commit a cool and deliberate sin, when in that body in which he sinned, he must arise at the last day before the judgment seat of Christ, to render an account of his works, and in that very body to receive a just retribution. How shall he defile that body, which in the sight of men and of angels, shall rise again, the living testimony of its pollutions in the flesh. How shall this earthly tabernacle awake to glory hereafter, except it be sanctified as the temple of the Holy Spirit here? They that have glorified God in their body and spirit, which are God's, here, shall be glorified by God in the same, hereafter, for they are both "bought with a price," even with the blood of our Redeemer.

Sickness and trouble, misery and affliction, are the inheritance of the sons of corruption. Every hour are they liable to the torments of the acutest pain, the lingering irritations of prolonged disease, the sinkings of a shattered frame; yet, even here, in the sharpest agonies which our wounded nature can bear, how animating is the hope, how vivifying and powerful the consolation, that in these very bodies, now groaning under the torments of pain and the afflictions of corruption, we shall rise again the heirs of immortality, emancipated from every power of disease, delivered from the bond of pain and corruption; that in these very bodies, we shall receive the fulness of joy

and pleasure, unalloyed with any admixture or idea of pain, at that blessed period," when sin and sorrow shall be no more, and all tears shall be for ever wiped from every eye."

Here then, as upon a rock, the Christian takes his stand, in sure and certain hope, that the same Almighty arm, which, in the revolution of light and darkness, in the resuscitation of the vegetable world around him from the wintry grave, restores every thing to man, shall restore also man to himself. He rests assured that when his earthly tabernacle shall be dissolved into dust, and return to the ground from whence it came, that by the mighty power of God the same shall rise again, and appear before the judgment-seat of Christ to receive its doom, and being washed and made pure in the blood of the Lamb, shall admit a glorified and an incorruptible form. In the season of temptation, this powerful thought shall raise him above the sink and pollutions of the flesh; in the day of disease and anguish, this shall sustain his fainting heart, this shall cheer and support his sinking spirits. In the hour of impending dissolution, will he resign with humble and unabated assurance his mortal frame to the power of death, and the corruption of the tomb. With his last breath will he join in the comforting voice of the suffering Patriarch, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall

stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God, whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold and not another."

SERMON VI.

MATTHEW ii. 2.

Where is he that is born King of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the East, and are come to worship him.

THE peculiar wisdom of the sacred historians, does not any where appear in a stronger point of view, than in their relation of the events attendant on the incarnation and childhood of our blessed Lord.

Volumes, indeed, they might have written regarding this period of his life on which the pious Christian would have dwelt with admiration and with love; but their providential and intimate acquaintance with the perversions of the human mind, taught them to withhold the narration of those circumstances, which might minister alone to the gratification of unmeaning curiosity, or to the encouragement of vulgar superstition. The events which they related were few, but those few were of the deepest importance. Every incident is pregnant with evidence, and collectively

they conspire to frame the strongest body of testimony in favour of that incarnation, on which the whole fabric of Christianity is founded. A more powerful instance cannot occur, than in the fact recorded in the chapter from which my text is taken; a fact, which has called forth in the support of Christianity, the most remarkable examples of collateral evidence, and has furnished in itself the most decided vindication of the universality of that all-powerful, and all-extensive system of redemption, which was displayed even in the cradle of its divine Author.

Thus, then, is our attention directed to two points; first, to the circumstances actually attending the event in question; and secondly, to the important consequences resulting from this early manifestation to the Gentile world of their Saviour and their God.

It will be our first point to consider from whom the question came, "Where is he who is born king of the Jews? for we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship him." It came from those, who were wholly unconnected with the Jewish nation, manners, and customs; it came from those, who lived at far too great a distance, to have the slightest acquaintance with the transactions of so remote a country. The wise men from the east could be but little known to the inhabitants of Judea, and were they known