him in swaddling-clothes, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in

the inn.

1 COR. XV. 3—8.

For I delivered unto you first of all, that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures: and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures: And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve. After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once : of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

2 PETER 1. 16.

For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.

THERE is a certain degree of sublimity in which we feel gratified, and the emotions which

it excites are pleasing as well as awful: but beyond that the sensation becomes painful and oppressive. As my eye explores the azure vault of heaven, I contemplate with solemn delight worlds moving there, suspended without any known or visible support: yet I should tremble if a rock of ice, which would be but as a grain of sand in comparison of these, hung over my head. The reason why I feel no terror in beholding bodies so immense quivering upon nothing is, that they are too remote to excite apprehension, and distance has so diminished them, that I lose the conception of their magnitude. I gaze with pleasure upon the proud elevation of the lofty mountain, as I stand at it's foot: but I shudder to approach the brink of a precipice of equal depth: the one excites in me an impression of the sublime-the other appears to risque my personal safety. So nearly allied are the emotions of sublimity and terror, that the one sometimes rises into the other! An earthly monarch does well to borrow all possible splendour, and to array himself in all the ensigns of royalty, in order to impress the spectator with an idea of majesty: and scarcely are we impressed after all! We see humanity tottering under that weighty grandeur, and feel that we are in the presence of but a man. The Majesty of heaven needs no such appendages.

Decked in his mildest radiance, no mortal vision could endure the insufferable splendour; and we have seen him, when all ideas of sublimity were absorbed and lost in the stronger emotions of terror. We can only behold him at a distance without fear: whenever he approaches us, whatever veil he may spread over his uncreated glory, we are overwhelmed with the presence of Deity.

We cannot contemplate God in any point of view, through the medium of revelation, without being sensible of his perfections. If his mercy speak in whispers, soft as the breath of the morning, or grateful as the gale fanned by the wings of the evening, every passion sinks to rest, every tumultuous feeling subsides, and we are lost in wonder, in love, in ecstasy. If his justice thunder in the heavens, the commotions of listening nations are suspended: and men, and angels acknowledge, in silent awe, justice of his dispensations. In making requisition for sin, and requiring it's expiation by blood, his conduct may be inexplicable to our present imperfect apprehensions; nevertheless we are assured, that "it became Him, for whom

the

are all things, and by whom are all things, "in bringing many sons unto glory, to make "the captain of their salvation perfect through

suffering." O how unlike is He to the most

perfect of human characters! The wisdom of Solomon yielded to the strength of seduction: the piety of David, to the force of temptation: the integrity of Abraham, to the impressions of terror: and there never appeared on the face of the earth a perfect character, till "the Word

was made flesh and dwelt among us." But Deity is always equal to himself—and appears alike great in terror and in mildness, in mercy and in judgment, in pardoning and in punishing.

We have lately seen him in the thunder and the lightning of Sinai: we are now to contemplate him in the stillness and the tranquillity of Calvary. In this latter form he is more endeared to us, as sinners saved by grace: but he is equally great in both. The righteous law, which was pronounced with an audible voice, out of "the thick darkness where God was," is a beautiful transcript of the purity of his nature: and the melancholy scenes of Calvary present a fine illustration of the harmony of his perfections. The first dispensation was temporary: the types, which were the shadows only of good things to come, have disappeared: the ceremonial law waxed old; and it's institutions, having received their accomplishment, vanished. A new and immutable dispensation, more simple, more spiritual, more enlarged in it's nature, followed:

we still repose under it's shadow; and it looks forwards to eternity for it's fulness, it's glory, and it's completion.

In reviewing years which are passed by, we are necessarily involved in difficulties. The destroying hand of time obliterates many a page of history and the more remote the age to which our attention is directed, the more oppressively heavy hangs the cloud of oblivion over it. We have surmounted the larger portion of these difficulties; and as we return to later generations, the cloud slowly rolls away. We have gradually advanced from obscurity to the dawn of the morning-we have seen the gates of light open upon us--and darkness has reluctantly yielded, to the rising radiance of that day, which is now hastening to it's meridian.

The subject of the present Lecture is, THE LIFE, DEATH, RESURRECTION, AND ASCENSION OF JESUS CHRIST, PROVED AS MATTERS

We are not now to relate facts which took place at the infancy of time, in some remote empire, long since dismembered, and it's very name consigned over to oblivion: but the events which we defend transpired under the immediate sway of imperial Rome, at the zenith of her power, and when her dominions compre