himself known.

He gives us, as it were, the means of searching and trying his heart, that we may be quite sure of his whole mind towards us, and that his matchless character may draw our souls to himself.

He does this through the incarnation of Jesus. For we are told in our text, "I came down from heaven not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me,"-that is, not to exercise any separate will of mine as man, but as man to exhibit and to do the Father's will. All, therefore, that is in Christ, expresses the mind of his Father also. "I am in the Father, and the Father in me;" John xiv. 10. "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father." John xiv. 9.

O brethren, there is manifold love in his revelation to us of the Father. It is not only that our suspicious hearts would never have been quite at rest unless we had thus known the Father also; but it gives us a view of his willingness to condescend to us in any way that may more fully draw us, or be more likely to induce us to love "the Lord our God with all our heart, and all our soul, and all our mind, and all our strength." He seems herein to come out of his "light inaccessible," that he may become known to his fallen creatures. This is like humiliation; it is the Father's condescension. If Solomon, in order to engage the confidence of some loathsome leper, had come forth in all his glory, in his royal apparel, and with his golden sceptre, then would all the land have rung with the story of his condescending kindness. And it is not less that our God has done. He has come forth that we might know him. He has put on the robe of humanity, wherein he could be best looked upon by our mortal eye, and he has shewn himself in all his grace and attractive love to a fallen world.

Herein is love! the Father will go to the utmost length in order to draw you back from the pit. Like the Grecian mother who, by her song, drew back her wilful child from the edge of the awful precipice, and brought it to her bosom secure; so the Lord, by the discovery of his infinitely glorious and gracious nature, would draw you from your sin. He would present to your idolatrous and adulterous eyes a sight more attractive than earth, in its softest forms, can furnish. He would keep you back from hell, O sinner, by manifesting himself to you as altogether lovely! O how deep is your corruption! How strong your enmity! How unconquerable your perversity! You hate God, after seeing him revealed in Jesus! Every exhibition of greatness, mingled with grace in Jesus, was the revelation of the Father also! Every discovery of patience, long-suffering, and grieved love-every time Jesus went apart to weep in secret places for the pride of men, it was the Father's feeling also. When Jesus beheld Jerusalem, and wept over it, O there was a tender pity there that just pictured forth the Father's yearning compassion-as if

the Father himself had come forth from the had spoken in the hearing and sight of men, Ephraim; how shall I deliver thee, Israel? Admah, and set thee as Zeboim ?"

"light inaccessible," and “How shall I give thee up, How shall I make thee as

Nor is it less the Father's mind, when Jesus cries in your ears, "Him that cometh unto me I will in nowise cast out." This is the Father's will who has sent him. As if he knew that you might say, on hearing that it is certain that all shall come who are given to Christ, "Ah, then, perhaps though I were to come, I would not be welcomed," the Saviour says, and the Father speaks by his lips, "Him that cometh I will in nowise cast out." You shall never be rejected, if you come-never on the ground that you were too great a sinner-never on the ground that, though you come, you were not given to Christ. "You shall in nowise be cast out." Any question regarding the Father's secret purposes, or the Father's accurate fore-knowledge of who are his own-any question of this sort is quite out of your province. It is friends who get acquainted with the secrets of another's heart; it is not strangers. You are to come on the strength of the warrant alone; and so you will become a friend and a child of his family, and be no more cast out.

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V. The Father's amazing love appears in appointing the eternal reward for redeemed sinners.—Our text says, I came down to do the will of him that sent me," and "this is the Father's will that hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day;" John vi. 39. Therefore, says Jesus, "I will raise him up at the last day;" verse 40.

It is remarkable how the Father delights to honour the Son while wearing our nature. It is of him in our nature, nay, in the act of bearing away, like the scape-goat, our sins on his person, that it is written, "Therefore doth the Father love me, because I lay down my life, and take it up again." John x. 17. It is in our nature that he is to judge, and to him every knee shall bow and every tongue confess when he appears, clothed in our nature, and wearing the many crowns of this earth's dominion. Now, love to him in our nature is love to us. then, brethren, read here the Father's delight in our race. He takes our nature, in the person of Jesus, to his nearest presence; he sheds round it, in the person of Jesus, his brightest beams; he places it on his right hand in majesty.

But farther, it is written here, that the rising of the believers in the resurrection of the just is appointed of the Father-"that he should raise it up again at the last day." It is he who has purposed the glorious triumph over death, which believers gain in the resurrection morn.

It is he who planned that they should live and reign with Christ, blessed and holy, children of the first resurrection, and never subject to the second death. It is he who blesses them; for the King shall say, "Come ye blessed of my Father; " Matthew xxv. 34. It is he who bestows the kingdom upon them; "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed me;" Luke xxii. 29. It is he who gives them power over the nations; for Christ in giving his power says, "Even as I received of my Father;" Revelations ii. 27. It is the Father who introduces them to the glory of Christ; John xvii. 24. It is in the Father's house they dwell-in his many mansions; John xiv. 2. And even as Jesus went to the Father, so do they; for they are "with him where he is," in the immediate presence of the Father.

Thus, brethren, every token of love, in that blessed kingdom, bears the impress of the Father's grace. Every glory there sparkles with beams of the Father's love. O what a God of love is our God. And it is to his bosom the returning sinner comes. Sweet and blessed hope! to be near him, to try the depths of his heart-to have access through Jesus in our nature to his bosom-and so to be able to pour out our heart to him, and feel him pour out his to us. This is life eternal.

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A child of God once asked, in meditating on the words " Where thou causest thy flock to rest”—where this resting-place might be thought to be? One said, "In Jesus." But the other replied, "It is even in the Father's bosom." And truly this is a believer's deepest rest. 'By him we believe in God," 1 Peter i. 21, that is, the Father; and "we come unto God by him;" Heb. vii. 25. It is your place of rest, believer. It is the inner apartment of the pavilion-the secret of the tent. It is the farthest off spot from earth, it is out of sight of its pleasures, joys, gain, ambition. "Love not the world, neither the things of the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him; 1 John ii. 15. 66 'Little children, ye have known the Father; verse 13. O beloved, before I conclude, let me once more cast out the cords of love to draw the rebellious among you. This God is our God. This is he who assures you of his desire for your salvation, "I have no pleasure at all in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord, but rather that he turn from his ways and live." You are the worm that tried to crawl up to his throne, and to sit down as sovereign, and yet he has not crushed you! Your bosom is the seat of fearful sin, hatred of the holy one, dark suspicions of his sincerity, fond plans of self-exaltation, selfish schemes for present indulgence, ungodly fancies, sensual, earthly, devilish desires. Yet still our God, even the Father, laments over you. He takes no blame to himself for your wretched degradation; for, on the contrary, he has at every step cast hindrances in your way to hell. He

laments over you, “O Israel, thou hast destroyed thyself, but in me is thy help found!" He loved Jesus all the more for dying and rising again (John x. 17), because it opened up the channel of love; it gave vent to his love to man. Only draw near and see this ocean. It is the same ocean of love which is seen when you look on a dying Saviour; but it is the same ocean seen from another point of view. And what can exceed the power of the appeal which God hereby makes to you, when he declares, "That it is not the love of the Son alone, but the unbought, free, eternal love of Godhead!" It is the Father who lays down Jesus for a foundationstone, and cries to a careless world," Behold! I lay in Zion for a founda tion, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone." It is the Father who calls and invites, "Behold! my servant whom I have chosen ! mine elect in whom my soul delighteth!" It is the Father who points to the cross and cries to all the earth, "I, even I am he who blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own name's sake, and will not remember thy sins." This is the Father's will, and Christ himself is the herald that proclaims it to a lost world, "This is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life!"

SERMON VIII.

CHRIST, THE BUILDER AND RULER OF THE TEMPLE

(Preached at the opening of the Free Church, Burntisland, Dec. 10. 1843.)

BY THE REV. DAVID COUPER, BURNTISLAND.

Even he shall build the temple of the Lord; and he shall bear the glory."—ZECH, vi. 13.

The text then must be viewed

Or whom does the Prophet speak when he affirms that He shall build the temple of the Lord, and shall bear the glory? Of one who is styled a man ;—of one, therefore, who is partaker of the same nature with ourselves-bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. But can a mere man bear or possess the glory of the temple of the Lord? Impossible. God will not give his glory to another: his is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory for ever. But of the man here spoken of it is further affirmed that "his name is the Branch, and that he shall grow up out of his place." Compare this statement with kindred predictions of former prophets, and observe the light which is thus reflected on it. Isaiah says, "There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots." Isaiah xi. 1. as referring to one who should belong to the tribe of Judah and the family of David. Additional light is thrown upon the subject by the prophet Jeremiah. "Behold the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely and this is the name whereby he shall be called, the Lord our Righteousness." Jeremiah xxiii. 5, 6. The Branch, then, that was to grow out of the root of Jesse was to be more than man; for who could bear that wondrous name, "The Lord our Righteousness," but the Lord himself? To apply such a title to a mere child of humanity, or even to the loftiest of angelic spirits, were to rob Jehovah of his glory, and to give it to another. Thus we are shut up to the conclusion that the text refers to one who should combine in his own person the fulness of divinity with all that is essential to the constitution of our nature; and thus there is brought before us the great mystery of godliness, God manifest in the flesh. It is of No. 8.-SER. 8.