various have been the ways in which the wisdom and love of God have led men to Christ, and by which the work of conversion has and does still proceed :-and to these various ways of turning unto Christ, I purpose this day to direct your attention, before I consider the Christian life of those already converted; and may God bless our labour, and turn it to our everlasting profit. Amen.

TEXT. There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, &c. &c. &c.-St John's Gospel, iii. 1–15.

A man must be born again, if he will be saved. Of this truth our Lord warns us with peculiar earnestness and emphasis: "Verily, verily I say unto you," saith he to Nicodemus, "except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Now a man is said to be born again, or converted, when he is torn away from his natural, lost, carnal and sinful state, led by a lively faith to Christ, and thus made spiritually_one with Him. Wherefore it is that our Lord says, 66 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit." So soon, therefore, as a man is born again, his life is no longer a carnal, worldly, sinful, ungodly one; a Christian life commences in him, a life rather of Christ himself in him, as it was with the holy Apostle when he could exclaim, "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Now there are many ways in which God leads men to Christ, to the end that through faith in his blood they should be converted, born again, or renewed. In this case, also," the wind bloweth where it listeth." God leads each man by a different path, according to his peculiar disposition, a John differently from a Peter, a Peter from a Paul: yet for all there is one only goal, to which God's grace conducts them by different ways, and this goal is Christ Jesus, and redemption through his blood. Let us begin, then, this day our representation of the Christian life during the first ages of the Church, by a contemplation of the various modes by which God, in his wisdom, turns men to Christ. In every case, indeed, it is the word of

truth, the Gospel itself, by which souls are won over to Christ and his kingdom, but it is equally certain that the revealed word does not make the desired impression upon all alike. Men's hearts must first be prepared and made ready for the reception of gospel truth, and for this purpose God employs many modes; such as, 1st, Bodily infirmities; 2dly, The longing of the soul after happiness; 3dly, The consciousness of sin; 4thly, A certain moral striving after good; 5thly, Simplicity of mind; 6thly, An earnest inquiry after truth.

Such were the means we find employed during the time that our Lord lived and ministered upon earth; such were they in the first times of the Church, such they still continue to be; and they will furnish us today with the subject of a brief, and, I trust, not unprofitable inquiry.

Holy Father, sanctify us with thy truth; thy word is truth. Amen.

I. That bodily infirmities led many to believe on the Lord, while he was yet a sojourner upon earth, is a fact known to every reader of the sacred Scriptures. No higher desires were as yet awakened in them, and it was therefore needful that they should be roused from their stupor, before they could be brought into that condition and state of mind which would make them fit recipients of the glad tidings of the gospel. Many men who clave to the earthly as the end of all their desires, were, by the infinite wisdom and goodness of God, awakened by means of their bodily infirmities. Their sickness and sufferings compelled them to go to Christ, of whose miraculous powers they had already heard ; and accordingly we find him always environed by the halt and the blind, the possessed, and those afflicted with divers diseases, imploring his powerful aid. They sought in their misery help and consolation of one to whom they never appealed in vain. With condescending kindness and love He revealed to them all his might and majesty; He healed all their infirmities; He

became their benefactor, and by this induced them to give ear to himself and to his doctrine. Thus he made them capable of receiving his more precious and enduring gifts, so that at last they believed on Him, and He became to them a benefactor in the highest sense of the word, and delivered them from their inward spiritual wretchedness. Thus was it with many possessed by unclean spirits, thus with the Canaanitish women, thus with him who was born blind, and many others. By the way of bodily infirmities they were led to Christ, and induced to believe on Him and His holy Gospel.

When, after His ascension, His apostles went about to preach the word of truth, their experience was the same. St John and St Peter healed a man who had been lame from his mother's womb, by calling on the name of Jesus, and he believed on the Lord. The paralytic Eneas of Lydda was made whole by a miracle, and he, with many others, were turned unto the Lord. The like often occurred during the first ages of the Church. The afflicted and the sick were often healed by pious Christians, who, in humble faith, prayed to the Lord in their behalf, and by the aid they had received were led to forsake the worship of idols, to turn to Christ as the true physician of their souls, and dedicate their lives to His service. The early Christian writers fre quently appealed to such miracles in their apologies to the heathen. Thus, among others, Justin Martyr writes: “Ye can perceive from the things that happen before your eyes, for many of us Christians have, by calling on the name of the crucified Jesus, healed in your sight not a few possessed by evil spirits, and still continue to heal them." And at the end of the second century, Irenæus, Bishop of Lyons, writes: "In the name of the Son of God doth each of his disciples labour to do good unto all men, according to the gifts which he hath received. Some drive out evil spirits, whereby those who were beforetime possessed are led to believe on Him, and to become members of His church. Others heal the sick by the imposition of hands; and not a few dead men have

been restored to life, who also have since dwelt many years among us."

And as in those early times bodily infirmities were the means of converting many, so are they also in our own. Many a one among us has been trained for Christ in the school of tribulation and affliction, and many have been led through poverty, sickness, or other crosses, to believe on Him. Many a one had gone on in his sins, had not the wholesome chastening of the Lord brought him back, like the prodigal son, to his father's house. "Through much tribulation we hearken to thy word," saith the Scripture, and, "Lord, in the time of trouble will they call on thee." Christian brethren! bless your sorrows, your crosses, your afflictions, if, through them, you have been led to believe on your Saviour. And let him among us who has still to bear his cross, think that it is the Lord who seeks him, and knocks at the door of his heart, and let him surrender to him his whole heart and life, that his bodily infirmities may become a source of everlasting joy.

II. Man's natural longing after happiness is another instrument by which the infinite wisdom of the Father draws men to the Son, that in Him they may find that which they seek, true happiness and eternal life. When the Lord sojourned upon earth, there were many who longed for the redemption of Israel, and who therefore heartily desired the appearance of the promised Messiah, in whom they trusted that it was he that should bring this redemption to his people. Such an one was that Nicodemus, of whom our text speaks; such were the first disciples of our Lord, Andrew and Simon, James and John, and Nathaniel, and many others, as Joseph of Arimathea, who all lived in faith on the old promises of God, and whose expectations were greatly increased by the preaching of John the Baptist. When, therefore, the Lord did appear, being strongly moved by the signs and wonders which he performed, they recognised in him the promised seed, as Nicodemus expressly acknowledges in the text: "Rabbi, we know thou art a teacher

come from God; for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him." But yet all their desires, and all their hopes of the Messiah were of a very earthly and temporal character. They dreamed of political freedom; and while they thought only of deliverance from the Roman yoke, and of the re-establishment of the ancient kingdom of David, they had no conception of a spiritual redemption and deliverance from the yoke of sin. Of this expectation, however, our Lord took advantage to engraft thereon his teaching concerning the kingdom of God, and led the expectants on, step by step, to acknowledge that his kingdom was not meat and drink, and sensual pleasure, and earthly glory, but a heavenly kingdom of justice and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; and that its only end was the redemption of a sinful world. Thus, instead of those meaner things for which they hoped, they found the loftiest for which they could have sighed in the inmost recesses of their hearts, the glorious liberty of the sons of God, a blessed and eternal life in faith on the Lord.

And must not all who were actuated by this impulse, wherever they might previously have been driven by this longing after peace and joy, have come to Christ, so soon as his Gospel announced to them its message of rest and salvation? Thus Cornelius came to the Lord. His whole being longed for repose and peace, and salvation, and it was therefore that the preaching of Peter so impressed him, that he and all his house turned unto Jesus; for he felt, as he heard the words of peace, deeply and certainly, that if peace were to be found any where, it was to be found in faith on Christ. How many a

heathen who, like Cornelius, felt those yearnings within him, which found no satisfaction in the possession and enjoyment of earthly things, must have come to Christ, especially when he saw the professors of the gospel, even amid pains and tortures, so divinely cheerful, so full of peace and happiness? What is it, he must have asked himself, which, even in the immediate prospect of death, makes these men so joyous, and fills their