who is "able to save to the uttermost "1 all who would go unto God through Him; and the angels are ascending and descending upon it, for they have charge over the righteous to keep them in all their ways; and the Almighty Himself looks down on those who are climbing painfully upwards, that He may send them succour when the hand is relaxing and the foot failing. I can answer for it, that every one of you may, if he will, mount by this ladder, seeing that Christ took human nature, and thus united earth and heaven as the substitute of all. I can answer for it, that none who strive to mount by this ladder shall fail of everlasting life; for those who believe on Christ can never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of His hand. The canopy of the sky seems lined with the "cloud of witnesses."2 Those who have gone before are bidding us climb, through the one Mediator, to their lofty abode. We come, we come. Your call shall be obeyed. Your voices animate us, as they steal down in solemn and beautiful cadence. And, God helping, there shall not be one of us who does not seek salvation through the blood and righteousness of Jesus; not one who shall not share with you the throne and the diadem.

SERMON II

THE CONTINUED AGENCY OF THE FATHER AND THE SON

"But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh hitherto, and E work."-ST. JOHN v. 17.

IT

T is a very peculiar argument which Christ here employs to disprove the charge of having broken the Sabbath. We will refer for a few moments to the context that you may understand the drift and force of the reasoning. Christ had healed the impotent man, who had lain for a long time by the pool of Bethesda. He had bidden him take up his bed and walk; and the cripple was immediately enabled to obey the command. It was on the Sabbath-day that this great miracle was wrought; and the circumstance of the man carrying his bed through the streets attracted the notice of those who were jealous for the ceremonial law. They taxed the man with doing what it was not lawful to do on the Sabbath; he justified himself by pleading the direction of the Being by whom he had been healed. This led to an inquiry as to the author of the miracle; and so soon as the Jews had ascertained that it was Jesus they persecuted Him, and "sought to slay Him, because He had done these things on the Sab

bath-day."1 In order to show them the unreasonableness of their conduct, and to prove that He had authority for what He had done, Christ made use of the words of our text, words by which He seemed to the Jews to claim essential Divinity, however modern objectors may fail to find in them such assumption. You read that, so soon as Christ had said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work," His enemies took a new ground for seeking His death. "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill Him, because He not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was His Father, making Himself equal with God." 2

It is very observable that the Jews considered Christ as claiming actual equality with God-a plain indication, we think, that such was the meaning which His words bore. The contemporaries of the Saviour, addressed by Him in their native tongue, were more likely to perceive the true sense of what He said than ourselves, who receive His discourses in a dead language. At all events, supposing that the Jews mistook His meaning, what can be said of His not correcting the mistake? So soon as He knew that they were enraged at Him for a supposed violation of the Sabbath, He entered on His vindication and sought to prove the charge groundless. But did He do anything similar, when He knew Himself accused of "making Himself equal with God?" The charge was far heavier. If Christ had been only a creature, a mere man like one of ourselves, it would have been nothing short of blasphemy had He proclaimed Himself "equal with God." We may be sure, therefore, that, if the Jews had been. wrong in inferring from Christ's words a claim to divinity, they would not have been suffered to continue in error. 1 John v. 16. 2 John v. 28.

We may be sure, we say, of this; for even those who are most earnest in contending that Christ was only man, allow that He was a good man, and no deceiver: they are not ready to accuse Him of uttering blasphemy, or of being wholly indifferent as to what construction might be put upon His words. Yet, it is very certain, that when Christ knew Himself charged with making Himself "equal with God," He attempted no denial, but spake in terms which must have confirmed the Jews in the inference which they had drawn from our text. We find Him immediately afterwards saying, "What things soever the Father doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise"1—words which, in place of contradicting the supposition that He meant to declare Himself every way divine, admit no consistent interpretation, unless the power of the Son be precisely the same with that of the Father. And thus it would appear, either that it was a true inference which the Jews drew from our text, when they concluded that Christ affirmed Himself equal with God; or that Christ, when He knew the interpretation put upon His words, took no pains to defend Himself against the charge of blasphemy, but made statements which rather went to prove the charge just.

The Re

We do not well see how the deniers of Christ's Divinity are to extricate themselves from this dilemma. deemer had used words which the Jews interpreted into a claim of equality with God. The interpretation was either correct or incorrect. If correct, Christ meant to declare Himself divine, and there can be no debate that He actually was. If incorrect, then Christ, who was not silent under a charge of Sabbath-breaking, would not have been silent under a charge of the worst possible blasphemy: at least, He would not have countenanced the charge, by 1 John v. 19.

using more of the same suspicious language. Hence the only fair conclusion seems to be that the Jews had put the right construction on our text; and that Christ actually designed to assert His proper deity, when, in order to prove that He had not broken the Sabbath by healing on that day, He said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work."

Indeed we know not what force there would be in the argument on any supposition but that of Christ's being equal with God. The accusation against Christ was, that He had broken the Sabbath by working a miracle. How does He meet the charge? Simply by saying, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." But what answer, what apology is this? There is an answer, and there is an apology, on the supposition that Christ was God, but not on any other. God, though He had ceased from creating, was continually occupied in sustaining and preserving, so that He performed works of mercy on the Sabbath-day, as well as on every other, making His sun to shine on the evil and the good, and His rain to descend on the just and the unjust. And if Christ were God, then, in curing the impotent man on the Sabbath, He had only exercised the prerogative of Deity, and continued what had been His practice from the very beginning of the world. The Jews, therefore, might as well have objected, that God brake His own ordinance by those actings of His providence which took place without respect of days, as that Christ had violated the Sabbath by healing the sick. But if Christ were not God, we know not what right He had to refer to what God did, and thereby to attempt His own vindication. Unquestionably, the practice of the Creator could not rightly be quoted in proof, that a mere creature might do what that he thought fit on