Christ declares he would ever be alive to communicate in comfort, in succour, in victory-all this is received in his body; and what he thus receives must, therefore, prove Christ alive. What then? Let him take to himself the language of St. Paul-it applies to him in every syllable and in every letter-that he bears about in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in his body.

It is but little which a subject, throughout so practical, can require in the way of exhortation. If we bear not about in the body Christ's dying for us, we must, assuredly, bear about the crucifying him afresh, and the putting him to an open shame and what we wish for you is, that you might manifest the life of the Redeemer-manifest it in the vigour with which you resist the devil, in the boldness with which you break loose from the world, in the earnestness with which you set yourself to the culture of holiness. We tell those amongst you whose bodies have been long given up to the workings of sin and death, to the manifestation of the power of natural corruption-we tell them, that He who is verily the resurrection and the life, stands ready to turn their bodies into temples, lit up with the shinings of his own glorious and indestructible being, We tell you all, that so amiable is Jesus' love, so unlimited the sweep of the benefits of Christ's passion, that there is not one of you into whom the Mediator is not waiting to enter, ready to carry on afresh the moral conflict which he waged upon earth-to prove himself alive by throwing such strength into the withered arm of mortality, that it shall scatter the hosts who would keep back souls from the inheritance of the saints. Oh, when we come to die, and the angels are around us, marking the throes and struggles of a nature paying out the curse of dissolution, what a privilege to have Christ manifesting his life in our mortal flesh!-what a fearful, dark, desolate thing to have nothing manifested but death in all its naked, native ghastliness! We shall feel our need of Christ then, however bravely we may carry it while the pulse beats well, and the spirits are not dislocated.

May we all thus strive by prayer, now-now, ere the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, that we may be made conformable to Christ in his death and then, when we touch the margin line of eternity, the soul shall spring upward elastic with life; and He, who has lived to sustain it in its pilgrimage, shall prove that he also lives to gladden it in its immortality.

THE SYMPATHY OF CHRIST.

REV. J. H. EVANS, A.M.

JOHN STREET CHAPEL, KING'S ROAD, JANUARY 3, 1832.

"His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires."-SOLOMON'S SONG, v. 14.

"His bowels are as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires." That this is the manifest reading of the passage, will be clear by a reference to one or two passages of God's sacred Word. In the fourth verse of this chapter you observe, "My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door, and my bowels were moved for him." Again in Jeremiah, xxxi. 20, "Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he a pleasant child? For since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him saith the Lord." And again, in Isaiah, lxiii. 15, "Look down from heaven, and behold from the habitation of thy holiness and of thy glory: where is thy zeal and thy strength, the soundings of thy bowels, and of thy mercies towards me? Are they restrained?" The expression, then, sets forth the tenderness of the compassion of the Redeemer, his boundless, his inconceivable mercy; which is compared to "ivory overlaid with sapphires."

Before I proceed to consider the passage, there are two or three remarks that I would desire to make.

May we ever esteem it to be our mercy to take our sentiments from the word, and not take our systems to the word; for if our minds are under this bias, we may, with the Bible in our hands, go further, and further, and further, away from God. That was no unnecessary exhortation, "Receive with meekness the engrafted word,” and “As new-born babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." For want of this, we might imagine a person, having some preconceived opinion of God's benignity, or confining his mind to one or two passages, and not reading the word as a whole, but forming his own imagination of the divine benignity, conceiving of God as having actually designed to save every man in the whole world; and, consequently, when he comes to those passages that speak of God's electing love, all his concern is to explain them away. When he comes to such a passage as this, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy," his preconceived opinion induces him to put a lever under that passage, and endeavour to undermine it altogether. Thus it is the Socinian, forming an idea of the impossibility of there being three that are God, and holding the unity of the Godhead, he reasons from that supposed impossibility, and says, it cannot be so; having the system formed in the pride of his own heart, and then, forcing the Bible to speak according to his own system. In the same way one might form (do not be offended at the terin) a sort of novelist, romantic idea, about the sympathies of Christ; and because we

form certain notions how this sympathy must act, and because we cannot see how certain effects can follow without certain causes, which we think alone adequate to produce those effects-then we imagine that our Lord, fully to sympathize with us, must have had our own sinful nature. I believe, that though it does not amount to an avowed neologian system, it is, after all, the rational system of the day, that worships talent, and idolizes reason; and unless you come and lay prostrate some of your hopes, if you are God's people, God will surely chasten you for these things, as the Lord liveth, Oh, for the spirit and temper of a little child! I can never forget the observation that a dear friend of mine once made, "A greater self-command than ever Alexander had, has that man over his spirit, who takes up his Bible and reads it as a little child."

I would now, first of all, direct your minds to some few plain observations with regard to our Lord's sympathy, and the tenderness of his compassion, and then, secondly, consider the application of it to the words of the text.

Now, first of all, with regard to OUR LORD'S SYMPATHY. No doubt, it is more especially in the consideration of our Lord's humanity, that all right views of his sympathy can be formed. An angel would not suit us; what losers should we have been if angels had had to preach to us, if archangels had had the Gospel message to proclaim. We want a man-he must be a man; if he were not a man, we could not look upon him as a brother looks upon a brother. I dare say, that many of you have often found this upon your hearts, causing you to thank God, that in the midst of all you can discern of human infirmity in him that preached-you can thank God that he sent his Son to preach to him the Gospe We want a man, too, in the weakness of his humanity-one who can feel weariness, and hunger, and thirst, and cold-and one who can feel these things to be a trial. He must be one, too, that could be tempted by Satan. We know what use Satan made of his power, and though he tempted him not to the commission of sin, yet he was always labouring to produce it. When our Lord made that exceeding bitter cry, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death," he especially refers to its being "the hour and the power of darkness."

But, my dear hearers, although it is most manifest to my mind, that we want man in his weakness; yet we must have a pure man-or how can he do us any good? I fully acknowledge, that those who hold what appears to me to be one of the most blasphemous opinions that ever came from the lips of man, (there is no necessity for making a longer preface; this is what I think; this is what God makes me to assert, as being the full conviction of my soul)—yet I acknowledge, that I am far from charging those who speak these thingsthoughtlessly speak, I would hope, and things to be corrected by after judgment and by after prayer-I am far from charging them, that they hold that in any respect our Lord was a sinner. That they believe he did not commit the act o sin, that it did not come out into action, that this sinful nature in him, was controlled and kept under, so that it did not come out into exercise-all that I acknowledge, and need not make the acknowledgment again. But if our Lord had a sinful nature in the eyes of God's holy law-that law that takes Cognizance not only of acts, but of thoughts-that law that takes knowledge not only of what I do, but of what I think-that tells me the thought of sinfultess is sin-then I would say, that to hold it, is to hold a most awful delusion. would ask, if there are here any of God's dear children who are tainted with

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this plague. I would speak to them in all affection, and ask, Does it not strike you, in the very first face and look of the thing, that you are without any direct proof whatever? You have your lame inferences; but, to my mind, the Socinian has a much more spacious inference to prove our Lord's inferiority to the Father. He can come to direct texts, and say, My Father is greater than I' -"The Son can do nothing of himself;" he can bring forward these two or three isolated passages, and has something to countenance him in his most awful, Christ-denying error. But you have no direct proof whatever; you have not even the shadow of a proof; it is all lame, halting inference. And when you take us to such a passage as this, that because "it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren," and "as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same"-and when you tell us he was made "of the seed of David according to the flesh"-and then endeavour to sustain your position, as logicians say, you beg the question; you do not prove it, you assert it; you cannot bring forward these as the slightest proof of it; for was not Adam our father before he fell? Must it needs be that he should fall in order to become one with us?

Now while there is no testimony of Scripture in favour of this opinion, how much positive Scripture there is against it; how much direct testimony of God's word there is against it. When, for instance, in the fourth of the Hebrews, our Lord's sympathy is expressly alluded: "We have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin;" it was not said he was in all points liable to sin, but he was in all points tempted to sin. Satan tried hard to tempt him to the committal of sin; but, if we want to know the full meaning of this passage, our Lord tells us-" When Satan cometh, he hath nothing in me." It is not said, "he gains no advantage over me;" here is not a word said about the polluted nature kept down; but our Lord positively says, " he hath nothing in me." As a child might say, it is like a lever without any ground to rest upon; it is like a screw with only the air to lay hold of; "he has nothing in me to lay hold of."

Then you ask," But how then was our Lord tempted as we are?" Was not the holy soul of Adam tempted? Was it not the holy soul of Adam that was rempted? Is it needful that man should be a sinner in order that he may be tempted? We have clear testimony of God's word upon this point. "That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God"-" that holy thing," the overshadowing of the Holy Ghost producing that miracle of miracles, a pure thing out of an unclean, a holy thing out of an unholy; not a new substance, not a new nature, but the nature that first sinned, only sanctified and preserved from all pollution even from its conception.

Observe the unreasonableness of it. Persons say, If the Lord Jesus had not the same nature as I have, how could he sympathize with me? If you knew *ught of the plague of your own soul, you know that the great hindrance of Christ's sympathy is your sin. Look back and see during the past year, whether you have not to acknowledge amongst the sin of sins, the selfishness of your souls? And what was the cause of this selfishness? It was the sin of your nature. But, dear friends, the argument comes exceedingly short of these two points, because it does not go far enough. They suppose-perhaps some of you that hear me that in order that our Lord should fully sympathize with us, he should be in all points like as we are. Why, what conception can we form of

one who is as truly God as the Father, and as truly man as you and I are Does that not seem to lift him up to an inconceivable height above all ou conceptions of him? And even as regards the humanity-how is he in al points to sympathize (according to your ideas of sympathy) unless he knows what it is to fall under sin, unless he knows what it is to be assaulted, and thrown down, and wounded, and then restored and brought back, as we are restored and brought back, and placed on our feet, and mourn over our sins and follies? Do you want such a nature? Then, as you give up the Godhead in the first place, so you give up the humanity in the second; and vou leave us without a Christ at all. While the doctrine seems so opposed to the current of Scripture, it seems to lay the axe at all Gospel truth. It was not the exemption from sinful acts that laid the foundation of the efficacy of the ancient sacrifices; it was the sinlessness of the nature. It had not a reference to the thing done, but to the spotless nature of the animal. It was to be a perfect animal, it was to be without blemish in any shape whatever; and if there had been aught of a blemish, the sacrifice had never been accepted. See, then, to what awful lengths this would carry us. They leave us without the atonement of Christ, they leave us without the righteousness of Christ; they leave us with a dignified humanity; for in order to be consistent they must deny the very Deity of Immanuel.

My dear friends, may God keep you from itching ears and vain curiosity. I believe Satan has been glad to see some merely going that they might hear; and the spirit of delusion was given, and now they are as certain that the lie is a truth, as they were once certain that the lie was a lie, and the truth was a truth. It is a dangerous thing to trifle with God's word. The man who enters a place of worship from mere curiosity, has need to go to school to learn to redeem the time. If you can find in your vocabulary a list of things unimportant, I cannot find them in God's word. When you enter a place of worship, you have need to pray to be kept from the corruptions of the preacher, and from the cor. ruptious of your own soul.

Truly our Lord's sympathies are tender sympathies. They are hid from the eyes of the world; they are within; but they are most tender. All the figures that could be adopted, have been adopted, to signify the tenderness of the Saviour's compassion.

Observe, secondly, that THE COMPASSIONS OF OUR LORD ARE HERE COMPARED TO IVORY OVERLAID WITH SAPPHIRES. There are three or four points of view in which I would regard the subject, praying that God would come and fill our souls with substance, with reality.

In the first place, it is a compassion such as we have not met with before. "His cheeks are as a bed of spices, as sweet flowers; his lips are lilies, dropping sweet-smelling myrrh." It is compared to ivory, lasting and durable. Dear friends, we have come to the end of another year. What changes the world has experienced during that year; what changes have there been in the Church, what changes in God's saints; what changes in our circumstances; what changes in our own selves; and yet, here is one sweet and blessed truth, that amidst all the changes we have experienced from within and from without, the love of Christ has not changed. Do you ask me, is there any use in this truth? Most undoubtedly there is. Do men abuse it? I think I never pass a week without hearing some manifest abuse of that truth; and this, so far from being any argument against the truth, only assures us, that the better a truth is, the more