Redeemer's strength by which he subdues sinners to himself; rules even in the midst of his enemies; exercises his glorious authority in his church, and exhibits a visible proof to men and angels, that he is King in Zion.

(2.) The efficient means to which the gospel owes its success, and the name of Jesus its praise, is the agency of the Holy Ghost.

Christianity is the ministration of the Spirit. All real and sanctifying knowledge of the truth and love of God is from his inspiration. It was the last and best promise which the Saviour made to his afflicted disciples at the moment of parting, I will send the Comforter, the Spirit of truth; He shall glorify me, for he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. It is he who convinces the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment-who infuses resistless vigour into means otherwise weak and useless. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God, God the Spirit, to the pulling down of strong holds. Without his benediction, the ministry of an archangel would never convert one sinner from the error of his way. But when he descends, with his life-giving influence from God out of heaven, then foolish things of the world confound the wise; and weak things of the world con

found the things which are mighty; and base things of the world, and things which are despised, yea, and things which are not, bring to nought things which are. It is this ministration of the Spirit which renders the preaching of the gospel to men dead in trespasses and sins a reasonable service. When I am set down in the valley of vision, and view the bones, very many and very dry, and am desired to try the effect of my own ability in recalling them to life, I will fold my hands and stand mute in astonishment and despair. But when the Lord God commands me to speak in his name, my closed lips shall be opened; when he calls upon the breath from the four winds to breathe upon the slain that they may live, I will prophecy without fear—O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord, and, obedient to his voice, they shall come together, bone to his bone; shall be covered with sinews and flesh; shall receive new life, and stand up upon their feet, an exceeding great army. In this manner, from the graves of nature, and the dry bones of natural men, does the Holy Spirit recruit the armies of the living God, and make them, collectively and individually, a name, and a praise, and a glory, to the Captain of their salvation.

(3.) Among the instruments which the Lord Jesus employs in the admin

istration of his government, are the resources of the physical and moral world. Supreme in heaven and in earth, upholding all things by the word of his power, the universe is his magazine of means. Nothing which acts or exists, is exempted from promoting in its own place the purposes of his kingdom. Beings rational and irrational; animate and inanimate; the heavens above and the earth below; the obedience of sanctified, and the disobedience of unsanctified, men; all holy spirits ; all damned spirits: in one word, every agency, every element, every atom, aré but the ministers of his will, and concur in the execution of his designs. And this he will demonstrate to the confusion of his enemies, and the joy of his people, in that great and terrible day when he shall sit upon the throne of his glory, and dispense ultimate judgment to the quick and the dead.

Upon these hills of holiness, the stability of Messiah's throne, and the perfect administration of his kingdom, let us take our station, and survey the Prospects which rise up before the church of God.

When I look upon the magnificent scene, I cannot repress the salutation, Hail thou that art highly favoured!

She has the prospect of preservation, of increase, and of triumph.

(1.) The prospect of preservation.

The long existence of the Christian church would be pronounced, upon common principles of reasoning, impossible. She finds in every man a natural and inveterate enemy. Το encounter and overcome the unanimous hostility of the world, she boasts no political stratagem, no disciplined legions, no outward coercion of any kind. Yet her expectations is that she shall live forever. To mock this hope, and blot out her memorial from under heaven, the most furious efforts of fanaticism, the most ingenious arts of statesmen, the concentrated strength of empires, have been frequently and perseveringly applied. The blood of her sons and her daughters has streamed like water; the smoke of the scaffold and the stake, where they won the crown of martyrdom in the cause of Jesus, has ascended in thick volumes to the skies. The tribes of persecution have sported over her woes, and erected monuments, as they imagined, of her perpetual ruin. But where are her tyrants, and where their empires? the tyrants have long since gone to their own place; their names have descended upon the roll of infamy; their empires have passed, like shadows over the rock-they have successively disappeared, and left not a trace behind!

But what became of the church? She rose from her ashes fresh in beauty and in might. Celestial glory beamed around her; she dashed down the monumental marble of her foes, and they who hated her fled before her. She has celebrated the funeral of kings and kingdoms that plotted her destruction; and, with the inscriptions of their pride, has transmitted to posterity the record of their shame. How shall this phenomenon be explained? We are, at the present moment, witnesses of the fact; but who can unfold the mystery? This blessed book, the book of truth and life, has made our wonder to cease. The Lord her God in the midst of her is mighty. His presence is a fountain of health, and his protection a wall of fire. He has betrothed her, in eternal covenant, to himself. Her living Head, in whom she lives, is above, and his quickening Spirit shall never depart from her. Armed with divine virtue, his gospel, secret, silent, unobserved, enters the hearts of men and sets up an everlasting kingdom. It eludes all the vigilance, and baffles all the power, of the adversary. Bars, and bolts, and dungeons are no obstacle to its approach : Bonds, and tortures, and death cannot extinguish its influence. Let no man's heart tremble then, because of fear.