DISCOURSES.

DISCOURSE I.

THE TRUE LIGHT.

JOHN I. 9.

THAT WAS THE TRUE LIGHT, WHICH LIGHTETH EVERY MAN THAT COMETH INTO THE WORLD.

The birth of a Saviour was an event of infinite im portance to the world. You have heard this a great many times; but it is fitting that I should repeat it now that I should ask you to consider it in this hallowed hour.* Though you may have thought of it hundreds of times, you have not compassed, you have not fathomed its import; you have not weighed, you have not comprehended its results. In your profoundest contemplations you may partly understand its meaning, and attain more than a glimpse of the great end to which it points; but you cannot take in the whole scope of its power; you cannot tell the limits of its outflowing benefits; you cannot measure all its manifold, grand, or beneficent consequences.

*Preached on occasion of Christmas.

As you live in a Christian land, and have been taught and trained in the school of Christ, you know and accept the history of the Saviour, as presented in the New Testament. You do not ask me to reiterate the story of his birth, or to re-marshal the proofs which the noble chiefs in his service have so often and so successfully called out upon the field of theological strife, to convince the world that a little more than eighteen and a half centuries ago he was born in Bethlehem of Judea. As to this, you accept the testimony of the Evangelists. And you believe, that, from the time of his advent, his spiritual power has been gradually putting down the forms of wickedness and oppression, and lifting the world to holiness.

As these things are generally acknowledged, I will only touch upon the moral subjects presented by this occasion.

I not only think that it is almost unnecessary in this day to adduce and elaborate the proofs of the outward facts of the Saviour's history, but that it is about equally so to bring out those of his inward life and power. Here or there a man rises up among us to say, that all the details of supernatural characteristics and wonders in connection with the Saviour's life, are mythical. But talk of this kind is not prevalent, nor alarming. The teacher most learned and eloquent in this line, in our country, would not be listened to and admired by so many, if this were his chief employment. Were it not for his love for man, his advocacy of human ideas, his uncompromising opposition to sin and wrong, and his benevolent practical instruction

were it not for his fidelity to the cause of philanthropy and reform, wherein so many who profess to be the followers of Jesus are so faithless, so irresolute, so lax, his influence would not bear very widely upon the public mind, nor would his disciples be very numerous. There are numberless indications in our midst now, of a common tendency toward the supernatural; and the present seems a favorable time for the positive annunciation of the Saviour's superhuman character, and of his divine and miraculous power.

Perhaps one party among the Christian communions, in the effort to refute the idea that Jesus Christ is the very God, have done more on their side of the question than they intended. It was not necessary that they should disrobe him of his divinity. They were not authorized to dispel the halo around his person in the Gospels, to pull him down from the height of transfiguration on which he stands in the splendor of heaven holding converse with the old translated prophets in white and glistening apparel. The world cannot receive the Trinity in the form of absurdity. Neither will it shut out the Saviour as a Divinity. It needs this personal manifestation from God. So God presents it in his Revelation. The Saviour stands there, as, in a spiritual and exclusive sense, the Son of God, the Manifestation of the Father's Glory, the express Image of his Person. And in this form he does and will forever occupy his lofty place in the Moral Uni

verse.

In the words of John, the beloved disciple, the most spiritual of all the apostles, Jesus Christ is "the true

Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." As we accept this gospel as a Revelation from heaven, we can behold the Saviour in no other form. To use another figure in the same record "He is the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." We must receive him into our hearts as such a spiritual Representative of the Almighty, sent from heaven to lift us to the realm of holiness, or we must set aside and ignore the lessons of the Bible. But this we cannot afford to do. Our moral elevation is scarcely worthy to be mentioned now, if we consider the eminence for which we were made. Where should we be should we cast off from us this volume of truth, of light, of love, of life?

If we consider where we have been, from what point we have come up, the great hopes with which our hearts are inspired, the grand prospects with which our eyes are blest, and the extent of ground over which the Sun of Righteousness now shines, we may in some degree apprehend the importance of the Saviour's birth and life to the world, the benevolence and potency of his influence. There is nothing, indeed, presented to our contemplation, so august and beautiful as the consequences of that humble event in the village of Bethlehem, less than two thousand years ago. To the minds of the favored guests and the comfortable keepers of the Inn, a peasant child was born in the stable. The hosts of heaven, with the glory of the Lord shining about them, saw in that babe the majesty and power of a spiritual Monarch; and foreseeing the grace and beauty with which he was to fill and clothe

the world, they said through the leader of their celestial band, to the listening and terrified shepherds, "Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour which is Christ the Lord." Jerusalem, in her pride of sin and outward splendor, waiting impatiently for a worldly prince, was deaf and blind, and did not recognize the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the royal Potentate from the skies. We, of the Gentile nations, who have received the Consolation of Israel" which she despised, we, in this nineteenth century, walking in the illumination of the Saviour's Presence, and beholding the fruits of his life and teachings, and rejoicing in the radiance of his revelations, have a partial perception of his greatness and power, and with glad hearts we take up and bear to the coming generations of the world, the song of the heavenly choir: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men. ""

It is true, when we undertake to describe the work already done for the world by the Saviour, we are in some measure confounded and baffled by the errors and wrongs of men which here and there lie upon it as rubbish, or cast a shade over its brightness and beauty. Sometimes we almost wonder if the spirit of the Son of God has not been withdrawn from the world; for we see only those who walk in the bloated forms of sin, or pursue the paths of grossness and degradation, or bargain away their reason and their affections, their friendship, their generosity, and their