meet and embrace as brethren in the divine sanctuary. They all have their proper employments assigned them in their Master's extensive household, and are all rendered, in divers ways and in different degrees, subservient to the glory of their common Lord. He who gave them that peculiar cast of character, by which they are severally distinguished, knows how to connect himself with every shade of difference discoverable between man and man, in such a way, as to make all instrumental to his praise. Natural inclination, early impressions, particular modes of education, or even some accidental change in a man's outward circumstances and connexions, may occasionally serve to qualify him for a peculiar office, or prepare him for some extraordinary service among his brethren. The only wise God is able to make this endless variety of human views, capacities, and feelings, contribute to the furtherance of his own designs, displaying his power and magnifying his grace beyond all the rules and limitations, which human sagacity is apt to prescribe.

Fourthly, A still further instance of the

manifold wisdom of God in his dealings with the Church, and it is the last that shall now be noted, is strikingly manifested in his providing for its establishment and increase by the ministrations of man.

We read of the angels, that they are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them, who shall be heirs of salvation. But we no where read of their being commissioned to preach the everlasting Gospel. When the truths of that Gospel were to be declared to Cornelius the centurion, he was directed by a heavenly messenger to invite one of the apostles of Jesus to his house for that purpose. Peter, and not the angel, was to perform that important work. When our Lord came down from heaven to bless the world with a new dispensation of grace, in prosecution of that design he assumed the human form: and from that time to the present day, he has seen good to carry on the same gracious design through the instrumentality of man. The Jews, saith the apostle, require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the Greeks foolishness: but unto them which are

called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. It was, moreover, the righteous will of our gracious Lord, on laying open the Gospel dispensation, to confound all the pride of human nature, by selecting, as his principal agents, some of the simplest and most unpromising of mankind; that, in their extraordinary success, the finger of omnipotence might be discerned and acknowledged. And though human nature is in itself a thing most insignificant and base; yet, under the prevailing influence of grace, it is still carried above its ordinary infirmities, and qualified for many wonderful undertakings in the Church.

Before the good pleasure of God, in this respect, was made known, it might have been apprehended, that some superior order of blessed spirits would be employed in this high service but now, both revelation and experience agree to prove, that man is the only proper minister to man, in the great concern of his salvation. Most wonderful indeed it is, that by means of words and syllables, with many other seemingly inadequate forms of communication, we should

be enabled to bear such a testimony to the divinity of the Word, as to carry light and conviction to the hearts of those who receive it. Nevertheless, thus it has been from the very first publication of the Gospel; so that all the revivals of religion which have taken place in the world from age to age, as well as the present progressive state of the Church in it, have been brought about by the agency of man, in subordination to the controlling power of God. Weak and insufficient as his servants are in themselves, he invigorates and quickens them to think and speak, to will and do, according to his good pleasure. We go not to warfare at our own cost, but are competently furnished, by the great Captain of our salvation, for the work to which he sends us forth, putting into our hands not carnal weapons, but such as are mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds, casting down imaginations, with every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God.

These, my brethren, are a few of the innumerable ways, in which the divine counsels have been employed about the concerns of the Church. And it should excite our

daily gratitude to recollect, that He, who keepeth Israel, will neither slumber nor sleep, till all the ends of the world shall remember themselves and be turned unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations come and worship before him.

When our Lord was withdrawing his visible presence from this lower world, he solemnly charged his disciples to preach the Gospel to every creature. This charge is still in force; and while I am speaking to you on this subject, ten thousand zealous evangelists, in different parts of the world, like so many loud voices in the wilderness, are crying out-Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a high way for our God; every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low; the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain; and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.

He who knows what is in man, singles out and appoints certain individuals to go forth in his name, proclaiming every where the acceptable year of the Lord. All chris