ascribing to him excellence and attributes which belong to no creature. Creatures of most elevated rank are introduced; but it is to display, by contrast, the pre-eminence of Him who is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person. Angels are great in might and in dignity; but unto them hath he not put in subjection the world to come. Unto which of them said he, at any time, Thou art my son? To which of them, Sit thou at my right hand? He saith, they are spirits, ministering spirits, sent forth to minister unto them who are the heirs of salvation.

But

unto the Son, in a style which annihilates competition and comparison, unto the Son he saith, thy throne, O God, is forever and ever.

Brethren, if the majesty of Jesus is the subject which the Holy Ghost selected for the encouragement and consolation of his people, when he was shaking the earth and the heavens, and diffusing his gospel among the nations; can it be otherwise than suitable and precious to us on this occasion? Shall it not expand our views, and warm our hearts, and nerve our arm, in our efforts to ex- · alt his fame? Let me implore, then, the aid of your prayers; but far more importunately the aids of his own Spirit, while I speak of the things which concern the King: those great things con

tained in the text-his personal glory -his sovereign rule.

1. His personal glory shines forth in the name by which he is revealed; a name above every name, thy throne-0 God!

To the single eye nothing can be more evident, in the

First place, than that the Holy Ghost here asserts the essential deity of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of his enemies, whom he will make his footstool, some have, indeed, controverted this position, and endeavoured to blot out the text from the catalogue of his witnesses. Instead of thy throne, O God, they would compel us, by a perversion of phraseology, of figure, and of sense, to read, "God is thy throne;" converting the great and dreadful God into a symbol of authority in one of his own creatures. The scriptures, it seems, may utter contradictions or impiety, but the divinity of the Son they shall not attest. The crown, however, which "flourishes on his head," is not to be torn away; nor the anchor of our hope to be wrested from us, by the rude hand of licentious criticism.

I cannot find, in the lively oracles, a single distinctive mark of deity which is not applied, without reserve or limitation, to the only begotten Son. All things whatsoever the Father hath, are

his.

Who is that mysterious Word, that was in the Beginning, with God? Who is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last, the Almighty? Who is he that knows what is in man, because he searches the deep and dark recesses of the heart? Who is the Omnipresent, that has promised, Wherever two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them? the light of whose countenance is, at the same moment, the joy of heaven and the salvation of earth? who is incircled by the seraphim on high, and walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks? who is in this assembly? in all the assemblies of his people? in every worshiping family? in every closet of prayer? in every holy heart? Whose hands have stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth? Who hath replenished them with inhabitants, and garnished them with beauty, having created all things that are in both, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers? By whom do all things consist? Who is the Governor among the nations, having on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords. Whom is it the Father's will that all men should honor even as they honor himself? Whom has he com

manded his angels to worship? whom to obey? Before whom do the devils tremble? Who is qualified to redeem millions of sinners from the wrath to come, and preserve them, by his grace, to his everlasting kingdom? Who raiseth the dead, having life in himself, to quicken whom he will, so that at his voice, all who are in their graves shall come forth ;-and death and hell surrender their numerous and forgotten captives? Who shall weigh, in the balance of judgment, the destinies of angels and men? dispose of the thrones of paradise? and bestow eternal life? Shall I submit to the decision of reason? Shall I ask a response from heaven? Shall I summon the devils from their chains of darkness? The response from heaven sounds in my ears; reason approves, and the devils confessThis, O Christians, is none other than the great God our Saviour !

Indeed, my brethren, the doctrine of our Lord's divinity is not, as a fact, more interesting to our faith, than, as a principle, it is essential to our hope. If he were not the true God, he could not be eternal life. When pressed down by guilt and languishing for happiness, I look around for a deliverer such as my conscience and my heart and the word of God assure me I need, insult not my agony, by directing me to a

creature—to a man, a mere man like myself! A creature! a man! My Redeemer owns my person. My immortal spirit is his property. When I come to die, I must commit it into his hands. My soul! my infinitely precious soul committed to a mere man! become the property of a mere man! I would not, thus, intrust my body, to the highest angel who burns in the temple above. It is only the Father of spirits, that can have property in spirits, and be their refuge in the hour of transition from the present to the approaching world. In short, my brethren, the divinity of Jesus is, in the system of grace, the sun to which all its parts are subordinate, and all their stations refer-which binds them in sacred concord; and imparts to them their radiance, and life, and vigor. Take from it this central luminary, and the glory is departed-Its holy harmonies are brokenThe elements rush to chaos-The light of salvation is extinguished forever!

But it is not the deity of the Son, simply considered, to which the text confines our attention. We are in the

Second place to contemplate it as subsisting in a personal union with the human nature.

Long before this epistle was written had he by himself purged our sins, and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty