of his people, the desire of all nations? With what eager attention would every word be listened to! with what anxious memory would every saying be treasured up! and with what ardent affection would every breast be glowing, towards him, who thus sanctified the institution of the Holy One, and almost recalled the period, when the first parents of our race had been united in the innocence and happiness of Eden, with the blessing of their God!

My brethren, why cannot the intercourse of society be always marked with something of these holy feelings? Why cannot we meet together in our social intercourse with something of that sacred and sanctified enjoyment, which would be ours, if we felt that Jesus was a guest? Is there no happiness but in the tents of ungodliness? is there no enjoyment but in worldliness? no true delight but in the absence of religious feeling? Believe it not. Religion was not given to encourage gloom, but to promote happiness. Religion was not given to check the exercise of the best affections, but to cast around them the happiness of heaven; to teach us to cherish them as the gift of God, and to bless the giver for his bounty to sanctify them as the means of our earthly enjoyment; and to point to the higher joys of that more perfect state, where they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God.

One more remark forces itself upon our attention; and that, not only as affording a strong evidence of the power of Christ, but also some useful and practical instruction. The excellence of the wine thus formed by the creative power of the Saviour, called forth a remarkable commendation from him who tasted it without the knowledge of its divine origin. "When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: but the servants which drew the water knew; the ruler of the feast calleth the bridegroom, and saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth good wine, and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse, but thou hast kept the good wine until now." We may admire the testimony thus offered to the utter absence of anything like collusion on the part of those present, as to the working of this miracle; we may recur to the affectionate kindness which ministered so abundantly, and with such superior delight, to the guests at this marriage feast; but we may also learn a valuable lesson of encouragement and of hope in our christian course, from this apparently trivial circumstance. "Thou hast kept the good wine until now," will be the language of every child of God, who has long depended upon the bounty, and gratefully acknowledged the compassion of the gracious Saviour. Let the enjoyments of the worldly be what they may; let them seek

and obtain gratification from the thousand sources of this world's enjoyment; let them drain every fountain of honour, of wealth, of pleasure; still they will find that all these pall upon the taste; that they cannot long satisfy the cravings of the soul after happiness; that they partake rather of the bitter fruit of the forbidden tree, than of that tree of life from which man's iniquities have driven him. But Christ has opened the way to the tree of life: he has imparted to the cup of this world's sorrows the balm of an immortal hope he has made the happiness arising from the bright prospect of an eternity, to be more vivid, as that eternity approaches; he has done more than the prophet, who healed indeed the waters, but left them waters still; he has infused into all our earthly comforts, the drop that turns water into wine-a wine that is but growing richer and more fragrant, as we approach to the fountain whence it springs-a wine that shall gradually increase our happiness and enjoyment here, till that blessed period shall arrive, when, unmixed with any ingredient of bitterness, and unstained by any tear of sorrow, we shall drink it, with him who has given it to us, new in the kingdom of our God.

30

SERMON III.

THE PASSION OF JESUS CHRIST.

PREACHED THE SUNDAY NEXT BEFORE EASTER.

LUKE xxii. 41, 42.

And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down and prayed, saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.

We have now arrived at that season of our eccle

siastical year, in which our church calls upon us to contemplate the great truths of atonement and reconciliation by the blood of Jesus Christ. We have been led, through a period of humiliation before God on account of sin, to acknowledge the impossibility of human efforts, the inefficacy of human merits, to render us acceptable to God. We have learnt from the continual confession of our own unworthiness, and the constant prayer to God for pardon and for grace, to prepare our minds for the humble acceptance of his merciful gift of a Saviour, to perceive the adaptation of

that gift to our necessities and our sorrows. In order to supply us with the means requisite for our due perception of these important truths, our church, as is her constant custom, has recourse to the inexhaustible treasures of the word of God; and in her truly beautiful services for the week which we have now commenced, she so brings together the varied testimony of prophets, evangelists, and apostles; she so accumulates the facts, the prophecies, the reasonings, of the sacred writers, as to leave no room for doubt of the harmony of the system of revealed truth. The dignity of the Saviour, the purport of his mission, the depth of his humiliation, the efficacy of his sacrifice, the typical reference of the Jewish sacrifices to his atonement,-all these are placed in strong contrast with the history of his last days on earth; all these are blended together, to form the lineaments of him who was our high-priest of good things to come.

As it is impossible to view the record of the transactions of Jesus Christ in his intercourse with mankind during his sojourn on earth, in the light of an ordinary history; as it is impossible to leave out of our contemplation of his works their reference to the mighty objects of his mission; so the perception of this reference becomes more clear, as we approach the scenes of his final sufferings. The beautiful adaptation of his works of mercy to some higher object may not