and looked on Peter," and the Saviour's and the sinner's eye met, and that meeting was salvation! It was but a glance, and it took but a moment, but it was the hinge of Peter's destiny for ever and for ever.

I do not attempt to say what that look of Jesus was; no limner has ever attempted to paint its sad loveliness,-its unreproaching sweetness,-its power of truth,-its omnipotence of tenderness. But it wanted no more,-that look did all. From that moment, Peter was a converted man. It was all upward now,-"He went out and wept bitterly."

But what were the steps back again? How did the fallen rise? Separation,— solitude,―tears,―Jesus's side,— energy greater than before,-with love more modest,bravery as brave, but all leaning,-ambition as high but self stooping into the dust,—a lowly, watchful, praying mind, a life concentrated to one single point,—a keener sympathy with all that sin, and with all that weep,-a holiness, which, but for that miserable night, he never would have attained,—the image of his Saviour deepening in him to the very last,-a Christian warrior's death,-and a martyr's crown. So the holy fall,-and so the fallen ones get up again.

XVIII.

The Offices of the Holy Trinity.

"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."- -I PETER i. 2.

W

HOEVER would take happy views of religion,— whoever would have full assurance of his own salvation,-whoever would make steady progress in holiness, he must be accustomed to look for his evidences,— not in himself, not in any abstract truth; but in the character, and the work, and the person of God only.

In this respect, the doctrine of the blessed Trinity is a very tower of confidence and strength to a Christian. The offices of the Holy Three are so full, they so fit into each other, and make a harmony, they are so appropriate, each in its distinctness, and they are so sufficient, all in their completeness, that they seem made for this very purpose, —to assure a man's soul, and to leave no place for the weakest doubt.

Let every fearful believer make great use of the grand truth which we are celebrating to-day; let him deal with it as the most practical of all practical things; for his own soul's comfort, let him learn to entrench himself within the Holy Trinity. For it is remarkable how this sacred article of our faith is always used in the Bible for peace. Sepa

rately, the attributes of each person in the Godhead sometimes are brought forward for terror; but in their combination never. The Three never meet but to make one grand truth stand out in the magnificence of its solitude," God is love."

And this, too, you will observe in all the records which we have concerning the Trinity,-that each Person seems to delight to magnify the other Two. If the Father puts great honor upon the Son, so equally does the Son upon the Holy Ghost. The Father has given all honor to the Son, "even as they honor the Father." And then, as the Son says of the Spirit, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away the Comforter will not come;" equally the Holy Ghost "takes the things of Christ," that He may magnify only the Son. And the Son seldom does an act but he gives honor back to the Father; while the whole work of the Three has one scope, the happiness and holiness of the Church.

Therefore, we can scarcely do anything which militates more against the whole spirit and character of the Trinity, than when we exalt any one of those glorious Beings which compose it, to the disparagement or the shading of another.

And yet, is not there a danger? Do not men,-according to their bias of mind,-exalt, some the Father, as the one, great, all-merciful God; some, the Son, almost to the placing of the Father in the invidious position of a distant, angry God, who needs to be reconciled; and some, though fewer, the Holy Ghost, teaching a certain state of the inward affection, a sanctity of mind, as being the sum and substance of all religion, and all that is required of us for life everlasting?

Let all such study well the balance of my text, and learn more to lay truth out in its beautiful proportion,—“ Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ."

The beginning, the foundation of the whole scheme of salvation, is the electing grace of the Father. We are to hold, that the Lord Jesus Christ died for all men, for the sins of the whole world. But equally, we are to believe that the Father elects, individually, each one who shall be saved. If any saint, at God's right-hand, at the day of judgment, be asked, "How are you here?" the only answer he can make, will be, "God chose me." This is one of those mysteries of apparent contradiction, and real agreement, which no man ever has fathomed, or ever can fathom, or ever will fathom to the end of time. And the election of the saved ranges without the slightest reprobation of the lost. And the right application of the doctrine is always an application of comfort. So St. Peter here implies; in like manner, St. Paul, always to strengthen and assure, and stir up to holiness afflicted churches and tried believers.

I

I go to some child of God, who is afraid to take the promises of God, or to believe in his own acceptance. arm myself with election. I stand by, and I say to him, "God loved you from all eternity, therefore He drew you, therefore you have had all your convictions and all your spiritual desires and aspirations, all your struggles, and all your temptations, and all your contending emotions; and therefore God will carry on His own work, and perfect it in you, and bring it out at last to a glorious completion, and you will be saved; for He is a great God,

and He changeth not, and His 'gifts and callings are what commenced in pure grace

without repentance;

must issue into complete glory."

This is the only legitimate use of that doctrine of election. It is the election,-now mark this well, brethren, —it is the election of a Father, it grew out of a Father's care, it sprung from His foreknowledge. It is a necessary inference of that undeniable prerogative of the divine nature, foreknowledge, what He knows will be, that He appoints to be, He sees all that you will be and as He sees you, so He chooses you. He sees more than that, what you, as yet, see not, and what you cannot see, and what you cannot conceive. And according to what He sees from all eternity, and in reference to what He sees from all eternity, and because of what He sees from all eternity, He chose you ;-"Elect, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father."

It is the most assuring of all possible thoughts. There are times when nothing will assure you but this.

But now, look at the path which election takes, by which it always travels, without which it is not election at all;— through sanctification of the Spirit."

66

He, whom we usually call the Third Person in the blessed Trinity is here placed Second. I believe this is done with a deep intention. There is a danger of that 'first," "second," "third," which we have so familiarly adopted in our language when we speak of the Trinity. Remember, this is no where in the Bible. On the contrary, the order in the Bible is markedly various and reversible. And it is difficult to us to use the terms First, Second, Third, without almost unconsciously running into the idea of degrees of power, which is a thing without any