:

a man full of important duties, anxious to do them well; a man at the head of a fine family and when we think, with admiration, of his talents and genius, and see him so occupied as, seemingly, having no thought for heaven. Are you aware what you are doing with that spirit of yours, binding it with thick clay, and seeking to plunge it in everlasting night? Remember, he that is cruel to his own house, is like the ostrich, which leaveth her eggs in the sand, and forgetteth that the foot of the traveller may crush them. But he that is cruel to his own soul-where shall we find language to describe him? All nature has no imagery horrible enough to describe the murderer of his own soul—a creature formed for immortality, in holiness and righteousness, after the image of Him that created him, fallen, depraved, and guilty. But a hand is stretched down from the skies to help him: Almighty mercy has interposed; a Saviour has appeared among us, who came to seek and to save that which is lost he has lived for us, he has bled for us, he has died for us, he has risen for us, he has ascended for us, and he ever lives to make intercession for us. He says, "Come to me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest;" but calls in vain. He says, "Why will ye die? As I live, saith the Lord, I will not the death of a sinner. Turn ye-why will ye die?" And shall he plead in vain?"Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, to-day is the day of salvation." Death is at thy heels-flee for thy life, and bear that trembling, guilty spirit to the bosom of Jesus Christ. Commit it to his hand; he will receive the deposit; he will blot out your transgressions; he will justify you freely through his righteousness; he will transform you into his image; he will mould you by his mighty hand, and make you meet to live in immortal glory.

Let Christians who have known the grace of Christ, learn the benefit of that calm and equal mind, that casts its care on Him that careth for us; that we may be preserved from the cares and solicitudes that destroy men. Therefore, ́“Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God."

THE DIVINITY AND GRACE OF CHRIST.

REV. T. BINNEY.

KING'S WEIGH HOUSE, LITTLE EASTCHEAP, FEBRUARY 6, 1831.

"Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet, for your sakes, he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich."-2 COR. 8, 9.

THIS passage obviously contains a very explicit statement, both of the dignity and the condescension of our Lord Jesus Christ. It will form a very suitable subject of meditation this morning, when we have the prospect, and when we are to enjoy the privilege, of commemorating the event to which it represents us to be so deeply in debt. I take the words as they stand before us, in their obvious and plain sense. The meaning of the Apostle, I think was, that our Lord was rich, that he changed his condition, and became poor, and that he did this with the view that we might change our condition, and become rich. Now, believing this to be the meaning which it becomes us to attach to the words of the Apostle, of course it is this meaning I shall attempt to illustrate for your use and advantage. I might, with strict propriety, proceed immediately to that illustration, as if this sense of the words had never been questioned: but as it seems useful, not only to preach the truth, but to prove it-to establish it to the conviction of the judgment, as well as to enforce it on the passions and the heart, I will occupy a few minutes this morning in attempting to shew you, why we regard our interpretation as the true one; and why, therefore, none other-but especially any directly opposite interpretation-is, in our view, entitled to the epithet of error. I know this is not the place, either for criticism or for controversy; and, in general, I think I can appeal to you, that I studiously avoid both. I do not design, at present, to introduce either to any extent: my remarks shall be very brief, and, I trust, very plain.

It is evident, that, if our Lord Jesus Christ were nothing but a man, a partaker of mere humanity, one whose nature was on a level with our own, it is evident that some other meaning must be attached to these words than that we have given, and which, in every age, has been the sentiment of the universal Church. Accordingly another meaning has been attached to these words, of which the following is the expression: "Ye know the gracious goodness of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, while he was rich, yet for your sakes he lived in poverty"— that he was rich and poor in the world at the same time. To this it might be objected, that the particular manner of expression which is here employed by Paul, is used in other parts of Scripture, in the translation of the Seventy, to express a change of condition; and therefore it is to be considered as expressing such a change in this passage. We read in the Psalms, "We are exceedingly impoverished," or, "We have become exceedingly poor." There is another: "The rich have become poor." In the Proverbs we read, "The glutton and

drunkard shall come to poverty, and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags." All these have just the same turn of language employed, as in the passage before us; and, therefore, the language of the text must, as we think, express likewise a change of state. I do not, however, dwell upon that; I like to go upon plain, common sense principles; and I will endeavour now to do that.

Observe, then, it is here said, that Christ, while he was rich, lived in poverty; and that, by doing so, he displayed such grace as deserves to be perpetually celebrated by the whole Church. The question here arises, When was he rich as a man? or, How was he rich as a mere man? The reply is, He was rich in the possession of miraculous powers, which he might have employed to his own advantage and profit, by which he might have gained money, or power, or secular dignity. But he did not do that: instead of employing these powers for the purpose of getting money, or worldly advantage, he lived in poverty, and he died in poverty. Here I make three remarks, on the plain principles of common sense.

First, it seems very improbable that miraculous powers could be so conferred on, and enjoyed by a man, as to be capable of being perverted to ambitious purposes. The power is never, properly speaking, man's; it is always God's, and in God's hands. It is God that puts forth the power to do the work; the man merely appears as its agent, or selects the occasion of its exertion. It is incredible to think that a prophet should have been able to use it for his own objects. The power of performing miracles was in the hands of God; it was to be put forth for a particular purpose, the establishment of truth: but to think that the prophet might violate all his obligations, and turn his official distinction to secular profit, and to think that God would continue to put forth his power for these purposes, at the request of this man, appears utterly incredible. Paul had the power of performing miracles; but he could not heal his own companion who was lying sick by his side. Why? Because there was no object to be answered with respect to his apostolical message or office, or with respect to the establishment of truth, as it would be to be done in the chamber without any witnesses on whom it might have a desirable effect. Miraculous power was not an optional thing, which the Apostle had the power of putting forth when he pleased, but only when certain purposes were to be answered by it. And I think that would be the limitation under which Jesus Christ would have held these powers, had he been a mere man, and would not have used them for the purpose of getting money, or for any secular profit.

In the second place, admitting that Jesus Christ as a man and a prophet did act thus-that he really, as a prophet of God, instead of employing his powers for getting money, or by distinguishing himself by any secular advantagesthat he did employ them as a prophet of God, I do not see that he is as a man to be exceedingly praised; I do not see that there was in it such virtue as thus to demand the feeling excited in the Apostle's mind by the contemplation of the fact. Let us suppose a prophet sent by God to perform certain works, and furnished with powers for their accomplishment-that he attends to this work, and that he does not use his powers for other ends. Is there any thing very praiseworthy in such conduct as that? Is such virtue so very prodigious? No. It would be terribly base, and cruel, not to act so. To any man who believes in a Providence, who looks to the world around him which carries with it perpetual proofs of God's existence, and who is aware of the honour of being employed in his service; the motives are so powerful to stimulate his

virtue, that we do not take so sublime a view of it. It is a general principle which we can apply to all characters, and to all virtue-which we can apply to our own character, and to our own virtue, and to the character and virtue of any prophet-that we only praise that conduct where the temptations to disobedience are extraordinary and strong, and where the motives to self-denial are inconsiderable and few. And it is always the contrary in the case of a prophet invested with powers to the service of God: there the temptation urges the contrary; all the motives are leading the man to virtue, and the temptations to use his power to another purpose are few and inconsiderable. Allow me to use a rather homely illustration. You do not praise me because I do not steal, and never was tried before a judge at the bar of a criminal court. You do not point me out to your children as an example, and tell them to take pattern by me as never having appeared as a criminal in a court of justice. It would be exceedingly vicious in me if I were justly to be placed in such a situation; but it is not praiseworthy in me that I have never been so situated. All the motives and influences that operate upon my mind make it absurd that I should commit an act that would bring me into such a situation; and there is no great virtue in refraining from so doing: but if I could be brought into such a condition, it would be far more criminal. We do not celebrate the virtues of the Apostles while they lived in poverty, because they did not employ their power for worldly advantage. When Simon Magus offered the Apostles money to have the power of conferring the Holy Ghost, for the purpose of employing that miraculous power to advance his own ends, the very idea of it filled the Apostles with virtuous indignation: they called him "the child of the devil," and "the enemy of all righteousness;" and directed him to do that by which peradventure the thoughts of his heart might be forgiven him. Now, to praise Jesus Christ for not using his miraculous power for secular advantage, is to praise him for not being like Simon Magus, “a child of the devil," and “the enemy of all righteousness," for not cherishing those thoughts of his heart, which admitted a doubt in the mind of Peter, whether God would pardon them

or not.

The third remark I make on this subject, is, that, admitting this sense of the passage, admitting that Christ acted thus, how was "grace" displayed by it? Grace is spontaneous favour, something free, something uncompelled, something to which a person is not bound by any direct and pressing obligation. But the conduct of a prophet in employing his powers for the purpose of accomplishing the work for which he is commissioned, is of duty, not of grace; he is bound to act thus; he is bound by strong and eternal obligations to the God that made him and called him to his service. His own interest is at stake: it is at his peril if he does not devote himself to his work. It would be a perversion of language to say, that, by being thus devoted to his work, he performs an act of grace. In fact, on the principle of Christ's mere humanity, you destroy every thing like justice and good sense in many passages of the New Testament: you make it impossible to display that condescension, or that love, which excited the feelings of the Apostle; and to describe which, the most expressive language upon earth seems too poor to afford epithets of sufficient depth, compass, magnitude, and grandeur. If Christ were a mere man, when did he condescend? and where was his condescension? Not in being a man; for on that he could exercise no volition, and therefore no virtue? Not in his undertaking the service he was to perform as a prophet; for that was the lightest honour

that could be conferred on him, or on any creature. Paul exults in the honour of being a minister. Peter and others rejoiced that they were thought worthy to suffer for God: they never dreamed of condescension or grace. If Christ, therefore, had been nothing but a man, he could not be said to have stooped in any thing that he did: his being thought worthy to be engaged in the service of God, would have been glory and distinction in itself. And as to love-love which is represented as infinite, sublime, boundless; love, which is said to pass knowledge; love, to comprehend which is to be filled with all the fulness of God: how could that be displayed by a man like ourselves? It is no reply to say that he delighted in poverty, that he died for our sakes, or for our benefit; for on the supposition of his being a mere man and a prophet, his own benefit is involved in all this as well as ours: love to himself as well as love to us, would have led him to do all he did. Besides, in this sense, others have condescended and suffered for our sakes as well as he: nay, others have done so far more than he; for many of his servants and Apostles suffered more exquisite torture, and lived a much longer time, and were thus exposed to a much greater course of suffering. It is not said, Herein is love, that Paul, or Peter, or Barnabas, laid down his life for our sakes. Besides all this, there was another circumstance on the side of Christ, which, as it increased his advantages, diminished his trial; I mean, that he had the prospect before him of an almost immediate resurrection, which all others that suffered had not. And as believers in Christ's simple humanity, are also believers in the sleep of the grave, this hypothesis was an immense advantage on the side of Christ, and diminished, in this sense, the virtue of his sufferings in comparison with those of the Apostles. So that not only is it impossible to see how any grace could have been displayed by Christ if he were only man, but the very idea appears ridiculous; for, as man, he was exalted and dignified by every thing he sustained.

These are plain remarks: they do not depend on learning, or talent, or the knowledge of languages, or of metaphysics, or any thing of the kind. They are plain, common sense remarks, which would have occurred to yourselves on a careful attention of the subject; and, to my mind, they are utterly fatal to the interpretation of the passage opposite to that we have given. I now propose to notice the subject for our religious improvement.

The passage contains, first, a fact stated; secondly, the design to be accomplished by it; thirdly, the knowledge you are supposed to have of the whole transaction: "Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

In the first place, here is A FACT STATED, THAT CHRIST BEING RICH

BECAME POOR.

This includes two things under it. First, He was rich in the possession of the ineffable glory which he had with the Father before all worlds, of which he speaks himself in the Gospel by John. I learn nothing specific as to the essential nature of Christ from the passage under consideration; only I learn the fact of his glorious pre-existence. Other passages enlarge on that idea, especially in the first chapter of John. From that and other places we learn that he partook of the divine nature-" In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." And as to the particular action to which the text refers, we read in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "Forasmuch then, as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise