the grave, whole nations were wont to keep Sabbath in holy dread and reverent admiration. They bethought them of their own interest in that great work, which the Son of Man was at this season effecting. They could not feast and rejoice, when the one common Head of their race was being lifted up upon the cross before their eyes. They rather chose to ponder His acts, to recount those blessed deeds by which He had effected their forgiveness, to count over His wounds, to tell the circumstances of His passion.

And surely it was a blessed custom it spoke a genuine love to Him, the least particular of whose sorrows should not be indifferent to those whom He died to save. Therefore did men love to recount and dwell upon those single acts of suffering, which together made up that mighty expiation. They sat sorrowing themselves before their Master's cross. Brethren, let us do so likewise. Let us retire somewhat to-day from the busy world, and meditate on the passion of Our Great Deliverer. Thus let us learn greater hatred for those sins, which have covered the earth with such a flood of evils.

Oh, Lord Jesus,

By the virtue of Thy holy prayer, which Thou three times prayedst:

By Thy fearful dread of death,

By all that unknown labour and torment, which Thou sufferedst all that night,

By Thy great meekness, which did not refuse to be comforted by an angel;

In all times comfort us.

By Thy thirst and tasting of gall and vinegar, grant us to taste the sweetness of Thy spirit.

By that piteous cry, in the which Thou commendedst Thy soul to Thy Father,

Our souls be commended to Thee.

By the bitterness of Thy death, and the intolerable pain, wherewith Thy heart brake;

By the opening of Thy side with a spear, and the flowing out of Thy most precious blood,

Smite through, good Lord, my heart with the spear of Thy Godly love.

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SERMON XIV.

EASTER.

I. CORINTHIANS, xv. 22.

"As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be
made alive."

WITH these words does our Church welcome the return of Easter. Thus does she remind us that Christ is the new Adam of man's race. From Him it takes fresh growth: like our first father, He is its origin and root.

Let us view this truth in its source and its consequences. It is Christ Our Lord by whom we are thus quickened. It is Christ, and not the Eternal Father, of whom we speak. True, He is one with the Father: the Eternal Word, by whom all things were created. In this character therefore is He the Maker of mankind. But that of which we now speak is something distinct from the work of creation. We refer to the work which He wrought through His human nature. What

soever He did, was wrought by One who was also God; this unity could never be divided; yet inasmuch as in His one person there were ever present two natures, human and divine, He could work now through one, and now through the other. And however the two natures were in their operations united, they were diverse in their effects. To create unnumbered worlds, to exist before the days of ancient Abraham, to forgive sins, to heal sicknesses, to discern the secrets of the heart, these were the proper functions of that Divine nature, which belonged to the Son of God. Through its energy could He walk the sea: by its glory was He transfigured on the mountain. But to hunger and thirst, to sit weary by Jacob's well, to weep for kindred griefs, to be sorrowful under mental agonies, to sink under the cross, to suffer, faint, and die— these were the human properties of the Man of sorrows. Of these things Godhead in itself, so to say, is incapable. They belong to a lower nature. They pertain to those who have been moulded from the earth.

Now it is by virtue of this last nature that Our Lord has become a new head to man's race. Here is no question of creation: it is not the raising of a new stock out of the parent ground: the work is achieved by man and for man: for "since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead." No words can prove more clearly than those of the Apostle, that it was by

M

the power of His humanity that our Master triumphed. He gave a new root to man's being, but it was through the virtue of that real manhood, whereby He lived among us.

And now let us consider, Secondly, what is meant by this humanity of Christ. We mean that He possesses the true nature of a man, save that His body is glorified. A man He still is, both in body and soul, but so penetrated are both by that Godhead, from which they can never be separate, that both of them are raised to a height of surpassing glory. In the mount of Transfiguration this glory showed itself in somewhat of its proper character. His very disciples looked with terror at the brightness of that countenance, in which mercy and compassion had their usual seat. After His resurrection, likewise, did He walk forth with somewhat of that awe, with which His glorified manhood was properly invested. When He entered therefore into their closed assembly-when He stood on the tranquil beach, near which they had returned to their ancient occupations when He ascended finally on high, they saw the outskirts of His glorified nature. This it was, which when the Apostle of the Gentiles beheld, as he journeyed over the sultry sands towards Damascus, he was blinded during three days by a radiance above the brightness of the sun. Before this, as we read in the book of Revelations, the beloved Apostle St. John fell down as though dead.