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5. We have yet to glance at the death of Christ as the act of God.

In this view, it has been the theme of wonder and of song in heaven and on earth, and it ever will be. It presents the character of God in a light and effulgence so endearing and so glorious, that eternity will not suffice to learn and admire; vain would be any effort of mine to delineate it. His own Word tells us that it shows his justice in sweet union with his mercy-his righteousness in union with his truth-that it is the wisdom of God in union with his omnipotence; and upon all and over all it writes in glowing characters, "God is love." He so loved the world as to give his only-begotton Son; and let it not be forgotten, that in thus giving his Son, he exhausted his infinite treasury. God can give no greater gift, for in giving his Son, he gave himself! And for what gave he him? Why, to save the souls of men-to save the souls of even that shouting, wicked, Satan-possessed crowd, disturbing by their taunts the dying hour of his well-beloved Son. Oh! what an exhibition have we here of the value at which God holds the soul of man, as well as of his loving nature-of his delight to bless. What an awful lustre does it throw upon the justice, holiness, and truth of God, and above all on his love. When we look at the cross of Jesus, it seems almost as though God loved us more than he did his well-beloved Son, and hated sin as deeply as he loved us.

III. To complete my plan in this discourse, I ought to add a third point, viz.: The results or consequences of the death of Christ upon the actors; but I have not time nor space for such a theme, indeed it involves the whole grand completion of God's plans in redemption; yet I cannot leave the subject without a single glance at these results.

To the holy angels, the death of Christ has opened up new themes of study, new sources of the knowledge of God, new employments, new joys, and a new song; nay, we are told that so deeply are they interested, that with each penitent as he returns, saved by the death of Christ, they experience a new joy. Dear to them must ever be the memory of their ministrations to Jesus, in the hour of his humiliation. Over Satan and the fallen angels it triumphs and destroys them; hurls down the pillars of Satan's kingdom, and bruises everinore his head. These fallen spirits, when they had succeeded in inducing the death of Christ, accomplished their own final and certain ruin. The cross of Jesus, even as it stood before them, by the salvation which Jesus wrought for the malefactor at his side, became to their alarmed vision a throne; a throne of mercy, down to which even a holy God could descend to pardon and save, and to which even the vilest sinner would dare to come, to receive pardon and eternal life; and so from that

hour has that cross ever been proved to be the meeting place of a reconciled God and saved sinners. One view, by faith, of it has always broken the chains of Satan, and assured the sinner of pardon; and this is the next result of the death of Christ which I mention-its effects on man. The cross, which man in his wickedness raised, has become man's only hope. I cannot perhaps express in more forcible words this effect of the death of Christ than by the touching hymn of Newton:

"I saw one harging on a tree

In agony and blood,

Who fixed his languid eyes on me,
As near the cross I stood.

"Sure never till my latest breath
Can I forget that look;

It seem'd to charge me with his death,
Though not a word he spoke.

"Alas! I knew not what I did,
But all my tears were vain;
Where could my trembling soul be hid,
For I the Lord had slain?

"A second look he gave, which said:
I freely all forgive;

This blood is for thy ransom paid,
I die that thou may'st live.

"Thus while my death thy sin displays

In all its blackest hue,

Such is the mystery of grace,

It seals thy pardon too."

Mark, my hearers, these different results to the guilty actors. Satan and man united to put Christ to death, and that death destroys Satan and saves man. Grace-free, sovereign grace!

The effect of the death of Christ on himself, how shall I speak of it? He has a name above every other name; all heaven adores him as the Lamb that was slain. He is the theme of everlasting song. He shall be satisfied. And God is glorified; all his great and glorious plans will be accomplished, and all heaven, all earth, and all hell will have to yield assent to the testimony given in the angel's song: "Glory to God in the highest."

There are many reflections suggested by our subject, but I must not dwell upon them. I close with a single thought.

The death of Christ, you see, will afford the touchstone of moral character, and affect the destiny of all created beings.

God, Christ, angels, view it in one light; Satan and his fallen companions view it in another. With whom, dear reader, do you join? The death of Christ! It glorifies God, and increases the joy of Christ and of angels. It condemns and destroys Satan and his angels. Again I ask, with whom will you place yourselves?

Your views and feelings on this subject foretell your charac

ter and your destiny. The cross of Christ! It is your hope or your despair; your crime and condemnation, or your righteousness and salvation! It will raise you to heaven,or sink you to hell. And you, you yourself must decide which of these effects it shall produce in your case. May God enable you to decide right and wisely! Amen.

SERMON DLXXXIII.

BY REV. DANIEL P. NOYES,

PASTOR OF THE JAY ST. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y.

THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE.

Therefore let no man glory in men: for all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."-1 Cor. iii. 21, 22, 23.

THE apostle had been reproving the Corinthian disciples for their partisanship. They had divided into schools. Some were followers of Paul, some of Apollos, and some of Cephas. After having visited such perverse and narrow sentiments with merited censure, the great heart of the apostle flashes forth into the questions-"Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos?—but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every

man !"

He reminds them that the apostles, who had "planted" and "watered," were "laborers together with God;" that it was God. who gave the increase; that they who had been converted were "God's husbandry," "God's building," and were not to consider themselves as belonging to any man. He tells them that they are the "temple of the living God," and that "God shall destroy" such as "defile" it. Every Christian is the habitation of the Spirit. But, let no man so deceive himself as to be puffed up on this account with the conceit of wisdom; "for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." They ought not, then, to rest their faith in themselves, or in any one of their spiritual guides. Granted that Paul or Apollos is their apostletheir teacher; so is Cephas also. "All things are yours," says Paul. Then, lighting up with this thought and expanding it, he details the several particulars of the text, with glowing energy pressing home upon them the great truth that Christians, heirs

to the inheritance of God, hold all things in fee. 'Tis to this truth that I desire to invite your attention at the present time: "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas."

1. All Christian teachers, then, belong to every Christian who has access to their teachings.

The day of sects and partisans is gone. From henceforth, they who are united in Christ are to regard themselves as forming "one body." There may be a "diversity of gifts," or a dif ference of views, but there is "one Spirit;" all are united in one great aim, and one dear hope. The distinction of Gentile, Jew, Barbarian, Scythian, is, in religious things, to be recognized no more. There is to be no longer any alienation through party divisions. No one is to think of himself as primarily a Jew, and then secondarily a Christian-primarily an adherent of Paul, and secondarily of Jesus; but each one is, in the first place, to feel that he is a Christian, and in that fact united to all others who are Christians by an indissoluble bond; then he may, if he pleases, in the second place, belong to a particalar class of Christians, but by no means in such a way as to destroy for him the unity of the "one body.". Though a Jew, though a Gentile, though a Scythian, Roman, bond, or free, he is none the less a Christian. He may love to listen to Apollos, but he is not for that reason alienated from Paul, or sundered from Cephas. They, too, are his teachers. Though the eloquence of Apollos touch his heart more deeply, and awaken it to a higher action than that of any other man, yet he is not, therefore, to be an Apoilonian, and to yield to the preacher the supremacy which belongs to Christ. Though the burning words of Paul set his soul aglow as none others can, he is by no means to set up Paul in the place of Jesus, or to feel that with other Christian teachers he has nothing to do.

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"Who is Paul? and who is Apollos ?" They are "planters" and "waterers;" but it is God who creates the growth and "giveth the increase." And are not these men "ministers" of the same gospel, disciples of the same Lord; one in Christ; both" laborers together with God;" neither laboring without God? None of those who, through their preaching, have believed, can be called their husbandry," their "building." No; they have a higher name. They are the "husbandry of God;" a "building of God;" "a temple," each one of them, of the indwelling "Spirit of God." Paul is mine, then, and Cephas too is mine, and Apollos no one can take from me. What if John Bunyan was an Englishman and an Independent; is he the less a Christian?. And may not an American learn of him; and must every Episcopalian be excluded from his teachings? What though Fenelon was a Roman Catholic? Is his wisdom the less instructive, in so far as it is wise; or his piety less for our edification, in so far as

it is real and healthful? Does he not belong to us, for the reason that he is catalogued in a different class from ours? Nay, every true Christian teacher that the world has seen, of whatever name,

if his wisdom teaches us, is ours. He is ours. We have a right in him, a property that cannot be extinguished. He is ours, and no school or party has any prerogative to exclude our claim by theirs. This party, in so far forth as it is thus exclusive, is unchristian. All Christians are "one body;" one, not for any temporal end, not for aggrandizement, not for power, not for show of unity, or for splendor; not for the sake of the majesty of the oneness; but in ever-during reality are they one; in spiritual, not temporal relations; for spiritual, not temporal ends; for eternity and God, not for time and show.

"All things are yours: whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas ;" whether Augustine, Athanasius, Origen; whether Luther, Calvin or Pascal; Wesley, Zinzendorf, Edwards, Coleridge, or Chalmers; "all are yours ;" all Christian teachers, and the whole church, the assembly of the saints, the great congregation of the good.

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This, in substance, is what Paul said to the Corinthians, and this he still declares to us. These disciples had been narrowing their hearts by an exclusive attachment to a single individual, and his doctrine; and were this spirit to be cherished in the churches, they would come at last to be cursed with a bigotry and a jealousy, destructive of the noblest traits and the very essential principles of the Christian life. It was one part of the mission of Christ into the world to bring about the dissolution of all party and sectarian bonds, and to unite the whole undivided humanity in one beautiful and immortal body. Jew was no longer to regard himself as the one peculiar favorite of God, the only son, the sole heir; nor might any Christian permit himself to become the disciple of an apostle, or the partisan of an orator and teacher. Having once by his union with Christ become a citizen in the kingdom of God, he was not expected straightway to expatriate his heart from this glorious kingdom, and narrow down the affections which belonged to the whole to the miserable limits of his little native village or province. His patriotism, it was expected, would light up in view of the whole. The whole boundless empire is his ; not the vale merely in which he first sees the light, nor the low hills that make the valley, though upon his childish eye they rise with mountain grandeur, in oppressive sublimity and overwhelming loveliness. The Christian who finds himself born into a sect, is not to bestow the fulness of his heart upon that, or upon the good, great men whose labors founded, or whose lives have adorned it. He is to remember the glorious company "that no man can number," whose voices rise "like the voice of many waters," and roll like

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