that he made this sacrifice in order to the attainment of Christ. And I counsel you, beloved, as many of you as have been brought to this blessed state of mind which he enjoyed, and as many of you as desire to be brought to this state of mind, I counsel you to consider that it is no less an acquisition you are making than an acquisition of the Son of God, God and man,-as you have heard it set forth in one of our creeds today,an acquisition of the Son of God for your own eternal and most precious possession. "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord." Now "the excellency of the knowledge," you will readily understand, means "the excellent knowledge," the supereminent knowledge, that knowledge which is above all other knowledge, the knowledge of Jesus Christ. Now the thing which I particularly desire to direct your attention to here is, that I have spoken of this knowledge as that which he was desirous of. Now you are aware that I am very careful to keep terms as exactly as I can to one application. And I would always use "knowledge" in the same application. What is knowledge? Why, knowledge surely is the perception of the true nature of the subject which we are investigating; what you have heard me sometimes familiarly call "the perception of the inwards of a thing:" we cannot be said to know a substance, unless we have penetrated it; and we cannot be said to know a subject of philosophy of whatever peculiar nature it be, except we have gone

into what may be called the viscera, the inwards of it. And just so, when he speaks of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, he certainly means a clear and distinct perception of all that Jesus Christ is in his personal substance, and in his relations to all other subjects, divine, human, earthly, angelic, diabolical. He only knows Jesus Christ, who has this clear and distinct perception of all that He is in person and relation. Then why should He speak of this knowledge as the great object of his desire? Surely not that he might lay all up in the secret recesses of his soul and never fetch it out from thence; but that, having formed in his mind, through the exercise of his natural powers and capacities as assisted by Jesus himself in the person of the Holy Ghost, a clear and distinct perception of this great subject, he might evermore be employed in the contemplation and use and enjoyment of it, dealing with this Jesus according to his real nature, and dealing with all other subjects and substances according to the instruction which he derives concerning them from this knowledge of Jesus. Why, do not you perceive then that, in thus acquiring an accurate discernment of what Jesus is, he would come to an accurate discernment of what God is? And having thus come to that accurate discernment of Jesus and of God,-according to the testimony which has so repeatedly been brought before you of late, "This is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent,"

-what would his life be, but a life spent in communion with God through Christ? But do you not perceive that the first step towards this communion must be an accurate satisfactory well-founded knowledge unto perception, such as could justify and such as could assign a reason for it; that this perception, and this only, can lead a person on to that use, to that reciprocal communion, which is the true source of happiness? It is not looking at a picture. It is discerning what this Person is, and what He is to me, and using Him according to what I discern that He is to me. This is not the cold moonshine which gives no heat; but it is the bright sunbeam which warms and cheers the heart, whilst it gratifies the sight.

May it please God to kindle you into the desire of hearing more, from the little which has now fallen into your ear, and which, I trust, will fall into your heart through the power of the Holy Ghost.

Easter Day, April 19, 1829.

SERMON XVII.

PHIL. iii. 10, 11.

THAT I MAY KNOW HIM, AND THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION, AND THE FELLOWSHIP OF HIS SUFFERINGS, BEING MADE CONFORMABLE UNTO HIS DEATH: IF BY ANY MEANS I MIGHT ATTAIN UNTO THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.

I HAVE announced this subject as an improvement of the great event commemorated by the Church this day, the resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It is introduced in the expression of that which this holy apostle particularly coveted and valued for himself,-namely, the knowledge of Christ. He had by birth and natural connection much whereof he might have boasted as a man in flesh. Whatever were the advantages of the preceding dispensation, whatever constituted an eminence under that dispensation, this holy man had in large measure; but all this he had felt it necessary to renounce, and he had renounced, for what he describes as the knowledge of Christ, the

possession of Christ, which especially consists in the knowledge of Him, knowledge unto use and unto enjoyment. I shall just remind you of the substance of what I brought before you this morning, and then proceed in the exposition of this most interesting portion of the Word of God, which will afford me the opportunity of suggesting such remarks as the occasion and the general subject may require.

"But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ." The expression is very peculiar. And you will observe, in all figures of Scripture there is a great depth of meaning. And it is most important for us to ascertain exactly what they do mean. Now what is this figure? Here is a contrast between gain and loss. He had thought that he had got a great possession in being what he describes himself here to have been. "If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of Hebrews;" I believe that means, an Hebrew by both parents, by the father's and the mother's side;-"as touching the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the Church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless." When he says, concerning zeal, persecuting the Church," he means to speak of his zeal for the ancient religion; he carried it so far as to be a persecutor of the new faith. And with respect to "the righteousness of the law," he was not only

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