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is the seed of the woman which is to | last time in this pulpit, I should than : bruise the serpent's head. We read, God that I preached this truth-tha in the seventeenth of Isaiah, it is "a if it were the last testimony I ever virgin shall conceive and bear a son," gave in this vale of tears-that if it while, in Gal. iv. 4, we read that our were the last proclamation that ever Lord was made of woman; yet, in came from my poor lips, it should be Luke i. 35, the Holy Ghost speaketh my maintaining that the Lord Jesus of that holy thing which should be is, in the highest sense, God over all; born of Mary, and be called the Son and that, as man, he is perfect, pure, of God. Thus is he of the same spotless, holy; that in his nature-in nature that sinned, yet not a sinful his principles, as in his practice, there nature. So that, in every point of was no obliquity, that there was no view-in all points whatsoever-do in-dwelling sin in him-that he was we see manifestly and clearly, that that holy thing, that is, the Son of God has written out, as with a sun- God. Hence, be assured, that he bebeam, that the mediator, as he par- comes the medium of all reconciliatakes of two natures, so must he be tion with God; and of all peace, rest, perfect in each of those natures, other- and quietness, in our souls. wise he can be no perfect mediator at all.

But observe, Thirdly, THE BLESSINGS THAT RESULT TO THE CHURCH OF GOD FROM OUR BLESSED LORD'S MEDIATION. He is the medium of all reconciliation. He reconciles God to man, and man to God. He reconciles God to man, in respect of his justice, I do not say in respect of his love, the mediation of Christ is in no sense the cause of Jehovah's love, but he is the blessed channel through which that love floweth, reconciling justice and holiness, mercy and truth. Oh sweet and blessed truth, the medium of all reconciliation between GOD and man and man and GOD! And how sweet the thought that he is at this moment, in consequence of that perfect mediation, such a medium of access to God as that you and myself can stand with lowly confidence in the presence of the eternal God!

We see, my brethren, the old cut down-the young cut down ministers cut down, and perhaps, he who is speaking may be soon cut down with them; and I ask no greater mercy than that I might even preach as if it were the last time I might ever preach again. But, my dear friends, if I were to-day o stand up for the

Behold him the medium of all access into the holiest of all; not merely encouraging you to stand in the holy place, but encouraging you to stand in the holiest of all. Do not be afraid, beloved, of being too bold. If you have been led in contrition of spirit to his cross-if you have been led, as poor penitent sinners, to lay hold of him-if, having the sentence of death in yourselves, that you should not trust in yourselves, but in the living GOD, you touch the hem of his garment, do not be afraid of laying hold of Christ; he will take you into GOD'S presence, and when you are there, remember

""Tis he instead of me is seen,
When I draw near to God."

Blessed thought, as he is one with the
Father, one with his people; not more
one in the unity of the Godhead, than
he is one with his people in that mys-
tical union that binds them together as
the head and members, so as one with
him do ye stand in the presence of
one heart searching Jehovah !

Behold him the medium of all spiritual communication, of all that ye want, all that ye require, all that ye stand in need of, at this moment to make you happy-to make you holy -to raise you above yourselves-to | brother, all that you want of tendersend into your hearts peace. My ness, all that you want of such love poor brother, how do you stand with as a nursing mother never can give GOD? What think ye of this, ye poor her child, that the Lord Jesus has for thoughtless souls that hear me how you. In all your affliction, he is do you stand before Gon? Can you afflicted; in all your poverty, in one stand alone? Your mere notions of sense he is poor, he careth more for religion-your dead faith-your ordi- you than you ever cared for yournances without profit; the mere cut-selves. ting off of gross sins then will not stand by you in the day of wrath. Do you stand before God in Christ? Have you fled to him for refuge? Are you believers in him? Though your feet be as a child's, the weakest of the weak, and the feeblest of the feeble, yet can you betake yourselves in all your feebleness to Christ? Blessed thought! Though God sees more sin in you in one moment than you can see in yourselves through all eternity, yet, because you have a perfect mediator in Christ, he seeth not one sin upon you-he remembers it no more he blots it out as a cloud-he casts it behind his back; it shall be sought for, but it shall not be found. Oh, I turn to the holy spotless work of Christ, that can present such poor sinners as you and I are, spotless in the sight of the holy, holy, holy sinhating God!

Besides this, He is medium of glory -of grace here, of glory hereafter. But I cease-May the Lord condescend to bless these concluding words! I only expected I should throw out some few materials for after-thought, and should any of God's children desire it, I should be most glad to meet them and talk with them on these points of truth. I am no skilful fencer, rather a man that wields the flail than bears the foil; but I should be glad to see any man prove to me that the flesh, if it remaineth flesh, does not, must not, act according to its own nature; if it does not act according to its own nature, whether it does not cease to be flesh. If you will persuade a vulture not to love carrion, then I will believe that the flesh can still remain flesh, and not be fleshly. God, in his mercy, pardon what there has been of self in this sermon. I have desired to labour in some small degree for the truth, but I would desire to stand up for it in the meekness of the truth. If I have given unnecessary pain to any, they must forgive me: but, for the truth's sake, I would regard neither friend nor foe.

Do you want sympathy? He is the medium of all sympathy. Let me ask my hearers one question. Do you find sin any great help in your own sympathy? Do you find that, having a sinful nature helps you to much tenderness of feeling? Do you not find that your great sin is your selfishness? and that is the true proMay the God of Jesus lay it on duct of your sinful nature. My dear | your hearts, and give us his blessing! A Sermon,

DELIVERED BY THE REV. B. NOEL,

AT ST JOHN'S CHAPEL, BEDFORD ROW, NOVEMBER 11, 1832.

Colossians i. 14-17.-" In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Who is the image of the invisible God, the first born of every creature; for by him were all things created that are in heaven, and that are in earth visible, and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him. And he is before all things, and by him all things consist."

Our Saviour having been sent of GOD, in his original and eternal benevolence, to save a ruined race which must otherwise have perished, in discharging his mission came on earth, and witnessed to the truth, and was an example to all his disciples of perfect obedience to the will of GOD. Before he presented himself to death, as a sacrifice, to expiate for their sins, he thus gave them an example of perfect human excellence. But before we examine the various characters of his ministry upon earth, it is right that we should bear in mind that this person, whose glory and bright example we are called to imitate, was, indeed, incarnate GOD. The remembrance of this truth will serve to endear all the most august displays of his virtue upon earth; and likewise make us to view, with veneration and gratitude, the very infirmities and weaknesses to which he consented, not in the absence of power, but in the manifestation of infinite condescension.

So great a truth, however, that this suffering Saviour was indeed GOD incarnate, being at once so mysterious and so fundamental, would, we might expect before hand, be presented with a mass of evidence which a candid mind should not be able to resist. Otherwise the feeble mind of man might have been staggered at a vastness of mercy so much beyond

human conception-might have questioned whether the views were not too glorious to be indeed true-might have been mistaken on a point which was essential to our eternal welfare. God has given, in mercy, such evidence; and there is a profusion and a splendor of evidence in the New Testament to this great truth, that Jesus, our suffering Saviour, is incarnate God. Sometimes you find it stated more indirectly, sometimes directly. True it is, sometimes, the point of argumentation which the Apostle would sustain by an appeal to the authority of the Old Testament. Sometimes, again, it is assumed as a point of doctrine with which all Christians were familiar; and many are the allusions which are constantly made to it as an ascertained and universally acknowledged doctrine. We find in some places that it is declared that he is the equal of God, -essentially united in him; as when he said of himself, " I and my Father are one." At other times he has expressed himself to be God himself; " In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was GOD." "Great is the mystery of Godliness, and God manifest in the flesh," and notwithstanding what sophistry has done to invalidate them, there remain still unquestionable proofs of that greatness. Again, it is said, "Tο

the Son he saith thy throne, O GOD, | ourselves to the examination of that is for ever and ever." A superiority one before us, which, with sufficient

plainness, announces to us the great truth, that Jesus Christ, our suffering, lowly Saviour, our teacher and our model, was incarnate God.

This truth, to which we shall now confine our attention, in the examination of the passage before us, is declared, First, because it is asserted that HE REDEEMED Us--" In whom we have redemption through his blood," -THEREFORE HE IS GOD.

In the Second place, it is asserted, because he was THE CREATOR OF ALL

to angels is expressly given to him showing he could not be a mere man. Again, the divine attributes are again and again expressly attributed to him -the attributes of supreme power, of omniscience, and of omnipresence; and when he was on earth he permitted divine worship to be paid for him; and there is plain proof that the primitive Christians did call on his name, offering him religious worship. Nay, he announced expressly to his disciples that it was he, who as GOD, should answer prayer-"What- | THINGS, AND THEREFORE HE IS GOD,soever ye shall ask in my name, I will do it." And when the Holy Spirit of GOD was poured forth upon the primitive church, can you conceive that a man should be its source? Yet it was Jesus, for we read,"Therefore, being by the right hand of GOD, exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he shed forth this, which ye now see and hear."

The apostle, by a mode of speaking which would be unintelligible on any other supposition, declares he is the chief of all God's gifts to men, so great, that he involves in himself the bestowment of all others. "He who spared not his own son, how shall he not give us all things;"-an argument which is perfectly plain, knowing, as we do, that Jesus is divine; but if he be a man, the gift of pardon the gift of the Holy Spirit of God-the gift of heaven are inconceivably greater gifts; and so far from the gifts of the Lord Jesus being the pledge of all these higher blessings, they would remain absolutely uncertain, as far as that fact was the ground of their certainty.

But, however, the many passages which might be brought before your view, must be passed over on an occasion like this: and we must confine

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By him were all things created."
Thirdly, it is asserted, because ALL

THINGS WERE CREATED FOR HIS GLORY,
AND THEREFORE HE IS GOD, -"All
things were created by him, and for
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Fourthly, HE IS DIVINE, because he existed before all things."

And, Lastly, HE IS GOD, because "by him all things consist."

This one single passage concentrates many truths bearing on this one point, and illustrates this one fundamental truth which is announced to us that Jesus, our Saviour, is divine.

HE IS DIVINE, in the first place, this text asserts, "because we have redemption by his blood." If, indeed, the term "redemption" could mean, in a less accurate signification, merely that he was the means of our rescue from suffering, the conclusion would not follow that he was divine; but it is not the accurate meaning of the word; and if reference is made to those expressions in the Old Testament, where it is said that he redeemed his people from the house of bondage; and it was asked, where was the price that was paid for this? in the first place, we would answer, that the inaccurate and figurative use of the words in a few passages, would

1

not justify us in other passages where | dience and love of one man be taken

there is no such inaccuracy, thus to violate the sense of language. But there the idea of ransom was included. What else was the meaning of the Almighty, when he said, "I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee!" Though it is true that Egypt was not a ransom in the precise sense, Christ was a ransom; yet it shows the same idea was contained in the words, that they were redeemed from the house of bondage. But we are not left to dwell on the mere force of the word "redemption;" for the various expressions by which this truth is conveyed to us, show it was a true and proper price which the blessed Saviour paid in our stead. "Who his ownself bore our sins in his own body on the tree." "The Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all." "Thou hast made his soul an offering for sin." "By once suffering, he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified." Forms which are unintelligble on any other supposition; for, how could our blessed Saviour have made perfectly free from guilt those who are sanctified through his instrumentality, unless it was by bearing their guilt away?

But if he were, indeed, our redeemer in the true and accurate sense of the word, to which conclusion the whole of Scripture continually compels us to come, then must he have been divine. If he were man, how could a man have borne away the guilt of his fellow men? How could a man render to GOD more than was due to him? And if he could never surpass the amount of obedience which was due to his Creator, where was the superfluous homage, where was the superfluous obedience which could atone for the sins of his fellow men? And if there was such a superfluity of obedience, how can the obe

in the place of the obedience and love of multitudes through many generations? How could the transient sufferings of one man do away with the everlasting sufferings of myriads? Or how can we believe, that one man suffering as Jesus did, and loving GOD, and serving God as Jesus did, could have obliterated that dishonor done to the Divine Being by a world of transgressors through many generations? So that the atonement vanishes, the whole of redemption becomes a name, unless he who made it was indeed divine, and offered a true and proper propitiation, his sufferings of an hour being more than an equivalent for all that man would have suffered, had he never died. Jesus Christ, therefore, who made an atonement worthy of the name, an atonement on which the trembling sinner can rely, was incarnate GOD.

In the next place, our text conveys to us this truth by the statement that OUR SAVIOUR WAS THE CREATOR OF ALL THINGS. "Who is the image of the invisible God, and the first-born of every creature: for by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth." The statement in the fifteenth verse, that our Lord is "the image of the invisible GOD, and the first-born of every creature," is sustained in the sixteenth, by the statement that he is the "Creator of all," and, therefore, "the image of the invisible God," and "the firstborn of every creature," in a sense in which he would not be, had he not been the Creator of all things. In a lower sense, Adam was the image of GOD, and perfect man. Our blessed Saviour is here said to be the image of GOD in a higher sense, which is proved by the truth that he was the Creator of all things. It was not by possessing the divine perfections merely, or by the human excellence of the

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