, and to deceive the nations no more for a thousand years. Then shall the king of Zion

extend his peaceful and heavenly reign throughout the earth. Nations shall be born in a day-The world shall own its Lord and Saviour, from the rising to the setting sun

Rise, crown'd with light, imperial Salem, rise!
Exalt thy towery head, and lift thy eyes!
See a long race thy spacious courts adorn;
See future sons, and daughters yet unborn,
In crowding ranks on every side arise,
Demanding life, impatient for the skies!
See barbarous nations at thy gates attend,
Walk in thy light, and in thy temple bend;
See thy bright altars throng'd with prostrate kings,
And heap'd with products of Sabæan springs!
For thee Idume's spicy forests blow,
And seeds of gold in Ophir's mountains glow.
See heaven its sparkling portals wide display,
And break upon thee in a flood of day!
No more the rising sun shall gild the morn,
Nor evening Cynthia fill her silver horn;
But lost, dissolved in thy superior rays,

One tide of glory, one unclouded blaze
O'erflow thy courts: the Light himself shall shine
Reveal'd, and God's eternal day be thine!
The seas shall waste, the skies in smoke decay,
Rocks fall to dust, and mountains melt away;
But fix'd his word, his saving power remains;

Thy realm for ever lasts, thy own MESSIAH reigns!"

My dear children-Make this king of Zion your friend, by sweetly submitting to the sceptre of his grace. Then shall you not only behold, but be partakers of all his glory. Amen.

LECTURE XXIV.

Wherein did Christ's humiliation consist?

"CHRIST's humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time."

Christ's humiliation, in general, consisted in his condescending to have that glory which he had with the Father before the world was, veiled for a time; by his coming into this lower world "in the likeness of sinful flesh," to be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." You will be careful to observe, that this humiliation was, in the highest degree voluntary, on the part of Christ-He yielded to it by no constraint. It had no other source but his own, and the eternal Father's self-moved undeserved LOVE, to lost mankind.

Let us now consider the several steps of Christ's humiliation, as they are mentioned in the answer. "He was born, and that in a low condition." It had been an unparalleled condescension in Christ, to assume our nature in any imaginable circumstances. How astonishing the stoop for him who was the eternal Son of God, happy in the bosom of the Father, the Creator and the Lord of all the angelick host, and receiving their profoundest homage-to become the Son of man, and be made, as to his human nature, of a woman! Had he made his entrance into our world with all the state, and pomp, and splendour of royalty, that condescension had still been ineffable. But how are we to conceive of it, when, in place of external grandeur and respect, we consider the low condition in which he was actually born! His mother,

and his reputed father were both, it is true, of the most honourable descent-They traced their lineage to David and to Abraham; and the genealogy of Christ, according to the flesh, is particularly recorded in the New Testament, to show that the promises of God to those ancient saints, that the Messiah should proceed from them, had been strictly and remarkably fulfilled. But at the time of our Redeemer's birth, his mother, although of royal ancestry, was reduced to such a state of obscurity and poverty, that in nature's most trying hour, she could procure no admission to an inn. With the cattle of the stall she was obliged to seek a refuge. The Son of God was born in a stable, and laid in a mangerThere it was that he who made the worlds, became an infant of days! That he whose arm upholds the universe, was wrapped in swaddling bands! This was humiliation indeed. While this is recollected, never let a poor disciple of Jesus either blush or complain. Thus low did the Redeemer stoop, to lift up sinners out of the horrible pit and the miry clay, into which their sins had plunged them. How can we proceed, without stopping, for a moment, to admire "the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, though he was rich, yet for our sakes, became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich"-that we by faith might claim a relation to him as our kinsman Redeemer, and say, "unto us a child is born, unto us a Son is given-he is our Immanuel, GoD WITH US!""

Our Redeemer, it appears, was subject to his parents according to the flesh, during the whole period of his minority. He was bred to a laborious occupation. He was called the carpenter, and the carpenter's son. Let honest industry never be ashamed of its toils, for it is employed only as the Redeemer of the world has set the example.

But the answer states that another part of our Lord's humiliation was, that "he was made under the law." The law, here principally referred to, was certainly the moral law. Christ indeed yielded obedience to all the divine institutions, ceremonial and political, as well as moral; because the former

of these, while they lasted, had the same author as the latter, and were therefore equally obligatory; and he declared to his forerunner that it became him to fulfil all righteousness. But the ceremonial and political institutions of the Jews were temporary; the moral law, on the contrary, is of eternal and unceasing obligation. It was to this that he was made subject, as our surety. This was the law given to Adam at his creation; and was that on which the covenant of works was founded, when he dwelt in paradise. By the breach of this law, as a covenant, all mankind were brought under the curse. When therefore it is said by the apostle (Gal. iv. 4, 5,) "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law," we must not only understand the moral law to be chiefly spoken of, but spoken of specially as a covenant of works. We have just seen that the object of Christ's coming was to redeem them that were under the law; that is, to answer its demands in their place. He did answer its demands in their place, and thus the second Adam repaired the ruins of the first. The law has no longer any claims upon his believing people, in the form of a covenant. But he never fulfilled it for them as a rule of life, in any other way than as giving them a perfect example of obedience to it. If he had, then Christians would be under no obligation to render a personal obedience to the moral law. gross Antinomians have in terms affirmed. monstrous and impious inference of their own, made in direct contradiction of the words of Christ himself-"I came not," said he, "to destroy the law, but to fulfil it." That it was the moral law of which our Saviour here spoke is evident; because he did actually destroy or put an end to the ceremonial and political laws of the Jews-so far as they were separable, as in most cases they were, from the principles of the moral law.

This indeed the
But it is only a

It is justly represented as a striking part of Christ's humiliation, that he was made under the law; because it was a most amazing condescension, that the great Lord and law