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you plant the foot on the first step of this ladder: forsake evil courses, break away from evil habits, and take part with the disciples of Christ. Christ casteth out none who come unto him: and he who strives to turn from his iniquities at the call of his Savior, is beginning to lay hold on that propitiation, through the grasping of which in its several parts he will be gradually raised to the blessedness of immortality. Are you afraid of trusting yourselves to this ladder? Thousands, in every age, have gone up by it to glory; and not a solitary individual has found it give way beneath him, however immense the burden of his sins. And why afraid? The ladder is He who is "able to save to the uttermost" all who would go unto God through him; and the angels are ascending and descending upon it, for they have charge over the righteous to keep them in all their ways; and the Almighty himself looks down on those who are climbing painfully upwards,

that he may send them succor when the hand is relaxing and the foot falling. I can answer for it, that every one of you may, if he will, mount by this ladder, seeing that Christ took human nature, and thus united earth and heaven, as the substitute of all. I can answer for it, that none who strive to mount by this ladder shall fail of everlasting life; for those who believe on Christ can never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of his hand. The canopy of the sky seems lined with the "cloud of witnesses." Those who have gone before are bidding us climb, through the one Mediator, to their lofty abode. We come, we come. Your call shall be obeyed. Your voices animate us, as they steal down in solemn and beautiful cadence. And God helping, there shall not be one of us who does not seek salvation through the blood and righteousness of Jesus; not one who shall not share with you the throne and the diadem.

SERMON II.

THE CONTINUED AGENCY OF THE FATHER AND THE SON.

"But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."-St. John, 5:17.

It is a very peculiar argument which Christ here employs, to disprove the charge of having broken the Sabbath. We will refer, for a few moments, to the context, that you may understand the drift and force of the reasoning. Christ had healed the impotent man, who had lain for a long time by the pool of Bethesda. He had bidden him take up his bed, and walk; and the cripple was immediately enabled to obey the command. It was on the Sabbath-day that this great miracle was wrought; and the circumstance of the

man's carrying his bed through the streets, attracted the notice of those who were jealous for the ceremonial law. They taxed the man with doing what it was not lawful to do on the Sabbath: he justified himself by pleading the direction of the Being by whom he had been healed. This led to an inquiry as to the author of the miracle; and so soon as the Jews had ascertained that it was Jesus, they persecuted him, and "sought to slay him, because he had done these things on the Sabbath-day." In order to show them the

unreasonableness of their conduct, and to prove that he had authority for what he had done, Christ made use of the words of our text, words by which he seemed to the Jews to claim essential Divinity, however modern objectors may fail to find in them such assumption. You read that, so soon as Christ had said, My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," his enemies took a new ground for seeking his death. "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God."

It is very observable, that the Jews considered Christ as claiming actual equality with God—a plain indication, we think, that such was the meaning which his words bore. The contemporaries of the Savior, addressed by him in their native tongue, were more like ly to perceive the true sense of what he said than ourselves, who receive his discourses in a dead language. At all event, supposing that the Jews mistook his meaning, what can be said of his not correcting the mistake? So soon as he knew that they were enraged at him for a supposed violation of the Sabbath, he entered on his vindication, and sought to prove the charge groundless. But did he do any thing similar when he knew himself accused of "making himself equal with God?" The charge was far heavier. If Christ had been only a creature, a mere man like one of ourselves, it would have been nothing short of blasphemy had he proclaimed himself "equal with God." We may be sure, therefore, that if the Jews had been wrong in inferring from Christ's words a claim to divinity, they would not have been suffered to continue in error. We may be sure, we say, of this; for even those who are most earnest in contending that Christ was only man, allow that he was a good man, and no deceiver: they are not ready to accuse him of uttering blasphemy, or of being wholly indifferent as to what construction might be put upon his words. Yet it is very certain, that, when Christ knew himself charged with making himself "equal with God," he attempted no denial, but spake in terms which must have confirmed the Jews in the inference which they had

drawn from our text. We find him immediately afterwards saying, "What things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise,"-words which, in place of contradicting the supposition that he meant to declare himself every way divine, admit no consistent interpretation, unless the power of the Son be precisely the same with that of the Father. And thus it would appear, either that it was a true inference which the Jews drew from our text, when they concluded that Christ affirmed himself equal with God; or that Christ, when he knew the interpretation put upon his words, took no pains to defend himself against the charge of blasphemy, but made statements which rather went to prove the charge just.

We do not well see how the deniers of Christ's divinity are to extricate themselves from this dilemma. The Redeemer had used words, which the Jews interpreted into a claim of equality with God. The interpretation was either correct or incorrect. If correct, Christ meant to declare himself divine, and there can be no debate that he actually was. If incorrect, then Christ, who was not silent under a charge of Sabbath-breaking, would not have been silent under a charge of the worst possible blasphemy: at least, he would not have countenanced the charge, by using more of the same suspicious language. Hence the only fair conclusion seems to be, that the Jews had put the right construction on our text; and that Christ actually designed to assert his proper deity, when, in order to prove that he had not broken the Sabbath by healing on that day, he said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."

Indeed we know not what force there would be in the argument, on any supposition but that of Christ's being equal with God. The accusation against Christ was, that he had broken the Sabbath by working a miracle. How does he meet the charge? Simply by saying, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." But what answer, what apology is this? There is an answer, and there is an apology, on the supposition that Christ was God, but not on any other. God, though he had ceased from creating, was continually occupied in sustaining and preserving, so

that he performed works of mercy on the Sabbath-day, as well as on every other, making his sun to shine on the evil and the good, and his rain to descend on the just and the unjust. And if Christ were God, then, in curing the impotent man on the Sabbath, he had only exercised the prerogative of Deity, and continued what had been his practice from the very beginning of the world. The Jews, therefore, might as well have objected, that God brake his own ordinance by those actings of his providence which took place without respect of days, as that Christ had violated the Sabbath by healing the sick. But if Christ were not God, we know not what right he had to refer to what God did, and thereby to attempt his own vindication. Unquestionably, the practice of the Creator could not rightÎy be quoted in proof, that a mere creature might do what he thought fit on the Sabbath it did not follow that because the Creator worked on the Sabbath, the creature might lawfully work: this would be placing the creature on a level with the Creator; for it would be claiming the same privileges for the two, the same superiority to all authority and command. But if Christ were more than a creature, if he were himself the Creator, the argument was strong and conclusive: in healing the sick, he did but assert the independence which belonged to him as God, and act as he had all along acted, whilst busied with upholding the universe. Thus the Jews attached to Christ's words the only meaning which, we think, they will bear, when considered as furnishing the reason why he might lawfully cure on the Sabbath. The reason was, that, being himself God, he might act as God, and therefore work on all days alike. But the moment you throw doubt on the fact of his being God, the reason disappears, and our text contains only the presumptuous, and even blasphemous insinuations, that a creature might lawfully guide himself by the actions of the Creator, without regard to his positive commands.

But we will not insist at greater length on the argument furnished by our text and its context in support of the divinity of Christ. We have probably said enough to convince you, that this argument is of more than common

strength; inasmuch as, in interpreting the passage as containing a claim to divinity, we advance only the interpretation which was put upon it by the Jews, and which Christ allowed to pass without censure, nay, which he even confirmed by his subsequent discourse. We will now, however, wave further reference to the circumstances which occasioned the delivery of the text; and, assuming your belief in that fundamental article of christianity, the divinity of Christ, proceed to examine the assertions which are made in regard both of the Father and the Son. We have only to premise, that our Savior must be understood as speaking in his character of Mediator, the being who had united in his person the divine nature and the human. It was not altogether as God, but rather as Godman, that he had healed the cripple, who had vainly waited, year after year, by the pool of Bethesda. The miracles which Jesus wrought were designed as credentials, by which his authority, as a teacher sent from God, might be clearly established. Hence in working a miracle, he is to be considered as acting in his mediatorial capacity, carrying forward that great undertaking on which he had entered so soon as man transgressed. Hence, when he justifies his performing a miracle on the Sabbath, by saying, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," he is to be regarded as affirming taat the mediatorial office had been, and was to be, discharged with that uninterrupted activity which marked the Creator's providential dealings. It might not perhaps have been a sufficient vindication of the act which had excited the anger of the Jews, that he who wrought it was God, and therefore not bound by such an ordinance as that of the Sabbath. Christ had assumed the nature of man, and voluntarily brought himself under the law. It did not, therefore, necessarily follow, that he had a right to do, as man, whatever it was his prerogative to do as God. But as God-man, or Mediator, he might be called on for the same continued exercise of energy as that by which the Creator sustained the work of his hands. And this it is which he must be supposed to affirm-even that, as the Father, as the universal upholder, had been occupied from the first with

providential operations, so had the Son | but the Almighty perpetually at work? been actively employed from the first in his Mediatorial capacity; and that, in the one instance, as well as in the other, the work proceeded without respect of days.

But this will be better understood as we advance with our discourse. We shall consider the text as affirming, in the first place, the continual working of the Father; in the second place, the continual working of the Son; and we shall strive so to speak of each, as to prove the words "profitable for doctrine, and instruction in righteousness." Now there is, perhaps, in all of us a tendency to the substituting second causes for the first, to the so dwelling on the laws of matter, and the operations of nature, as to forget, if not deny, the continued agency of God. If our creed were to be gathered from our common forms of speech, it might be concluded that we regarded nature as some agent quite distinct from deity, having its own sphere, and its own powers, in and with which to work. We are wont to draw a line between what we call natural, and what supernatural; assigning the latter to an infinite power, but ascribing the former to ordinary causes, unconnected with the immediate interference of God. But is not our philosophy as defective as our theology, so long as we thus give energy to matter, and make a deity of nature? We do not believe that it would furnish any satisfactory account of the thousand beautiful arrangements, discoverable in the visible creation, to say that matter was endued with certain properties, and placed in certain relations, and then left to obey the laws and perform the revolutions originally impressed and commanded. This is ascribing a permanence, as well as a power, to second causes, for which it seems to us as unscientific as it certainly is unscriptural to contend. We do not indeed suppose that God exerts any such agency as to supersede the laws, or nullify the properties of matter; but we believe that he is continually acting by and through these laws and properties as his instruments, and not that these laws and properties are of themselves effecting the various occurrences in the material world. What is that nature, of which we rashly speak,

What are those laws of matter, to which we confidently appeal, and by which we explain certain phenomena, but so many manifestations of infinite power and intelligence, proofs of the presence and activity of a being who produces, according to his own will, "All action and passion, all permanence and change?"* I count it not owing to inherent powers, originally impressed, that year by year this globe walks its orbit, repeating its mysterious march round the sun in the firmament: I rather reckon that the hand of the Almighty perpetually guides the planet, and that it is through his energies, momentarily applied, that the ponderous mass effects its rotations. I do not believe it the result of properties, which, once imparted, operate of themselves, that vegetation goes forward, and verdure mantles the earth: I rather believe that Deity is busy with every seed that is cast into the ground, and that it is through his immediate agency that every leaf opens, and every flower blooms. I count it not the consequence of a physical organization, the effect of a curious mechanism, which, once set in motion, continues to work, that pulse succeeds to pulse, and breath follows breath: I rather regard it as literally true, that in God we live and move, and have our being," that each pulse is but the throb, each breath the inspiration of the everpresent, all-actuating, Divinity.

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Away with the idolatry of nature. Nature is but a verbal fiction, invented to keep out of sight the unwearied actings of the great First Cause. The Bible ascribes to God the preservation, and not only the production, of all things. The Levites, when Nehemiah had proclaimed a solemn fast, thus poured forth their confession of the greatness of God, "Thou, even thou, art Lord alone: thou hast made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host; the earth, and all things that are therein; the seas, and all that is therein; and thou preservest them all, and the host of heaven worshippeth thee." The Apostle, when preaching the true God to the idolatrous Athenians, declared, "He giveth to all

* Whewell, Bridgewater Treatise.

life and breath, and all things." There is scarcely a natural production, or occurrence, which we do not find referred, in some part or other of the Bible, immediately to the agency of God. He it is, if we believe the statements of Holy Writ, who maketh the sun to arise, and the rain to descend. He it is, saith the Psalmist, "who maketh grass to grow upon the mountains." He giveth snow like wool; he scattereth the hoar-frost like ashes." "When he uttereth his voice, there is a multitude of waters in the heavens; he maketh lightnings with rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasures." These are the terms in which inspired writers speak of the agency of God; terms which seem decisive on the fact, that there is no such thing in the material universe as the working of second causes, without the interference of the first; but that the Divine Being, though he have ceased from creating, is momentarily engaged in actuating and upholding the vast system which he originally constructed. And if, though he have instituted laws, and communicated properties, these laws and properties are but instruments in God's hands, by and through which he effects the results and calls forth the productions which we are wont to refer to natural causes-yea, if each planet, as it turns on its axis and traces out its orbit is moved by his hand; if his breath be in every gale, his glance in every beam, his voice in every sound; if his be the vegetable power which makes the valleys thick with corn, his the pencil which traces beauty on the flowers, his the strength which marshals the elements, his the wisdom which provides for all animated being; who will not own that so universal and uninterrupted an agency is exercised by God, as bears out, in its largest signification, the declaration of Christ, Hitherto my Father worketh ?"

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We go on to observe, that it is not only in the material universe that there is the perpetual and immediate agency of God. We know that God has revealed himself as a moral governor, having all orders of intelligent being as his subjects, employing them in his service, and taking cognizance of their actions. And it is a mighty field of employment which is thrown open before

us, when we thus view in God the Governor as well as the Creator. If we limit our thoughts to our own globe and race, how immense is the occupation with which we suppose Deity charged. To observe every motion of the human will, and make it subserve his own purposes; to note whatsoever occurs, and register it for judgment; to instigate to every good action, and overrule every bad,—this is the business, if we may use the word, which belongs to the Moral Governor; a business in which there cannot have been a moment's cessation since the first man was made, and in which there will not be a pause till the last man hath died. You are to add to this, that, with respect to every one of us, the occupation is just as individual as though there were none other upon earth to engage the watchfulness of Deity. "Thou understandest," saith David, "my thought afar off." "There is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether." "Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle; are they not in thy book?" It is certainly the representation of Scripture; a representation, of which it is hard to say whether it more surprises us by the view which it gives of the unsearchable greatness of God, or delights us by the exquisite tenderness of which it proves us the objects; that no calamity can befall the meanest amongst us, no anxiety disquiet him, no joy cheer him, no prayer escape him, of which our heavenly Father is unobservant, or in which he takes no immediate concern. We are directed to ask him for our daily bread; we are bidden to cast all our care upon him; we are assured that he will wipe away our tears; we are told that he is a present help in every time of trouble; that "this poor man cried, and the Lord heard him;" that "he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds."

We will not now insist on the unmeasured condescension and compassion which such directions and assurances indicate. We wish to fasten your attention on that inconceivably vast employment which is hereby attributed to the Almighty. We are showing you God, as the God of all the families of the earth, exercising over the whole

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