gain a dignity which this world cannot give, and a durability which it cannot take away. Those who are bound together in Christ, have part already in that house not made with hands, which is eternal in the heavens. To them even this world's objects are ennobled, and especially those members of their Lord, who have part in His glory. "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is."

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SERMON II.

THE SANCTIFICATION OF HUMANITY.

ST. JOHN, xvii. 19.

"For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth."

SOME passages of Holy Writ stand out with peculiar prominence, even in its sacred volume. Such is that declaration in Isaiah's prophecy, in which the mediatorial character of Our Lord's

offering is set forth. Other parts of the Old Testament lead us to this truth: the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah alone asserts it. In like manner may we refer to the Gospel of St. John, as containing the only full declaration of those great truths respecting Our Lord's nature and offices, to which the Epistles of St. Paul make perpetual allusion. That Christ is for ever with the people of His love, that the ordinances of His grace are an actual engrafting into Himself, that by Church

union we mean not the compacting of an external framework, but the real diffusion of a spiritual presence all these leading truths of the Gospel it was reserved for the last survivor of the Apostles, to set forth with such fulness as might render them a light to the Church even to the end of time. Hence the explanation of the spiritual effects of Baptism in his third, and of the inward benefits of the Holy Communion in his sixth chapter.

But none of these passages come up in interest to that which supplies our text. In other places Our Lord speaks to man, in this does He address Himself to God. In these wonderful verses we have His own summary of the purposes which He designed to effect for the people of His love. He speaks as the Church's head, as our intercessor, He explains more at length that which on Calvary He was to perfect and perform, we have the Church's charter from His lips who created it, we have the nature of those gifts which He left to man. This chapter, therefore, turns upon the greatness of that privilege, which was bestowed upon man's nature through the Incarnation of the Son of God, and upon the reality of that consequent union with Himself, which He bestows upon His brethren the sons of Adam, through the Sacramental ordinances of His grace.

A subject surely as deep as it is glorious. For it is built on that which was truly the labour of a God. "For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that

they might also be sanctified through, or by the truth." The points here set forth are, first, that Our Lord's human nature was to be sanctified and secondly, that the end of His work was the sanctification of ours. Let us take these things in order. In order that Our Lord's Manhood might become the sanctifying principle of the Church, it was needful that itself must first be sanctified. "For their sakes I sanctify Myself." Plain it is that of His Humanity Our Lord here speaks. He was God as well as man; with the perfectness of both natures their actual union interfered not. But it was His human nature only which could be sanctified. The Godhead admits not of further purity; it is purity itself. It is light from light : the truth itself which cannot be obscured. Therefore that which was sanctified was that human nature, which, though pure, was yet capable of greater perfection. For there flowed into it those unspeakable gifts of grace and glory, which it derived from its supernatural union with the Deity of Christ. From the first it had been free from sin by virtue of that presence of Godhead, by which the imperfectness of our nature was corrected. For to Christ alone are the words of the Book of Wisdom applicable-"being good I came into a body undefiled."

Now this human being, which the Son of God associated to His own in the Virgin's womb-this "perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human

flesh subsisting"-was the subject of that wonderful discipline, whereby through the sufferings of His worldly life, was perfected the Incarnate nature of the Son of God. "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." And this task was now accomplished; the hour was come: "I have finished," He says, "the work which Thou gavest Me to do."

And this leads us to the second point which the text declares, the end, i. e. of this stupendous example of humiliation and love. It is expressly stated to have reference to ourselves. "For their sakes I sanctify Myself that they might also be sanctified by the truth." And so says St. Paul, that "Christ is of God made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption." He is made unto us redemption. For He it is who hath "made peace through the blood of His cross." In His own words, He gave "His life a ransom instead of many."

On this topic do the Apostles dwell at large. They prove to the Jew, whose confidence was in the merit of his ceremonial rites, and to the philosopher whose hope rested in his moral uprightness, that "there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved." For the first step towards man's recovery was to bring him back from his lost estate, and therefore, says the

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