tion; but just as a glance into the love laid up within our sinful hearts for our little ones, assists us to know, somewhat less darkly, the tenderness of the Father-heart beyond the skies, so a human procedure conferring civil rights, may help to realize the purport of a transaction too sublime to admit of parallel.

The Apostolic commission occupies a place of peculiar significance in the written documents of our religion. Need I remind you that while all Scripture is the revelation of God, just as our whole body is of His fashioning, there are here and there passages of deepest moment, specially instinct with life and power, reminding one of the nervous centres and ganglions in the body where force seems to be accumulated.

We can scarcely exaggerate the prominence due to this commission. It gathers up into a few brief words the results of all that Christ had done on earth; it disposes in like manner of the future destinies of all mankind. It sums up in brief and majestic terms the unalterable conditions on which alone eternal life may be won by the sons of men. It provides for the dispensation, throughout all time, of the blessings purchased by His blood, and gives assurance of His unremitting oversight.

Such a formal deed of conveyance deserves

special consideration. Other passages of Scripture do indeed illustrate and explain it ; but it dominates, as it were, above the didactic portions of the Bible, and these can be understood only in the light of this organic charter.

Let us examine this charter as we find it in our English Bibles; let us test its provisions, more reverently, indeed, but upon the same general principles you would observe in dealing with a railroad company, which should claim the right to take for its own uses a portion of your land. Whence emanates this charter?

Nothing can be more august than the scene which, at this inquiry, rises before the imagination, I had almost said, the memory. For, as we close our eyes and meditate, it seems to stand out as somewhat which our eyes have seen.

It was no saying by the wayside. We are on the mount according to place and time appointed. The risen Christ is there, so human that He ate of the broiled fish and of the honeycomb, and yet lifted up beyond accustomed familiarity, by the victory over the grave. And His Apostles are gathered with more than wonted reverence around Him.

"Jesus came" and spake. As the Apostles prostrated themselves in worship, He advanced toward them and addressed them. The very

attitude He assumed served to intimate that somewhat unusual was to be done; a vital act to be performed, as well as a living word to be spoken. "Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth."

"ALL POWER IS GIVEN UNTO ME IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH." Such is the preamble. Of what wondrous import must be that one only charter in the world's history, which this formula introduced! His warrant for delegating the powers presently to be conferred, was nothing less than the possession, as Mediator, of absolute sway over the whole universe of God.

He asserts His Omnipotence as He makes the Church, because none but the Omnipotent One can make a Church with authority to bind and to loose; to remit sins, and to retain them.

So much for the Preamble. Observe next the Enabling Act. "As my Father hath sent me,

even so send I you."

Our Lord often declared that He came as a messenger from the Father-His words were not His own, but the Father's, who sent Him. On more than one occasion was He duly authenticated to the world as the Father's Representative. And now He accredits these men collectively as His representatives. These words, in their plain

attitude He assumed served to intimate that somewhat unusual was to be done; a vital act to be performed, as well as a living word to be spoken. "Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto Me in Heaven and in earth.”

“ALL POWER IS GIVEN UNTO ME IN HEAVEN AND IN EARTH." Such is the preamble. Of what wondrous import must be that one only charter in the world's history, which this formula introduced! His warrant for delegating the powers presently to be conferred, was nothing less than the possession, as Mediator, of absolute sway over the whole universe of God.

He asserts His Omnipotence as He makes the Church, because none but the Omnipotent One can make a Church with authority to bind and to loose; to remit sins, and to retain them.

So much for the Preamble. Observe next the Enabling Act. "As my Father hath sent me,

even so send I you."

Our Lord often declared that He came as a messenger from the Father-His words were not His own, but the Father's, who sent Him. On more than one occasion was He duly authenticated to the world as the Father's Representative. And now He accredits these men collectively as His representatives. These words, in their plain