SERMON XX.

ON THE GRACE OF CHRIST.

2 COR. viii. 9.

"Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich."

WHILE the holy apostles of the Lord Christ proclaimed the obedience and the death of their divine Master, as the only satisfaction for the sin of man, and as the only foundation of the Christian's hope of eternal life;-they also exhibited his holy life and self-denying conduct, as a pattern to be imitated by all his professing servants. Thus, St. Peter presses upon the Christians whom he addressed, the duty of cultivating meekness and forbearance after the example of Christ; "but if when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it pa

tiently, this is acceptable with God. For even hereunto were ye called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered he threatened not." St. Paul also,-when, with much delicacy, urging on the believers at Corinth the duty of making contributions to relieve the poor saints in Judea,-reminds those believers of the amazing sacrifice which their Lord and Saviour had made for them and for their salvation. "For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich."

In meditating on these words of the apostle, our design is to invite your attention,

I. TO THE WONDROUS MANIFESTATION OF THE GRACE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST; and

II. TO THE GREAT END FOR WHICH THAT GRACE WAS MANIFESTED.

When approaching such subjects as these, it is no affectation of humility to confess our felt incompetency to do to them anything like justice; and to exclaim with fear and trembling, in the language of the great apostle, "who is sufficient for these

1 1 Pet. ii. 20, &c.

1

Yet our support is that "our suffi

things?"
ciency is of God." 3

Allow us to call your attention,

I. TO THE WONDROUS MANIFESTATION OF THE GRACE OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.

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rich became poor.

:

He who was

"He was rich." This proposition at once reminds us of an important truth, namely, that the Saviour of the world had an existence prior to his incarnation for the apostle writes of him as having been rich antecedently to his poverty, to his taking our nature, in which Christ sojourned on earth in a state of great poverty. And in what was he rich? whole creation "he was rich."

"He was rich." As Lord of the "All things were

made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made." 4 "For, by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by him, and for him; and he is before all things, and by him all things consist."5 In both these passages the Lord Jesus Christ is spoken of, as it is evident from the context: and he is spoken of as the Creator and Proprietor of " all

2 2 Cor. ii. 16.

4 John i. 3.

32 Cor. iii. 5, Col. i. 16, &c.

things." "He was rich" in all the adorable perfections of the Godhead. Whatever constituted the ineffable character and condition of God the Father, constituted also the character and condition of the Son: for he was and is one with the Father: "I and my Father are one." 6 The glory of the Father was the glory of the Son, which the Son had from eternity, as he testified: "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine ownself with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." Here, you perceive, Christ spake of the glory which he had, not only before his incarnation, but before the creation of the world," before the world was." In power, in glory, in wisdom, in happiness,-IN ALL THE PERFECTIONS OF THE GODHEAD, Christ " was rich." But he who was thus

rich.

"Became poor." It is not said he was made poor; he was not compelled to poverty; he became, willingly became poor. His incarnation, his humiliation, his poverty, all his sufferings, were voluntary. For a season, and at the time pre-determined, the second person in the adorable Trinity laid aside his glory,-quitted his native heaven,took our human nature with all its infirmities, sin only excepted; he became bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. He not only assumed human na

ture; but he assumed that nature in its most humble condition. He came, not arrayed with external pomp and power, such as secure the homage and excite the wonder of this world, but,-to sojourn in the humble "form of a servant." So humble, indeed, was his condition, that when "he came to his own, his own received him not." From his birth to the grave his condition was that of a poor man. Deprived of the domestic shelter common to infants of poor parents, he was laid in a manger as his cradle. As he grew up to manhood, he led a poor, obscure life until the commencement of his public ministry. During his public career, so great was his poverty that to pay a small tax he had to exert his divine power in working a miracle. Wearied, hungry, and thirsty, while going about continually doing good both to the souls and bodies of men, the cold ground was the place of his nightly repose. "The foxes have holes, and the

birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head."8

His condition was not only one of poverty but also one of suffering: "He was despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." To an unbelieving, disobedient people, there appeared in Christ, during his great humiliation, "no form nor comeliness," "no beauty," 8 Matt. viii. 20.

7 Matt. xvii. 27.

9 Is. liii. 3.