For our Guide, Sanctifier and Comforter is almighty.

And, when we look to the region of the grave, and to the world that lies beyond it, we must have some agitating apprehensions as to our destiny in it. Ah-when we pass through the grave to an eternal world, who can guide and save us but an almighty Redeemer-one who "holds the keys of death and hell;" who has vanquished the king of terrors; and who has promised to lead his faithful followers through the grave and gate of death to a joyful resurrection, to an inheritance of glory that fadeth not away.

My brethren, the pardon of our sins; our deliverance from their dominion; peace of conscience; progress in virtue and holiness; the favour of God; the hope of everlasting bliss are blessings without which no earthly joys can yield us consolation. And they are blessings assured to us by the doctrine of the Trinity of persons in the Godhead, which makes us the subjects of the grace and mercy of God the Father, through the mediation of his Son Jesus Christ, by the sanctifying power of the Holy Ghost. Let us then stedfastly profess this true faith, which is the source to us of these inestimable blessings, and acknowledge with reverence and humility "the glory of the eternal Trinity." In the Holy Supper, let us unite in that

sublime ascription of praise, by which the Church on earth responds to the Church triumphantand "with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, laud and magnify the Lord God of Hosts, who is one God, one Lord, not only one person, but three persons in one substance-For that which we believe of the glory of the Father, the same we believe of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, without any difference or inequality "."

h

Blessed with the love of God the Father; justified by the merits of God the Son; and sanctified and comforted by God the Holy Ghost, we shall pass the time of our sojourning here in peace, in resignation and in hope. We shall advance from strength to strength through increasing stages of divine truth and virtue, until we arrive at that heavenly kingdom, where all the doubts which attend this state of imperfect knowledge shall terminate; and all the sorrows of this course of our probation be swallowed up, in the enjoyment of the glories of the Godhead. In the courts of the celestial Zion, we shall join with the spirits of the just made perfect, and with the innumerable company of heaven, in the hymn of adoration and praise -Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and which is, and which is to come.

h Communion Service.

Let then the strains of the Church on earth respond to those of the Church in heaven, and let us ascribe unto God the Father, and God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost, three persons but one God, all power, might, majesty and dominion, world without end.

SERMON XII.

THE ONLY-BEGOTTEN SON, AS SET FORTH IN THE NICENE CREED.

[A CHRISTMAS SERMON.]

1 JOHN iv. 9.

In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

THIS, my brethren, was that act of infinite love which we this day commemorate in the services of the Church.

It must be obvious that the manifestation of the love of God, depends upon the dignity of the person whom he sent into the world. The more exalted the nature of him whom God sent, and the more intimate the relation which he sustains to the Infinite Being by whom he was commissioned, the greater the love displayed in the act of his mission for our salvation.

If the personage styled in my text "the onlybegotten Son of God," sustained no higher relation to his Almighty Father, than that of the

most perfect of men, or of the highest of created beings, where would have been the peculiar love of God in this mode of our redemption? For, it must be observed, that not only the act of our redemption, but the mode by which it was effected in the dignity of the personage who became our Redeemer, is most strongly insisted on in the sacred writings as peculiarly manifesting the love of God for us. "God so loved the world," said Christ, "that he gave his only-begotten Son "." And, in the words of my text, still more emphatically" In this was manifested the love of God for us, because that God sent his onlybegotten Son into the world that we might live through him." In reference then to the mode of our redemption, our estimate of the love of God must be proportioned to the dignity of the personage by whom it was effected, and to the nearness of his relation to the Almighty Being by whom he was commissioned.

It is necessary therefore, my brethren, in order to raise in your minds a due sense of the love of God, in sending his only-begotten Son to be our Redeemer, to ascertain the nature and dignity of him who was thus sent. The due estimate of the nature and dignity of Jesus Christ, is a point, also, intimately connected with our comfort, our virtue, and our salvation. For if he, whom God sent to be our Saviour, is divine a John iii. 16.