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ence, manifested in Divine humanity, commingling with us as pure spirit the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That, of course, you say is the name of your God. Now, put away names give words to the winds. What do you adore in your heart of hearts? What is the name oftenest on your lips in your unfet tered, spontaneous moments? If we overheard your secret thoughts, who and what is it which is to you the greatest and the best that you would desire to realize? The character of the rich man, or the suc cessful, or the admired? Would the worst misery which could happen to you be the wreck of property

the worst shame, not to have done wrong, but to have sunk in the estimation of society? Then, in the classifications of earth, which separate men into Jews, Christians, Mahometans, &c., you may rank as a wor shipper of the Christian's God. But in the nomenclature of heaven, where names cannot stand for things, God sees you as an idolater highest. The Name that is above every name is not the description of your God.

your highest is not His

For life and death we have made our choice. The life of Christ—the life of truth and love; and if it must be, as the result of that, the Cross of Christ, with the obloquy and shame that wait on truththat is the name before which we bow. In this world "there are Gods many, and Lords many; but to us there is one Lord, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,"

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7*

IV.

[Preached August 12th, 1849.]

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS BY OBLIVION OF THE PAST.

PHIL. iii. 13, 14. "Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark, for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

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THE first thing which strikes us, on reading these verses, is, that the Apostle Paul places himself on a level with the persons whom he addresses. He speaks to them as frail, weak men; and he gives them in himself a specimen of what frailty and weakness can achieve in the strength of Christ. And it is for this reason that the passage before us is one of the most encouraging in all the writings of St. Paul. For there is one aspect in which the apostle is presented to us, which' is, perhaps, a depressing one. When we look at his almost superhuman career, reverence and admiration we must feel; but so far does he seem removed from ordinary life, that imitation appears out of the question. Let us select but two instances of this discouraging aspect of the apostle's life. Most of us know the feeling of unaccountable depression which rests upon us when we find ourselves alone in a foreign town, with its tide of population ebbing and flowing

past us, a mass of human life in which we ourselves are nothing. But that was Paul's daily existence. He had consecrated himself to an almost perpetual exile. He had given up the endearments of domestic life for ever. Home, in this world, St. Paul had none. With a capacity for the tenderest feelings of our nature, he had chosen for his lot the task of living among strangers, and as soon as they ceased to be strangers quitting them again. He went on month by month attaching congregations to himself, and month by month dooming himself to severance. And yet, I know not that we read of one single trace of depression or discour agement suffered to rest on the apostle's mind. He seems to have been ever fresh and sanguine, the salient energy of his soul rising above the need of all human sympathy. It is the magnificent spectacle of missionary life, with more than missionary loneliness. There is something almost awful in the thought of a man who was so thoroughly in the next world that he needed not the consolations of this world. And yet, observe, there is nothing encouraging for us in this. It is very grand to look upon, very commanding, very full of awe; but it is so much above us, so little like anything human that we know of, that we content ourselves with gazing on him as on the gliding swallow's flight, which we wonder at, but never think of imi tating.

Now, let us look at one other feature in St. Paul's character—his superiority to those temptations which are potent with ordinary men. We say nothing of his being above the love of money of his indifference to a life of comfort and personal indulgence. Those temptations only assail the lower part of our nature;

and it is not saintliness to be above these : common excellence is impossible otherwise. But when we come to look for those temptations which master the higher and the nobler man,- ambition, jealousy, pride,

it is not that we see them conquered by the apostle; they scarcely seem to have even lodged in his bosom at all. It was open to the apostle, if he had felt the ambition, to make for himself a name, to become the leader of a party in Corinth and in the world. And yet remember we not how sternly he put down the thought, and how he labored to merge his individuality in the cause, and make himself an equal of inferior men? 66 Who, then, is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers, servants, by whom ye believed?"

Again, in respect of jealousy. Jealousy seems almost inseparable from human love. It is but the other side of love, the shadow cast by the light when the darker body intervenes. There came to him in prison that most cutting of all news to a minister's heart, that others were trying to supplant him in the affections of his converts. But his was that lofty love which cares less for reciprocation than for the well-being of the objects loved. The rival teachers were teaching from emulation; still they could not but bless by preaching to his disciples. What then? Notwithstanding every way, whether in pretence or in truth, "Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." Not a trace of jealousy in these words.

Once more: Degrading things were laid to his charge. The most liberal-minded of mankind was charged with bigotry. The most generous of men

was suspected of avarice. If ever pride were venial, it had been then. Yet read through the whole of the Second Epistle to the Corinthians, and say if one spark of pride be visible. He might have shut himself up in high and dignified silence; he might have refused too condescend to solicit a renewal of the love which had once grown cold; and yet we look in vain for the symptoms of offended pride. Take this one pas sage as a specimen: "Behold this third time I am willing to come unto you... and I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I am beloved."

In this there is very little encouragement. A man so thoroughly above human resentment, human passions, human weakness, does not seem to us an example. The nearer humanity approaches a perfect standard, the less does it command our sympathy. A man must be weak before we can feel encouraged to attempt what he has done. It is not the Redeemer's sinlessness, nor His unconquerable fidelity to duty, nor His superhuman nobleness, that win our desire to imitate. Rather His tears at the grave of friendship, His shrinking from the sharpness of death, and the feeling of human doubt which swept across His soul, like a desolation these make him one of us, and therefore our example.

And it is on this account that this passage seems to us so full of encouragement. It is the precious picture of a frail and struggling apostle precious both to the man and to the minister. To the man, because it tells him that what we feel Paul felt, imperfect, feeble, far from what he would wish to be; yet with sanguine hope, expecting progress in the saintly