of

member of the body, is not only separated from being the members of the harlot flesh, but is betrothed and wedded unto the risen body of Christ. Therefore the Spirit killeth only to make alive. If he sendeth the chill touch of death throughout the bounds of flesh and blood, it is but that he may send the touch of life through the bounds of flesh and blood. He begetteth a life from the dead, in every regenerate man; and where his work is, there is not only the agonies of dying flesh, and the shudder of death, but there is the thrill of life, of immortal life, and the power of an irresistible holiness, and the security of an inviolable peace, and the brightness of an indestructible joy. This change in the spirit of our mind, this prevalency of the risen powers of creation in Christ's hand, wielded over the powers the fallen creation, resting still in Satan's withered hand, is the manifestation of the Father's electing love, in the heart of every chosen one. And can the man, who this possesseth, be ignorant that he possesseth it? and must he go and try its measure by the Ten Commandments? Out upon such an idle tale! The man who hath received this baptism of the Holy Ghost, is a man invested with the holiness of a priest, and with the power of a king, and with the knowledge of a prophet. Light is the habitation of his soul; he dwelleth in light; he is in the light. He is holy, as saith the Apostle, and cannot sin, because he is born of God. The flesh, by reason of unbelief and traffic with the law, may awake and sin, yea and attain unto such a prurient lustfulness, as that it may be necessary for the

church to give such an one to Satan, for the destruction of the flesh, that his Spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord: and such an one may be brought into deep waters; and great straits, and doubts, and perplexities may beset him round: but whence are these doubts? from the devil. And why hath the devil power against him? Because he believeth not that Christ hath bruised his head. How shall such an one be delivered? By doing for him what I have now been attempting; even by shewing him the common reconciliation, and so leading him onwards into the knowledge, or rather the mystery, of God's election, and of the Spirit's procession through Christ to work in him the death unto sin, and the resurrection unto holiness.

SERMON [III].

THE PREPARATION FOR, AND THE VERY ACT OF, THE INCARNATION OF CHRIST

JOHN i. 14.

And the Word was made flesh.

DEARLY beloved brethren, from what I have taught you of late, that the humiliation of Christ, in the flesh, is only a part of the revelation of the WORD OF GOD; and, as it were, one scene in the great act of the Son, who devoted himself from everlasting to the work of manifesting the grace of God, by taking upon him the nature of fallen sinners; I would not have you to infer that I do thereby undervalue the veiled and suffering humanity of the Lord, as a most necessary part in that whole, to the comprehension of which I would endeavour to enlarge your mind. The manifestation of the Son of God, in flesh, fulfilled all that went before in the promises and revelations of God, and prepared the way for all that followed after; but it was not that which went before, nor was it that which followed after. The covenant with Abraham is something, and the Mosaic economy is something, and the present dispensation of the Spirit is something, and the glorious age that is to come is something; each bearing relations most important to, and mainly depending upon, the humiliation and fleshly tabernacle of Christ; incomplete with

out it, and to be diligently studied in connexion therewith, but not to be set aside nor superseded by the single contemplation of that mystery which is only a stage in the great progression of the world's redemption. Christ in flesh embodied in himself, and personified, every rite and ordinance, type and symbol, of the former dispensation, which stood in carnal observances. His human soul was the living law, his body was the living temple, his flesh was the living sacrifice, which when he offered upon the cross the law was fulfilled, the sacredness of the temple was profaned, the sinoffering was made to cease, and the former dispensation had attained its end of righteousness, and was finished, as having completed the purpose of God in its construction. The Jerusalem on earth had served her purpose when she had brought forth Christ. She was his mother, according to the flesh; and having rejected the holy child Jesus, in whom she held all the promises, and out of whom she had no title to any, the least, privilege, she was cast out, and hath continued vagabond since, without king, or priest, or sceptre, or land, or settled habitation. And this is one great end of the Incarnation, to complete the fleshly temple, which was then beginning and building up of Christ, and of which Christ was the chief corner-stone, as he is also to be brought out, with strength, as the chief corner-stone of the spiritual temple, which at present is building up.

The ceremonial part of the former dispensation was, as it were, the rudiments of the body of Christ, which is the reality of it all, even as his glorious presence in the future dispensation will bethe reality of all that we now believe and hope for in the Spirit.

[K] n

-The temple, in all its parts, was but the symbol of his holy human nature; and the word of Jehovah who dwelt in the temple, and gave his oracles there, was but the presentiment of the fulness of the Godhead which was to dwell in him bodily.-The common court of Israel, where the nation might assemble, and in whose precincts the daily sacrifice was offered, with its morning and evening prayer, was the emblem of that communion and converse which he carried on in the presence of all the Jewish people (for he was "a Minister of the Circumcision") who came to him, in the days of his flesh, offering their prayers for every want, affliction, and distress, which he remedied; and in whose sight, also, he offered the paschal lamb, the great atonement-sacrifice, which for ever perfected all that are sanctified.-The holy place, in which was the candlestick and the shew bread, the two great symbols of light and life, was the emblem of that more close and internal converse to which he admitted his faithful disciples and elected ones, "the royal priesthood and people for a possession," with whom almost every discourse he held, as it is recorded in John, doth proceed upon his office as the light and life of man. And for the holiest of all, which was the abode of the Godhead; into this mysterious part of his being, his Divinity, few of his disciples were able to enter, until his flesh had been rent, which, so far from being the revelation, was the veil before the most holy, which needed to be rent in twain upon the cross, that by the Spirit we might enter into the Divinity of Christ, which is the abode of the Father, and our abode through faith; through which veil the Apostles had occa