as His reward, and the day of His triumph shall be the day of His espousals.

To gather together in one all things in Christ through His reconciliation, is another part of the mystery of the Father's will, in return for the suffering, and it will be another feature in the Saviour's glory.

His raising Him from the dead, and setting Him at His own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come; putting all things under His feet, and giving Him to be head over all things to His Church,―all this, which includes the coming glory, is the Father's reward for the suffering of death. And this is, if possible, more distinctly stated: Being found in fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 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 Lord, to the glory of God the Father."

The inspired Prophet announces the very same glory in the very same connexion: "Therefore

will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul unto death: and He was numbered with the transgressors; and He bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors."

Again, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, the same idea is dwelt upon. "We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man. For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." And what is His reward for all this, as given Him by the Father, but the very sons whom He brings to glory, and the subjection of the world on which He endured the sufferings. Wherefore it is said, "Behold I, and the children which God hath given me;" and, again, "Thou didst set Him over the works of Thy hands;" and we know that the apostle is here speaking of "the world to come," destined to be the scene of the triumph, as this has been of the humiliation.

In the very next chapter he again speaks of Christ as faithful to Him that appointed Him,

and as counted worthy of glory, being a son over His own house, and afterwards he tells us that though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by the things which He suffered, hereby being made perfect. It will be a very little while, and the Son shall have His inheritance, and the ruler of the house the reward of His fidelity, for the Father shall bring again His only begotten Son into the world, saying, "Let all the angels of God worship Him." And then will be fulfilled the promise given Him, "It is a light thing that Thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth." And this followed because His judgment was with the Lord, and His work with His God, when he seemed to have been labouring in vain, and to have been spending His strength for nought.

2dly. But we pass to the consideration of this point in its more immediate connexion with the Son Himself. The triumphant reign is not only given Him by the Father as His reward: He feels it to be so. "He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied."

So the apostle :-"Who for the joy that was

set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high."

1. Let us look at this point, first, in connexion with the Father, and the glory of the Divine character. Christ's sufferings have their ample reward, in this relation, in His reign of glory. The intensity of the affection which subsists between the Father and the Son it is impossible for us to estimate; slight glimpses of it are revealed in the course of our Lord's history, where we find the Father delighting to honour Him, as at His baptism, and on the mount of transfiguration; and the Son expressing to the Father the depth of His own love, and the consciousness of His Father's towards Him, as in the prayer previous to His suffering. Indeed, the one undeviating object of the Son all through was, the glory of the Father: He came to do His will, and He fulfilled it with all the unvarying intensity of the most heavenly affection. What, then, will not be the exuberant joy of His heart, when, in His glorious kingdom, He shall see the Father beyond all measure glorified? The fulfilling of the Father's eternal purpose, in the complete redemption of His people, will then repay His agony and compensate His anguish : for He loved and desired that

purpose

from ever

lasting. The harmonizing of His Father's character, in its perfect development of glory, will then satisfy Him for all He suffered, for He has loved Him in all His glory from eternity, and He would that His creatures, reconciled and blessed, should behold that glory along with Him. The praise and honour and blessing which will be yielded to the Father in that day through Him, so that God shall be all in all, will make Him feel He underwent not a sorrow too much for such a precious consummation. Not only to have rescued His Father's character from misrepresentation, but to have brought it out in all its excellency and loveliness, and in its paternal goodness-this will be the very joy of His heart. And every note of thanksgiving which ascends to the Father -whether from the fowls of the air, or the beasts of the field, or the fishes of the sea, or the hills, or the mountains, or the trees of the forest, or the rivers of the vallies-all shall gladden His heart, as sweet in the ears of God, for the sake of Him who redeemed even them from the curse, and restored to them a harmony more musical than burst from them on the birth-day of their creation. And man! renewed and regenerated man! for whose soul the blood was spilt, and for the redemption of whose body death was overcome, how shall the chorus of his thanksgiving, in its