promised messenger of God to you, the Messiah; and am especially supported and protected by him and the reason of this his favour to me is none other but this; because I always act in obedience to his will and holy laws."

Let us now attend to some of those useful reflections which these words of our Lord suggest to us.

I.

Hence, then, we learn that our Saviour had always an eye to God's laws, and to approve himself to him in all his actions. "I do always those things that please him."

We have no particular account of any thing relating to him, till he arrived at the state of manhood and entered on his public ministry, except what is told of his behaviour when twelve years old in the temple, at which age their youth underwent a kind of public examination; when he showed a mind already nourished in piety and virtue above his years, and attentive above all things to do the will of God. During that whole period, this is mentioned of him in general; (Luke ii. 52.) "that Jesus increased in wisdom and years, and in favour with God and man ;" i. . he made

great

great but gradual improvements in every thing good. And this we must have concluded, had we not been told that his progress in holiness was gradual. For human creatures do not become expert and excellent in any thing all at once; but by degrees and frequency of acting settled habits are formed. Thus, in one instance, it is by being early impressed with a sense of God that made us, and our obligations to him by daily thoughts of and application to him in prayer, by setting him as it were always before us, and studying and endeavouring in all things to do his will, that the idea of him becomes associated with our most indifferent as well as important actions, and, in the Scripture phrase, we walk with God continually.

So may we believe the seeds of piety to have been sown in our Saviour from his infancy. And his coming out of his obscure abode at Nazareth a character of consummate virtue and goodness, when entering on his public ministry at thirty years old, is itself a mark that his preceding life had been of a piece with it, and leading to it.

When the sacred historians begin their narrative of his public life, the whole of it, and every incident that is related, is but an exemplification

plification of that which he once very naturally, but without the least approach to ostentation, said of himself; (John iv. 34.) that "his meat was to do the will of him that sent him, and to finish his work." His life and all his powers were devoted to save mankind; to deliver them from the miseries of a worldly and vicious mind, and to bring them to God, and to the love of truth and goodness.

He followed no vain fancies; taught nothing but what was solid and useful; and had an eye always to the directions he had received from God in all that he delivered to men. So that of his demeanour in the great trust committed to him, he could say; (John xii. 49, 50.) "I have not spoken of myself: but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I should say, and what I should speak. And I know that his commandment is life everlasting:"-i. e. that the everlasting happiness of men depends upon their obedience to it: whatever I speak, therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.

And when near his end,-with conscious satisfaction of having done his duty, and a full assurance of the divine approbation and acceptance,―he could say ; (John xvii. 3, 4.) “I

have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine ownself, with the glory which I had (destined for me) with thee, before the world was.' And,

II.

This leads us to another circumstance suggested by our Lord's words, and highly deserving our attention; namely, that it was upon his obedience to God that our Saviour grounded his full hope and assurance of being accepted by him. For in the passage before us he gives a reason why God would ever be with him, and protect him. "And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him."

Indeed, not only in this, but in many other places of Scripture, Christ's perfect obedience is assigned as the reason of the divine extraordinary favour to him.

At another time, not long after, we find him saying; (John x. 17.) "Therefore doth my Father love me; because I lay down my life, that I may take it again." He declares the chief cause of the heavenly Father's love to

him, and design of exalting him to the highest glory, was his readiness to devote himself to labour and the extremest sufferings, to the loss of life, that he might forward the everlasting salvation of mankind: that he should not however die, but with a certainty of being soon raised again to life for evermore.

Upon another occasion he says to his twelve disciples (John xv. 10.) "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love."

St. Paul also thus extols his divine Master's character; (Philip. ii. 8, 9.) "He humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and graciously bestowed upon him a name (or authority) above every other name; that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow,"-i. e. that all mankind should submit to his holy precepts, and reverence him as the worthy appointed Saviour of the world.

Again also, speaking of the great distress of spirit he was under the night before he suffered death, by which he was to glorify God; the same apostle says, (Heb. v. 7.) " that

when