SERMON IX.

BY REV. BENJAMIN F. LAMBORD.

THE SOUL TRANSFORMED BY A BELIEVING VIEW OF GOD.

2 CORINTHIANS III, 18.

BUT WE ALL, WITH OPEN FACE BEHOLDING AS IN A GLASS THE GLORY OF THE LORD, ARE CHANGED INTO THE SAME IMAGE FROM GLORY TO GLORY, EVEN AS BY THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD.

HAD not St. Paul possessed a remarkably enterprising and undaunted spirit, he must have been obstructed in his holy career as an ambassador of Jesus Christ. Called and qualified by God, to be a mighty engine in subverting the empire of darkness, he met with formidable opposition, wherever he went to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. But, like the sun in his course, he was not to be diverted from the path he was appointed to pursue. ness was the grand object at which he uniformly aimed, and to which he endeavored to conduct his hearers. He was not like those feeble and timid souls who are content with being mere novitiates in Christianity; but, launching into the deep things of God himself, he endeavored to present "every man perfect in Christ Jesus."

Holi

The better to facilitate his benevolent design, he urged the Corinthians to holiness, by presenting the law and the gospel in contrast. The law he denominates the ministration of death, because it ascertains sin, and condemns to condign punishment. But the gospel he calls the ministration of life, as its grand business is to proclaim the doctrine of justification, and to show how God can "be just, and yet the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus." Although there was a glory which attended the giving of the law upon Sinai, so that even the body of Moses partook of the effulgence, in such a manner that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look upon the face of Moses; yet it was eclipsed by the superior glory of the gospel, which not only looks with equal abhorrence on sin, but furnishes a method to forgive it; to remove its guilt from the conscience; and

entirely save the soul from its infection. The law, with its apparatus of ceremonies and sacrifices, was only a shadow or general outline of spiritual good; but the gospel is the substance or thing represented. The law detained its worshippers in the outward court, interdicting their approach to the superior privileges of the gospel, by a veil of types and shadows. But the gospel throws down the partition, and introduces the believer into the holy of holies. The disciples of Moses had a veil over their minds, so that they were ignorant of the spiritual meaning of their own law; but, under the Christian dispensation, "We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord."

These words lead us to contemplate

I. THE GRAND OBJECT PRESENTED IN THE TEXT.

II. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE BELIEVER RESPECTING IT.
III. THE EFFECT WHICH THIS VIEW PRODUCES.

I. THE GRAND OBJECT IN THE TEXT.

This is the glory of the Lord. What a stupendous contemplation for a finite mind! It is with hesitancy that the most improved intellect dares approach this abyss of divine wisdom, with no adequate means of acquiring a knowledge of its dimensions. "Who can by searching find out God?". But, although we may not expect to fathom the mystery involved in the divine perfections, yet we are permitted to gaze, wonder and adore. By the glory of the Lord, we are to understand his moral attributes, his wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, veracity and mercy. But the refulgent glory of these perfections can no more be viewed directly by our moral vision, than the resplendent luminary of heaven can by the bodily

eye.

"While thee, all infinite, I set,

By faith, before my ravish'd eye;

My weakness bends beneath the weight-
O'erpower'd, I sink, I faint, I die."

But in condescension to human weakness, and the better to assist our view of the divine glory, God has furnished us with a glass or mirror. The glory of the Lord is exhibited,

1. In the works of creation. "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." The visible works of God as clearly refer to his invisible perfections, as any piece of mechanism does to the ingenious artist who wrought it. The immensity of these works declare his omnipotence; their vast variety and contrivance, his omniscience; their singular adap

tation to the most beneficent purposes, his infinite goodness. "The heavens," says the Psalmist," declare the glory of God; and the firmament showeth his handy work." The language composing these truly eloquent lectures is too plain not to be understood; and so legible are their characters, that even the most unpolished and barbarous nations, who are destitute of skill, either in languages or letters, are able to comprehend their meaning. Indeed a man may as well doubt there is a sun, while surrounded at mid-day with the splendor he emits, as to question the existence of an infinitely wise and powerful being, while he devoutly contemplates the starry heavens. Could we accompany the astronomer while he wanders through the immeasurable fields of space, and see him take the dimensions of those ponderous planets which the night unfolds, and calculate their distances and revolutions, our souls would be illumined with a celestial radiance at a scene so sublime. The sun in the centre of the planetary system, surrounded with his primary or principal planets, and those with their secondary or accompanying satellites in their annual revolution, present such a view of the Creator's glory, as cannot fail to fill the devout mind with admiration and gratitude. When we contemplate a system of worlds, some of which are thousands of times larger than our earth, situated millions of miles from the central luminary, and travelling round it with the utmost regularity and exactness, with a velocity of thousands of miles every hour; what elevated conceptions must we have of that glorious being, who understands and applies the laws by which this stupendous system is governed!

"What though no real voice or sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found;
What though, in solemn silence, all
Move round our dark terrestrial ball;

In reason's ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing, as they shine,-
The hand that made us is divine."

If, descending from a contemplation of the starry heavens, we bend our attention to our globe and its productions, and take a view. of the animals that move upon its surface, we shall behold the glory: of God in every grade of animated and inanimate nature, from the feeble mite to the stately elephant, from the pebble to the snow-capt mountain. The air and water teem with life. And there is so much of God to be seen in the mechanical organization of the human frame, that even an Atheist, candidly contemplating it, must be cured, and with the devout Psalmist exclaim, "I will praise Thee, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works, and that my soul knoweth right well." Psalm cxxxix. 14.

N

2. A superintending providence shows the glory of the Lord. The Lord has not formed the world by his wisdom, and then abandoned it and its inhabitants to the blind impulse of chance; but, like a forecasting and ever watchful machinist, he keeps every part of the vast and complicated machinery in order. Although the nature of that secret energy which governs both the natural and moral world may be involved in mystery to finite minds, yet we are not at liberty to question clearly authenticated fact, merely because we understand not the manner in which it is effected. To have a view of God's glory, as exhibited in the kingdom of providence, we are under no necessity of selecting those sudden and unexpected vicissitudes, which have occasionally astonished the nations, and directed their wandering attention to the hand of God. We need not have recourse to the history of worldly heroes, whose enterprising and ambitious spirit has prompted them to achievements which have cost the treasures and blood of nations. We may confine our observations to those whose earthly pilgrimage has passed in the humbler walks of life, and who have possessed nothing splendid to recommend them to public observation. Select, for example, the family of Jacob. Who would have supposed, when so dark a cloud hung upon his prospects, that such a course would have been pursued to raise him to competency, comfort, and respectability? But in this providence there was a wheel within a wheel, which, though not disclosed, was regularly revolving, to bring prosperity to the afflicted patriarch. His darling Joseph is taken from him; Simeon is detained as a hostage in a strange country; and a further demand is made for his beloved Benjamin. No wonder the venerable patriarch exclaimed, "All these things are against me!" But when he was restored to the embrace of his long lamented Joseph, the perplexing enigma was explained to his satisfaction.

It is in this way, that some apparently trivial occurrence sometimes conducts to a revolution even in a mighty empire. With much deliberation men project their favorite plans; they imagine every precaution has been taken, and adequate provision made against any evil that may be apprehended; and, after such prudent measures, they think every thing must be perfectly guarded and secure; but some little event, to which their eagle vision did not extend, has transpired, and lo! the whole course of things has taken a new direction, and blasted their highest hopes. Who can but see the hand of God in this! By the decree of Augustus, to enrol and tax the Roman empire, Joseph and Mary were called from their beloved obscurity and thus the prophecy was accomplished that Messiah should be born at Bethlehem. Counter-currents may threaten to impede and turn out of its course the tide of human affairs; but the

invisible hand of God guides and overrules its devious windings, till it is swallowed in the ocean of the divine design, the glory of God and the good of his devoted people.

That sin has marred the peace, disturbed the order, and sullied the glory of the moral world, is no argument against the perfection of God's government. He does not govern moral agents by an arbitrary exercise of power, as he does the planetary worlds. These, having no capacity to choose the course they describe, are kept in motion by that omnipotent Agent, who formed and gave them their original impulse. But man possesses a power to choose, will, determine and act. Without such a power, he could have no meral capacity, nor be under any moral obligation. A being who is not at liberty to act, cannot be denominated virtuous or vicious. It is this power of choice, that explains and vindicates God's conduct towards man as a moral agent. With respect to particular events, the divine government is sometimes so involved in obscurity, that it is difficult to satisfy ourselves as to the end proposed in certain arrangements; but when the mist scatters, we see that God had our greatest good in view, even in those dispensations which appeared to be against us. The cause of virtue and religion may seem at times to languish under the arm of oppression; serious godliness may be threatened by an overwhelming torrent of infidelity, so that we may be tempted to believe that God has abandoned the world to lawless anarchy, and no longer makes any distinction between vice and virtue. But while he suffers the wicked to triumph, it is that his justice may be the more conspicuously illustrated in the destruction of those. who abuse his patience and long-suffering.

3. But it is in the work of redemption that the divine attributes are most conspicuously declared and harmonized. Here "mercy and truth meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. But a limited view of this stupendous work nearly overpowers the human faculties, and we are constrained to exclaim, "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." Redemption is the divine expedient to restore fallen man to the favor of his God, by virtue of the vicarious and sacrificial death of Christ, the incarnate Son of God. It signifies that we are covered from the avenging justice of God, by the atonement of Christ. We are bought off from the curse of the law, not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." The more clearly to discover the harmony of the divine attributes in this wonderful work, we must take a view of the wretched condition of man, at the time such an expedient became necessary. He was a fallen, guilty, helpless creature. Originally he was made in honor, and constituted