scripture makes perhaps no mention of him | the world he had left, they procured for in this character. It exhibits him to us as him. Never by power or by might did he one like unto ourselves, appearing among bring it down. Thrice the voice of his Fa sinners in a sinner's form; and then it bids us look on the opening heavens, it bids us listen to the voice that says, as it rends the skies, to this lowly Jesus, "Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.'

ther proclaimed him blessed, but it was prayer that pierced his Father's abode. He never called his own holy Son beloved, except when he beheld him a suppliant at his feet.

We see here also the insufficiency of or dinances. Baptism, though administered by a prophet and received by Christ, was

efficacy was limited; it evidently left much undone. It could not touch the soul of Jesus; it did not qualify him for his media. torial work. To accomplish these ends, the Holy Ghost comes down from on high, rests and abides on him.

God is well pleased with his people; "he taketh pleasure," we are told, "in them that fear him;" he speaks of them as his delight, his portion, his jewels, his powerless; or if it had any efficacy, that diadem, his glory; and he does and says this because they are connected with his Son, the purchase of his blood and the redeemed of his grace; because his own attributes and excellences are reflected in them. What then must be his joy in that Son himself? in him from whom his people derive all in them that is glorious? in him who is the great manifestation of God to his wondering creatures; whom he himself calls by the Holy Ghost, "the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person?" Much joy flows sometimes from the poor love that is found on earth; more still from the love of heaven; but what must that joy be which flows into the infinite mind of Jehovah from such love as he can feel to such a Son! And then comes this thought, cheering and elevating to the Christian's heart-A portion of that joy will soon be mine. My God will one day say to me, "Enter thou into my joy."

From a review of this history we learn, first, the importance which God attaches to his own ordinances, the honor he puts on them. The dwelling-place of Jehovah is opened, a symbol of the divine majesty becomes visible to mortal eyes, the Spirit descends embodied on Christ, a voice from the throne of heaven is heard on earth declaring his greatness; and when? Not while he is performing his wonderful works; treading the waters, ruling the winds, healing the sick, or raising the dead; but while he is baptized in Jordan; while, as dependent and needy, he is looking upward in

and

What then do men mean, when they contend that the mere sprinkling of water can reach our earthly minds and regenerate us? What then do some of you mean by looking to sacraments, and prayers, sermons, for acceptance with God? Brethren, all the water in all the rivers on the earth, consecrated and blessed by all the prophets and ministers the earth ever bore, could not wash away from your souls the stain of one transgression; it could not sub due within your hearts one evil passion; it could not implant there one holy thought. Experience tells us how weak sermons and sacraments often are. The emptiest tale that was ever told, could not affect us less than they at times affect some of us, nor weary us more. As for prayer, it is omnipotent; but not that prayer which goes up mingled with the workings of self-sufficiency, which looks to itself for its power, and depends on the merit that offers it, for its reward. The same Spirit who excites prayer, must give prayer its efficacy. It is the Spirit accompanying ordinances and working by them, that makes ordinances blessings. Without this Spirit, we are far away from the light of God's countenance; his pure mind abhors us. With this Spirit subduing and cleansing us, we are, like our great Head, the beloved and delight of Je hovah. He esteems us the noblest work. manship of his hands. He rejoices more in one sanctified soul than in any other creature in the wide universe he has built.

We may infer too, from this transaction, the importance of our Lord's atonement. As the Representative and Head of his church he was baptized with water; in the same

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character, he was anointed with the Spirit ; but his church is not yet redeemed, scarcely a step has been taken towards its redemption. Much more must be endured and accomplished before one lost soul can be rescued, or one sin forgiven. There was another baptism that Christ was to be baptized with, a baptism in blood. We were not redeemed by the water of a flowing river, or by a descending Spirit; but "by the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.' Brethren, on what are your hopes fixed? On any thing done by you or wrought within you? Then ask yourselves why a baptized and heaven-anointed Jesus died at Jerusalem; and dash your hopes to the ground.

SERMON XXXVII.

THE UNBELIEF OF THOMAS.

ST. JOHN XX. 26, 27, 28.

And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them. Then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, Peace be unto you. Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless, but believing. And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

I. All unbelief is of the heart, and when we look for the origin of it on any particular occasion, we must trace it to that deeply seated and desperate wickedness within us, which taints all the operations of our minds; which allows us to trust one another often and blindly, but never God. There are however secondary causes which bring this evil principle into exercise, or serve to manifest it; and these, in the instance before us, appear to have been two.

He

1. One of them was the absence of Thomas from the assembly of his fellow-Christians. In the nineteenth verse of the chapter, we find the other apostles meeting together on the evening of the first day of the week after their Master's crucifixion. Their object, it is natural to suppose, was of a spiritual nature-to talk of the marvellous events they had witnessed, and to join in supplication and prayer. They closed the door, it is said, "for fear of the Jews;" but what are bars and difficulties in the way of Christ, when he has a promise to fulfil, or an act of grace to perform? told them before he left them, that where only "two or three" of them should "be gathered together in his name," he would be "in the midst" of them, and now he comes and makes good his word. On a sudden he appears before them in the very form in which he died. He stands "in the midst," and saith unto them, "Peace be unto you." And peace followed his words, peace that almost turned the room in In the latter part of this chapter, we which they were sitting, into a heaven. have an account of two interviews which" Then,' we read, "were the disciples took place between our Lord and his won- glad, when they saw the Lord." But dering disciples, after his resurrection from from this scene of blessedness Thomas was the dead. At the first of these interviews, absent; why, we know not. Hinderances Thomas, one of the twelve, was not pres- that he could not break through, might have ent; and when his fellow-disciples told him kept him away, or, more probably, he had afterwards what had happened, he received suffered wrong feelings to discourage, or the tidings with the most determined unbe- worldly business to entangle him. In lief."We have seen the Lord," was their either case, the effect of his absence was joyful exclamation, but their infatuated the same-he saw not the Lord. No peace companion gives them only this chilling an- entered his soul. While his fellow-disciswer; "Except I shall see in his hands the ples were rejoicing in all the confidence of print of the nails, and put my finger into certainty, he was harassed with the dark the print of the nails, and thrust my hand workings of perplexity and unbelief. into his side, I will not believe."

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And whence, brethren, proceed many of Let us examine, first, the causes from your doubts? And whence comes much which this strange unbelief proceeded; of that darkness which so often beclouds secondly, the manner in which our Lord your souls? Has your undervaluing of treated it; and then, lastly, the remarka- Christian communion and fellowship nothble confession by which it was ultimately ing to do with it? Look at this history. followed. It teaches us that we can never tell what

we lose by neglecting even one opportunity | fallacious-our experience, our reason, our of public or social prayer. At the sacra- notions of right and wrong, our view of ment from which we have turned away, the probabilities, our conceptions of the fitness Lord might have made himself known to us" in the breaking of bread." The sermon we have lost, might have been the very sermon we needed. It might have quickened us in our deadness, scattered the doubts which are perplexing us, or chased away the sorrows which are bowing us down, or let in light on that darkness within us, which, we say, nothing can pierce. The Saviour will honor the ordinances of his own appointment. It is in the palaces of Zion that he makes himself "known for a refuge." It is in his house, that he most frequently and most conspicuously records his name, reveals "his power and his glory," and comes and blesses. The man therefore who most loves his house, generally sees the most of his glory; gets the clearest and most enlarged view of his perfections; knows him best, and consequently trusts him most; and trusting him most, rejoices in him most; has the peace of God for his safeguard, and the joy of the Lord for his strength.

2. But the unbelief of Thomas must be traced to another cause he seems to have adopted on this occasion a wrong standard of truth.

His fellow-disciples told him they had seen the Lord; he refused to believe them, not because he doubted their veracity, for they had been for three years his companions, and he knew them, in a matter of such moment, to be incapable of falsehood; but he had not seen the Saviour himself, and therefore all he hears must pass for mistake or delusion. He must look on his wounded hands and feet, he must touch his pierced side, or he will not believe. He made his senses, in this instance, the exclusive criterion of truth, and consequently he rejected the evidence of ten upright witnesses, simply because he himself had not been a spectator of the fact to which they testified.

And this was little worse than the conduct thousands are pursuing in this Christian land at this hour. To say nothing of the avowed skeptic, some of us judge of spiritual things by standards to which they disdain to be brought. We may not carry them, with Thomas, to the bar of our senses, but we try them by tests quite as foreign to their nature, and equally

of things. We will not believe this or that alleged fact; we will not receive this or that doctrine; we cannot take the comfort of this or that promise; and why not? Because it is not found in the Bible? We say so perhaps, but while we say so, conscience reproves us. It is in the Bible, and we know it to be there; but then it appears to us so strange, it is so contrary to our experience, it militates so strongly against our judgment or feelings, that we ask with Nicodemus, "How can these things be ?" and then, unlike Nicodemus, we persuade ourselves that they cannot be, and reject them. Thus do we make our own depraved understandings the criterion of truth; thus do we set up the experience of a few fleeting years against the declarations of him "who inhabiteth eternity." We employ the reason God has given us, against God; we employ it against ourselves. It serves only to rivet our unbelief and aggravate our misery. Subdue the intellect of man, communicate to it a sense of its own weakness and the divine grandeur, bring its thoughts into a holy "captivity to the obedience of Christ," and then we may glory in it; we need not limit its powers, nor control its workings, nor check its inquiries; but elevate it against God, set it to work to scan him, and his ways, and his word, by its own efforts in its own light-is there any thing in the universe so powerless, so contemptible? is there any thing of which we have greater reason to be ashamed?

Brethren, is the Bible true? Is it what it professes to be, a revelation from heaven? Here is a lawful subject of inquiry; here is a question which reason may investigate and common sense decide; but at this point we must stop. If the book is divine, a wise man has only one way of acting-he must receive as true all its contents. He is not to judge, but believe; not to specu late as to the reasonableness of its decla rations, or their correspondence with his experience or notions, but to pray that they may live in his heart and regulate his life. They are the words of the living God; they rest on the testimony of One who can neither deceive nor be deceived; and what mat ters it whether my dark mind approves or condemns them? Lord, open thou my un

derstanding to comprehend them, and give | sepulchre. She finds it empty; her Lord me grace to believe them.

II. Consider now the manner in which our Lord treated the unbelief we are examining.

1. And here observe, that he gently punished it. He leaves Thomas for eight days racked with suspense, and then he records his sin in his imperishable word; to this very day it is spoken of to his shame.

had left it. One disciple after another comes to it, looks into it, sees it forsaken, and goes away. But Mary goes not away; she still stands at the sepulchre, wondering, and inquiring, and weeping. Angels come down from heaven to comfort her, but even angels are nothing to her. She does not so much as ask them their errand; nay, she hardly notices their presence. "They have taken away my Lord," she cries,

And he acts thus with all his people at all times. He makes their sin their pun-" and I know not where they have laid ishment. He knows how to pardon it; as far as regards an eternal world, to blot it as entirely out as though it had never been committed; and yet, at the same time, he marks it with his displeasure. He shows himself at once a gracious and a holy God, "pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin," but making his people feel, and making the world see, that he hates while he pardons it. "I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes," is no idle threatening. There is scarcely one in the church of Christ, who has not experienced its truth; who has not learned that even with heaven before him, and goodness and mercy following him, it is yet "an evil thing and bitter" to forsake the Lord.

him." For any thing save him, she has not a feeling or a thought. And who ever thus thirsted for Christ, and Christ did not come to that earnest seeker? This answer brought him to Mary; she sees and recognises him. The next moment, as Saint Matthew intimates, she falls at his feet, and, in the deep emotion of her soul, clasps him in her arms. And now surely we shall find the Saviour commending af fection like this, half meeting such love. No, brethren; the very same Jesus that said to the unbelieving Thomas, "Thrust thy hand into my side," repulses the beloved Mary from him. He says to her, "Touch me not," and the next moment sends her out of his presence. And why this difference? To show the strong in faith how much he values active service above mere feeling; to show the weak in faith how low he can stoop to their infirmities. Mary needed not any further evidence; she is therefore denied it. Thomas asked for it, he seemed to need it; it is "therefore offered him.

2. But though Christ punished the unbelief of Thomas, he most tenderly removed it.

At the end of eight days he appears again among his disciples. Thomas is now with them. As soon as he had repeated his former salutation, "Peace be unto you,' he singles out this erring man; lets him know by the first words he utters, that he was well acquainted with his unbelief; and then acts just as Thomas had prescribed; he gives him the very evidence his presumption had dictated. Except," says Thomas, "I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe." And what said Jesus ? "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into my side."

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And mark the contrast between the conduct of our Lord towards this unbelieving disciple, and that which he manifested a few days before towards the faithful Mary. In the beginning of this chapter, we see her coming, full of grief and love, to his

And where is the weak-hearted Christian, who has not experienced something of this divine compassion? We are tempted at seasons to distrust the loving-kindness of the Lord. The circumstances in which we are placed, are peculiarly trying. They depress and perhaps weaken the mind, so that reason or principle has but little hold on it; we seem incapable of any spiritual feeling or act. Faith gives way. The promise becomes a dead letter. Bible, that was wont to be to us cheering as the light of heaven, has lost its power. All is darkness. We accordingly say, in the heaviness of our hearts, "All these things are against us. "" We conclude that the Lord has "forgotten to be gracious;" that he has cast us off for ever. In the midst of our mournful distrust, he condescends to our fears. He meets us as

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But no.

of Jerusalem, a voluntary witness of the fact he had questioned, and ready to shed his heart's blood in confirmation of its truth. His testimony to the resurrection of his Lord was the triumph of evidence over obstinacy, the homage which truth extorts from incredulity and pride. Thus does

he met Thomas, on our own terms, in our own way. He gives us some sensible token of his presence and favor. He sends us a signal mercy, and sends it in such a way, that we cannot mistake its source or its character. He says, "Thrust thy hand into my side." And then, brethren, who so blessed as we? He makes us wonder he who "ruleth in heaven," force all things at his condescension. We know not how to believe that a God so highly exalted, should stoop down to observe the weakness and remove the suspicions of creatures so low. His tenderness seems too great to be real. We tremble as we rejoice in it. 3. But the Saviour did more—he wisely overruled the unbelief of Thomas for his own honor and the good of his church.

He caused it to magnify himself. It drew from him a fresh exhibition of his forbearance and tenderness. It proves him to have brought with him from the grave the same heart that he carried about with him in the scenes of his humiliation. It tells us that he is the same on his throne, as when he stooped down to wash the feet of his disciples, or wept at the tomb of Lazarus his friend.

to serve him. Thus does he compel the very errors of his servants to do him honor and further his purposes of grace; not altering the nature of evil, not conceal. ing his abhorrence of it, not lessening its fearfulness, not suffering his creatures to make light of it, but yet employing it to display the glory of his character and the lustre of his perfections. Sin-we can never too much hate and detest it; never be too much afraid of it; but what does the great God do with it? He finds it in his church, and he means to root it out of his church, to destroy it utterly; but before it perishes, he makes it show forth his holiness and goodness, the authority of his law and the glory of his grace; and so show them forth, as nothing else ever exhibited them, as all the purity and all the happiBesides, the incredulity of this apostle ness of heaven never displayed them. has done much to establish the fact which The foundation of the cross, the ground it it at first impugned. We see at once stands on, is sin, the sin of man-sin not that the men by whom our Lord had sur-trifled with, nor encouraged, nor winked rounded himself, were not men of easy at, but abhorred, and branded, and then credence; men who, without examination, pardoned, and so pardoned, that the loudest would receive as true any tale that corre- song in heaven is that which speaks of sponded with their wishes. If they were salvation and pardon. We may safely weak men, their weakness manifested itself trust God. He is on his throne; and in the backwardness with which they while there, all the creatures that his yielded to the force of evidence, in the hands have formed, in all their actions, obstinacy with which they adhered to pre- shall either willingly or unwillingly do conceived opinions, in the pertinacity with him homage. which they held the ground they had once III. But we shall see this truth in a taken. It was weakness which opposed yet stronger light, if we proceed to conitself to any thing new and unexpected, and sider the remarkable confession by which almost deemed itself humbled, when forced the unbelief of the apostle was eventualiz to admit as a fact that which tallied not followed.

with its own experience and knowledge. And we are indebted to this unbelief for "I will not believe," said Thomas. With this confession. Not that it had its origin the testimony of ten honest, well known in it, but it would not have been uttered, men before him, he could not have uttered had it not been for the sin by which it was a more unreasonable speech; and when preceded. The Saviour first punishes his he went on to mention the kind of evidence offending servant-there is his holiness; which would satisfy him, he could not then comes his wisdom-he so corrects and have made a more absurd demand. But overrules his error, that it leads to one of after a few days had transpired, this very the plainest and strongest declarations of Thomas was satisfied. And when a few his greatness, that ever came from earthly days more were gone, he was standing lips. This faithless apostle_rises in one forth among the other disciples in the streets instant above himself. "Reach hither