deemed it was purely of grace, that He sent his Son to die for us: and it is purely of grace, that He follows up that gift with "all things that pertain unto life and godliness." O that we may never lose sight of this. We are so prone to pride, that we require to have plain words made plainer "gift" made "free gift"-else shall we be intruding something of our own, and imagining that, at some point or another, God becomes our debtor rather than our benefactor. From first to last, we draw upon his bounty-the life, the meat; the body, the raiment; all are free gifts.

Let us serve Him with all diligence; let us consecrate to Him our time, our substance, our strength; still, at last, eternal life will be his gift, his free gift, through Jesus Christ our Lord. "Where is boasting then? it is excluded." But, where is gratitude? alas! often excluded too. O God, it is a new mercy, to be sensible of mercies. We receive every thing from Thee,-enable us to trace every thing to thy grace, that we may use every thing to thy glory. This is but asking what may sustain the life in us: it is to crush that life, to forget its Author. And if we ask humbly for grace, that we may own, and cherish, Christ "formed in us," it will not, it cannot be deniedour Lord Himself is our warrant, in his pregnant and enphatic question, “Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment ?"

LECTURE IX.

Isaiah's Vision.

JOHN xii. 39-41.

Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again, He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them. These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of Him."

WHEN Esaias saw whose glory? when he spake of whom? There can be no debate upon this; for the Evangelist is here undoubtedly referring to Christ: he is relating the unbelief of the Jews, notwithstanding the many miracles which Jesus had wrought; and therefore it is the Lord Jesus Christ whose glory Esaias had seen, and of whom this Prophet had spoken. And to what particular occasion does the Evangelist refer? When had Esaias seen Christ's glory? when had he spoken of Christ? This is determined by the words which St. John quotes, describing the judicial blindness which was to settle on the Jews. But when was it that Esaias had spoken of God's blinding their eyes, and hardening their hearts? You have heard in the first lesson of this morning's service, the lesson which contains the account of a marvellous vision vouchsafed to Isaiah; and wishing to discourse to you on

that vision, we take our text as furnishing the clue to its right interpretation, inasmuch as it shows, what we might not else have been able to prove, that the personage therein introduced, with so much of sublime and magnificent accompaniment, is none other than the ever-blessed Redeemer, the "Man of sorrows," but, at the same time, the "King of kings, and Lord of lords." It was Christ, whom the Prophet saw seated on a throne which could be none other than that of absolute Deity, before whom seraphim veiled their faces, and in regard of whom they called the one to the other, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."

For this was the vision. The Lord was on his throne: his train filled the Temple: the seraphim stood around, each with six wings-burning creatures; for such the name signifies with two of these wings each seraph covered his face; wherefore, but in token, and in adoration, of the awful majesty of Christ? "With twain He covered his feet;" wherefore, but to teach us that we may not always think to trace the course of God's dealings? The feet of his ministers are covered as well as winged; yea, covered by their wings, so that their very motion may be concealment. "And with twain he did fly;" wherefore, but to show us the alacrity with which angelic beings give themselves to the executing the purposes of their Maker? You read that the train of the Lord filled the whole Temple, just as, according to the song of the seraphim, was the whole earth to become "full of his glory." Who are we that we kindle not at the thought of the universal dominion of Christ? When the Pharisees would have had our Lord rebuke his disciples because they shouted

his praises, "He answered, and said unto them, I tell you that, if these should hold their peace, the stones would immediately cry out." And as though both to incite and reproach us through inanimate things, the chorus of the seraphim, heard perhaps coldly by ourselves, produced commotion in the magnificent sanctuary: the wood, if not the stone, answered to the call, and seemed to breathe out response in mysterious cloud; for we read, " And the posts of the door moved at the voice of Him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke."

me! for I am un

And what effect was produced on Isaiah, when he thus saw the glory of the Redeemer? We cannot wonder that he was confounded by such an unearthly manifestation, that the splendours of the occupant of the throne, the voices of the seraphim, the shakings of the Temple, all combined to the overwhelming him with dread. You have the effect thus described: "Then said I, Woe is done, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts." The Prophet, however, was not left in this his dread and perplexity. You next read, "Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar; and he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."

We think that there is very interesting and instructive subject-matter of discourse, both in the deportment or conduct of Isaiah, and the emblematical action which was then wrought upon him. We invite you to the careful consideration of both of these, brought before us as they

have been by the lesson of the day. Come, then, and let us examine the perturbed exclamations of the Prophet, and the mode which God took to re-assure his servant, on that memorable occasion when, according to the Evangelist John, Esaias saw the glory of Christ, and spake of Him to the world.

And was then the Prophet confounded and overcome? Ah, my brethren, how affecting a testimony is given to the corruption and alienation of our nature, by the fact that a manifestation of the Divine glory could produce in us nothing but dread and confusion. Not one of us will for a moment imagine that less terror would be excited in himself by the throne, and the voice, and the smoke, than was displayed by Isaiah. Put the case. Gathered as we are within the house of the Lord, we may suppose the house suddenly filled with manifestations of that presence which is not indeed the less actual, because not proved by any visible tokens: we may imagine the Divinity, who is undoubtedly in the midst of us, though not so as to be perceptible by our senses, forcing Himself, as it were, on every eye, and every ear, by an unearthly spectacle and unearthly sounds. We do not speak of a manifestation of God as taking vengeance; but only of a manifestation of glory and greatness, stripped so far as such a manifestation could be, of every thing necessarily appalling—a manifestation of the pomp and splendour of heavenly places and heavenly beings; a manifestation of Christ in his essential dignities, surrounded by ministering spirits who celebrate his holiness.

It might be, that, on a sudden, a brightness, such as was not of this earth, pervaded the house of the Lord: