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revealed unto him by the Holy Ghost, that he should not see death, before he had seen the Lord's Christ. He came to the temple, took Jesus in his arms, and blessed God and said, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people; a light to lighten the gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel. And he blessed the parents, and said unto Mary, Behold this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." In discoursing from this passage, let us view,

I. THE OBJECT SET; in other words, the history, character, and standing of the Redeemer disclosed. It is interesting to know these on account of the diverse treatment he receives, and the opposite destinies which are to result. The object presented is the Lord Jesus Christ; or in the language of the text, "This child is set." He was once a child. "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." He was born, and in circumstances of poverty-in a state of deep humiliation. The place was a manger; and he grew up from a child of obscurity, to be "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." He probably wrought at a humble trade, and had no connections to give him worldly influence, and made no pretensions to worldly greatness: when he entered upon his public career, it was a career of humble, strenuous, untiring benevolence. "He went about doing good." He spake, and the lame walked, the deaf heard, the blind saw, the lepers were cleansed, the dead were raised to life. For his course of goodness, he met a reward of obloquy -a death of finished torture and ignominy. He died for the world, that believing, they might not die eternally. He rose from the grave on the third day, ascended to heaven, entered for us a priest in the temple above-became seated, for the protection of his cause, for the completion of the commenced work of redemption, on the mediatorial throne. There he is now set, soliciting regard, and thence dispensing the gifts of mercy to the rebellious. Wonderful indeed is his history. His character is readily defined. It was shown in the acts of his life. There were seen all the attributes of man. He was a man, as we are, with a proper and perfect human soul and body. There were seen also the attributes of Deity. He was-he is truly God, both God and man; having two natures in mysterious connection; being human, as to the one, divine, as to the other. He is called "The mighty God,"—"God over all blessed forever." He is the Being who searcheth the hearts and tryeth the reins of the children of men. He is the "Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, the first and the last." "He created all things that are in heaven and in earth, and without him was

not any thing made that is made." He will speak, and all who are in their graves shall hear his voice and come forth: and he will be enthroned in glory and encompassed with authority, as judge of quick and dead. "All judgment is committed to the Son, that all men may honor the Son even as they honor the Father." He is honored with divine honors; he is worshipped by saints on earth, and by the redeemed and the angels in heaven. Not only wonderful the history, we add, wonderful the character, immeasurably exalted the position of the once slain, but now reigning Redeemer.

II. In connection with the character and standing of the Saviour, it may be important to state the great principles upon which he conducts the work of redeeming mercy, that the whole ground of love and hatred, acceptance and repulsion, may be before us.

The work in question, as just intimated, is the work of saving lost men. Two things are essentially and unalterably necessary to the accomplishment of salvation. One is pardon of sin; the other is purification from sin. Without the first we are in a state of righteous and inevitable condemnation. Without the last, we are under the power of an unresisted depravity. One without the other is no salvation. We may be purified, but if not forgiven, we cannot come into the presence and favor of God. We may be pardoned, but if not purified, our pollutions will sink us in darkness and wo. Corresponding to these two obvious and unmitigable necessities in our fallen condition, are the two grand doctrines of atonement and regeneration. Christ shed his blood to make atonement; he dispenses pardon on the ground of this atonement, and on condition of repentance and faith in the sinner. Regeneration and sanctification, the other main necessity, he accomplishes by the agency of the Holy Ghost, whose assistance he procured in our behalf, and whose grace he administers and sends. Thus far, then, we have the character of Christ, complex and mysterious, God and man -his station, on the throne, as the Governor of the world-his work of redemption, consisting in the removal of the penalty, and deliverance from the power of sin-the principle and agent of its accomplishment, the atonement the ground of pardon, and the Spirit begetting holiness, where there was nought but sin.

III. We come now to the fact indicated in the text-that the Saviour is rejected by some and received by others, and the cause or reason of it. The fact is notorious. We see it in the holy, prayerful, consistent lives of some who walk by faith, and live to glorify God and do good to men. They have received Christ. Ask them, and they will tell you, their hope is Christ. We see the counterpart in the worldliness and irreligion of immense multitudes of others. They have heard of Christ

but their lives testify, that they are rejecters of his mercy. It was long ago predicted that this would be the case. "He is despised and rejected of men." "He shall be for a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence." In the language of Simeon, "he is set....for a sign which shall be spoken against." What now is the reason of a fact so strange? That he should be received and loved, coming on such an errand of love, would not be strange. He deserves the confidence and homage of the world. Why then do men reject him? The cause lies deep in that moral disease, that controlling depravity, which infects and pervades man's nature. That, which constitutes an urgent reason for the reception of Christ, operates as the efficient and deadly cause of his rejection. But where lies the specific objection or difficulty? Where the point of repulsion? In the character or the doctrine, in the nature or the principles of Christ? It is not in the character. Worldly unsanctified men care but little, whether Christ is Divine, superangelic, or merely human. When the dignity of Christ is lowered, it is done, not because that dignity in itself considered, is offensive, but for the purpose of escaping from certain disrelished moral consequences which are invariably associated with that Divine and supreme dignity; namely, the fact and necessity of atonement for sin by the death of Christ, and the necessity of inward spiritual regeneration by the Holy Ghost.

It is, emphatically, the cross that is an offence-an offence which never will cease but with sin. Atonement and regeneration are not barren dogmas, unmeaning speculations; they are heavenly truths, instinct with life, humbling and joyous in their efficacy. They are humbling; they do what God intended they should do-stain the pride of all human glory, divest the transgressor of all ground of boasting—and lead him to acknowledge, if saved, that it is wholly by grace-that he is a brand plucked from the burning.

The doctrine of the necessity of spiritual regeneration, a change of heart by the power of the Holy Ghost, implies, yea proceeds upon the broad ground that there is no moral goodness, no true love to God in the natural heart-the heart of the sinner. It is because there is none, that it must be produced-because men are dead in sins, that they must be quickened and raised to life by the power of God. But how plain to see, that we are on disputed, resisted, hated ground. Bring home this truth to the bosom of the individual sinner, and how often will he repel it with marked displeasure. Still it is the distinct testimony of God, that the carnal mind is not only without love to God, but "is enmity against God, is not subject to his law, neither indeed can be." This testimony is rejected, on account of the pride of the human heart; and the gospel is rejected, and the Saviour thrust away, because he presses

the fact of sin, and then bases upon it the unqualified declaration, "Ye must be born again.”

The doctrine of atonement proceeds upon the ground that our own best righteousnesses are but as filthy rags-that we cannot, by any obedience, morality, prayers, almsgiving, procure the forgiveness of our sins and propitiate the favor of offended Deity. On this account, especially, is the cross an offence, namely, its conclusiveness. There is no other possible mode of pardon. Every thing else, however lovely and of good report among men, goes for nothing here. You must lay your guilty soul down in the dust before God, to be sprinkled with this blood, and pardoned by this dying goodness, or it must lie for ever under the wrath and curse of the Almighty. Men generally dislike to be thus stripped of all personal merit, and to be shut up to one way, one name, method and faith. Yet the gospel does this. Christ is this only name; his blood the only ground of forgiveness. Hence he becomes an object to be spoken against.

These feelings of dislike and repugnance would keep all from the Saviour and heaven, if left to themselves. Blessed be God that any are subdued and saved. The reason is found in the electing love of God, and the administered grace of the Holy Spirit.

IV. We are now prepared for our main point-the consequences which are to result in eternity from Christ's coming into the world, or the influence of his coming upon human destiny. He is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel: that is, for the fall of some and the rising of others. Christ did not come for this purpose, that some might perish under a more aggravated condemnation. His coming is simply the occasion. Just as in the passage in which God gives a direction to the prophet. "Go tell this people, hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not. Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes, lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert and be healed." The meaning is not, that there would be exerted upon these rejecters of the message of God a directly and positively blinding and hardening influence; but that they would be blinded, and hardened, and destroyed, in consequence of voluntarily and wickedly perverting and disobeying the truth of God. The truth resisted always has a hardening effect. It invariably accomplishes something. It becomes the occasion of a hastened and deepened perdition, where it does not sanctify and guide to life and blessedness. So Christ is set for the fall of some, for the rise of others. He is a rock of hope, on which some will build and be saved; and also a rock of offence, on which some will dash and be broken-a rock of retribution, which will fall upon others and grind them to powder.

But the particular thought I would present is, that Jesus the Christ will be the occasion of the fall of some, and of the redemption of others. And the question is, what will it be, on the one hand, to fall from a Saviour's proffered help into the dark world of wo, and on the other, to rise, through a Saviour's grace and efficacy, from a world of sin to the heavenly Paradise.

In the first place, we will consider the fall as resulting, notwithstanding the coming and benign efforts of Christ. Had not Christ come, all would have fallen and perished; now, only a part-but far more deeply and dreadfully than they would have done, had no Saviour been provided and proffered them. And how does this appear?

It appears from the sayings of Jesus Christ. "Wo unto thee, Chorazin! wo unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the mighty works which were done in you, had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the day of judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven, shalt be brought down to hell for if the mighty works which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for thee." Here we have a great general principle; and it applies to us as distinguished from those who have not the knowledge of a Saviour. It declares that punishment will be proportioned to light and privilege abused; it teaches, on the authority of Christ, that if we fall, our fall will be immeasurably aggravated, beyond what it would have been, had we not received these offers of grace and heaven. Reason and common sense confirm this principle. Let the question return :

Why will the fall of those who fall from a Saviour's interposition be more deep and dreadful? We answer-Christ presented in his benign offices, and not received but rejected, perhaps scorned, serves to foster and strengthen the depravity of that heart which so treats the Son of God. All heavenly truth is, as it were, embodied in the glorious person of Jesus Christ. There is something, yea much, in Christ which will stir all the elements and energies of feeling. Christ has always been an exciting subject. On such a theme, and doctrine, and glory, none but stones and blocks can be indifferent. Christ brings out the heart, and rouses to intensity its strongest emotions. Consequently, where there is dislike, there is decided dislike. "He that is not for me is against me." He that does not receive, rejects-every time Christ is presented, positively, palpably rejects him. Now this wrong moral action, persisted in, on such a question as the reception and service of a Saviour, must have, does have, a powerful tendency to strengthen and consum

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