to ourselves, it is a satisfaction if we know that that object shall be finally completed. No doubt there is in all cases a delight and satisfaction in proportion to the hopes we have cherished and the labour we have undergone. The difficulties which our Lord had to overcome are represented in very strong language; I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished." And when "the travail of his soul" was just at hand, he said, "With desire I have desired to eat this passover with you before I suffer:" and when Peter would have dissuaded him from suffering, our Lord rebuked him, saying, "Get thee behind me, Satan."

Let me again observe, that we delight in the accomplishment of a work in proportion to the danger with which it is effected: And assuredly the joy of Christ must be great on this account. I love to think of the joy of his human nature as well as the joy of his divine nature, especially when I think of what he suffered for men, of what he suffered for me, of what he suffered for Jew and Gentile. I delight to think, of the joy of that human nature, on his own account, as well as that it is the medium of joy to all that believe in him. The joy of Christ was exceedingly great: never was such sorrow undergone before ; and surely his joy must have been in proportion. Yes, it is his chief delight to "see of the travail of his soul."

Let me add that our Lord rejoices when he sees his people sending forth his Gospel, and that Gospel prevailing among the heathen, sinners converted by that Gospel-washed, justified, and sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God: I say he is satisfied. And when he shall come again with all the ensigns of glory, with what delight will he contemplate the bliss of his redeemed! "Behold me, and the children whom thou hast given me." "Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you : enter into the joy of your Lord." The zeal of Christ for the glory of God, and the love of Christ for the souls of men, would cause him to delight in such fruits of his labour. When he was born, angels sung, Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good-will toward men." When he was about to die he could say," Now is the Son of man glorified, and God is glorified in him." And when his purchased possession shall be redeemed from the grave, his triumph will be complete: he will joy over them with joy and singing, and for ever rest in his love. "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied."

Let us now turn to the subject by way of application.

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First, our obligations to Christ. He has taken pleasure in our welfare and happiness: he willingly endured the bitterest sufferings for our sakes: and what is there that we should be unwilling to do, or that we should be unwilling to suffer, for his sake! Will not the love of Christ constrain us? Will it not constrain us to be his disciples, whatever difficulties or dangers may attend us? Will it not constrain us to take up the cross, to deny self, and to follow him? But you are not exposed, as the primitive Christians were, to such difficulties and dangers. But will not pleasures, will not lusts, will not passions, be crucified with him? Will not labours, and duties, and exertions, be readily engaged in for him? Oh, let us consider our obligations to Christ! Oh, that we may all come to such a knowledge of him as to exclaim, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee:" "God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ:" "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge

of Christ Jesus my Lord." Oh, that we may so consider our obligation, that, believing we are thus redeemed by his sufferings, we may be ready to exclaim, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" All are not called to serve with reference to missions; but I pray that the Spirit of God may call many forth, who will be ready to say to their Redeemer who suffered, many who are led to delight in the thought of his success and of his joy, "Here am I; send me." The command has been repeated this day, "Pray ye the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth more labourers into his harvest." If you thus pray, we hope that, from time to time, many will be raised up ready to say, "Here am

I; send me."

But, with reference to all, are you not ready, while you believe in a Saviour's sufferings for your sins, while you delight in his success, while you would participate in his joy, are you not, as it were, saying, "Here is my property, take the due proportion of it for this good work. Here is my influence-be it rank, be it talent, be it wealth, be it what it may-whereby it can glorify thee, and make thee known upon the earth: employ it, O Lord, to promote thy glory, and to benefit my fellow men." God grant that we may more and more feel our obligations to our Saviour Christ!

Let us learn to follow the example of our Saviour Christ. In that way we shall best exhibit the sense we have of our obligation to him. Did his soul travail, and is he satisfied with the conversion and salvation of sinners? And shall we never travail in prayers, in labours, in exertions, for the same great object? Let evil spirits envy, let wicked men oppose, let luke-warm Christians sit at their ease; but do you, beloved brethren, imitate your Saviour, and beseech men to be reconciled to God. Yet a little while, and nothing else can give satisfaction but the salvation of Christ, and the great results of it. Oh, let it give satisfaction now. We are not in the habit of recommending from the pulpit other books than the Bible; yet I could wish that our Monthly Records, and our Missionary Register, were read by our people at large, that they might see what great things are going on in our world. Oh, be not lukewarm; be not like the silly virgins, without oil in their vessels with their lamps; be not like the antediluvian world, occupied by the things of time and sense; but consider what great encouragement you have, to go to the Saviour for your own salvation. You have been praying this morning," By thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, by thy precious death and burial, by thy glorious resurrection and ascension, and by the coming of the Holy Ghost, Good Lord, deliver us." Be it your prayer till you enjoy the fulness of Christ. Consider what encouragement you have to go to this wonderful Redeemer, the Lord of the Jew, the Lord of the Gentile, the Lord over all, rich unto all that call upon his name. And what an opening you have to ask for the salvation of others. And when you hear of success, say, "God be praised :" and when you hear of missionaries going forth, say, "The Lord be with them:" and when you hear the promise of victory, say, Thy kingdom come:" and when you hear of the sufferings of Jesus for sinners, will you not say, “Let the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen, and Amen.”

Oh, dear brethren, if you are looking to our Lord Jesus for salvation, if you feel your obligation to that wonderful Saviour, if you feel constrained to follow his example and his life, if you can thus take a practical interest in his cause, I have only now to add, that you shall eternally rejoice where "He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.”

GRACE AND TRUTH.

REV. W. JAY

SURREY CHAPEL, MAY 15, 1834.

"Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ."-JOHN, i. 17.

"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." A portion of his testimony is here recorded. John cried, saying, "This was he of whom I said, After me cometh a man which was preferred before me: for he was before me." Now with regard to his birth, we know that John was before Jesus; he was also before him with regard to his preaching and shewing unto Israel. The allusion, therefore, is to a state of being before his appearance in the flesh; concerning which Micah had said, “His goings forth were of old from everlasting;" concerning which he himself hath said, "Before Abraham was I am." Then the testimony adds, "And of his fulness have all we received, and grace for grace." This shews that John does not refer only, or principally, to a fulness of personal endowment and qualification, but to a fulness of communicated influence. I would say, that he was not only full, but rich; not only rich, but diffusive; that as it had pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell, so his fulness was not a spring shut up, a fountain sealed, but an open spring, a flowing fountain, pouring forth streams to refresh millions, and to replenish the Church of God to the end of time.

The testimony goes on further, and says, "For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." We shall here waive the comparison between Moses and Jesus Christ, personally considered, and also the contrast many have supposed was here instituted between the ministry of the one, and the ministry of the other, in order to dwell much (for we have much before us, and the place is crowded) in order to dwell much on two things, in which we are all very deeply concerned, and a professed regard to which has brought together this vast assembly-"Grace and truth." Let us first ask how these came, and then what we are to do with them now they are come?

In answer to the first of these enquiries, How THESE CAME? we are expressly assured, that they came by Jesus Christ: "Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." Let us begin with truth. What is truth? This is a question Pilate once asked, and it is a question which many still ask: but as he did not stay for an answer, so they betray equal carelessness with regard to the result. The shortest and easiest way of answering the question, according to some, would be, for each religious party to exhibit its own creed, and censure and exclude the

Anniversary Sermon for the London Missionary Society.

claimants of every other. But candour would lead a man to conclude, that all these parties have it, and that none of them have it; that all of them have is partially, and none of them have it wholly. Thus it is with philosophers with regard to nature, metaphysicians with regard to mind, and historians with regard to facts. I consider the Gospel as a system too vast for the finite mind to take in at once: and so people have used it as children use a large mirror; unable to carry it away whole, they break it into pieces: all of them going away with fractions, one calls out, "I have the glass;" a second says, "I have the glass;" and a third says, "No; but I have the glass;" the fact is, that the glass consisted of all these parts. But we shall now (though no one has a large portion) we shall now re-unite all these, and present the mirror undefiled and uninjured. But we feel no kind of embarrassment this morning with regard to truth; we refer to the creed of no party, no Church, no council; we allude to what all profess to receive; we allude to the Gospel itself. This is truth this morning with us. But how did this truth come? By Jesus Christ.

Let us glance at four articles. There is first the truth of performance, in distinction from engagement. You read of the promise made unto the fathers; you meet with it every where in the Old Testament. It was first announced in Paradise, in the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head; it was renewed and enlarged from time to time with regard to Abraham, Moses, and David, and the prophets; for those discoveries were like the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day. Yet there is a difference between the existence of the promise and the fulfilment; and therefore you read, that even the elders who "obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise, (that is, the accomplishment), God having provided some better things for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." Therefore our Saviour addressing his disciples, comparing their state, not with that of the heathen, but with the Jews, says, "Many prophets and righteous men have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them. But blessed are your eyes, for they see and your ears for they hear."

There is, secondly, the truth of reality, in distinction from prefiguration. This truth came by Jesus Christ. The Jews were children; God treated them as you deal with your infants, when you address their senses as well as their understanding, and place pictures over their lessons in order to allure, and impress, and explain. They had various types and ceremonies, leading their minds from things natural to things spiritual, from things earthly to things heavenly. The Apostle says, in reference to this, the law was "a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things:" not the reality. A shadow depends upon the body, derives its very form from the body; but it has no power in itself, and it is an obscure and imperfect representation of the substance. This was precisely the case with the law; its carnal ordinances and observances, had no efficiency to save or to sanctify: the value of the services were derived entirely from their relation to the Messiah, but for whom they would never have been established, but for whom they could have had no use they were not founded on any physical, or civil, or moral reason; and therefore in themselves would have been unprofitable, and vain, and absurd And hence the Socinians, who deny their allusive design, always speak in the most contemptuous manner of them: but by means of these, doubtless, the spiritual among the Jews were enabled to hold communion with God; though in what degree it is impossible for us to decide. As to ourselves they are full of pleasing and interesting instruction; having the clue we can explain them,

having the reference we can perceive the resemblance. We are in possession of the truth of all these: the truth of the paschal lamb, in the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world; the truth of the manna, in the true bread that came down from heaven; the truth of the rock that fo lowed the Jews in the wilderness, for that rock was Christ; the truth of the altar and mercy-seat, of the tabernacle, of the temple, for Christ is all and in all.

Thirdly, there is the truth of certainty, in distinction from error and falsehood. This truth came by Jesus Christ. What was heathenism? An assemblage of falsehood-false gods, false temples, false sacrifices, false hopes, and false fears. A great deal of them was indeed originally derived from revelation; but it was so obscured, that the Apostle tells us, it was "turning the truth of God into a lie." What was Mahometanism? Mahometanism was a vast improvement upon paganism, especially in the establishment of the divine unity; and unquestionably, there was really such a man as Mahomet; a man of great talent he must have been, or he could not have emerged from such obscurity and weakness, into such splendour and power; but that his communications were from God, that his puerile, depraved, polluted, sensual notions were divinely inspired, is all a lie. What is Popery? Take her traditions, which they place upon an equality with the Scriptures: their relics of the saints; in some of the churches they are little better than charnel houses: their purgatory, which, as Dr. South says, is the Pope's kitchen: the holiness and infallibility of the pretended successor of St. Peter: their boasted miracles-what are all these but, as the Apostle says, "lying wonders?"

There are other theories, equally false, if not equally foolish. What is the scheme of justification by works, but a lie-a proud lie? What is the system of those who, as Mrs. More says, by a patent of their own creation, call themselves the rational dissenters, but a lie-a murdering lie? What is antinomianism, which aims at the very destruction of Christianity, but a lie-a damnable lie? But the Gospel is truth-the truth: and if there are any here this morning, who are disposed to question this truth, we would just say to them, (for we cannot enlarge) you must allow that the Gospel is possibly true; you sometimes feel the evidence, more frequently than you are willing, that it is probably true; but we say it is certainly true. And where do we stand when we say this? Where we can point to the blood of the best of men, who have died in its defence, and to the talents of the greatest of men, who have employed their abilities in its support; where we can appeal to the prophecies, many of which have been accomplished, and some of which are now fulfilling; to miracles, numerous and publicly performed, in the presence of those who were interested in the detection of them; to the character, and grandeur, and divinity, the consistency and harmony of the parts; to the purity, and the benevolence, and the happiness of its precepts. What, then, can we think of those who would employ their unhallowed zeal to rob us of such a treasure, and when they know they have nothing to substitute in the room of it; who, by their criminal misrepresentations, would endeavour to make others believe, and especially the rising young, what they do not, and cannot believe themselves-that a system so wise in its contrivance, so holy in its nature, and so benevolent in its tendency, so conducive to promote the private and public, the personal and relative, happiness of man, is a cunningly-devised fable, the offspring of a weak and wicked man? Oh, let us pray that God would give them repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth, that they may be saved, and that they may be delivered from the snares of the devil, who are taken captive by him.