Christ was a Counselor in the matter of creation; with none else took he counsel; none else instructed him. Christ was the Counselor for all the wondrous works of God.

The second topic that was discussed in this council was the work of providence. God does not act towards this world like a man who makes a watch, and lets it have its own way till it runs down; he is the controller of every wheel in the machine of providence. He has left nothing to itself. We talk of general laws, and philosophers tell us that the world is governed by laws, and then they put the Almighty out of the question. Now, how can a nation be governed by laws apart from a sovereign, or apart from magistrates and rulers to carry out the laws? All the laws may be in the statute book, but put all the police away, take away every magistrate, remove the high court of Parliament, what is the use of laws? Laws can not govern without active agency to carry them out; nor could nature proceed in its everlasting cycles by the mere force of law. God is the great motive power of all things; he is in every thing. Not only did he make all things, but by him all things consist. From all eternity, Christ was the Counselor of his Father with regard to providence; when the first man should be born, when he should wander, and when he should be restored; when the first monarchy should rise, and when its sun should set; where his people should be placed, how long they should be placed, and where they should be moved. Was it not the Most High who divided to the nations their inheritance? Hath he not appointed the bounds of our habitation? Oh! heir of heaven, in the day of the great council, Christ counseled his Father as to the weight of thy trials, as to the number of thy mercies, if they be numerable, and as to the time, the way, and the means whereby thou shouldst be brought to himself. Remember, there is nothing that happens in your daily life, but what was first of all devised in eternity, and counseled by Jesus Christ for your good and in your behalf, that all things might work together for your lasting benefit and profit. But, my friends, what unfathomable depths of wisdom must have been involved, when God consulted with himself with regard to the great book of

providence! Oh, how strange providence seems to you and to me! Does it not look like a zig-zag line, this way and that way, backward and forward, like the journeyings of the children of Israel in the wilderness? Ah! my brethren, but to God it is a straight line. Directly, God always goes to his object; and yet to us he often seems to go round about. Ah! Jacob, the Lord is about to provide for thee in Egypt, when there is a famine in Canaan, and he is about to make thy son Joseph great and mighty. Joseph must be sold for a slave; he must be accused wrongfully; he must be put into the pit, and in the round-house prison he must suffer. But God was going straight to his purpose all the while he was sending Joseph before them into Egypt that they might be provided for, and when the good old patriarch said, "All these things are against me," ," he did not perceive the providence of God, for there was not a solitary thing in the whole list that was against him, but every thing was ruled for his weal. Let us learn to leave providence in the hands of the Counselor; let us rest assured that he is too wise to err in his predestination, and too good to be unkind, and that in the council of eternity, the best was ordained that could have been ordained-that if you and I had been there, we could not have ordained half so well, but that we should have made ourselves eternal fools by meddling therewith. Rest certain, that in the end we shall see that all was well, and must be well for ever. He is "Wonderful, the Counselor," for he counseled in matters of providence.

And now with regard to matters of grace. These were also discussed in the everlasting council. When the Three Divine Persons in the solemn seclusion of their own loneliness consulted together with reference to the works of grace, one of the first things they had to consider was, how God should be just and yet the justifier of the ungodly-how the world should be reconciled unto God. Hence you read in the book of Zechariah, if you turn to the sixth chapter and the thirteenth verse, this passage-"The council of peace shall be between , them both." The Son of God with his Father and the Spirit, ordained the council of peace. Thus was it arranged. The Son must suffer; he must be the substitute, must bear his

people's sins and be punished in their stead; the Father must accept the Son's substitution and allow his people to go free, because Christ had paid their debts. The Spirit of the living God must then cleanse the people whom the blood had pardoned, and so they must be accepted before the presence of God, even the Father. That was the result of the great council. But, O my brethren, if it had not been for that council, what a question would have been left unsolved? Neither you nor I could ever have thought how the two should meet together-how mercy and justice should kiss each other over the mountain of our sins. I have always thought that one of the greatest proofs that the Gospel is of God, is its revelation that Christ died to save sinners. That is a thought so original, so new, so wonderful; you have not got it in any other religion in the world; so that it must have come from God. As I remember to have heard an unschooled and illiterate man say, when I first told him the simple story how Christ was punished in the stead of his people: he burst out with an air of surprise, "Faith! that's the Gospel, I know; no man could have made that up; that must be of God." That wonderful thought, that a God himself should die, that he himself should bear our sins, that so God the Father might be able to forgive and yet exact the utmost penalty, is super-human, superangelic; not even the cherubim and seraphim could have been the inventors of it: but that thought was first struck out from the mind of God in the councils of eternity, when the "Wonderful, the Counselor," was present with his Father.

Again another part of the great council was this-who shall be saved? Now, my friends, you that like not old Calvinistic doctrine will perhaps be horrified, but that I can not help; I will never modify a doctrine I believe to please any man that walks upon earth; but I will prove from Scripture that I have the warrant of God in this matter, and that it is not my own invention. I say that one part of the council of eternity was the predestination of those whom God had determined to save, and I will read you the passage that proves it. "In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him that worketh

all things after the counsel of his own will." The predestination of every one of God's people was arranged at the eternal council, where God's will sat as the sovereign umpire and undisputed president. There was it said of each redeemed one, "At such an hour I will call him by my grace, for I have loved him with an everlasting love, and by my loving kindness will I draw him." There was it originated when the peace-speaking blood shall be laid to that elect one's conscience, when the Spirit of the living God shall breathe joy and consolation into his heart. There was it settled how that chosen one should be "kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation;" and there was it determined and settled by two immutable things, wherein it is impossible for God to lie, that every one of these should be eternally saved, beyond the shadow of a risk of perishing. The Apostle Paul was not like some preachers, who are afraid to say a word about the everlasting council; for he says in his epistle to the Hebrews—“ God willing more abundantly to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his council, confirmed it by an oath." Now, you hear some talk about the immutability of the promise that is good. But the immutability of God's counselthat is to fathom to the very uttermost the doctrines of grace. The council of God from all eternity is immutable; not one purpose has he ever altered, not one decree has he ever changed; he has nailed his decrees against the pillars of eternity, and though the devils have sought to rend them down from the posts of his magnificent palace, yet, saith he, "have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion ;" the decree shall stand; I will do all my pleasure. Thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth; thou, Lord, in the beginning hast made the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth; thou hast determined thy plans and purposes, and they stand fast for ever and ever.

I think I have sufficiently declared how Christ was the Counselor, in the transcendent affairs of nature, Providence, and grace, in the everlasting council-chamber of eternity. But now I would have you notice what a mercy it was that there was such a counselor with God, and how fit Christ was to be

the Counselor. Christ himself is wisdom. He chargeth his angels with folly; but he is God only wise himself. If a fool undertake to be a counselor, his counsel is folly; but when Christ counseled, his counsel was full of wisdom. But there is another qualification necessary for a counselor. However wise a man be, he has no right to be a counselor with a king, unless he has some dignity and standing. There may happen to be in my congregation some person of great talent; but if my friend should present himself at the cabinet council and give his advice, he would most probably be unceremoniously dismissed, for they would say, "Art thou of the king's council; if not, what right hast thou to stand here ?" Now Christ was glorious; he was equal with his Father, therefore he had a right to counsel God-to counsel with God. Had an angel offered his advice to God it would have been an insufferable impertinence; had the cherubim or seraphim volunteered to give so much as one word of counsel it would have been blasphemy. He would take no counsel from his creatures. Why should wisdom stoop from its throne, to counsel with created folly? But because Christ was far above all principalities and powers and every name that is named, therefore he had a right, not only from his wisdom, but from his rank, to be a Counselor with God.

But there is one thing that is always necessary in a man, before we can rejoice in his being a counselor. There are some counselors concerning the legislation of our country in whom you or I could not rejoice much, because we feel that in their counsels the most of us would be forgotten. Our farming friends would probably rejoice in them; they will consult their interest, there is not much doubt; but whoever heard of a counselor yet who counseled for the poor? or who has these many years heard so much as an inkling of the name of a man who really counseled for economy and for the good of his nation? We have plenty of men who promise us that they will counsel for us-abundance of men who, if we would but return them to Parliament, would most assuredly pour forth such wisdom in our behalf that without doubt we should be the most happy and enlightened people in the world according