you of a spiritual act performed upon me in a spiritual state, that is, the act of taking into your mind a just conception of me the risen Godman, whereby you would be brought to a just conception of Him concerning whom I have come down from heaven to teach you. Then, when He says, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life," He means that those words, if brought into their mind by himself in the substance of the person of the Holy Ghost,—if brought into their mind by the real teaching of God,— would be to them both spirit, giving them a spiritual form,—and life, the existence and support of that life; in other words saying that his word, the doctrine which He put out in word, would be the strong means of bringing many into this spiritual form, and of sustaining them when brought into that form.

And what is the fact, brethren? Are we not sustained day by day through the use of the written Word, which sets out these things, and which the Spirit of God in Christ Jesus enables us to apprehend? And so be assured of this, beloved, that no one taught of God will despise the written Word; but be assured also that every one taught of God will put the written Word in its place, and will say, except God put life into it,—that is, except God accompany it to the person's soul, and so the soul of the person takes it into his understanding, takes cognizance of it,-it is only a dead and lifeless word. "But there are some of you that believe not. For Jesus knew from the beginning who they

were that believed not, and who should betray Him. And He said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." Does not that distinctly confirm what I have just now said to you of the value of the written Word, and yet of the inefficacy of the written Word? If the Word to some be spirit and life, why then, it is efficacious; but if many hearing this have not yet received Him of whom it testifies, why then, there is another agency necessary to give life unto the Word,that is, to make the Word a life word.

Well, I have said enough, beloved, to furnish you with matter of serious and instructive meditation. And I must be content in God with having done so. And now I will pray for you that God may give you an understanding and use of that which you have heard. Let us pray.

Christmas Day, 1827.

SERMON IV.

JOHN vi. 51.

I AM THE LIVING BREAD WHICH CAME DOWN FROM HEAVEN IF ANY MAN EAT OF THIS BREAD, HE SHALL LIVE FOR EVER: AND THE BREAD THAT I WILL GIVE IS MY FLESH, WHICH I WILL GIVE FOR THE LIFE OF THE WORLD.

I HAVE been somewhat perplexed, in the variety of subjects which this occasion presents, to select that which might be the most profitable.

We are met for the first celebration of public worship on the Lord's day for the new year. Such a new year forms an epoch or stopping place in human life, and suggests matters of reflection which ought to be brought into notice, that we may aim, that the minister of God may aim, to bring them into the use of the people.

This is also the celebration of a great event in the Church of God; what is called the Epiphany, or manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles. The circumstance

but

giving occasion to the bringing forward of this subject is that of the wise men in search of the infant Jesus; this was only a specimen or sign of what was about to take place, and of what is even yet to take place, as the constructors of our service wisely discovered and wisely have reminded us. You heard it more fully opened in the epistle of the day; that part of the mystery of Christ consists in the Gentiles as well as Jews having a participation in it; that the Christ fulness, the body of Christ, the Church, the Church of the firstborn whose names are written in heaven, the invisible Church, the spiritual Church, is made up of two parts, a Gentile as well as a Jewish fulness. But you also heard a most splendid hint at a yet further Epiphany of Christ to the Gentiles, that Epiphany or manifestation which is to be effected when the Lord shall have come again, when He shall have come in his spiritual body of glory to take possession of his throne in the kingdom of this earth; when, having restored the Hebrew Church as the visible, whilst He himself is sitting and reigning in the midst of his invisible saints in the aerial city, the whole earth of the nations shall be constrained to acknowledge the superiority and domination of the Jews, a domination however which shall not consist in the shaking and imposing of an iron rod, but in the homage which is felt to be due to those in whom, in the midst of whom, in the hearts of whom God dwells. This is especially brought into view in the first lesson of this morning's service,