former the overflowings of paternal tenderness and love, we recognize in the latter the tones of the lawgiver and the judge. Availing myself of this variety, it may serve to promote distinctness and easier recollection, if I classify the quotations I intend to make accordingly.

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I. There are passages which exhibit especially the authority of goodness. Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden; and I will give you rest.' 'If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.' 'Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out.' listen to these great and gracious announcements without feeling himself standing in the presence of superior goodness? His first emotion may be that of admiring gratitude at the display of so much benignity and compassion; but scarcely can it fail to be followed by the delightful yet awful impression, that he is occupying holy ground, standing near the fountain of mercy itself. What distinguished dignity and grace do we recognize in sentences such as these; I am the light of the world;' 'I am the bread of life: I am the way, the truth, and the life;' 'I am the good shepherd, and give unto my sheep eternal life:' 'I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.' When from the midst of the burning bush Jehovah proclaimed himself, I am that I am, he announced his independent existence and self-sufficient perfections; in other words, he declared what he is in himself. In these declarations of Jesus, we recognize the same ineffable Being describing what he is to his people; laying open the resources of his infinite nature, appropriating and applying them, with high complacency in the act, to the wants of our guilty race: in each instance, the dignity addressing us is the same, only that in the language of the Incarnate Word, the awful is exchanged for the attrac

tive and gracious. He spoke like the soul of universal goodness, conscious of a power of breathing into prostrate humanity the breath of life: of entering the vast capacities of the world, and filling them all with a fulness of joy. And, as the only other illustration we shall adduce, think of the opening of his divine discourse on the mount of Beatitudes. How like a cloud of goodness did he crown the honored mount, and shower his benedictions with a copiousness, which showed that it was at once his pleasure and his prerogative to bless. In a way which evinced that, while so employed, he was only engaged in his own peculiar province; that the treasures of eternity were at his command; that in the disposal of them he knew no control; that he thought it no robbery to enact the God; he rejected the minions and favorites of the world, and, calling authoritatively on a peculiar people, he distributed them into classes, assigned to each an appropriate award, and made them free of the universal kingdom of God. Having brought into the world the accumulated treasures of the eternal God, thus publicly did he adopt his heirs, and authoritatively assign to each his respective share. Turning to such as might suffer for his 'name's sake' last, he declared that great should be their reward in heaven ;' thus disclosing the dignity which attached to his name, and the unlimited authority he possesses in heaven.

II. There were occasions when he spoke with the authority of greatness. He that hath ears to hear,' said he, 'let him hear;' and in thus bespeaking universal and submissive attention, he was only repeating the command from the excellent glory which had summoned the world to listen while he spoke, and to receive every word he might utter as law and life. In accordance with the spirit of that command, he did not hesitate to compare himself

Jonah was one
Israelites could

with the most distinguished lights of the Jewish church, and to claim pre-eminence over them all. of the most exalted names of which the boast. His voice, like a blast from the trump of God, had pealed through the streets of Nineveh, and had made all its palaces tremble: his preaching had humbled the mightiest nation of the east; had instrumentally preserved an empire from destruction; had caused their religion and their laws to be revered by the surrounding lands, and had greatly exalted the God of Israel before the heathen. Yet aware that all these impressions of Jonah's greatness were vividly present to their minds, 'behold,' said he, 'a greater than Jonah is here!' Solomon with them was a name for glory. As the the founder of their magnificent temple, as the instrument of raising their nation to the loftiest point of prosperity, as the most highly endowed and wisest of men, the depository and personification of wisdom, they hallowed his name with a reverence which fell little short of idolatry so that to assert superiority to him was, in their eyes, to claim to be considered as more than a man ; as passing beyond the limits of humanity, and invading the precincts of Deity. Yet aware that such was their high and jealous regard for his fame, and while standing amidst the splendid memorials of his greatness, 'Behold,' said he, ‘a greater than Solomon is here!' Not only did he claim to eclipse their brightest luminaries, he spoke of all the flower and prime of their nation, as having longed to complete their earthly distinctions by sitting at his feet, and following in his train. He turned unto his disciples, and said, Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For verily I say unto you, that many prophets, and kings, and righteous men, have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard

them.' And, as though to extinguish with a breath, and forever, all idea of rivalship with him, he distinctly assumed and appropriated as his right, the title of authority his followers had placed at his feet, and affirmed his claim to the entire subjection and allegiance of their faith. Ye call me Master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am: one is your master, even Christ.' Thus taking possession of the sacred domain of conscience in his own name, he erected a throne whose supremacy it is treason to question, and blasphemy to attempt to usurp.

In his graphic and awful allusions to the last day, in none of which he fails to make prominent the glorious tribunal of the Son of man, what a voice of authority and majesty is heard to speak! While reading, for instance, his parabolical representation of it, in the 25th of Matthew, how imperceptibly but irresistibly is the attention engaged and the heart subdued; till, having marked with conscious concern the partition betwixt the sheep and the goats, and intensely listened to his portentous addresses to each, and trembled at the temerity evinced in the defence of the wicked, and sympathized with the characteristic reply of the righteous, we hang with breathless anxiety on the lips which pronounce their respective awards, and feel at the breaking up and departure of the vast assembly to their separate states, as though we ourselves had been arraigned in his august presence, how entirely we are in his hands, and how insignificant we are there. Having amazed his hearers by the announcement of that partial resurrection which accompanied and adorned his own triumph over the grave, he bade them reserve their wonder for the far more impressive scenes of the last day; Marvel not at this, for the hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and shall come forth. If we would recognize the authority which

belongs to every part of his teaching, we have only to realize the thought, that in listening to him, we are actually listening to the voice which is soon to resound through all the nations of the dead, and to which we ourselves shall reply by awaking and leaving the chambers of the grave. When all the universe shall be convened for judgment, the only parties remaining will be He who judges and they who are judged; of all the multiplied relations which now subsist, that which makes us accountable to God will alone be felt so that, were it possible in that awful juncture for every order of created beings to disown and desert us, the calamity would fail, from its comparative insignificance, to attract our notice. Yet the Saviour unequivocally implies that if he alone 'profess to be ashamed' of us, our doom will be sealed that it will be only for him to disown us, happiness and hope will instantly desert us, and from that moment we shall have to date our woe. Virtue, wherever it exists, is greatness of the highest order; for it allies us to supreme greatness; but as though he represented and embodied universal holiness in his own person, as though he were at once the author and champion of all righteousness, he engages to reward every act that befriends it, as an honor conferred on himself; while whatever opposes it, even in thought, he describes as a violence offered to his own nature which he feels himself bound to resent. " Ye did it unto me, or ye did it not unto me;' these are the terms of aggravation in which he depicts himself describing every act, and by which he informs us that, as he sits on the throne of judgment, the great centre of the congregated world, every act will be seen, like a line, pointing to him as its object and end; or else, in forgetfulness and enmity, diverging from him, and losing itself in outer darkness.

The name of a person is a familiar formula to denote his