more conducive to the general welfare of the people.*

* Some may think that these latter come only under the character of Preachers of the Gospel. This sentiment savours of extreme bigotry. I have not been speaking exclusively, but distinctively of the relative parts of Christianity, and demonstrating the necessity of defending her outworks, of traversing her sacred circumference, as well as of enforcing by sound arguments, her central truths and God forbid, that an attention to the former should supersede an attention to the latter.-The presumptive evidence to the contrary is abundantly confirmed by the writings of the ancient and modern Fathers of the Church, as well as of many modern Divines, who are distinguished by their piety no less than by their literary attainments.

CHAPTER II.

AND this observation brings me to the consideration of the question,-What is it to preach Christ, in a more direct and circumscribed manner?

In this more limited statement of the truths included in the promulgation of the gospel, I comprehend whatever God has, in his infinite wisdom and condescension, been pleased to reveal of the divine and human nature of Christ, and of his mediatorial character and offices.

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His infinite perfections, as God over all, blessed for ever,'-equal to the Father, and one with him, impress a sacred majesty and grandeur upon the gospel dispensation, while they confer an inestimable value and merit upon his obedience. His essential divinity is, indeed, the sun, as it were, of the Christian system. It illustrates and ennobles every part of it; it invests it with a height and depth of mercy more than commensurate to the height and depth of human guilt and misery. One deep loudly calls upon another, and is answered in

rich and superabundant supplies of grace. The sublime mystery of godliness, into which angels desire to look, is-the manifestation of God in our flesh. This is that stupendous doctrine which concentrates and harmonizes all the other doctrines of scripture; they derive their life and influence from it. Deny the divinity of Christ, and you destroy at once their solidity and coherence. For want of a central point of union, they will exhibit an incongruous, disjointed form, without any consistent texture or symmetry; being shorn of what constitutes their peculiar splendour and beauty, they will emit no longer the light of life, but sink, according to the Socinian creed, into mere symbols and metaphors. Thus infidelity, under the semblance of reason and philosophy, insidiously and cruelly seeks to undermine our faith, to extinguish our hope, and to leave us under the oppressive gloom of our guilt and misery, without remedy or even alleviation. This awful consideration should lead us to contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints, to exalt our Lord and Saviour in our ministry,-by holding him forth to our hearers in the glorious majesty of his divine person, that he might be enthroned in their hearts as a Redeemer almighty to save. It is the fullness of the Godhead that dwelt in him

that bids defiance to the combined rage and malice of our spiritual adversary, and of all his confederates in rebellion against the authority of God.*

Under this restricted and more condensed mode of preaching Christ, are included not only his divine, but human perfections;—all those sublime and transcendent qualities which adorned his life. Whilst his goodness propounded the best ends, his wisdom suggested the best means for their accomplishment, and in the arduous prosecution of them, his integrity and righteousness shone forth like the noonday. His life was in perfect coincidence with his duty. It was one continued act of obedience. The sun in his daily course saw him indefatigably employed in working beneficent miracles, and delivering divine instructions; and the stars, in the silent watches, beheld him spend the whole night in prayer to God. He had no will, but the will of him who sent him. Excellencies of the most opposite kind, the active and passive graces, were alike embodied and harmonized in his conduct. They appear, on all occasions, within their due limits and

* See Note B. Appendix.

just proportions, and thus exhibit in their assemblage the perfection of holiness,—a living delineation of virtue in all her fair and beautiful lineaments. It is no wonder that the multitudes exclaimed, He hath done all things well;' and his enemies were constrained to own, ' never man spake like this man.'

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The life of Christ is unparalleled in the annals of the world. It stands alone. It shines like the noon-day sun, full orbed, in a round of such marvellous light, as to constitute, in itself, a body of evidence in attestation of his divine mission. In this constellation of graces, his supreme love of God claims our pre-eminent regard it is the chief and most comprehensive of them all; we may trace in its evolutions the other religious affections; they are but its ramifications under various circumstances,so many salutary streams from this source. Hence it constitutes the only true foundation of genuine love to man. Its empire, being founded upon the subjugation of low and selfish passions, is the mild dominion of an expansive philanthropy, which does not terminate in a vivid but transient effervescence, but impels to continual acts of mercy. What a perfect personification do we behold in the life of our Saviour of that heavenly charity, which, in the language of inspiration, suffereth long and is