August 25

affects our comfort as well as our duty. We consider it an unfavourable sign in some professors, that they are so lively and cheerful. We should have much more hope concerning them if they felt fear and distress: we are sure that if they belonged to God, he would reprove them in their defective walk, and improper temper, and hide his face from them till they acknowledged their offence. A Christian may get into a wrong spirit, but how differently does he feel? What a loss of peace and satisfaction does he sustain? How is his communion with God interrupted? and his delight in devotion deadened? He becomes also fretful with regard to others: fretfulness is generally the offspring of guilty sensation, arising from some neglect or misdoing. Then, uneasy within, we are pleased at nothing without; and so storm in passion, or ooze in peevishness, like a continued drooping in a rainy day. We are never happy but as we have a right spirit within us.

But we here learn that when it is impaired it is God alone who can renew it. He giveth more grace: he is the God of all grace: As he begins so he carries on the good work. He strengthens that which he has wrought in us; he perfects that which concerns us.

And therefore, lastly, we must go to him for this purpose, and pray, as David did, "Renew a right spirit within me." A life of dependence must be a life of application. A religion of grace must be a religion of supplication. If I want certain things, and must be supplied, and cannot derive them from myself, I shall surely repair to him who is able and willing to succour me—especially if the exercise itself exerts an influence every way conducive to the revival and increase of religious principle; and this is the case with prayer; and if he has established it as the medium of his communications and said, "For all these things will I be enquired of;" and if he has pledged himself that we shall not call upon him in vain. And is not this his own promise, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find?" "O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come."

August 25.—"The Revelation of Jesus Christ."—1 Peter 1. 13.

THE display of him is every thing. Be it therefore observed that "the revelation" of him is fourfold: and though the last of these manifestations be here intended, all of them may be properly and usefully noticed in their order.

The first revelation of him we call scriptural. This began very early, even in Paradise. There the sun of Righteousness dawned, and from thence shone more and more unto the perfect day. He was announced as the seed of the woman, and the bruiser of the serpent's head—Then, as the seed of Abraham, in whom all the families of the earth were to be blessed—Then, as the Shiloh of Judah, to whom the gathering of the people should be—Then, as the Son of David, and his Lord. Of him Moses, in the Law, and the Prophets, did write. He was held forth not only in words but types. He was seen in Moses as a prophet, in Aaron as a priest,

in Joshua as a conqueror, in Solomon as the Prince of Peace, in Jonah as dying and rising again. Every bleeding sacrifice expressed him as an offering for sin; the manna from heaven, and the water from the rock, as the bread and water of life; the tabernacle and temple, as the residence of the divinity, in whom dwelt all the fullness of the godhead bodily. This exhibition of him may be likened to a perfect portraiture of a most distinguished and endeared personage, at full length, rolled up on the side of a room, and which the owner gradually opens to the beholders, till the whole figure stands disclosed—So God gradually revealed the Desire of all nations, while his delighted and wondering church exclaimed "He is fairer than the children of men"—"Yea, he is altogether lovely."

The second Revelation of him is incarnate. "God was manifest in the flesh." "For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he should destroy the works of the devil." "We know that he was manifested to take away our sins, and in him was no sin." Thus he was not only declared, but perceived. He appeared not in vision, but in person. Not tremendously, as in the giving of the Law, when even Moses said, "I exceedingly fear and quake;" but familiarly, "clothed in a body like our own." Not transiently, as when he paid visits to his people of old, but by a continuance of three-and-thirty years—for "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us—full of grace and truth."

The third revelation of him is spiritual. And we call it spiritual because it is produced by the Spirit of God in the spirit of man. It is expressed by sight—Not a carnal sight of him; not a sight of him by the eye of sense, but by the eye of faith, according to the words of our Saviour: "He that sceth the Son, and believeth on him, hath everlasting life." It is such an acquaintance with him as draws forth our admiration, excites our love, gains our confidence, and secures our obedience. It is what Paul means when he says, "It pleased God to reveal his Son in me"—and which he prayed for an increase of when he said, "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made comfortable unto his death."

The fourth revelation of him is final and glorious. For after all he is now much concealed. There are hundreds of millions of our fellow-creatures who know nothing even of the existence of such a Being. Even where he is professedly known, there are multitudes to whom he has no form nor comeliness, nor any beauty, that they should desire him. Even among those who wear the name of Christians there are many to be found who deny his divinity, renounce his redemption, and ridicule the operations of his Spirit. Thus he is despised and rejected of men. This, to those who know his name, and put their trust in him, is humbling and distressing. But they are relieved and cheered with the thought that it will not be so always. They believe that the number of his admirers is increasing. They are sure that he will be exalted and extolled, and be very high: that he will sprinkle many nations; that all nations shall fall down before him; and the whole earth be filled with his glory. They know also that there is a day approaching, called by way of distinction, "the day of Christ:" "the reve-

VOL. II.