his service : and may all the endeavours, whether of this or any other society, be abundantly blessed, to the enlargement of the Redeemer's kingdom, and to the salvation of many souls ! Amen and Amen.
Phil. ii. 9 — 11. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name : that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth ; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is J^ord, to the glory of God the Father.
WE are told by an inspired Apostle, that the great scope of the prophecies related to " the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." To the same points our attention is continually turned in the New Testament. Sometimes they are stated as an accomplishment of prophecy, and as proofs of Christ's Messiahship : sometimes as grounds of our hope before God : sometimes as motives to stimulate us to duty : sometimes as models, according to which God will work in us : and sometimes as examples, which we are bound to follow : and sometimes as encouragements to follow those examples. It is in this last view that we are to contemplate this stupen- dous mystery at this time. The Apostle had said, " Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others." To illustrate and enforce this exhortation, he shews how the Lord Jesus Christ had emptied himself of all his own glory, and endured death, even the accursed death of the cross, for the salvation of men : and that in conse- quence of it he had received such tokens of his Father's approbation as were commensurate with the sacrifice which he had made. In considering this testimony of his Father's love, let us mark,
I. The height to which he was raised —