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fought the good fight in the battle between the saints and the world, multitudes too which no man can number, out of every nation under heaven!

Finally, in a dazzling circle, round about. their Lord, and high above the rest, with. crowns on their heads, and palms in their hands, shall be the company of the apostles and the glorious army of the martyrs, who have been baptized with their Lord's baptism, and have passed through the sword and the fire into their eternal rest. And they all, within and without, shall be like the Lord in his glory, as they were like Him in the days of his humiliation! Glory to God in the highest! and on earth peace!

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SERMON V.

ST. MATT. i. 21.-" And she shall bring forth a Son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins."

THIS appearance of God in the flesh, is a great and awful fact, into the depths of which no mind of man can penetrate, and which is proposed to us, not for our examination or idle inquiry, but for our adoration. Probably in the whole history of the universe, from the moment that God issued out of his eternal rest to make the worlds by the word of his power, until now-this is the most wonderful event which has ever occurred.-At least, we are

told, that it is one, into whose mysteries the very angels themselves, whose faculties are mighty, and who have witnessed God's doings for many thousand years, are ever longing to look; though doubtless, they do comprehend many things in this great event which are utter darkness to our feebler thoughts. But it is clear from this and other expressions in Holy Writ, that even they are incapable of exhausting the wonder which it contains. They cannot foresee all the ultimate results of it, or discern all the reasons which have moved the Highest, and Best, and Wisest, thus to deal with man!

And I say, to deal with man, not because the effects of the Word's incarnation may not, and do not, in many ways which we know not of, redound upon the angels themselves, and the intelligent creatures of God in other parts of the universe! But because, however this may be, and however unfathomable in many respects it is, yet, the practical results to us on earth are

a very plain and intelligible thing! And whatever may be the case with blessed spirits in heaven, to whom divine things, and the harmony of God's counsels, may be revealed for the pleasure of contemplating them, the point in which they concern us in this earthly trial is wholly practical. It is the way in which they influence the actual daily relation of our souls to God, and the duties we have to perform in consequence of them, on which salvation depends!

But, then, what we have to do, and what we can do, greatly depends on the notions we form of ourselves; of the nature of the faculties which God has given to us, and the end for which we are designed. And since men accomplish mighty deeds, for no other reason, sometimes, than because they think that they are born and formed for great things, therefore I would fain draw your thoughts to-day to the results of Christ's incarnation upon your own dignity among God's creatures. I would fain, by God's grace, make you feel and

acknowledge, that you are made by the gospel a glorious part of God's creation! I believe this spiritual dignity, when rightly conceived, to be a mighty spring of holy action, and a delightful encouragement to the service of God. Teach men to think meanly of their nature, and their daily acts will savour of that meanness. Make them to count themselves but dust and ashes, and, like the serpent, you will see them eat dust, and crawl upon the ground all the days of their life. But may we be

reserved for better things!

Certainly, this must strike any one capable of thinking-in reading the account of the incarnation of the Son of Godthat being able to take upon himself the nature of angels, and even then to stoop unspeakably from his Godhead, he yet chose, what to our finite thoughts is far inferior, the nature of man. He selected that form of flesh and blood with the immortal spirit combined with it, in which I and you are fashioned, rather than that of

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