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SERMON III.

JOHN vi. 32, 33.

THEN JESUS SAID UNTO THEM, VERILY, VERILY, I SAY UNTO YOU, MOSES GAVE YOU NOT THAT BREAD FROM HEAVEN; BUT MY FATHER GIVETH YOU THE TRUE BREAD FROM HEAVEN. FOR THE BREAD OF GOD IS HE WHICH COMETH DOWN FROM HEAVEN, AND GIVETH LIFE UNTO THE WORLD.

Most truly do I rejoice, beloved, in assembling with you on this present occasion. I account it a testimony for our nation. I look at it not only as a celebration in which individuals are rejoicing, and in which individuals shall receive benefit, but I want some standing up of the people of this kingdom for the truth of God, and I find such a standing up in the observance of this day. You have often heard it asserted from this place that our nation stands in her Church. It does so stand; we have no being as a Christian people but in our Church. When this nation did in its head, in which alone it could as a nation receive the faith of

God in Christ,-when this nation, I say, did so receive the faith of God in Christ in its head,-then it received the overshadowing of the Lord Jesus Christ as its King, who gave a delegated authority to his vicegerent, which authority he was to exercise for Him, even the Lord Jesus Christ, in his Church. Then tell me what becomes of this nation, if it nationally reject the faith of Christ. And tell me what proof we have that we retain the faith of Christ, if we cancel those laws which distinctly constitute us a sound church, and so a sound people, and if we give up these public celebrations of the great articles of our faith which do in fact constitute our distinction from the separatists. Beloved, the time is come when we must speak a plain language. Our nation consists of the Church and the separatists. And the separatists are those who, from one cause or other, and mark, a cause affecting the very vitals of the truth,-whether it be discipline, or whether it be doctrine, for some cause, affecting the very vitals of the truth, have taken themselves out of the Apostolical Community. And what are we to do? Why surely, not to relinquish our confessions at their will, but to declare manfully for God, for his truth, for the creeds and confessions of our Church, whether they will hear, or whether they will forbear; the shame be theirs, the confusion be theirs, not ours. Why then, what are we celebrating to-day? That very event in which many of our separatists are even taking a language in the very teeth of the truth. How important then that we

should stand together, and according to the recognized form of this our nation should assemble in this house of God, and testify our persuasion that, as on this day, the great mystery of our faith was wrought, and that God, who is a God in Trinity, did, in one of the Persons, the coequal, coeternal, and coessential Persons of his indivisible unit Substance, in that Person in whom alone it was meet, we do not fear to say, in whom alone it was possible,—that He could take union with the creature, did take union with the creature. That is the mystery of the Incarnation: God in that Person in whom it became Him, in whom alone it was possible, took union with the creature in its ruin, and thereby upheld it. He who had from everlasting subsisted, by a predestinative and covenant arrangement, as if that Person had so joined himself, and had come out victorious, and had come out in a new form, and enabled God to bring his creation into a new form, -began, as on this day, to turn his covenant subsistence into a reality. Let me be understood here. I am not confounding two events. I know that we must date this junction higher up. I know that we must go to the Annunciation as the great festival of this junction; but we know nothing of subsistences but as they appear. We must therefore date the junction from the manifestation in the flesh. And therefore the nativity, which we celebrate this day, we date as the incarnation, though the incarnation was properly, as you will all well understand, at an earlier date. But you see the reason of the

choice: we date from this because it is the only publication of that which must from its very nature be secret.

Now, my friends, it has pleased God to enable me to give in a small compass the reality of the mystery which we are celebrating this day. And I have chosen a portion of the Word of God which is full of most interesting matter, directly appropriate to this subject. That not I, but Jesus of Nazareth, may be your preacher today, you shall have, not your authorized minister, him whom God the Holy Ghost hath appointed to you as your overseer, for your preacher, but you shall have the Son of God himself, for my sermon shall be simply an exposition of this wonderful testimony, which you will find is Jesus's own statement of the fact of his incarnation, or rather of his manifestation in the flesh. I warn you once for all that I shall endeavour to be as simple and as concise as possible in my opening of the words of this text. But before I do this I must apprize you where the words occur.

After the miracle at the pool of Bethesda, and after the Lord's defence of himself before the Jewish Sanhedrim, He retired to the other side of the sea, and there He went up into a mountain and taught; and He had compassion upon the multitude, and wrought a miracle in their behalf; and when this miracle had been wrought, which made a great impression, He retired to the upper part of the mountain, leaving his disciples in the lower part; and they after a while made their voyage back again to their own side of the lake or sea, and He fol

lowed them, after an interval, walking upon the waves, and by a miracle brought their ship to land when now they had been toiling for many hours fruitlessly in rowing. He was followed to his own side of the lake by persons who, inhabiting the other side, had been deeply impressed by the miracle of the loaves; but He well knew the spirit in which they followed Him; that they came after Him, not through the conviction of his being God's Messenger, who was therefore authorized and enabled to teach them the truth, but because they desired more bread without labour; and therefore He begins his discourse to them with reproving them for the carnal motive by which they were actuated.

I shall begin this testimony of Jesus with verse 27. "Labour not for the meat which perisheth." This is his exhortation, founded upon the knowledge of their state of mind. "Ye seek me, not because ye saw the miracles," which were the proof of my being divinely sent, "but because ye did eat of the loaves, and were filled. Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for Him hath God the Father sealed." He suggests another sort of food to them, food which He was himself to give them, food which would remain unto everlasting life. We shall find presently what that food was. But I want you to understand this, that the food was what He was to give them, food which He puts into contrast with natural bread. And notice the reason which He

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