V. ONE HOPE OF YOUR CALLING.

We have already spoken of the calling, verse 1, and now we have only to consider the hope which belongs to it. But what is the meaning of being called in one hope of your calling? The Greek preposition ev, which is the origin of our in, and in many cases answers to it, is thus explained by Bengel, "It denotes, indolem rei, the nature of the thing referred to." Thus we are called in peace, in holiness, in the hope of our calling. Macknight gives it seventeen different meanings, with abundant proofs for each, and our translators have given it nearly as many. I need not refer to passages. Perhaps the best translation in our passage is unto; ye are called by the Gospel unto the one great hope of your calling in Christ Jesus,-and in this sense I take it. What, then, is this hope, this one hope unto which we are called? I answer thus. God, who knows what is in man, has suited His world and His Word to our material and spiritual conditions. We are creatures of hope as well as of sense and memory. The future, as seen in the Word, distant and near, presents to the eye of man a thousand varieties of things hoped for, like innumerable stars, some dimmer, some brighter, shining through the darkness of a cloudy sky. We have the hope of the resurrection, the resurrection of the just, the first resurrection, which seems to be the privilege of the saints, and therefore a hope (Acts xxviii. 20, 1 Cor. xv. 23); they that are Christ's (Luke xx. 36); the sons of God (Rev. xx. 5, compare 1 Thess. iv. 14, Rom. viii. 23, Luke xiv. 14). We have the hope of righteousness (Gal. v. 5), when the work is done; the hope of the Gospel (Col. i. 23); the hope of glory (Col. i. 27), to strengthen our fainting spirits. It is a hidden hope, laid up for us in heaven; a hope that shall

never make ashamed; the hope of being with and like Christ in His glorious kingdom for ever. All these aspirations and varieties seem to be united in the one great hope, which has animated the Church from the beginning the hope of the coming and kingdom of Jesus Christ, which is therefore called, by way of eminence, the blessed hope (Tit. ii. 13). I think, therefore, that this is the one hope of our calling, and includes all the others. The Jews had the coming of Christ in the flesh as their great national hope, and we Christians look for His coming in glory as the substance of things hoped for. This is the hope of the New Testament as distinguished from that of the Old, and the Gospels and Epistles are full of it. It animated the early Christians in their faithful contendings, it is embodied in the Lord's Prayer, it is the cry of the widowed Church and the groaning creation-Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! It is, therefore, the one hope; and as we are called to a kingdom, to be kings and priests unto God and our Father, it is the one hope of our calling. That great event is connected with many others, to which it gives character and significance, as it is closely connected with all the feelings of the mind -the hopes and fears, the duties and neglects of duty, of which our Christian experience is made up. The cross and the crown-the coming of Christ in the flesh, and His coming in glory, being the historical and the prophetical, and so the proper food for memory and hope, are the two centres of the Divine Word and the Divine administration, around which all the systems of grace and providence revolve. There is one faith in the dying Lamb, and one hope in the coming King. We behold the cross, and with tears of penitence the chains of sin dissolve in Divine mercy, while, at the same moment, our humble but immortal hopes begin to

cluster around the coming King of Glory, whom we cannot do without any longer, whom it is our delight to glorify and adore in the sanctuary above, when faith and hope shall be swallowed up in the fruition of eternal love.

VI. THE LORDSHIP OF JESUS.

We come now to the Lordship of Jesus; there is one Lord. Here we remark, (1.) that the title Lord in Greek, Kupios, when taken in a solemn religious sense, always denotes the one living and eternal God, the Creator and Ruler of the world (Matt. i. 22, Luke i. 6, 28, Acts vii. 33, Heb. viii. 2, 10, Jas. iv. 15); nor does the absence of the article alter the sense in the least degree (Matt. xxvii. 10, Mark xiii. 20, Luke i. 58, Acts vii. 49, Rom. iv. 8, Heb. vii. 21, 1 Pet. i. 25). In the Septuagint it is used throughout for the great, unutterable name Jehovah, the highest and holiest known to the Hebrew nation. This is the common name of Jesus in the New Testament, and seems naturally to identify Him with the God of Israel. It is applied to Him with and without the article in its highest and most unqualified acceptation (Eph. i. 22, Rom. x. 12, ix. 5, 2 Cor. iii. 16, 17, 18, Eph. v. 10, Col. iii. 23, 2 Thess. iii. 1, 5, 2 Tim. iv. 8, Jas. v. 7), and, consequently, presents Him to our faith as the object of our veneration and love. He is our Lord. He is one with the Father, and, along with Him, the proper object of religious worship. The Church worships Him (1 Cor. i. 2); Stephen when dying, and full of the Holy Ghost, adored Him (Acts vii. 59, 60); the hosts of heaven worship Him (Rev. v. 11-14)—holy angels and redeemed men, with songs of praise

"Worthy the Lamb that died, they cry,
To be exalted thus;

Worthy the Lamb, let us reply,

For He was slain for us."

Lordship denotes three things-possession, power, and glory, and they all meet in Him. We are His; the world, the sun, moon, and stars, the created universe, is His property (Col. i. 16). All power in heaven and in earth is in His hand, and He is surrounded by the pomp and majesty of the heavenly throne. He is Lord of all (Acts x. 36). But (2.) how is He the one Lord? Answer, He is not the only Lord in opposition to the Father, or the Holy Spirit, for these are also in Scripture called Lord, and to the three Divine Persons all names and attributes belong equally (Horae Solitariae i. 7). But He is the one Lord, owing to His special relations to the Church, and in opposition to the various false religions of the world. There are many systems of worship, many rulers of the darkness of this world, but to us there is one Lord, Jesus Christ, and His authority is all in all. There is no other name given under heaven whereby we can be saved but His; He is the one Living Head of the Church, and the only Mediator between God and man. There is salvation in no other; He alone died for us; and He is the only Advocate and Mediator at the right hand of God, and, hence, we can say with Paul," There is one Lord"-one from the first of time to the last; for in creation, in providence, and in redemption, He is the Lord, the Worker, the Mediator, the Agent of Jehovah, in bringing His purposes into outward form and reality. He is the Lord, the one Lord, Head and Executor of the covenants with Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses, as well as of the new covenant, which is called by His name. In all time, in all space, in all manifestations of the Deity, of every kind and degree, He is the one Lord, the Word, the Worker, the Revealer, through whom the ineffable Jehovah reveals something of His glory to the universe. (3.) But we may surely ask, in passing, what is the

nature of His Lordship? How does His rule affect us? Is He actually ruling now? We must limit our answer to such questions altogether to the Scripture. Reason and imagination do not reach these themes. We see something of the nature of His rule in the great principle of His Headship. He is the Church's Head (Eph. iv. 13-16). He is the Head of the human race,

the Second Adam (1 Cor. xi. 3).

The angels are made
He is Head and Ruler

subject to Him (1 Peter iii. 22). over the whole universe (Eph. i. 22); and that not simply as God, but as God-Man and Mediator (Matt. xxvii. 18); so that the nature of man is glorified beyond all conception, and the Divine idea of making man the royal family of heaven, the regnant form of creature being, is coming into actual accomplishment! Here is dignity for you, O brother man! Look up to the throne of God! The angels are round about it, but your nature is on it! Why talk of the dignity of man, and point us to Newton, and Milton, and Locke, to the Alexanders, the Cæsars, and such like conquerors and heroes! Well, honour to the brave, wherever they are! But let us open the eye of faith, and contemplate humanity in its full-orbed glory, as it is predestinated to be, in the person of Jesus Christ. I do not wonder that many should be inclined to doubt the doctrines of Incarnation, Atonement, and Headship, for they are altogether unlike what men would originate! They are too large, too deep, too big for our dwarfish conceptions! We are of the earth, earthy; these are of heaven, heavenly! God Himself in my nature! Humanity taken up into Godhead, and made the medium of the Creator's working! It is no mere escape from damnation! Not only is sin expiated, and Satan foiled, and the gates of hell closed, but I am carried away into the glories of the skies, into the throne of the universe,