THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY 
 
 From the library of 
 Rev. William Murphy 
 Presented in 1924 
 
 265.3 
 
 Sp3b 
 


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 
 https://archive.org/details/banquetinghouseoOOspen 
 

 
ox 
 
 
 
 The productions, already in print, from the pen 
 of the late Dr. Spencer, are a sufficient earnest of 
 the value of the present volume. All who knew 
 and loved him will readily recognise him in this 
 hallowed dress. They will remember how he 
 spake, and prayed, and felt ; and, if we mistake 
 not, they will be delightful memories. It was the 
 cherished wish of Dr. Spencer to prepare for the 
 press a volume of Sacramental Discourses. 
 
 His character as a preacher and as a pastor was 
 an uncommon union of qualities, — vigorous in his 
 thoughts, tender in his emotions, faithful and 
 courageous in his exhibition of God’s truth, and 
 combining poetic beauty with reasoning powers of 
 a higher order. The old Christian and the young 
 Christian, as well as those who seek the best 
 preparatives for coming to the table of their divine 
 
IV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Lord for the first time, will be instructed and 
 comforted by these Sacramental Discourses. With 
 such a volume in their hands, they will be furnished 
 with more than the rudiments of Christianity. 
 
 GARDINER SPRING. 
 
 February 29, 1861. 
 
€ 0 n i 1 n t s . 
 
 I. Desire to Eat the Passover, 
 
 II. Meaning and Design of the Sacrament, 
 
 III. Christ Precious to Believers, 
 
 IV. My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? 
 
 V. The Sacrament a Feast of Alliance, 
 
 VI. The Lord’s Supper a Covenant. 
 
 VI r. Why Weepest Thou? ... 
 
 VI IT. Christ our Passover, ... 
 
 IX. Behold the Lamb of God ! 
 
 X. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, 
 
 XT. Wounded for our Transgressions, 
 
 XII. Believers Stablished in Christ, ... 
 
 XIII. I will not Leave you Comfortless, 
 
 XIV. The Love of Christ Constraineth us, 
 
 XV. Ought not Christ to have Suffered? 
 
 XVI. Christ and Him Crucified, 
 
 XVII. He Loved them to the End, 
 
 XVIII. We Love Him because He First Loved us, 
 XIX. Necessity of the Sufferings of Christ, 
 
 XX. Crucifixion to the World by the Cross, 
 
 XXL Faith without Sight, ... 
 
 XXII. The Mystery of Redemption Fit for Faith, 
 XXIII. Christ made Perfect through Sufferings, ... 
 XXIV. Christ Made under the Law to Redeem, 
 XXV. Increased Confidence by Believing, 
 
 XXVI Jesus Christ’s Parting Address, 
 
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THE 
 
 BANQUETING HOUSE. 
 
 ■ * 
 
 I. 
 
 £) csirc to (£at ffre |1assobei\ 
 
 “ And lie said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this 
 passover with you before I suffer.”— Luke xxii. 16 . 
 
 /THE time in wliicli Jesus Christ would celebrate the 
 l- Passover for the last time was come. He was seated 
 at the table with his disciples. All things having been 
 found in readiness for his reception, the appointed pre- 
 paration having been made, he met his disciples for the 
 last time before he suffered. 
 
 There is something deeply affecting in meeting for the 
 last time those we love. When we are called to the death- 
 bed of our friends, to hold our last intercourse with them 
 before they die ; when we listen to the trembling accents 
 of their voice, and catch the last thoughts of their expir- 
 ing hour ; when we receive their parting blessing, and 
 hear that thrilling word, Farewell , for ever , — there is 
 something in the scene that will find its way to the heart. 
 We are compelled to feel that such a scene is indeed deeply 
 affecting. 
 
8 
 
 DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 Our friend is torn away from tlie kindness of our love 
 and the offices of our affection. A kind of solemn violence 
 is done to the half-hallowed feelings of our attachment. 
 Instances of intended kindness are forbidden. Our friend 
 is beyond the reach of our affection. Thoughts of former 
 neglect are awakened, and associated with the bitter feel- 
 ing that now he is beyond the sphere of our repentance, 
 and is no more to be affected by our friendship or our 
 hatred. 
 
 And how solemn, as well as affecting, is such a scene ! 
 Standing by our dying friend, we are in converse with a 
 soul that will, in a few moments, be in eternity. We 
 exchange salutations with one who will soon mingle with 
 kindred souls in the world of spirits. This moment our 
 friend is in communion with us ; the next, perhaps, in 
 communion with God. He may even carry to his God 
 the very thoughts that we have suggested as we held his 
 dying hand, and we thus send onward a message to our 
 future home. 
 
 Is it not an awfully solemn thing thus to be in open 
 communication with the world of spirits — thus to fit out 
 a soul with the thoughts that it shall carry up to God ? 
 And can we resist the reflection that the last words of the 
 dying are more than usually important? Has not our 
 soul been thrilled by them, as if they were indeed the voice 
 of eternity? There is so much of the solemn and impres- 
 sive in the article of death, that we are used to give more 
 than usual credence to the declarations of the dying. We 
 feel so much the awfulness of the scene, that we are not 
 quick to believe any one so senseless as to trifle in his 
 dying hour, and dare to rush into the presence of his 
 Judge with a lie upon his lip. And this is no monition 
 of superstitious folly. There is something in the nature 
 of the case which forces us to this opinion, and in all ages 
 
DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 9 
 
 the words of the dying have commanded more than com- 
 mon credence. It is nature that yields this tribute, and 
 it may be questioned whether one of our common nature 
 lives who can refuse it. 
 
 We can find no motives for the insincerity of the dying. 
 The world has lost its value, and appears in its own little- 
 ness. And though cases may exist where the fact is dif- 
 ferent, yet usually we cannot but believe the whole world 
 insufficient to bribe those who know that the time of 
 their death is at hand. That is an hour when man is 
 honest. The mask of the hypocrite falls off when deatli 
 has come, the lip of falsehood is made vocal with truth, 
 and the sincerity of that hour is evidenced by the con- 
 demnation of every other hour of life. With death in 
 prospect, no man trifles. He will trifle all his life, — 
 spend every day in folly, or dissipation, or debauchery, or 
 idleness ; but when the day of deatli has come, and he 
 believes it, he will not trifle. The thoughts which occupy 
 him will be thoughts of importance. The business which 
 engages him will be business of importance. If he has 
 anything more to do he will then be doing it, and neither 
 falsehood of heart nor folly of mind will turn him aside. 
 
 And should you find any man occupied, just before he 
 knew he was to die, in any business, you would not hesi- 
 tate to believe that he regarded it as business of import- 
 ance ; and especially if you hear him associating together 
 his present occupation and his approaching end, you will 
 think that occupation the great object of his interest. 
 
 Such was the situation of Jesus Christ when he sat 
 down to eat the passover for the last time with his dis- 
 ciples. That was an occasion of no small moment. Even 
 Jesus Christ felt the full weight of its importance, and 
 had long been contemplating its arrival. He had before 
 announced that his time v T as at hand, and the expression 
 
10 
 
 DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER . 
 
 with which he introduces the conversation of the paschal 
 supper manifests how much the occasion dwelt upon his 
 mind. With desire I have desired to eat the passover with 
 you before I suffer. 
 
 With desire I have desired. This is a style of expres- 
 sion familiar to the Hebrews, to express the intensity of 
 the thought. With desire I have desired ; that is, I have 
 greatly desired, strongly desired ; it has been long upon 
 my heart as one of my important acts, to be accomplished 
 before I suffer. The instances of the same method of 
 expression are common : in multiplying I will multiply 
 thee; that is, I will greatly multiply thee : in blessing I 
 will bless thee ; that is, I will greatly bless thee. It is a 
 phraseology expressive of very much emphasis, and from 
 its adoption in this place, we are made acquainted with 
 the intense feelings with which Christ came to this paschal 
 supper. 
 
 The celebration of this supper is associated immediately 
 with his death. The next day he died; and with that 
 death in full view, he sat down with his disciples, express- 
 ing at once his knowledge of its approach and his desire 
 for that occasion. But why? What was there in the 
 feast of the passover that made Jesus Christ so eagerly 
 desire its celebration in the face of his approaching death ? 
 Why was this thing so important that it should command 
 the zeal of the Son of God the day before he died ? 
 
 We cannot find an answer to this question in the strict- 
 ness with which Christ observed the institutions of the 
 economy of the Jews. However much he respected the 
 institutions which he had formerly made with them (when 
 he was God, before he was made flesh), and which he 
 always honoured, it was not on account of that respect 
 that he so greatly desired to eat this passover. 
 
 He desired it because, — 
 
DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 11 
 
 I. This was the end of the Jewish economy; and — 
 
 IT. The introduction of the Christian dispensation, and 
 the establishment of the Christian sacrament in the new 
 testament of his blood. 
 
 III. In this he testified his affection for his disciples, 
 and left to all future believers an example of what they 
 might expect to find in communion at his table. 
 
 IV. It was his preparation for death. 
 
 These four items will occupy our attention this morning. 
 
 I. This was the end of the Jewish economy. 
 
 The design of Christ’s mission to the world was the 
 salvation of man, and thereby the glory of God. He came 
 to seek and to save that which was lost , and he always 
 kept the object of his mission in view. The whole design 
 of his wisdom and his goodness was not at once revealed, 
 even to his chosen disciples, but left to be unfolded by 
 degrees, as time and circumstances rendered proper. The 
 world was to be prepared for the full consummation of 
 the great object, and the full announcement of the won- 
 derful truth. Even when he had appeared on earth, the 
 design of the Jewish system w T as not at once understood. 
 The veil of mystery was still flung around it, and the eye, 
 even of the disciple, could not penetrate its folds. But 
 the purpose of Christ was fixed; the object of his mission 
 was before him ; the glory of the Father and the salvation 
 of man were not forgotten. When his hour was at hand, 
 it found him giving the last instructions to his followers, 
 and preparing for that final catastrophe which should 
 cover the heavens with blackness, and fill the earth with 
 trembling. 
 
 He met his disciples as a Jew. As a Jew, he honoured 
 the institutions of his nation. But those institutions were 
 
12 
 
 DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 now to crumble at the touch of his divinity. Hallowed 
 for centuries, and revered alike as the monuments of 
 antiquity and the ordinances of heaven, they held over the 
 heart and mind of the Hebrew an almost unlimited con- 
 trol. The shades of his fathers seemed to encircle them. 
 The sacredness of the Godhead was flung around them. 
 But the fulness of time was come; and Jesus, disrobed 
 indeed of the splendour, but gifted with the plentitude of 
 omnipotence, was now to sweep aside those institutions 
 which commanded so powerfully the Hebrew mind, and 
 spoke so effectually to the Hebrew heart, associated as 
 they were with all the economy of life, and intermingled 
 with the recollections of Horeb and Sinai. 
 
 Such institutions have often made the triumphant con- 
 queror tremble, when the people who revered them were 
 prostrate at his feet. The awful energies of their des- 
 peration have been feared, if the ruthless hand of power, 
 though grasping the sceptre of victory, should dare to 
 touch the fireside customs of their fathers and destroy 
 their sacredness, or rifle the temple and take away its 
 gods. There is a kind of moral omnipotence in the des- 
 peration of a people, when goaded on to desperation, 
 though overcome by power. And even the conquering 
 Roman, in the fulness of his might, and borne on in the 
 pride of his victory, never dared to lay his hand on the 
 religion of the vanquished. He respected the established 
 customs of the conquered ; and while he subdued the 
 worshippers, he bowed before their gods. Sensible that 
 there was a point beyond which human nature would not 
 yield, his sagacity found that point in the article of reli- 
 gion ; and, while he tore away political regulations, with- 
 out mercy and without remorse, he dared not interfere 
 with the institutions of religion. 
 
 But where the pride of power was forced to yield, the 
 
DESIRE TO EA T TIIE PASSO VER. 
 
 13 
 
 humanity of Jesus Christ triumphed. Seated in a private 
 room, aside from noise and ostentation, with none to listen 
 but his twelve disciples, he dared to pronounce the con- 
 summation of the Jewish law. It is true that that law 
 was not intended as perpetual, but the J ews regarded it 
 as such. And least of all would they listen to the in- 
 structions or respect the authority of one who, in the 
 private walks of life, without the mantle of the prophet, 
 or robes of the priest, or sceptre of the king, should dare 
 to interfere with the sacredness of institutions robed in 
 the glories of the Shekinali, and sanctioned by the tliun- 
 derings of the awful mount. 
 
 And how would they respect the last private act of one 
 who had, all his life, shown public deference to their cus- 
 toms, and w T ho even now was celebrating the Jewish pass- 
 over *1 But the Master was come ; and he would show 
 himself the Master, not only of the fact , but of the method 
 also ; and he would do away their economy, not when he 
 entered Jerusalem amid the shoutings of Hosanna , but 
 when seated at a private table, in the retirement of a 
 private dwelling. 
 
 It is now that he abolishes the institution, and takes 
 his leave of all passovers. With desire I have desired to 
 eat this passover with you before I suffer : for I say unto 
 you , I will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in 
 the Icing dom of God. Here was one of the earliest and 
 most eminent of the ceremonial ordinances abrogated. 
 The foundation of the whole system was swept away. / 
 ivill not any more eat thereof (nor shall it be eaten by my 
 disciples), until it be fidfiUed in the Icingdom of God. It 
 was fulfilled when Christ our passover was sacrificed for 
 us. The supper was originally instituted as a memorial 
 of the deliverance from Egypt ; and both the passover 
 and the deliverance were typical (and, if you please, pro- 
 
14 
 
 DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER . 
 
 phetical) of a Saviour to come, who shall deliver us from 
 sin, and death, and the tyranny of Satan. And when the 
 reality w 7 as come, the type was laid aside. Until it he 
 fulfilled in the kingdom of God . It was fulfilled when the 
 ordinance of the Lord’s supper (an ordinance of the king- 
 dom of God — the ^os/>e£-kingdom) was instituted and took 
 the place of the passover. But there was another part of 
 the paschal ceremony. And he took the cup (it was the 
 paschal cup) and gave thanks and said : Take this , and 
 divide it among yourselves ; for I say unto you , I shall 
 not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God 
 shall come. Divide it among yourselves — break it up — 
 do as you will with it — it is no longer for sacred, but for 
 private use — we shall have no more occasion for it — the 
 passover shall henceforth be celebrated no more, and you 
 will soon be called to drink of another cup, wdien the 
 kingdom of God is come. Then you shall celebrate the 
 Lord's supper , which is to take the place of the passover, 
 and commemorate a more glorious redemption than that 
 from Egypt. 
 
 Here, then, the Jewish institutions are set aside. Typical, 
 from their origin, of the great Messiah to come, Jesus 
 Christ always showed them the respect wilich they de- 
 manded. But when his time was come, and the Lamb 
 of God was ready for the sacrifice, he at the same time 
 honoured and destroyed them. Their design was accom- 
 plished ; and Jesus Christ desired their abrogation, for 
 the introduction of a better system. He had always kept 
 this in view 7 . Though he w r ell knew that they could not 
 be set aside except by his death, yet that death was the 
 thing represented in every one of them, and he was ready 
 to die. 
 
 Here let the infidel pause and ponder. Let him behold 
 a private individual, in a private room of a private house. 
 
DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 15 
 
 witli only twelve persons to witness liis intentions and 
 afterwards sustain them. Let him toehold that individual, 
 there setting aside one of the most solemn institutions of 
 a whole nation — an institution revered as the gift of God 
 and observed for centuries, till every child knew its signi- 
 ficance, and every heart acknowledged its obligations. 
 Let him remember with how much tenacity of purpose 
 mankind have always held on to their religion, and with 
 how much difficulty a custom, interwoven with all the 
 policies of the state and all the feelings of the fireside, 
 can be broken down ; and when he beholds Jesus Christ 
 in such a situation, expecting by such means to accom- 
 plish such purposes, then let him say whether that expec- 
 tation is madness or divinity. History , unparalleled in 
 the record, has honoured the expectation, and stamped the 
 Godhead upon the act. 
 
 II. This was the introduction of the Christian dispen- 
 sation, and the establishment of the Christian sacrament, 
 in the new testament of his blood. 
 
 The Jewish Church was a Church of God, but there 
 were some peculiarities in the ecclesiastical economy of 
 the Jews, designed only for temporary continuance. It 
 was the business of Christ to remove those peculiarities 
 which had a shadow of good things to come, and to in- 
 troduce a more mild and spiritual form of worship. All 
 his actions were directed, in some way, to the accomplish- 
 ment of his mission. That great object was always kept 
 in mind. He had long before expressed his intensity of 
 feeling, when looking forward to the final result, — I have 
 a baptism to be baptized with , and how am I straitened till 
 it be accomplished I It seems that the soul of Jesus was 
 so intent upon the business of our salvation, that he found 
 no spot to rest till it was fully accomplished. How am 1 
 
16 
 
 DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 straitened ! All ! liow much more he strove for us than 
 we do for ourselves !• Where he was active, we are in- 
 dolent. Where he was anxious, we are at ease. 
 
 This was the object which so perfectly engrossed him. 
 Nothing could turn him aside from it. Wist ye not 
 that I must he about my Father's business ? He was not 
 destitute of the strongest sympathies of our nature. He 
 could pity the afflicted, delight in the company of his 
 disciples, smile with affection upon Mary and Martha, and 
 weep in tenderness at the grave of Lazuars. But nothing 
 might interfere with the establishment of his kingdom and 
 the salvation of his people. And his disciples prayed him , 
 saying , Master , eat; and he said unto them , I have meat 
 to eat that ye know not of. My meat is to do the ivill of 
 him that sent me , and to finish his work. 
 
 One essential part of that work was the establishment 
 of the Christian Church and its ordinances. And since 
 this was to be done at this supper — the passover abolished 
 and the sacrament instituted — Christ, of course, desired 
 the arrival of the occasion ; and after the abolition of the 
 one, he proceeds to institute the other. 
 
 You will notice that the language of the preceding 
 verses, in which Christ abolishes the passover, is very 
 different from that in those verses where he institutes the 
 sacrament. He ate of the paschal lamb, and then said, 1 
 will not any more eat thereof until it be fulfilled in the king- 
 dom of God. He took the paschal cup also, and gave thanks , 
 and said , Take this , and divide it among yourselves; for 
 I say unto you , I will not drink of the fruit of the vine 
 until the kingdom of God shall come. But when he came 
 to institute the sacrament, he took bread , and gave thanks , 
 and brake it , and gave unto them (he did not himself eat 
 of it), saying , This is my body which is given for you : this 
 do in remembrance of me. It is not here added that he 
 
DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 17 
 
 would not any more eat thereof until it he fulfilled in the 
 kingdom of God. Just so, also, of the cup. Lilcewise also 
 the cup after supper , saying , This cup is the neiv testament 
 in my blood, which is shed for you. He did not drink of 
 
 this, nor did he then add, as of the former cup, I ivill not 
 drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God 
 shall come. So that it is quite manifest that here 
 were the two great things which we have noticed — the 
 abrogation of the passover, and the institution of the 
 sacrament which was to take its place. The history is 
 more brief in the other evangelists, but if you will consult 
 them, you will find them perfectly consistent witli our 
 view of this. 
 
 We have, then, the institution of this Christian ordi- 
 nance. In this, Jesus was employed on the night before 
 he was to die. He knew that death was at hand, and he 
 spoke of his desire to eat this supper before he suffered. 
 It was then with death in immediate prospect that he was 
 employed in this business. Now we would ask, Did he 
 consider it business of small importance] Would he give 
 the last evening of his life to institute a useless ceremony ] 
 Would he be trifling at his death-feast] Think of this, 
 all you who do not respect his dying request, This do in 
 remembrance of me. Think of this, you who hoped to be 
 saved by his death, and yet disregard an ordinance 
 instituted in the last hours of his life. Talk what you 
 will of its being a mere ceremony. It is an ordinance in- 
 stituted by Jesus Christ at that supper which he so 
 earnestly desired, and under the most solemn circum- 
 stances that thought can conceive. He was just about to 
 die, and think you he would trifle] Have you ever 
 known the dying employed in unimportant business ] Go 
 to the death-bed of your friends, when the fearful reality 
 is pressing upon them that in a few hours they must die y 
 
18 
 
 DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 and if you find them trifling, then say this ordinance 
 is a trifle. But will you say that Jesus Christ was 
 indifferent to death, and therefore his conduct was not 
 altered? Follow him from the table to the garden, and 
 behold him praying in an agony of blood, and then say 
 whether he was indifferent, and whether the last hours of 
 his life were expended on an institution of no value. 
 
 III. It is of cheering import to the Christian, as he 
 comes to the table of his Master, that Jesus Christ was 
 so intent upon this solemn sacrament, that he came to 
 institute it with strong desire, and that, too, on the very 
 evening before his death. 
 
 No man, in the last hours of his life, forms new 
 acquaintances, nor calls around himself those in whom he 
 feels no peculiar interest. The season is too solemn, too 
 precious, too sacred for casual intercourse ; and he wishes, 
 not the presence of strangers, but the society of those his 
 heart holds most dear. And who could have a stronger 
 testimony of affection from any man, than an invitation to 
 come and spend with him the last hours that he lived ? 
 This testimony had the disciples of Jesus Christ, Now, 
 before the feast of the passover, when Jesus hnew that his 
 hour was come that he should depart out of this world 
 unto the Father , having loved his oivn which were in the 
 ivorld, he loved them unto the end. And he testified that 
 love by calling them around him when his hour was 
 come, and making that social and sacred intercourse the 
 preparation for his death. 
 
 The whole business of Jesus Christ was business of 
 love. It was love that brought him into the world, that 
 regulated all his conduct while he continued in it, and 
 that finally brought him to death. He would omit no 
 opportunity of manifesting that love. To his friends he 
 
DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 19 
 
 was always attentive and kind. There is no feeling of 
 affection and tenderness which he did not manifest toward 
 them. His whole soul was filled with kindness ; and he 
 left this last testimony of his unfailing attachment. 
 Here, in the fellowship of the last supper, he opens his 
 heart to communion with his disciples, and pledges his 
 love over the symbols of his death. His disciples could 
 not doubt ; their hearts must have been alike softened and 
 assured. 
 
 In this — in thus meeting in sacred fellowship those who 
 loved him, when he was just about to die — he has left an 
 assurance, to all future believers, of that holy communion 
 which he will hold with them at his table, and of that sacred 
 unction which the heart shall receive when this is done 
 in remembrance of him. I will not leave you comfortless , 
 I will come unto you . It is here that Jesus meets his 
 friends. It is here he speaks to them in that still, small 
 voice which whispers peace. He tells us of sins forgiven 
 — of weakness pitied — salvation pledged. And who could 
 ever go from his table without feeling himself made better 
 by the melting of the heart ? Who could ever go from 
 his table without feeling that he had been in communion 
 with the kindest of masters and the best of friends ? Who 
 could ever go from his table without feeling himself better 
 prepared to follow Jesus to the death 1 Oh ! if you were 
 to die, would you not wish to go from the communion- 
 table to your death-bed ] Would you not carry with you 
 a solace against the fear of death, and find the dark valley 
 brightening as you approached its borders ] But perhaps 
 some of you are now coming to his table for the last time. 
 Come, then, in faith and love. Meet the kindness of your 
 master, and his love prevailing over fear, shall prepare your 
 dying motto, — 0 death , where is thy sting ? 0 grave , where 
 is thy victory ? 
 
20 
 
 DESIRE TO EAT TIIE PASSOVER . 
 
 IV. Yes, it was at tills communion that Jesus Christ 
 prepared himself to die. It was here he instituted the 
 ordinance which commemorates the great atonement. He 
 knew the next day should witness his dying agonies; and 
 here by a prophetic act, he distributes his body and his 
 blood. It is his preparation for death. He makes his 
 will : it is the new testament in my blood , which is shed for 
 you. 
 
 The covenant is made ; and the next day shall witness 
 the sanction and the seal. Both earth and heaven shall 
 add their signatures to stamp the unfailing covenant. The 
 rocks shall rend — the grave give up its dead — the sun take 
 in his beams — and even vile human nature respond the 
 creed of heaven, from the lips of the centurion, Verily , this 
 ivas the Son of God. 
 
 We have a few brief inferences from this subject : — 
 
 1. We learn the great importance of this sacrament from 
 the time and manner of its institution, and from the earnest 
 desire with which Jesus Christ came to the season of its 
 appointment. 
 
 2. We learn its nature. It is the will of our Lord, in 
 which he leaves to us the whole benefit of his death. It 
 is our testimony of our acceptance of that will, and our 
 taking upon ourselves the obligations of its conditions. 
 
 3. We learn these conditions. We are to serve our 
 master, if we would have the benefits of his death. Jesus 
 is our master. We are not our own , we are bought with a 
 price. Hence, — 
 
 4. We learn our duty and our privilege. Our duty : to 
 serve our master, not ourselves ; to glo?ify God in our 
 bodies and our spirits, which are his, and to serve him with 
 fidelity ; his example is our guide, and he was not indolent 
 in the great business of his mission. Our privilege: to 
 come to him with the assurance of his faithfulness and 
 
DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 21 
 
 love. We have seen how kindly he met his disciples; he 
 will not change , — Jesus Christ , the same yesterday , to-day, 
 and for ever . 
 
 Here, then, it is our privilege renewedly to give ourselves 
 away to God, to seal our covenant for heaven, before we 
 die. God will not refuse the pledge, if we come with 
 penitent and broken hearts, and with our souls resting, by 
 faith, on Christ. Jesus will not send us away mourning, 
 if we love Him who so much loved us. Ho, he is a kind 
 and compassionate Saviour. Come to him : your iniquities 
 shall be forgiven, your sorrows soothed, your fears quieted, 
 your hearts refreshed. 
 
 But we cannot disguise the fear that some, who are 
 coming this afternoon to commune, ought to have sad 
 thoughts, as they look back to such seasons as this, which 
 they have seen before ; and thoughts not the less sad by 
 reason of the tender love of Christ, indicated on occasions 
 like this. Do none of you remember how you have been 
 at the Lord’s table before, and, though surrounded, and 
 for a little while impressed, with motives for holy living 
 and with these august means for sacred comfort, how you 
 have failed to profit by them ? Does not your heart sink 
 within you as you call to mind how unworthily you have 
 lived, — what worldliness of spirit you have indulged, — 
 what aims, what passions you have allowed to influence 
 you, how many times your heart has murmured against 
 God, lias wandered from J esus, and dishonoured his love 
 and his cause ] And now, as you remember your sins, 
 and remember your former communion-vow T s and com- 
 munion-delights, does not sorrow fill your heart and anguish 
 take hold upon you, for fear that in your communicating 
 you have found a curse instead of a blessing, and have 
 turned the fountain of life into a stream of bitterness and 
 death % Trembling believer, you must not go away. You 
 
22 
 
 DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER. 
 
 must not refuse to commune. You must rush to the em- 
 brace of the same Jesus whom you have so cruelly dis- 
 honoured. You must be covered with the blood which you 
 have trampled under foot. You must pour your sorrows 
 into that bosom whose love you have so ill requited, and 
 whose love is still open to your penitential fears. You can 
 do nothing else , but resort to Jesus. May it please him 
 to regard your penitence, to dry up your tears, and give 
 you grace to offend him no more ! Lift up your voice ; cry 
 unto him, 0 Lord , rebuke me not in thy wrath , neither 
 chasten me in thy hot displeasure. 0 Lord , I am not worthy 
 of the least of all thy mercies; but cast me not away from 
 thy presence , , and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Re- 
 store unto me the joys of thy salvation. 
 
 “ I’ll go to Jesus, though my sin 
 Hath like a mountain rose ; 
 
 I know his courts, I’ll enter in, 
 
 Whatever may oppose.” 
 
 And he will not plead against you with his great power . 
 He will put strength in you. Guilty as you have been, 
 weep and be forgiven. 
 
 These are times of the outpouring of the Divine 
 Spirit. The living God has come to his heritage. This 
 Church ought to be devout, and humble, and holy, and 
 happy in the God of Jacob. My dear brethren, God has 
 blessed you. Your cry has come up before him. Your 
 peace, your piety, your prayers have been regarded. Not 
 unto us, not unto us, but unto thy name, 0 God, be all the 
 glory. But you see the mercy of God. He visits you. 
 He refreshes you. It is the dear delight of this heart to 
 believe he loves you. Love him. Praise him, praise him 
 for his bounties ! Souls saved are heaven’s riches. Come 
 to his table to-day, blessing the name of God that you are 
 again allowed to hail an addition to the friends of Jesus. 
 
DESIRE TO EAT THE PASSOVER . 
 
 23 
 
 Come, then, resolved in the strength of grace so to live and 
 labour and pray, that the Divine Spirit may abide with you, 
 and still other sinners turn to Jesus and be forgiven. 
 These times of refreshing ought to last. Heaven is boun- 
 tiful, the Father is gracious, and Jesus loves poor sinners. 
 
 Have you no friend who will not be with you at the 
 communion to-day, for whom you will pray, and hope that 
 if you come there again, that friend may come with you ] 
 Is there no husband, no wife of your bosom, no parent, 
 nor child, no brother nor kind and tender sister, who will 
 this afternoon only look on, or stand aloof from the table 
 of God 2 Come and tell Jesus about them. He who, in 
 the days of his flesh, was moved when they pleaded with 
 him, My daughter lieth at home grievously tormented with 
 a fever — Come down ere my son die — has the same heart 
 in heaven that he had on earth. Bear your requests to 
 him. Pour your tears at his feet, and hope for, expect the 
 continuance of his reviving spirit, till your hearts shall pour 
 out richer thanks for friends of your life, made friends of 
 the Saviour whom you love. 
 
 Some of you will come to the communion fresh from 
 the world. A little while ago you were strangers to Christ. 
 Ye loved the world , and the love of the Father was not in 
 you . You look back, and shrink from the precipice on 
 which you were standing ! Grace, — rich, sovereign grace, 
 has saved you. Ye are brands plucked from the burning . 
 Oh ! with what strength of purpose, with what gratitude 
 and tender love, you should come to enter into covenant 
 and plight your virgin vows ! Those vows are going to 
 be registered in heaven. If you ever forsake Jesus they 
 will witness against you. But fear not , thou worm Jacob ; 
 stronger is he that is in you than he that is in the world . 
 All hell cannot hurt you if you lean on your Beloved ! 
 Hell and the devil are Christ’s conquered. Courage, then, 
 
24 
 
 DESIRE TO EAT THE EASSOVER. 
 
 thou trembler ! God is with thee, if thou liidest thyself 
 in Christ. Take him. He offers himself to you. He will 
 love you the better, the more freely you approach. Say to 
 him — 
 
 “Nothing in my hand I bring, 
 
 Simply to thy cross I cling.” 
 
 “ I’m a sinner, bought with blood ; 
 
 I'm a ransomed child of God.” 
 
 Methinks he is even now waiting to meet you at his table, 
 desiring, with desire , to eat this passover with you, while 
 you remember that for you he has suffered. Meet us, 
 Divine Saviour, with thy blessing, and to thy name shall 
 be the glory. Amen. 
 
II. 
 
 |ttc;ming mrb Resign of f be Sacrament. 
 
 u This do in remembrance of me.” — 1 Cor. xi. 24. 
 
 r THERE is something very remarkable, as well in the 
 A measures as in the doctrines of our religion. The 
 men of the world, wherever the truths of the Bible have 
 been plainly preached, have long been sensible that they 
 were calculated to promote the best interests of society, to 
 secure the purest morals, and to lay the foundation for 
 quietude and happiness. Hence they have a kind of 
 solemn respect for the doctrines of the gospel. And though 
 they do not feel their power, they behold their efficiency, 
 and cannot think ill of the fountain that sends forth so 
 pure a stream. And while they respect, they admire, they 
 wonder. They do not see the connection between the 
 truth in the abstract and the truth in practice ; and often 
 witness results that disappoint their expectations. 
 
 The cause of this disappointment is to be found in the 
 deficiency of their examinations. The truth has a spirit- 
 uality and extent which they have not contemplated, and, 
 consequently, it produces effects which they have little ex- 
 pected. If they saw the full extent of the doctrines, they 
 would have less wonder at their practical results. And it 
 is to be wished that men of the world would enter more 
 deeply into the examination of the subjects of the Bible. 
 It would tend to convince them of their divine authority, 
 
26 
 
 MEANING AND DESIGN 
 
 and cause them to feel their own obligations to obedience. 
 It is when the mind is enlightened that the joys of intelli- 
 gence are experienced, and the worth of that intelligence 
 is known. It is when the eagle gazes on the sun that 
 his buoyant wing is spread, and his flight is toward the 
 heavens. 
 
 And it is no less to be desired that Christians would 
 enter more deeply into the truths of the Bible. They do 
 know something of their excellence, and their souls have 
 experienced something of their sweetness. But if they 
 would think and study and pray more, they would enter 
 more fully into the feelings of their religion, and find the 
 soul swelling in celestial ecstacy to keep pace with the 
 measure of their contemplations. The fountains of our 
 religion are never dry. The stream is ceaseless that rolls 
 around the throne. The more we dwell upon the truths 
 of Christianity, the more we shall know of their richness 
 and variety. They are a golden mine, and the deeper we 
 dig the richer is the ore. 
 
 There is a vast variety in the contemplations that we 
 are called on to indulge. We may range with Solomon 
 through the whole vegetable kingdom, from the towering 
 cedar of Lebanon to the hyssop> that springetli out of the 
 wall . We may follow his adventurers, and gather with 
 them the gold of Ophir and the glittering gems of the East. 
 We may sojourn with Moses, and become learned in all 
 the wisdom of Egypt , or follow him in the desert and feed 
 on manna. Indeed, everywhere we may draw water from 
 the wells of salvation , and find them exhaustless as the 
 river of God. 
 
 If the doctrines of the gospel are remarkable in the rich- 
 ness of their instruction, the measures of the gospel are no 
 less remarkable in the richness of their influence. The 
 Almighty seems to have adopted every measure than can 
 
OF THE SACRAMENT. 
 
 27 
 
 be devised to win, in the first place, our hearts; and to 
 secure, in the next place, their sanctification. He would bring 
 us all to the light of the truth ; he would train us all for 
 heaven. And he would fling upon the track of life so 
 broad a light that we cannot miss our way, but may find 
 it, like the path of the just, shining brighter and brighter, 
 till its light is mingled with the glories of the throne. 
 
 He has left none of our faculties without some measure 
 to influence them. He speaks to all the feelings of our 
 hearts, to all the powers of our mind, to all the motives 
 of our will. He looks on us, such creatures as he has 
 made us ; and when he would reclaim us to himself, 
 all the measures of his adoption show the wisdom of the 
 plan. 
 
 This do (said Jesus Christ) in remembrance of me. 
 Here was an act to consecrate the memory of the Christian. 
 Christ would leave no faculty of the soul without his image ; 
 he would have them all wear the stamp of heaven, the 
 livery of glory. 
 
 This do in remembrance of me. Jesus here binds to the 
 duty, lest we should not see the necessity of the ordi- 
 nance. He makes the command positive, and would stretch 
 the sceptre of his authority as well over the memory and 
 sanctify its storehouse, as over the heart and hallow the 
 fountains of our feelings. 
 
 This do in remembrance of me. Jesus here presents 
 himself as the object of our remembrance ; and methinks 
 I hear the whisperings of many a heart here in the pre- 
 sence of these emblems, If 1 forget thee , 0 Divine Saviour, 
 let my right hand forget her cunning. Methinks the 
 aspirations of many pious souls are ascending to heaven, 
 that God would accept their vows, and sanction this dedi- 
 cation of themselves to him. God of mercy, hear the 
 prayers of thy children 1 Saviour of sinners, meet with 
 
28 
 
 MEANING AND DESIGN 
 
 the souls thou hast purchased! Spirit of grace, rest on 
 the hearts thou hast sanctified ! 
 
 This do in remembrance of me. We have here a positive 
 command : This do. You. will excuse us from considering 
 this at present. Methinks we need no command to bring 
 us to the table of our Master. I feel that the hearts of his 
 disciples love his communion, and the consideration of a 
 command would come coldly across their bosoms. Away, 
 then, with duty; let us deal with love. Let us come 
 directly to the spirit of the communion, and contemplate 
 that measure which Jesus Christ has adopted to represent 
 his love to us, and kindle ours to him. And we have the 
 spirit of the communion in these words — In remembrance 
 of me. Here, then, let our contemplations fasten, let our 
 gratitude waken, our devotions deepen ! 
 
 In remembrance of me. 
 
 I. Permit us to call your attention to the nature of this 
 sacrament, or the meaning of it, as a religious act, in those 
 who partake of these emblems. 
 
 II. Let us contemplate this sacrament as one of the 
 measures of God’s appointment for preparing us for 
 heaven. 
 
 We were going to add another article, but we will not 
 multiply particulars. We do not come here to deal in 
 logic, but to excite your love, to arouse your hearts, to 
 kindle your devotion. We would have you open your 
 hearts to the love of Jesus ; we would have you lift up 
 your souls in pious supplication ; we would have you come 
 to the board of your Saviour as if this communion season 
 were the closing act of your life, as if you were here tak- 
 ing upon your souls their dying dress, arraying them in 
 those vestments of devotion in which you would wish to 
 
OF THE SACRAMENT. 
 
 29 
 
 be ushered into the presence-chamber of your God. I de- 
 precate the cold, calculating spirit which would come to 
 the feast of Jesus Christ to speculate on some cold theory, 
 to chill the devotions of the humble Christian when his 
 heart kindles with the love of Jesus. 
 
 My brethren, we sometimes request your attention when 
 it is an effort for you to give it. But to-day we ask no such 
 effort. If the subjects of our contemplation do not hold 
 you without a struggle to attend, refuse your attention, 
 shut you ears against every word we have to say, and let 
 your hearts rise in holy supplication to Ilim who hath loved 
 us and given himself for us. We had rather you would 
 come around this board, your hearts glowing with love 
 and soothed with humble devotedness to Jesus, than with 
 your minds absorbed in the contemplation of the pro- 
 foundest of arguments, even though that argument w T ere 
 a chain let down from heaven. Yes, Christian, whatever 
 we may say, keep your heart humble, prayerful, devotional, 
 affectionate. And may the holy Comforter abide in your 
 bosom, giving you fellowship with the Father , and with his 
 Son Jesus Christ. 
 
 I. We were to call your attention to the nature of this 
 sacrament, or the meaning of it, as a religious act, in those 
 who partake of it. 
 
 This sacrament is a solemn oath. This is the meaning 
 of the word. When we partake of it we place ourselves 
 under the awful obligation of an oath. We swear to be 
 for Jesus Christ, and not for another. This do in remem- 
 brance of me. It is our act, and it binds us to Jesus 
 Christ. He requires of us the duty, and presents himself 
 as the object of that duty. And whenever we perform it 
 we renew our sacred oath, and again take upon ourselves 
 its holy obligations. 
 
30 
 
 MEANING AND DESIGN 
 
 The word sacrament is of Koman origin, and it may 
 assist us to understand its meaning if we glance for a 
 moment at its meaning and use with the Romans. We 
 speak now merely of the word — not of its application to 
 this Christian ordinance. 
 
 This word sacrament meant, from its first use, a sacred 
 oath. When the commanders of the Roman soldiery 
 would bind the Roman legions to their duty, they required 
 of them a sacrament, which they called sacramentum — a 
 sacred oath. The substance of the oath was this : they 
 swore to defend the life of the emperor, to obey the orders 
 of their officer, and never to desert the standards of the 
 empire. You see it bound them to their duty as good 
 soldiers ; it secured obedience to their lawful commander, 
 and taught them that they owed allegiance to the empire. 
 This was the meaning of their sacramentum — their sacred 
 oath. And no one who had not taken this oath was 
 allowed to muster in the ranks of the legions, or anywhere 
 to fight against the enemies of Rome. On particular occa- 
 sions this sacrament was renewed, and the soldier was not 
 suffered to forget who was his commander and what his 
 duty. 
 
 JSTow, this same word sacrament is applied to the ordi- 
 nance we contemplate. And the meaning of it here is 
 very much the same as it was among the Roman legions. 
 It is a sacred oath, in which we swear our allegiance to 
 Jesus Christ — in remembrance of me. We take upon our- 
 selves this obligation, and pledge ourselves to follow Jesus 
 Christ as the Captain of our salvation. 
 
 My dear brethren, our religion is a warfare ; Jesus 
 Christ is our Captain ; the world, the flesh, and the devil 
 are our foes ; and heaven is the object of our contest. 
 Let us gird on, then, the harness of the Christian soldier ! 
 Let us be strong in the Lord , and in the grower of his mighl } 
 
OF THE SACRAMENT. 
 
 31 
 
 even tlie weakest of us, knowing that our Master is in 
 heaven , neither is there respect of persons with him. Put 
 on the whole armour of God , that ye may be able to stand 
 against the wiles of the devil. Stand , therefore , in yout 
 Master’s strength, having your loins girt about with truth , 
 and having on the breast-plate of righteousness , and your 
 feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace ; above 
 all , taking the shield of faith , wherewith ye shall be able 
 (my brethren, I am reciting a promise of Jesus Christ) to 
 quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the 
 helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit , which is the 
 ivord of God. When you are thus prepared, when you 
 have thus girded on the harness of the Christian soldier, 
 come to this sacrament, this solemn oath, and take upon 
 yourselves the obligation to be for Jesus Christ — swear to 
 him that, whether living, you will live unto the Lord, or 
 dying, you will die unto the Lord ; that whether living or 
 dying, you will be the Lord's. But there is one article of 
 the Christian dress we did not mention. Praying always, 
 with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit. Forget 
 not this ; and when you come to take this oath, let the 
 supplication of your inmost souls be poured forth to God 
 that he will accept the dedication of yourselves to him, 
 and register your names on the muster-roll of heaven. 
 
 Again. One of the heathen writers has informed us 
 how he viewed the sacrament. He says the early Chris- 
 tians were accustomed to assemble and eat together, and 
 bind themselves with an oath not to commit any wicked- 
 ness, and to live together as brothers. An oath to holi- 
 ness, an oath to brotherly affection. 
 
 Let us take this explanation. Jesus Christ is not the 
 minister of sin. He would have us depart from all 
 iniquity ; he would have us, denying all ungodliness and 
 worldly lusts , live soberly , and righteously, and godly, in 
 
32 , 
 
 MEANING AND DESIGN 
 
 this present world ; looking for that blessed hope, and the 
 glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus 
 Christ ; who gave himself for us that he might redeem us 
 from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar 
 people, zealous of good ivor/cs. 
 
 Let us not refuse tlie other part of this explanation, — 
 to live together as brothers. It was during that supper 
 when Jesus Christ instituted this sacrament — when he 
 was, for the last time before his death, comforting his dis- 
 ciples — when he was about to be betrayed into the hands 
 of men — when J udas had risen from the board, and was 
 groping through the darkness of night to find the residence 
 of the chief priest, that he might betray his Lord, — it was 
 at this time that Jesus Christ uttered these remarkable 
 words : A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love 
 one another . A new commandment — it was one that had 
 never been uttered before — never before had pious people 
 been commanded to love pious people because they were 
 such. And now, when Jesus was just about to die, he 
 utters this commandment as part of his last counsel. It 
 Fjcerns associated with this ordinance. It was uttered at 
 this table. Here Jesus bound his followers to brother^ 
 affection. Judas was not there. Let there be no Judas 
 here. Let us all take upon ourselves this obligation — let 
 us add this to our oath. 
 
 Once more. Every oath has some conditions on which 
 it is based. We are not required to make this oath with- 
 out motive. There is another party to the compact. We 
 here enter into covenant with Jesus Christ, and if we give 
 ourselves to him, he gives himself to us. The covenant is 
 mutual, and if w r e are faithful, he is faithful that hath 
 promised . You know the promise is eternal life. You 
 have then the conditions of your oath. Do you ask the 
 pledge h There, Christian, is the pledge, In remembrance 
 
OF THE SACRAMENT. 
 
 33 
 
 ( f me. What a pledge is here ! The body and blood of 
 Jesus Christ! What more could we have received ] what 
 more could God have given! 
 
 Let us accept the pledge, and trust without wavering 
 our God for the fulfilment of the promise. For, if he 
 spared not his own Son, hut freely delivered him up for us 
 all, lioiv shall he not with him also freely give us all things ? 
 Here, then, let us take our sacrament, our oath. Let us 
 swear before God, angels, and men, that we w T ill belong to 
 Jesus Christ, that we will obey the Captain of our salva- 
 tion, that we will never desert his standard, that we will 
 fight against the world, the flesh, and the devil, that we 
 will yield to no wickedness, and that, in obedience to our 
 new commandment, we will love one another. Let us seal 
 this oath in remembrance of a crucified Saviour, and consi- 
 der ourselves bound by the awful obligations of his blood. 
 
 But, methinks, the heart of some trembling believer 
 shrinks from this awful obligation. Some soul, borne 
 down with a sense of sinfulness, fears to come under this 
 oath, lest, in some moment of weakness, temptation should 
 prevail and the oath be broken. 
 
 My dear friends, let us all have this fear, but let us not 
 refuse the obligation. We have no strength of our own, 
 but we come here to gain strength. Let us, then, all 
 come to this oath, fearful of ourselves, but confident of our 
 Kedeemer; feeling our weakness, but trusting that we 
 shall come off more than conquerors , through him that hath 
 loved us. When I am weak, then am I strong. 
 
 Does not the heart of many an humble Christian repeat, 
 Yes, I will give myself to Christ. I will renew my obli- 
 gation to be his. When I think of what he has done for 
 me, when I remember my miserable condition, sinful, and 
 poor, and perishing, — when I call to mind what he has 
 suffered that I might be free, — when I see him in the 
 3 
 
34 
 
 MEANING AND DESIGN 
 
 manger at Bethlehem, — when I behold him on the cold 
 mountain-top, his locks wet with the dews of the night, — 
 when I follow him to the garden of Gethsemane, and 
 wmtch him praying in an agony of blood, — when I behold 
 him on the cross, bleeding and dying for me, my heart 
 cannot refuse this obligation — the love of Christ con- 
 straineth me ; and wretched as I am, he will not leave me 
 comfortless. I w T ill be his. 
 
 Thus the Christian, trembling though confiding, takes 
 the oath, and gives himself to Christ. 
 
 II. Let us, then, in the next place, contemplate this 
 sacrament as one of the measures of God’s appointment 
 for preparing the sinner for heaven. 
 
 We have already seen that the Christian here gives him- 
 self up to Christ. He does it as a helpless sinner, need- 
 ing pardon and sanctification. He does it, trusting in the 
 merits and the mercy of Christ — in the sufficiency of his 
 atonement, and in the freeness of his grace. We do not 
 say that he lias not done all this before. If he is a sincere 
 Christian, he has done it before. But he 1ms made no 
 public and official surrendry of himself ; and very often 
 does not feel himself to be one of Christ’s disciples. It 
 is one thing to be so, and another thing to feel it, and 
 realize that it is so. And this is one of the measures of 
 God’s- appointment to prepare the Christian to feel him- 
 self a Christian. He may be such, it is true, without a 
 public oath ; but his deceitful heart will often bring him 
 into trouble. He will sometimes think, when temptation 
 besets him, he may do this, — he may yield to this little 
 transgression, — because it is no more than all the world 
 do, and he has not made a profession of religion. Hence 
 he is led astray vdiere the professing Christian wmuld be 
 sec;; v e. Just so of Christian duties. He who makes 
 
OF THE SACRAMENT. 
 
 35 
 
 no public profession, though a Christian at heart, may 
 very often excuse himself from Christian duties because 
 he has not taken the oaths of God. His deceitful heart 
 tells him that he need not discharge them, because he has 
 not bound himself to do so. Hence he neglects them, 
 and consequently does not improve by them, and grow in 
 grace and ripen for heaven. Who ever knew a person of 
 much piety out of the Church'? 
 
 What does the professing Christian do in all these 
 cases 1 He says the oaths of God are upon him ; t he 
 feels himself a Christian. Hence he resists temptation, 
 he discharges duty, and consequently grows in grace and 
 ripens for heaven. He is influenced by a motive which 
 others do not feel, and God gives him success where those 
 who take no oath would falter and fail. It is when we 
 rally under the banners of our Captain that we conquer. 
 
 Here, then, is one of the measures of God’s appoint- 
 ment for our progressive sanctification. In remembrance, 
 of me is a holy watchword to the Christian. It reminds 
 him of his oath, and it points him to his power. It gives 
 him no feelings of personal exaltation ; it teaches him to 
 be humble, and prayerful, and watchful, and obedient ; 
 and when he glories, he glories in the Lord. If I have 
 witnessed Christian feeling anywhere, or the sweetness of 
 Christian faith anywhere, or the strength of Christian 
 faith anywhere, it has been in communion exercises. 
 
 We did intend to speak of several other items, under 
 the consideration of this measure of love, but we will not 
 detain you from the oath. We pass over the consecra- 
 tion of our memory, the ennobling sentiment of self- 
 devotion, the awakening calls to gratitude, the strong 
 security to meekness and self-denial. In all these articles, 
 we might show the wisdom of this means of grace. 
 
 But it is enough that you know it is a means of grace, 
 
36 
 
 MEANING AND DESIGN 
 
 if your hearts are ready for its improvement. And if 
 they are, come to the table of your Master, and you shall 
 fmd this sacrament as rich in consolation as you would 
 be wretched without it. This is one of the three chan- 
 nels of grace, one of the three rivers of mercy that water 
 this garden of God. The word of God, prayer, and the 
 sacraments, are the only channels of divine communica- 
 tion. They are the only measures of God to fit us for 
 heaven. These are the three fountains of mercy that are 
 opened beneath the throne. Here we behold them, spread- 
 ing fertility around our Zion. Come, then, to this means 
 of grace, this measure of wisdom, this pledge of consecra- 
 tion, this oath of allegiance. Come, with your soul 
 humbled under a sense of your unworthiness, with your 
 mind filled with contemplations of your Saviour’s mercy, 
 with your heart overflowing in gratitude to God. Come, 
 mourning for your sins, sensible of your weakness, feeling 
 your poverty. Come, wash away your sins in blood, gain 
 strength from Christ, be made rich in faith ; — come, do 
 this in remembrance of him. 
 
 Come to give yourself away to Jesus Christ, to renew 
 your covenant, to take your oath, to seal your soul with 
 blood. Come to promise allegiance to God, submission 
 to Jesus Christ, love to the brethren. Are you sorrowful] 
 — come to be consoled. Are you sinful ] — come to be 
 cleansed. Are you fearful] — Be of good cheer. I have 
 overcome the world. Whatever may be your affliction, 
 come. This do in remembrance of me. 
 
 But some of you have never been at the table of God 
 before ; you come now for the first time to remember 
 Christ in the sacramental supper. For your sakes espe- 
 cially I have chosen this text. I have felt that your 
 security and comfort would depend very much on your 
 constant and cherished remembrance of your Saviour. 
 
OF THE SACRAMENT. 
 
 37 
 
 I do trust that the Holy Spirit has renewed your hearts, 
 and thus rendered it fit that you should be at the com- 
 munion-table. But you are not yet in heaven. You 
 have the desert to travel, the foe to meet, Jordan to cross. 
 Your best security lies in remembering Christ — remem- 
 bering all he has done for you, all he promises, all he 
 forbids, all he claims, all he has given. It is only a little 
 while since sorrows and fears filled your hearts. You 
 saw your sins, your God offended, your souls hasting to 
 eternity. We wept in your affliction, and we bless the 
 hand that has taken it away. Remember whose it was. 
 It was Christ’s — it was Christ’s ! You found no peace 
 till you found it in loving the Saviour. You are now to 
 profess that love, and you will find constant benefit by 
 cherishing the remembrance of the Saviour. Learn to repeat 
 these words, Who loved me, and gave himself for me. There 
 is great efficacy in remembering those that ha,ve loved us. 
 
 When you are tried, when you are troubled or tempted, 
 remember Christ — remember his love, his sacrifice, his 
 agony and blood. This remembrance will give you courage, 
 it will call you to duty, it will keep you from sin, it will 
 guard your heart from many a pang, it will furnish you 
 many a sweet song in this house of your pilgrimage ; and, 
 as you look forward to your end, you will learn to sing — 
 
 “I will praise him again when I pass over Jordan.” 
 
 Live nigh to Christ. Never allows the pride of life and 
 the fashion of this world to control you. Be wholly 
 your Saviour’s, and then make the Saviour wholly yours. 
 Bathe in his blood. Rest in his bosom. Requite him 
 with love for love, tenderness for tenderness. May God 
 keep you, and bring us to meet in that happier world 
 where our lov(^, and joy, and communion shall be perfect 
 and uninterrupted for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
Cjrrist |1mious ter |klhfm v s. 
 
 “ [Jnto you therefore which believe lie is precious.” — 1 Petek ii. 7. 
 ITH what words more suitable can we commence the 
 
 exercises of this hour 1 ? Unto you which believe 
 he is 'precious . What sentiment more fit for the com- 
 munion-table than this 1 Unto you which believe he is 
 precious. What words shall sooner find an echo in the 
 heart of the believer, as he comes to the feast of love ] 
 Here, in the presence of these emblems, and about to 
 renew the consecration of your bodies and souls to 
 Jehovah- Jesus, to you ivhich believe he is precious. Here, 
 as sinners against God, yet hoping for pardon ; as guilt}' 
 of crimes so great that the Son of God must die to ex- 
 piate them ; as rebels against heaven, yet reconciled by 
 the death of Jesus ; as lost to holiness, and happiness, 
 and hope, yet saved by his life ; — here shall we not extol 
 our crucified Redeemer, and in our hearts’ high estima- 
 tion exalt him as the chosen of our souls — the chiefest 
 among ten thousand , and one altogether lovely ? On this 
 spot, long hallowed to our exalted Saviour, where he has 
 often verified his promise, I will not leave you comfortless , 
 / will come to you , shall we not exclaim, Unto us indeed 
 he is precious ? On this spot, where more than one soul 
 now in heaven has formerly celebrated his dying love, 
 shall we not meet around his board 1 Unto us, also, he 
 
CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. 
 
 39 
 
 is precious. On this spot, where many of your kindred, 
 now gone to the grave, once held communion with their 
 Master, do you not feel it a holy privilege to commune 
 with him as precious to your souls ? 
 
 Perhaps, believer, the departed spirit of some friend 
 now looks down from heaven upon you, and rejoices that 
 Jesus is precious to your heart. Some hither, who from 
 this communion-table once sent up his prayers for you, 
 may now look down upon you. Some mother, who once 
 wept for her darling child, may now be praising God that 
 tears of pious grief are held in remembrance in heaven. 
 Some child, who once on this spot found Jesus precious 
 to the fainting heart, may now be leaning upon the golden 
 lyre, and resting from its heavenly strains to mark whether, 
 to that parent so beloved, Jesus is indeed precious. 
 
 True, we know not the employments of departed souls ; 
 but, if they ever can cease from the praises of the Lamb 
 in heaven, surely they must note those who celebrate his 
 dying love on earth. If the affairs of this world hold any 
 place in their minds, they must sometimes come back to 
 the altars of their lifetime, where they first swore fidelity 
 to their precious Saviour. And in such estimation as 
 your glorified kindred hold the Lord of life, now that they 
 have gone home to eternal rest, in such estimation we 
 wish you to hold him as you come to the sacramental 
 board. 
 
 To you ivliicli believe he is precious. 
 
 Yes, there are hearts which hold him in high estimation 
 now\ They are not under the necessity to wait till the 
 days of their pilgrimage are ended, before they know 
 enough of the Lord Jesus to fill them with holy delight 
 in his character. However much the joys of heaven sur- 
 pass those of earth, there is joy on earth in the heart of 
 the true believer. To him Jesus Christ is precious now; 
 
40 
 
 CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. 
 
 not merely regarded as some proper and valuable resource 
 for tlie time to come, but held in present estimation. To 
 you wliich believe he is precious. 
 
 Which believe ; — it is to believers on earth. He may, 
 indeed, be, and doubtless is, precious to the angels and 
 saints in heaven, who gaze upon the brightness of his 
 unveiled glories — precious as the theme of their undying 
 song. He is precious to the Father — The Father lovetli 
 the Son. When he bringeth in the first-begotten into tlte 
 world , he saith, Let all the angels of God worship him. 
 He was precious in angelic estimation when they an- 
 nounced his birth to the shepherds : Behold , I bring you 
 good tidings of great joy , which shall be to all people ; for 
 unto you is born this day , in the city of David , a Saviour , 
 which is Christ the Lord. The listening shepherds heard 
 the song chanted by a multitude of the heavenly host, 
 Glory to God in the highest ; on earth peace , good-will 
 toward men. What a birth-song ! Had not the court of 
 heaven, think ye, some high estimation of Him who was 
 now wrapped in swaddling-clothes , and laid in a manger ? 
 This humiliation seems not in the least to have lessened 
 their estimation of him. Angels came and ministered 
 unto him after he had fasted forty days and forty nights 
 and been tempted of the devil.. When he agonized in the 
 bloody sweat of Getlisemane — Father , if thou be willing , 
 remove this cup from me — an angel appeared unto him , 
 strengthening him. And they did not abandon him when 
 he was laid in the tomb ; an angel rolled back the stone, 
 while the affrighted earth trembled and quaked. 
 
 Thus you perceive that you are not alone in your at- 
 tachment to Jesus Christ. If to believers he is precious , 
 so he is to those who never fell from heaven’s high emi- 
 nence and lost the holiness of their nature. And if you 
 are fond of c^ nv»rrrinrr lnm hi the garden, or of musing 
 
CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. 
 
 41 
 
 over his sepulchre, so were angels. If you are fond of 
 chanting hi$ praises, so are angels. He has now gone 
 back to heaven, and the angels tune their harps to his 
 glory, — I heard the voice of many angels round about the 
 throne , and the beasts , and the elders; and the number of 
 them ivas ten thousand times ten thousand , and thousands 
 of thousands , saying with a loud voice , Worthy is the Lamb 
 that was slain to receive power, and riches , and wisdom , 
 and strength , and honour, and glory, and blessing. 
 
 To you which believe, he is precious. Which believe. 
 
 And is he then precious to them only? Are there no 
 others to whom he is precious? No; none. He that is 
 not with me is against me, and he that gatheretli not with 
 me scattereth abroad. It is to those which believe that 
 Jesus is precious. This is the declaration of the inspired 
 penman, and we dare not alter or obscure its sense. We 
 have then this sentiment, that faith is necessary in order 
 to have such a regard for Jesus Christ that he can with 
 propriety be called precious to us. It is not improbable 
 that some who have no faith are hoping still, in some way, 
 to be saved through Christ, and therefore do not and dare 
 not openly contemn his doctrines and the offers of his 
 grace. But they openly neglect them, and while they con- 
 tinue to do so they have not the sentiment that Christ is 
 precious. This is a sentiment of faith, and without faith 
 it has no existence. The converse of the proposition is 
 equally true. In whatever heart faith exists, there this 
 sentiment of the preciousness of Christ exists. Faith has 
 not existence in any heart to which Christ is not precious. 
 
 I. But what is meant by precious ? Let us see what 
 this includes. 
 
 1. Christ is precious to you which believe, that is, he is 
 honoured. The word which is here translated precious is 
 
42 
 
 CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. 
 
 sometimes translated honour. It is here used in the ab- 
 stract; a more exact translation of it would be, To you 
 which believe he is honour. That is, you honour him above 
 everything else. You set him in your estimation as the 
 honour of all tilings, and you honour the Son even as you 
 honour the Father. You count him the height of honour. 
 You esteem it your highest honour to belong to him, 
 and would rejoice to be found worthy to suffer even dis- 
 honour and ignominy and affliction for his sake. All 
 other honour, when it comes in competition with this, you 
 despise, for this is the very essence of honour. 
 
 2. Christ is precious to you which believe, that is, he is 
 valued. He holds a place in your affections above all other 
 objects. Your faith sets an infinite value upon him. It 
 has taught you (strange as you once thought such lan- 
 guage) that one who loveth father or mother more than him 
 is not worthy of him, and he that loveth son or daughter 
 more than him is not ivorthy of him. And here again we 
 recur to the abstract meaning of the word. To you ivhicli 
 believe he is preciousness — this is the exact translation — 
 that is, the very essence of everything you hold precious. 
 Other things you value. Your friends claim your affec- 
 tions. Your children call forth the warmth of your heart 
 as the full tide of parental affection swells in your bosom. 
 But even parental tenderness discovers their defects, and 
 there will be something you cannot love. But here is an 
 object without defect. Here is one altogether lovely. 
 Whatever qualities of amiability, or kindness, or sympathy, 
 or strong affection, you find in them, you behold the same 
 heightened to infinitude in Jesus Christ. What com- 
 plaisance at the feast of Cana! what tenderness at the 
 grave of Lazarus! what filial affection upon his cross! 
 Woman , behold thy son ! — he was then agonizing in death, 
 but he soothed a mother’s fears. In short, everything that 
 
CHRIST PRECIOUS TO REL1 EVERS. 
 
 43 
 
 the heart can value, you find in Jesus Christ, whom hav- 
 ing not seen ye love , and in ivhom, though now you see him 
 not , yet , believing, ye rejoice — this is the feeling of be- 
 lievers — with joy unspeakable and full of glory. 
 
 3. Again : Those things which we honour and value 
 we naturally seek. So here, To you which believe he is pre- 
 cious^ that is, is sought. You delight in searching for 
 him, to know more and more of him. You would esteem 
 it your greatest pleasure to grow in grace and in the know- 
 ledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To hold 
 some little intercourse with him, transient and infrequent, 
 is not enough for the believer. He would be often and 
 long in his company, for he is the chosen object, selected 
 from all other objects of interest and affection. He would 
 abandon other converse to hold converse with Christ. 
 And the believer has made no mistake in his estimation, 
 for we are told in this chapter that Christ is chosen of God 
 and precious. The estimation of the believer is therefore 
 the same as that of God. And who can hesitate to seek 
 that in which God himself delights h The believer does 
 seek for him. He never knows enough of him. Some- 
 times, indeed, he forgets for a moment the desire o' his 
 soul. He yields to the seductions of other objects. But 
 he finds no satisfaction in them. All the honours and 
 pleasures of the w r orld, when not enjoyed with him who 
 is precious , soon grow insipid. In the midst of all, the 
 true believer mourns when Jesus is not wfith him. And 
 he soon feels -the emotions of one who knew Christ of old : 
 I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God , than to 
 dwell in the tents of wickedness. He feels as Moses felt, 
 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of Goa , 
 than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. And if he 
 has been so weak and wicked as ever to forsake his Lord, 
 he soon finds his soul empty of its felicity, and he turns 
 
44 
 
 CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. 
 
 back with penitence, bitter, indeed, but liis tears fall, like 
 Mary’s, on the feet of Jesus. 
 
 In one word, there is not one principle of his existence 
 which does not find its highest and holiest employment 
 here. Love, hope, joy, admiration — every passion of the 
 heart, — finds here its sweetest exercise. 
 
 II. But what makes Christ so precious to the believer? 
 This is the second topic we proposed to notice. But need 
 I here ask such a question? Must we repress the heart’s 
 high emotions to descend to reasoning and explanation? 
 We must, indeed, say why Christ is so precious, but we 
 will endeavour to assigu no reason which can damp the 
 fire of your devotion. And there are those here who have 
 not so learned Christ , who are not believers, to whom he 
 has no form nor comeliness , and when they see him there is 
 no beauty that they should desire him . We would endea- 
 vour to show them that we have good reason for regard- 
 ing him as precious, in order to bring them, if possible 
 to the same precious faith. 
 
 1. And first, he is precious on account of his nature. I 
 suppose those who reject his salvation are not apt to 
 dwell on this thought. And I suppose those who run into 
 error on this point are not apt to have such a faith as 
 makes Jesus Christ the preciousness of their souls. 
 
 Let us then dwell for one moment on this point, keep- 
 ing close to the text and its connections. We read, Unto 
 you which believe , , he is precious ; but unto them which be 
 disobedient , the stone which the builders disallowed . the 
 same is made the head of the corner , and a stone of 
 stumbling and roclc of offence . Do you know, my 
 hearers, who it is that is this stone of stumbling and 
 rock of offence ? The thirteenth and fourteenth verses 
 of the eighth chapter of Isaiah will inform you. It is 
 
CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS . 45 
 
 there said, Sanctify the Lord of hosts himself and let 
 him be your fear, and let him be your dread , and he shall 
 be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and a 
 rock of offence to both the houses of Israel . It is, then, 
 the Lord of hosts himself that is a stone of stumbling 
 and a rock of offence. St. Peter here quotes the words of 
 Isaiah, Wherefore also it is contained in the Scripture , 
 says he, and then proceeds to quote from the twenty- 
 eighth and from the eighth chapter of that prophet. And 
 the whole shows beyond dispute, that this stone of stum- 
 bling and rock of offence is the Lord of hosts himself. 
 
 This, then, shows us the nature of Him who is precious. 
 Pie is the Lord of hosts himself, and well may the heart 
 of the believer cling to him. What else shall be as pre- 
 cious as his divine Saviour] Where shall he go but to 
 his God ] He does not rest his heart upon any created 
 being, but on the Lord of hosts himself. He does not 
 trust his soul in the keeping of any created being, but 
 in the keeping of the Lord of hosts himself. He believes 
 with a faith that has no misgivings, in regard to Jesus 
 Christ. It may sometimes be a weak faith, and some- 
 times a wavering faith. But the weakness and the 
 wavering of it are in himself, and on account of infirmity 
 and remaining sin. He may doubt his own sincerity, but 
 he does not doubt the power of Christ. He may some- 
 times lose the strength and the joys of his faith, and think 
 lie has no piety and never had any. But if his heart has ever 
 been brought to believe, it has no doubts of the full power 
 of Jesus Christ, and the joys that may be found in his love. 
 And he will seek him again if ever he has wandered from 
 him, knowing that he has wandered from his God. 
 
 Why, then, should not this Saviour be precious ] He 
 is precious in his nature, and why should not the believer 
 shelter himself beneath the shield of Omnipotence ] 
 
40 
 
 CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. 
 
 2. In the second place, lie is precious on account of his 
 instructions. 
 
 He came for a light into the world, that whosoever be- 
 lieveth on him might not abide in darkness. And he is 
 still a light to those who abide in him. Their eye searches 
 not after the light of this world to direct their steps. It 
 is the eye of faith, and they ivalk by faith. It is fixed on 
 a star that never wanders — on a sun that is never eclipsed. 
 Jesus Christ is himself their light, giving all necessary in- 
 struction. They wish to see, and he opens their blind 
 eyes. He shows them how sinful they are, for they never 
 know this till they read it in the dignity of his* sacrifice. 
 He shows them how holy, and just, and pure is their 
 offended Cod, for they are ignorant of this till they be- 
 hold the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the 
 face of Jesus Christ. He shows them how such sinners 
 can get to heaven. The whole world could not have told 
 them this, with all the wisdom, and science, and philo- 
 sophy which six thousand years have produced. 
 
 Why, then, let me ask again, should not Christ be pre- 
 cious to_ them ? How it must delight their souls to be 
 instructed in the lessons of salvation ! What transporting 
 emotions arise in their hearts as he teaches them in the 
 science of heaven ! Do not suppose I speak of those who 
 have no faith. Ho, it is of the feelings of faith, and of 
 those only, that I speak. Or shall I not rather say, it is 
 faith itself ] I speak of those feelings that come over 
 the heart that is open for the entrance of a Saviour ; of 
 that holy calmness and peace of mind which constitute 
 the inward witness of a Saviour’s presence ; of that un- 
 shaken confidence and filial trust which submit the mind, 
 the heart, and the will to Jesus Christ. Those who have 
 not thus submitted have no knowledge of the sweet les- 
 sons of Him who spake as never man spake. They have 
 
CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. 47 
 
 riot tried his instructions; they have not tasted that he is 
 gracious; and they can no more judge of the inner senti- 
 ments of the heart that is open to him, than a blind man 
 can judge of colours, or a deaf man of music. But the 
 heart of the true believer is open to him. This opening 
 of the heart, when he stands at the door and knocks , is 
 faith. And shall we not, then, call those joys of intimate 
 communion a part of faith ? joys which the believer pos- 
 sesses when Jesus comes in to sup with him . However 
 this may be, the heart that believes in Jesus Christ finds 
 his instructions sweet as the river of life, precious as the 
 soul’s redemption, joyous as the hopes of glory. 
 
 3. He is precious on account of his atonement. This, 
 I suppose, after all, is the main thought intended in the 
 text; I come to this conclusion from the connection in 
 which it stands. 
 
 Immediately before the text it is said, Behold I lay in 
 Zion a chief corner stone , elect , precious and he that be - 
 lieveth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you there- 
 fore which believe he is precious He that believetli on 
 
 him shall not be confounded : unto you , therefore , he is 
 precious, you perceive, because he is the sure foundation. 
 Other foundation can no man lay. And he is the sure 
 foundation by reason of his atonement ; for in another 
 place it is said, Ye who sometimes were afar off are made 
 nigh by the blood of Christ , .... and are built upon the 
 foundation of the apostles and prophets , Jesus Christ him- 
 self being the chief corner stone. The atonement of Christ, 
 therefore, constituting a sure foundation, is the great rea- 
 son why he is so precious. 
 
 And here, again, let me ask, Why should not believers 
 find him precious ] He is the foundation on which they 
 build ; they shall never be confounded. It is a foundation 
 laid in blood : the wickedness of man and the malice of 
 
48 
 
 CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. 
 
 hell cannot shake it. Why, then, shall not the believer 
 prize this above everything else 1 ? He comes to Jesus 
 Christ as a poor, guilty, and lost sinner. His heart faints 
 within him ; he is weary and heavy laden ; bitterness 
 comes over his soul ; conscience kindles up in his spirit 
 the fiery torments of unmingled misery ; the terrors of God 
 thunder in his ears ; the pit yawns for his entrance ; 0 my 
 God, shall we not prize thy mercy which delivers from all this? 
 
 Here, then, believer, you may build with safety. If 
 you have tasted that the Lord is gracious , you know some- 
 thing of this preciousness. But you need to build up 
 yourself on your most holy faith , praying in the Holy 
 Ghost. Then build here ; this is a precious foundation, and 
 you never will find it less precious. When the hopes of 
 those who have no Saviour are swept away in the wrath 
 of God, when they call upon the rocks and mountains to 
 cover them , you shall not be confounded. Build on this 
 foundation, and-^-what shall I say ? — the thunders of the 
 Eternal shall break harmless around you. 
 
 Oh, why cannot we persuade all to build here ? You 
 have all souls to save or lose, and you ought to be build- 
 ing for immortal life. Why will you not come to this 
 precious Saviour ? He is willing to receive you, and your 
 souls will be safe resting on this foundation. I do not 
 ask you to build on any foundation of man’s devising : 
 this is the foundation of the eternal God. I do not ask 
 you to commit your immortal spirit to the keeping of a 
 created saviour; no, not to the highest angel that ever 
 God created. Creatures have no merits to spare ; they 
 owe for themselves, to the God that created them, all 
 they can ever do ; and, therefore, no created being can 
 purchase your salvation. But here is, the salvation pur- 
 chased by the Lord of hosts, and why should you make 
 him a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence ? 
 
CHRIST PRECIOUS TO BELIEVERS. 
 
 49 
 
 Why should so few be found at his table, since we are 
 all sinners, and he is enough for us all ] His salvation is 
 free — without money and without price. 
 
 4. There is another reason we intended to mention 
 why Christ is precious — on account of his direction and 
 control. He never leaves those who trust in him, till, 
 having guided them through all the difficulties of life and 
 death, he introduces them into the presence of the angels. 
 But we must pass this topic. Other scenes occupy us. 
 Here we come around the table of Him who is precious to 
 every believer. Here we bury every animosity, extinguish 
 every resentment, forgive every injury. Oh, that we could 
 all sit down to this feast, and find our Saviour precious to 
 our souls ! Saviour of sinners, be thou the Saviour of 
 those who know not how precious thou art, and let us 
 yet meet them at thy table and in thy heaven ; and thine 
 be the glory. Amen ! 
 
 4 
 
lily 6ob, bast tljmt forsabea me ? 
 
 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”— Matt, xxvii. 46. 
 
 THIS is the expression of Jesus Christ, as he hung upon 
 the cross. He had passed through the years of the 
 flesh, accomplishing the work which brought Jiim from 
 heaven, and now lie was surrendering up his life amid the 
 most cruel torments. In anticipation of his sufferings, 
 his soul in the garden was exceeding sorrowful ; and after- 
 ward on the cross he endured all the insults that the most 
 embittered malignity could heap upon him. He was 
 mocked, and buffeted, and spit upon ; he was treated as a 
 guilty criminal, — placed between two thieves, as if most 
 worthy of a bad pre-eminence ; he was in the hands of 
 his foes, and the taunts, and gibes, and sneers of the in- 
 sulting rabble mingled with his groans. 
 
 But is it not strange that one such as Jesus Christ was 
 should utter this exclamation ] Is it not strange that 
 one who knew no sin should be in this agony h Did he 
 lose his trust in God, or can God forsake those who trust 
 in him ? None of us form any ideas of Jesus Christ, or 
 of the Father, which can justify this mournful exclama- 
 tion. We always conceive of Jesus Christ as holy , harm- 
 less, undefiled ; and, therefore, we should not expect such 
 a complaint as this. We always conceive of the Father 
 as delighting in the Son, and faithful to all such as trust 
 
MY GOD , WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 51 
 
 in him ; and, therefore, should not expect him to forsake 
 that Son whose trust in him was always unshaken. 
 
 There is something wonderful and mysterious in this 
 deep-toned complaint of the dying Jesus, as he mourned 
 that he was forsaken of his God. And it is our present 
 intention, — 
 
 I. To examine this mystery, spreading it out that we 
 may behold its wonders. 
 
 II. To throw as much light across it as we are able. 
 
 III. We must confess our weakness, and learn to won- 
 der and adore at the view of those mysteries into which 
 we are unable to dive. 
 
 IV. We must derive, from the whole of this, reflections 
 suitable for that ordinance which commemorates the death 
 of Jesus Christ, and which to-day brings his followers 
 around his table. 
 
 This is the whole plan of this discourse. 
 
 But, my brethren, we never approach themes like this 
 without being pained by a sense of our own imbecility. 
 We never enter upon the duties of an hour like this with- 
 out feeling ourselves inferior to the occasion. We never 
 stand before these emblems, and look around upon waiting 
 believers, hungry for the bread of life, and waiting for the 
 consolations of the gospel from lips like these, without 
 painfully fearing that we shall disappoint the hopes of 
 the longing soul. There is so much of everlasting interest 
 hung around this ordinance, there is so much of intense 
 feeling coming here to exert itself, there is so much of 
 trembling and confidence, of hope and despair, of joy and 
 bitterness, swelling in the bosom of these communicants, 
 and there is so much of awful solemnity in the dying 
 exclamation of a crucified Saviour, that we cannot stand 
 
£2 MY GOD , TF//F HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 
 
 here without feelings too big for utterance. What if we 
 ►should fail to show you the sufficiency of Jesus ? What 
 if some fainting soul, fearing, like the publican, so much 
 as to lift up his eyes to heaven , should turn away without 
 knowing the tender compassion of a dying Saviour ? 0 
 
 God, we cast ourselves upon thy power ! Holy Spirit, 
 take thou of the things that are Christ’s, and show them 
 unto us ! Exalted Saviour, give strength and consolation 
 to every weak believer, and let our communion with thee 
 supply the deficiency of all earthly guidance. 
 
 I. We said, my brethren, it was a very wonderful thing 
 that, when Jesus Christ came to die, he should utter the 
 complaint we read to you. He here complains that bis 
 God had forsaken him. The complaint seems to have 
 been uttered in the greatest agony of spirit. He not 
 only calls upon God, but he repeats the words : My God , 
 my God , why hast thou forsaken me ? His whole soul 
 seems to have been overwhelmed ; there was here an in- 
 tensity of anguish ; and if any one ever died in bitterness 
 of spirit, it was Jesus Christ. 
 
 But now, in what manner might you have expected 
 Jesus Christ to die ? If he must die, would you not 
 have thought that he would die in triumph ; that one who 
 was the favourite of heaven, one who foresaw and foretold 
 his death, and often conversed about it with his friends, 
 one, in short, who came into the w T orld for this very pur- 
 pose, — would you not have expected him to meet death 
 with constancy and composure? Would you not have 
 thought that the recollections of a life of purity would 
 have sustained him in that hour? that the anticipations 
 of his glory would have drowned the miseries of dying ? 
 
 If you would have had such an expectation, it would 
 have been no irrational one ; the nature and the history 
 
MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 53 
 
 of Jesus Christ, and the history of the world, would 
 justify it. 
 
 1. The nature of Jesus Christ would justify it. Who 
 was Jesus Christ ] Isaiah described him when, with the 
 eye of the prophet, he looked down through the mists of 
 ages to the coming of Christ : Unto us a child is born , 
 unto us a son is given , and the government shall be upon 
 his shoulder , and his name shall be called Wonderful , 
 Counseller , the mighty God , the everlasting Father , the 
 Prince of Peace. St. John described him : In the be- 
 ginning was the Word , and the Word ivas with God, and 
 the Word was God ; and the Word was made flesh and 
 dwelt among us. Would it not be reasonable to expect 
 that one wearing such titles, if he were to die after he was 
 made flesh, would die in triumph ? 
 
 2. The history of Jesus Christ would justify such an 
 expectation. Aside from the purity of his life and his 
 willingness to die, notice the manifestations of might and 
 glory that had attended him. Multitudes were fed by his 
 miracles, the blind saw, the lame walked, the sick rose to 
 health, the dead came forth from the tomb. When the 
 band of armed men, guided by the traitor Judas, came 
 out to take him, he said unto them, Whom seek ye ? they 
 answered, Jesus of Nazareth ; no sooner had he said unto 
 them, I am he , than they went backwards and fell to the 
 ground : one flash of his divinity smote them to the earth. 
 Even when he first came into the world, though an out- 
 cast from the dwellings of men, and cradled in a manger, 
 the glory of God shone across the plains of Bethlehem, 
 angels chanted his birth-song, and a new star took its 
 place in the heavens to look down upon his birth-place. 
 Would it not then be reasonable to suppose that one wdio 
 could perform these miracles, who had prostrated the 
 armed soldiery with a word, one whose nativity must be 
 
54 MY GOD , WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 
 
 marked by a new star, and to celebrate whose birtli a 
 choir must be sent from heaven, — is it not reasonable to 
 suppose that, if he must die, he would die in triumph 1 
 
 3. The history of the world would justify such an ex- 
 pectation. 
 
 We are very much in the habit of expecting that what 
 has been may be ; we make the history of the past our 
 prophet of the future. This is a method of reasoning 
 upon our experience, and making inductions according to 
 the extent of our own or others’ observations. And the 
 human mind is so constituted that it is incapable of resist- 
 ing the conclusions of this inductive method. We are 
 compelled, by the constitution of our very nature, to ex- 
 pect a resemblance in events which are attended or pre- 
 ceded by circumstances of resemblance. On this con- 
 clusion most of our daily calculations and daily conduct 
 are based. We expect sickness to be followed by death, 
 the rain to descend after the rising of the cloud, the sun 
 to ripen our harvests, and the succession of days and 
 nights to continue. For this expectation we need no 
 other voucher than our experience, than the knowledge of 
 what has been. So, with respect to the manner of our 
 dying. We expect a holy man to lay down his life with 
 feelings very different from the ungodly. The history 
 of death’s dealings from the beginning of the world 
 justifies this expectation. 
 
 Looking back to the days before the flood, we find that 
 Enoch, who walked with God , had no struggle in'* the day 
 of his departure : he was not , for God took him . There 
 was a religious man translated that he should not see 
 death . 
 
 And how, then, shall Jesus Christ die ] Shall not he 
 depart hence as gloriously as Enoch ] Shall not the 
 chariot and horses of fire that bore Elijah to heaven be 
 
MY GOD, WTIY HAST THOU FORSAKEX ME? 55 
 
 vouchsafed for the translation of Jesus Christ, while some 
 anointed follower, like the young Elisha, who gazed upon 
 his father soaring to heaven, bears testimony that he de- 
 parted in a blaze of glory] Or shall lie not, at least, go 
 up in peace, like Moses on the mount ? Why, at least, 
 shall not Jesus Christ die as triumphantly as St. Paul ] 
 St. Paul could contemplate the day of his death with holy 
 exultation, longing to depart and be with Christ, which is 
 far better . I have fought a good fight , I have finished my 
 course , I have lcept the faith; henceforth there is laid up for 
 me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous 
 judge shall give me at that day. Why not as gloriously as 
 Stephen 1 When he was dying, the heavens were opened, 
 and he looked in upon their splendour. But when Jesus 
 Christ was dying, the heavens were shut up, the sun took 
 back his beams, and darkness covered the earth. 
 
 The death of Jesus Christ was marked with very little 
 of that composure which we have a right to expect in the 
 death of the just. Many a saint has breathed out his life 
 with more calmness than he, and many a martyr at the 
 stake, or on the scaffold, has been more unmoved. It is 
 true that every good man has not died in triumph. 
 Their sun sometimes goes down in clouds, but its twilight 
 still lingers around the shades of their tomb. But in this 
 death of Jesus Christ we have none of that triumphant 
 buoyancy which has so often marked the death of the 
 exulting martyr, and none of that composure which has so 
 often curtained the death-bed of the expiring Christian. 
 With Jesus Christ all is dark; he anticipated dying with 
 a soul exceeding sorroivfid ; he hangs upon the cross 
 sustained by no inward feeling of triumph; he dies, 
 assuaged by no tranquillity of soul. My God, my God, 
 why hast thou forsaken me ? is the strong expression of 
 his dying agony ! 
 
56 MY GOD , WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME t 
 
 We know that there are many things which conspire to 
 make death dreadful, and some one of which embitters the 
 death of very many of our race. But if we examine these 
 in detail, we shall find that none of them could have em- 
 bittered the death of Christ. 
 
 1. Death itself is an awful event, from which it is the 
 nature of every living being to shrink. To die is of itself 
 something so dreadful that no being covets it. Despair of 
 the present, and joyous anticipations of the future, may 
 indeed take away its sting, and make us desire it ; but of 
 itself, it is an evil, to which nothing but greater misery or 
 over-balancing anticipations can reconcile us. But was 
 not Jesus Christ reconciled in this way ? Did he not 
 know he would conquer ? Did he not know that death 
 would restore him to the glory which he had with the 
 Father before the world ivas ? And have not multitudes 
 died with feelings that took away all fear ? It was not 
 this, therefore, which caused the dying agony of Christ. 
 
 2. When one is about to die, and looks back upon a 
 life misspent and misimproved, such an examination will 
 be likely to make death more dreadful. In that hour, to 
 have the recollection of our iniquities come thronging 
 over the soul, to look back on a life devoted to earthly 
 pleasure, and find the echo of our former revelry mingling 
 with the death-groan that heaves our bosom, — may well 
 embitter the last moments we have to live. When the 
 father sees, circling his death-bed, the children that God 
 has given him, and remembers that his whole life has 
 been an example of impiety tending only to lead them to 
 ruin, — how sadly will the thought come over his soul ! 
 When the mother calls the children to give them her 
 dying kiss and blessing, oh, how it will embitter her 
 tears when she remembers that all her life she has 
 neglected her duty. These children that I love sofondly^ 
 
MY GOD , WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 57 
 
 these children that I am just leaving, — these children, 
 when I am dead, must remember a mother who neglected 
 their dearest interests — scarcely ever even prayed with 
 them, to prepare them for such an hour as this ! 
 
 Such thoughts would make death most miserable to any 
 one. In short, when any man looks back from the hour 
 of death upon a life misspent or misimproved, a life in 
 which he has made no provision for that to come, we can- 
 not expect him to die in peace. 
 
 But was it this that embittered the death of Jesus ? 
 No, the days of his childhood had witnessed his devotion 
 to the offices he had to perform, and to the kindness of 
 parental solicitude he could answer, Wist ye not that I 
 must be about my Father's business. lie knew no sin , he 
 neglected no duty, and when the time was come that he 
 was to depart out of the world, we find him calm in the 
 contemplation of all he had done. Father , the hour is 
 come ; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee. 
 I have glorified thee on earth, I have finished the ivork which 
 thougavest me to do. Here was no recollection of neglected 
 duty. It was not this, therefore, which embittered the 
 hour of death. 
 
 3. When one has no confidence of the soul’s immortality, 
 and is dying in a state of uncertainty in relation to a 
 future world, death will be dreadful. Then the soul is 
 haunted with gloomy apprehensions. One is dying, but 
 what is it to die h All is uncertain. One is leaving the 
 world, but whither is he going h Perhaps to non-exist- 
 ence, perhaps to Acheron — perhaps, what an awful word 
 to a dying man ! To exist no longer, to fall into annihila- 
 tion ! Nature shudders at the word ! Our love of 
 existence fills us with an inwaid horror of “ falling into 
 nought.” 
 
 But had Jesus Christ this horror ? Yv^as he in doubt 
 
58 MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKE X ME? 
 
 of future existence ? and was it the dread of annihilation 
 that filled him with gloom? Far from this. He possessed 
 an unshaken confidence, not only that he himself should 
 rise from the dead, but that all that were in their graves 
 should hear the voice of the Son of God , and come forth. 
 He it was that brought life and immortality to light, 
 and declared himself the resurrection and the life. He 
 knew he had power to lay down his life and power to take 
 it again. 
 
 4. When one dies with a guilty conscience, and is 
 haunted in his dying hours with fears of judgment, and 
 dreadful forebodings of vengeance in the world to come, 
 death will be a most awful thing. Crimes, long forgotten, 
 will come up to mind (for memory is faithful at such an 
 hour) ; days, and months, and years of iniquity will be 
 recollected; offers of pardon rejected, peace refused, grace 
 trifled with, salvation slighted, will come over the soul 
 like the maledictions that blast. And while the past is 
 fertile in fears, the future is no less so. What is before 
 the guilty mortal ? A throne of judgment, an offended, 
 insulted, avenging God, stores of wrath, and flames of 
 everlasting torment. These surely might terrify any man 
 when he came to die. 
 
 But was this the source of the agony of Christ ? (I 
 ask it with reverence, and only for the purpose of leading 
 you on to a profitable conclusion.) Ho, he knew no sin , 
 and in him the Father was well pleased. If any one ever 
 anticipated felicity in the world to come, surely it was 
 Jesus, who, for the joy that was set before him , endured the 
 cross. 
 
 5. And lastly, when, from attachment to life or from 
 any other reason, one is unwilling to die, the day of death 
 will be dreadful. But this was not the case with Jesus 
 Christ. He came into the world to suffer, and he was 
 
MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 59 
 
 willing to be offered up. The cur which my Father hath 
 given me , shall I not drink it ? I lay down my life that 
 I may take it again. No man taketli it from me , but 1 
 lay it down of myself Here was no unwillingness to die. 
 It was not this that caused the complaint of our text. 
 
 We find, therefore, in none of the things which can be 
 supposed to make death dreadful, anything applicable to 
 Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died in more than usual 
 mournfulness and gloom, and we find no explanation of 
 the mystery. 
 
 What, then, could it be that caused this agony! Was 
 it taunts, the jeers of the rabble ! No; these he had met. 
 Was it the bloody scourge ! No ; this he had endured. 
 Was it the sight of that Golgotha, that common charnel- 
 house, where the bones and skulls of the dead were piled 
 together lest any should touch them and be polluted, and 
 whera he had been taken, that when he was dead he 
 might be added to the pile! No; he knew that would 
 not be his grave, and that his body should not see corrup- 
 tion. Was it the darkness which veiled the heavens ! No ; 
 this was clearing away when Jesus Christ uttered this ex- 
 clamation. 
 
 II. We have here, then, a mystery. We find not why 
 Jesus Christ should be so mournful in the day of death. 
 Let us throw as much light across it as we are able. 
 
 We would not be understood to say that the circum- 
 stances of the death of Jesus did not increase his agony. 
 The manner of his death was a most painful one, and the 
 cruelty and insults of those who crucified him must have 
 added to his sufferings. But all this is quite insufficient 
 to explain the mystery. Others have endured all this 
 and more, and yet have died with more composure than 
 Jesus Christ. We might point you to many a victim cf 
 
60 MY GOD , WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 
 
 torment — we might bring up before you a whole army of 
 martyrs — lead you through the history of persecution from 
 the days of Stephen down to those of Cranmer, and you 
 would find no one who seems to have died in such agony 
 as this. 
 
 And why is it that a mere man, a sinful creature, shall 
 bear the torments of cruelty, and a death of violence, with 
 more calmness than the holy Jesus ! Why is it that one 
 with just such a body and soul as Jesus had, subject to the 
 same pains of body, should be more capable of meeting 
 death with calmness ? 
 
 There is one explanation of this mystery, and there is 
 but one — that is, his soul was made an offering for sin. 
 The iniquities of a world were laid upon him ; and when he 
 utters the exclamation of the text, indicative of so much 
 distress, it is not because his body was in torment merely; 
 it is not simply because he was enduring all the bodily 
 pain of which his frame was capable ; nor simply because 
 he was dying as a guilty malefactor, and insulted and tor- 
 mented with all the malignity of cruel hate. No , no; why 
 hast thou forsaken me 'l is the burden of his groaning. 
 The wrath of God lay heavy on his soul ; the Father had 
 forsalcen him ; he was enduring the righteous displeasure 
 of an angry God, and bearing the punishment of a guilty 
 world. He was wounded for our transgressions , he ivas 
 bruised for our iniquities , the chastisement of our peace was 
 upon him , that by his stripes we might be healed. He bore 
 our sins in his own body on the tree. 
 
 This seems to have been the worst of his misery. The 
 Father had forsaken him. At other times he had been 
 sustained under his trials. When he was in the wilder- 
 ness, angels ministered unto him ; when he agonized in 
 the garden, an angel from heaven appeared, strengthening 
 him. But now all this was withdrawn, the heavens were 
 
MY GOD , WIIY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 61 
 
 shut up, and the wrath of God lay heavy upon his soul. 
 My God, my God , why hast thou forsaken me ? 
 
 This, then, my hearers, is the only solution of the 
 mystery. Jesus Christ was here made a curse for us. 
 God spared not his own Son ; he made him to he sin for 
 us. He was now making satisfaction to divine justice for 
 the sins of the world ; and this is the reason of such un- 
 equalled anguish. 
 
 Let those who imagine that Jesus lived and died only 
 for a perfect example, only to show us how a good man 
 ought to live, and how a good man can die, let them 
 unlock this mystery. Let them say why it is that many 
 a man has met death with more serenity than he ; why it 
 is that martyr after martyr has braved all the torments and 
 terrors of the most cruel death with more tranquillity than 
 Jesus Christ ; why it is that even the delicate and timid 
 female has often stood firm where Jesus Christ must 
 shrink. 
 
 The truth is, there is no key to this mystery but the 
 satisfaction of the atonement. There is no reason why 
 Jesus Christ did not die with calmness and triumph but 
 because he suffered for our sins, and his holy soul was in 
 bitterness under the wrath of God. My God , my God , 
 why hast thou forsaken me ? Even the thief that died 
 beside him, died with more composure. 
 
 We do not pretend to know precisely the feelings of 
 Jesus Christ when he uttered this exclamation. We do 
 not suppose there was any want of submission to the will 
 of the Father, any feeling of murmuring, or distrust, or 
 despair. He was not offered up unwillingly. He was no 
 reluctant victim, dragged by violence to the altar. He 
 chose to lay down his life. He came a self-devoted sacri- 
 fice, and never doubted that he should rise from the dead^ 
 But nothing is more evident than that he was here in the 
 
62 MY GOD , WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME] 
 
 utmost distress of soul, and a distress which never can be 
 accounted for, only that his soul was made an offering for 
 sin, 
 
 III. There are mysteries here which we are unable to 
 explore. Let us learn to adore the matchless wisdom and 
 mercy of our God. 
 
 We cannot tell you how it is that a holy being who 
 knew no sin, could suffer on account of it, and deliver 
 the guilty sinner from its punishment. We know not 
 how it can be, for God has not told us ; we know that it 
 can be, for God lias revealed it. Adore, then, the match- 
 less wisdom of God in the atonement of Jesus. Let faith 
 believe God. Jesus died that we might live. 
 
 We cannot tell you how it is that a God of justice and 
 holiness can, consistently with these attributes, inflict 
 punishment upon the innocent Saviour, and pardon the 
 guilty sinner that believes in him. We know that he 
 does so, and this is our only hope of heaven. Adore the 
 wisdom of God, devising this mystery for the redemption 
 of the soul. Let faith rest assured that God can be just, 
 and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. 
 
 We know not in what manner the divine nature was 
 united to the human in the person of Jesus Christ, for, 
 says St. Paul, Without controversy , great is the mystery oj 
 godliness. God was manifest in the flesh , justified in the 
 Spirit , seen of angels , preached unto the Gentiles, believed 
 on in the world, received up into glory. Learn to be 
 humble before this mystery of godliness , and lean your 
 souls upon this God manifest in the flesh ! He came in 
 your own nature. In his person God and man met. He 
 can sympathise with Jehovah on the throne, and with the 
 poorest Lazarus that dies in his sores. Our interests are 
 safe in his hands. 
 
MY GOD , WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME i 03 
 
 Do not expect us to explain to you how the sufferings 
 of Jesus Christ could honour the law of God, since the 
 law condemned the guilty, and he was innocent. We 
 only know lie took our place and died for us, and the 
 dignity and innocence of the victim gave an infinite 
 value to his atonement. Adore the mystery you cannot 
 fathom, and trust the mercy that delivers you from the 
 curse. 
 
 Do not expect us to explain how the Father, who de- 
 lighted in the Son, could, at such a time as this, when he 
 was lifted up on the cross, when he was torn, and 
 mangled, and tormented, and enduring all the agonies of 
 death, take away the light of his countenance, and add 
 tenfold bitterness to the woes of Him in whom his soul 
 was well pleased. 
 
 All these are mysteries into which we have no power 
 to enter. Here are the depths of the wisdom of the 
 Eternal, the unfathomable abysses of God. The Jew here 
 finds a stumbling-block, and the Greek cries out, Foolish- 
 ness ; but angels, sensible that here is a most glorious 
 display of the Godhead, desire to look into those mys- 
 teries. 
 
 IV. And what can we desire for you but that which 
 St. Paul desired for the Colossians — that you find com- 
 fort in these mysteries, that your hearts might be knit 
 together in love, and unto all ouches of the full assurance 
 of understanding to the acknowledgment of the mystery 
 of God and of the Father, and of Christ, in whom are hid 
 (a mystery still, you perceive) all the treasures of wisdom 
 and knowledge . What more can we ask of you than to 
 cast your sins and your souls into the hands of Jesus 
 Christ, to draw from the fulness of his grace, to rest on 
 the sufficiency of his sacrifice, to honour him with the 
 
64 MY GOD, WIIY HAST TIIOTJ FORSAKEN ME? 
 
 tenderness of your repentance, the fervour of your love, 
 and the confidence of your faith ] 
 
 Have you seen him hanging on the cross, given up to 
 the hatred of his foes, and struggling with the powers of 
 darkness h It was that he might satisfy divine justice for 
 you — that he might bear the wrath of heaven, to deliver 
 your soul from the pit. 
 
 Have you heard him under the pre-eminent, pains of 
 death, when abandoned of heaven and suffering under 
 the displeasure of his Father (not against himself, but 
 against the sins of men), mourning that he was forsaken i 
 It was because your sins were laid upon him. 
 
 Have you seen him enduring such agonies as none 
 other ever felt ] It was that he might triumph as he died 
 — that he might spoil principalities and powers , and Van- 
 quish death for you. 
 
 Believer, are you weak and sinful ] Do you find your 
 soul sad, and glooms and fears gathering around you ? 
 Learn, in what Christ suffered, how much God loved your 
 soul. How can you despair ? What more demonstra- 
 tion do you want that heaven has mercy for you ? What 
 can there be in infinite justice to make you fear, when 
 you see the Infinite One has wailed under it, and suffered 
 all it could ask ? Besting on Jesus Christ, you will never 
 sink. Be not afraid : though your sins be as scarlet , they 
 shall be as wool ; though they be red like crimson , they 
 shall be whiter than snow. 
 
 There is something awful in contemplating the agonies 
 of a dying Saviour, but it is joyous to gather hopes from 
 his death. Man was in the hopeless bondage of sin. 
 Jesus hath paid the ransom, the Father hath accepted it, 
 and we hope the Holy Ghost hath sealed it on your 
 souls. And nothing — no, nothing — can ever deprive you 
 of the smiles of your God and the love of your Saviour 
 
MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME? 65 
 
 while you live upon liis fulness and trust his grace. He 
 died that you might live ; he suffered that you might be 
 free ; he agonized that you might rejoice. 
 
 Here, then, preparing for the solemnities of to-day, 
 mourn that you are sinners, but rejoice that you are re- 
 deemed. Here deepen the contrition of your repentance, 
 add fervour to your love, gain strength for your faith. 
 Here come to swear allegiance to Jesus, come to bathe 
 your soul in blood. Adore the mysteries of redemption, 
 and seal your spirit for heaven. Come to the table of 
 your Saviour, remembering that he died for you ; come 
 penitent, humble, believing ; come, praying for the Holy 
 Spirit to seal you to the day of redemption. 
 
 Doubtless you will have trials in your life of religion ; 
 but fear not, the blessed Jesus will take care of you ! Be 
 of good cheer , thy sins are Jorgiven thee. But if you 
 would have these benefits, you must live nigh to him ; 
 you must learn to lean on his bosom like St. John ; you 
 must listen and weep, like Mary, at his feet ; and you 
 must leave the world and go after him. Other friends 
 may forsake you, but Christ never will. He will be with 
 you in joy and sorrow ; he will go with you down to the 
 borders of the grave, and when you are covered over in 
 its bosom he will set his seal upon it that you are his. 
 But remember, if you would be his then , you must be his 
 now. Give yourselves wholly to Jesus Christ, and ratify 
 before high heaven your covenant between God and your 
 soul. 
 
 Followers of Christ, you come to celebrate his death ! 
 He died for you. The eternal Son, the incarnate Word, 
 the second person in the Godhead, undertook for your 
 redemption. He took your nature ; and that nature, sus- 
 tained by his divinity, suffered for you. Is it not enough 1 
 enough for your souls, enough for divine justice, enough 
 5 
 
G6 MY GOD, WHY HAST THOU FORSAKEN ME] 
 
 for heaven and for hell ? His holy soul was sorrowful, 
 that you might rejoice. Will you not come, then, to his 
 table, uttering, in the fulness of your hearts, We love him 
 because he first loved us ? Come freely ! come in welcome ! 
 come to receive all that your souls need or your souls can 
 have ! 
 
 Come to gain strength to sing, as you sink in death, 
 Thanks be to God who cdways causeth us to triumph in 
 Christ , and then you shall enter into heaven. You shall 
 see Christ on his throne of glory. A redeemed sinner, 
 you shall join in the anthem of the hundred and forty- 
 four thousand, Unto him that loved us , and washed us 
 from our sins in his own blood. 
 
 But when I look over this assembly, an unutterable 
 sadness oppresses me. I see here some whom I am afraid 
 will never see heaven. Some of you have not turned to 
 Christ, and now you are going to trample his blood under 
 foot. What shall I say to you? I hoped, before the 
 account of another year’s ministry was sealed up for the 
 day when I shall stand before God, to have been permitted 
 to welcome many of you to his table. But that year’s 
 ministry is closed, and you have not been profited by it. 
 You and I must soon meet elsewhere. We shall stand 
 before God. In view of that solemn day, my beloved 
 friends, let me beseech you once more to take shelter in 
 the Son of God. You need not go down to hell. I am 
 afraid you will. You are flinging away your life, your 
 days of grace. Let me plead with you to begin a new 
 course. Seek God. Begin now. Consecrate the last 
 moments of the expiring year to earnest prayer for your 
 own souls ; and if you begin another, begin it and end it 
 with God, lest it should be better for you that you had 
 never been born ! 
 
V. 
 
 Clje Surra meat a Jfrasf *of ^Iliancr. 
 
 “ For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show the 
 Lord’s death till he come.” — 1 Coe. xi. 26. 
 
 TFHAT ordinance whose design is somewhat developed in 
 1 these words, is one of the most significant institutions 
 among mankind. It is no unmeaning ceremony, deriving 
 its effect from ostentation and the glare of outward exhibi- 
 tion, which often hold a strong influence over the minds 
 of the multitude; nor does it depend for its effect on the 
 superstitious principles of human nature, which always 
 find attractions in some half-veiled mystery. It is at 
 once simple and significant. All is plain and open. The 
 institution stands before us in unobscured significance, 
 and, unlike the mysteries of the ancient heathen, it seeks 
 no retirement, nor strives, like them, to perpetuate its ex- 
 istence by the magnifying power of superstition, and the 
 prying inquisitiveness of unsatisfied curiosity. Unlike, 
 also, to some modern institutions, it makes no vain- 
 glorious boasts of hidden wonders, nor holds its empire 
 over the mind by the combined influence of pretended 
 mysteries, and the vain promise of some future disclosure. 
 It is precisely what it pretends to be : a memorial of the 
 death of Jesus Christ. This do in remembrance of me . . . . 
 For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup , ye do 
 shoiv the Lord’s death till he come. Here is the plain 
 object of the institution. Here is no disguise drawn 
 
68 THE SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE. 
 
 around it. The disciple who approaches the Lord’s table 
 cannot but understand the main intention of the ordinance. 
 He comes as the humble disciple of his crucified Lord, to 
 testify his attachment to him. He comes to celebrate the 
 dying love of Jesus; to renew his covenant with him, and 
 pledge his fidelity over the consecrated emblems of his 
 death. He comes to hold communion with God, as friend 
 meets friend, and open his heart to the joys of a wondrous 
 forgiveness and a matchless love. 
 
 All these ideas are included in the ordinance which 
 shows the Lord's death. It is, therefore, no less significant 
 than plain. 
 
 But it is peculiarly instructive. How can it be other- 
 wise when we trace its history, and enter into its signifi- 
 cance ? How can we avoid receiving instruction when we 
 travel back over the lapse of ages, and take our stand by 
 that table where Jesus instituted the supper, and abolished 
 the passover which preceded it h When we there behold 
 the Son of man, a Jew by birth and a Jew by education, 
 acting with the simple majesty which always marked his 
 character, without publicity, and associated with a mere 
 handful of his nation, abolishing one of the most solemn 
 institutions of a whole people, and placing in its stead the 
 ordinance we now celebrate, how can we avoid gathering 
 instruction from the significant relics of the institution he 
 swept aside h and how can we avoid the lesson enforced 
 by the manner of his doing it ? And when we go 
 further back, tracing the feast of the passover through 
 ages of Jewish glory and Jewish depression, noting its 
 solemnities among the worshipping hosts of Israel that 
 came up in faith to the holy hill ; and tracing its ob- 
 servance from age to age, back through the reign of kings, 
 and the rule of judges, and prophets, and patriarchs, till we 
 have seen it in the vales of Judea, till we have seen it 
 
THE SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE. 69 
 
 on the sands of the desert, at the foot of Mount Sinai, 
 and, finally, in its Egyptian cradle, where the blood on the 
 door-posts disarmed the destroying angel — when we do all 
 this, how can we avoid gathering instruction, and gaining 
 confidence in the promises of God ] 
 
 And we might go still further back ; we might mark 
 the offering of significant sacrifices, typical of the sacrifice 
 of Christ, as remote as the days of Abraham, and even of 
 Abel. We might retire from the records of sacred writ, 
 and notice the heathen nations all possessing the custom 
 of offering sacrifice to their deities, and ask why it is that 
 this custom which the light of nature surely cannot 
 prompt, has been so universal. Thus, from the history of 
 heathenism we might adduce a proof of the divinity of 
 our religion. 
 
 But it is in the significance of our sacrament that we 
 must find the most essential instruction. And if we in- 
 vestigate its significance, we find it embracing the ideas of 
 a covenant , a seal , an oath, and a /east. 
 
 It is a covenant. The contracting parties are the great 
 God of heaven, and the poor sinful creature to whose 
 weakness he condescends. With the sinner, the revolted 
 subject, the guilty violator of his holy law, the gracious 
 Jehovah enters into articles of agreement which secure to 
 him indemnity for offences, and the eternal joys of heaven. 
 These, then, are the most powerful motives to maintain 
 this covenant inviolate. Here are strong arguments to 
 induce the dying creature to examine the articles of this 
 covenant, and ascertain on what conditions he can have 
 an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 
 when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved. Me- 
 thinks if Christians would more frequently dwell upon 
 this idea of the sacramental feast, and examine more fre- 
 quently the stipulations they have entered into with that 
 
70 THE sacrament a feast of alliance. 
 
 covenant-keeping and eternal God, we should find less 
 need to admonish, Be not conformed to this world. 
 
 It is a seal. The covenant is ordered in all things and 
 sure . When it is made, it is ratified and sealed. The Lord’s 
 supper is the great seal, of Jesus Christ’s own devising, 
 to the covenant of grace. The death of Christ is the image 
 it wears — the love of Christ is the impression it leaves. 
 
 It is an oath. The covenant is not simply made and 
 sealed, but its observance is bound upon you by an oath. 
 You swear fidelity to its conditions. This is another idea 
 of this sacrament, and another strong reason for your ex- 
 amining into the articles to which you have sworn, lest 
 you be found false to your oath, and guilty of perjury to 
 the eternal God. 
 
 It is a feast. This is the last idea, and the one under 
 which we design to contemplate the ordinance this morn- 
 ing. The covenant is not only made and sealed and 
 sworn to, but the parties meet at one common board, to 
 signify the intimacy of the union which they have formed, 
 and the familiarity, if I may so express it, of their inter- 
 course with one another. 
 
 All these ideas are included in this memorial of our 
 crucified Saviour ; and the full explanation of this memo- 
 rial, therefore, would be most instructive to the Christian. 
 
 But we must confine ourselves to one of these ideas, 
 and that one is most prominently presented in our text : 
 For as often as ye eat this bread , and drink this cup , ye do 
 show the Lord's death . The sacrament is here presented 
 under the idea of a feast. This idea, — 
 
 I. Must be explained. 
 
 II. It must be limited. 
 
 III. It must be justified. 
 
 IV. It must be improved. 
 
THE SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE. 71 
 
 These four articles form the outline of our discourse. 
 But while we dwell on the institution under the idea of 
 friendship and familiarity, we hope you will not forget the 
 other ideas it includes. Let not this idea of condescen- 
 sion and intimacy impair your veneration for that God 
 who thus stoops to your weakness. 
 
 This sacrament is a feast. 
 
 I. This idea of the sacrament must be explained. The 
 language in which this sacrament is often spoken of is 
 familiar to you all. It is called the Lord's supper ; those 
 who partake of it are said to sit down at the table of the 
 Lord, to eat and drink in his presence, to eat his body and 
 drink his blood. It is often denominated a feast , and our 
 text speaks of it as eating and drinking , as a manifesta- 
 tion of the death of our Saviour. 
 
 These expressions are figurative, and designed to express 
 our living by faith in his fulness, and the remission of our 
 sins by his blood. They compel us, therefore, to regard 
 Jesus Christ as something more than our great example in 
 righteousness and holy living. He is our example, indeed, 
 and it is the solemn duty of the Christian to imitate him 
 in all things where imitation can be practised, and is com- 
 manded. But this is not all. The Christian is to regard 
 his Saviour as the fulness on which he lives, the strength 
 in which he acts, the fountain of his spiritual existence, 
 the bread of life. Nourished by this, the Christian will 
 be strong, the pulse of life will beat with a healthful 
 stroke, and the currents of life will flow smoothly and un- 
 disturbed. Without this, he will languish and die. If he 
 attempt to live for a single day without being strengthened 
 by the grace of his Saviour, he will not live for Christ, nor 
 for heaven. He has no sufficiency in himself, and when- 
 ever he grows up toward the stature of perfection, he 
 
72 the sacrament a feast of alliance. 
 
 grows only because lie is fed, like the ancient Hebrews in 
 the wilderness, with bread from heaven. 
 
 We are too apt to think, after we have once indulged 
 the hope that we are born again, that we are in no danger 
 of mournful failure; we imagine we shall grow and 
 prosper of course. We forget the fountain from which we 
 must drink, and the storehouse whose supplies we need. 
 The Christian has no more sufficiency to prosper in holy 
 life, than he has to implant the principle at first in his 
 soul. And this feast would teach him that all his 
 sufficiency is in the grace of Jesus Christ, and that he 
 should always be seeking it there. And that man who 
 ceases to draw from this fountain, who, having obtained a 
 hope in Christ, and joined himself to the people of God, 
 thinks himself secure of heaven ; that man whose expecta- 
 tions of eternal life are based on what Jesus Christ has 
 done for him, entirely aside from what Jesus Christ is 
 doing ; that man whose soul is not strengthened daily by 
 the Author and Finisher of faith , has little reason to sup- 
 pose he was ever a child of grace. Jesus Christ is not only 
 the Alpha but the Omega , not only the beginning but the 
 end. And this feast would teach us the necessity of always , 
 not occasionally , gaining strength and life from him. 
 
 This feast is one of reconciliation, of friendship, and of 
 union. 
 
 Of reconciliation. Those who come to this board are 
 those reconciled to God by the death of Christ. Once 
 they were enemies to God by wicked works , but now they 
 are reconciled by the death of his Son. The great God 
 has sent forth ambassadors to proclaim the conditions of 
 peace, and beseech men to be reconciled to him ; and 
 some have accepted the conditions. They have entered 
 into covenant with their Maker, — have sworn to be for 
 him and not for another ; they have sealed the articles of 
 
TI1E SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE. 73 
 
 reconciliation, and now they are sitting down at his 
 board as reconciled friends. 
 
 It is a feast of friendship. Those who meet here meet 
 as the friends of one another and of their common Master. 
 It is not those who are at variance, but those whose 
 hearts are bound together in feelings of peace and amity, 
 that find delight in gathering around the same table. 
 This feast was intended to gratify and foster the high 
 friendships of the Christian heart. Here Jesus Christ 
 would have his disciples meet, as the followers of a 
 common Master and the heirs of a common heaven. And 
 here, if any man will open , he will himself come in and 
 sup with him , as friend meets friend. At this ordinance 
 heart should open to heart, love respond to love, and 
 every feeling of distrust and discord be lost in the kind- 
 ness of the scene. Jesus condescends to meet his humble 
 disciples, according to his promise, I will not leave you 
 comfortless , I will come to you ; and the example of his 
 condescension and forgiveness should be imitated by those 
 who gather at his call. If he has loved them, how ought 
 they to love one another ! 
 
 It is a feast of union. The great God meets us in his 
 ordinances to unite us to himself. Those who were afar 
 off are made nigh by the blood of Christ. They become 
 one with him ; they are united to him as the branch is 
 united to the vine , and are admitted to the high privilege 
 of being heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. 
 
 This is the explanation of this idea of the sacrament. 
 But this idea must be limited. 
 
 II. Though the sacrament is a feast, we are not to for- 
 get the nature of it, and think ourselves at liberty to make 
 it what we please. That it is an occasion of joy we will 
 always insist, and that it was designed to be celebrated 
 
74 T1IE SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE. 
 
 with feelings of love and joyful elevation I have no hesi- 
 tation in believing. One whose heart is filled with the 
 graces of the Spirit, whose bosom beats with love to 
 J esus, whose conscience is at peace with God, who comes 
 to this table, his soul buoyed above depression with the 
 earnest of the Spirit — such a one cannot but rejoice in 
 communion with his God. But we are to rejoice with 
 trembling. While we delight in God’s saving mercy and 
 his renewing grace in Christ Jesus, we should hold it in 
 mind that this feast celebrates our deliverance from death. 
 Penitence and humility are the feelings that should tem- 
 per our joy and mingle with our love. You remember the 
 ancient Jews ate their passover with bitter herbs , and this 
 was to call to mind the bitterness of Egyptian bondage. 
 And the more modern Jews, in the celebration of their 
 passover, have a significant and instructive ceremony. 
 The plate containing the bread of their passover is lifted 
 by the hands of the whole company, and they all unite in 
 the expression, This is the bread of 'poverty and affliction 
 which our fathers did eat in Egypt . We are not, there- 
 fore, to suppose ourselves at liberty to rejoice without re- 
 pentance when we celebrate this feast, and to make this 
 solemn sacrament an occasion of thoughtless joy. The 
 Corinthian Church erred in this particular. They knew 
 this was a feast, but forgot the proper limits. They sup- 
 posed themselves at liberty to make it an occasion of un- 
 mingled joy, and it seems to have become with them little 
 else than a profane feast, where they forgot, not only the 
 solemnities it calls to mind, but the restraints of Christian 
 sobriety. This was the occasion of that severe censure 
 which St. Paul passes upon them when he intimates that 
 they had entirely perverted the intention of the ordinance, 
 and tells them, when they came together , it was not to eat 
 the Lord's supper . We are to keep it in mind, therefore, 
 
THE SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE . 75 
 
 that this idea of the sacrament lias its limits. It is a 
 feast, but it is a solemn feast. 
 
 This will still further appear when we point out another 
 limit of this idea. It is a feast, but who are those that 
 partake h All men are accustomed to think and speak of 
 this sacrament as the assembling of friends to sit down at 
 a common board. But another idea, which we shall 
 spread before you under our third division, is included in 
 this ordinance, and gives us another limitation of this 
 meaning of the sacrament. That idea is, that the eternal 
 God comes down to this table. (It is not easy, my hearers, 
 to speak of the astonishing condescension of the great Je- 
 hovah in such a manner as not to be in danger of diminish- 
 ing your reverence. When God in some measure lays 
 aside the aspect of the Deity, and in condescension to our 
 weakness, deals with us as man with man, we are in dan- 
 ger of losing sight of that infinite distance which separates 
 us from him. Even when he enters into covenant with 
 us, we are apt to forget his deity on account of his con- 
 descension. How much more, when he welcomes us at a 
 feast, when he strips himself, as it were, of his deity, and 
 comes down to meet us as our friend ! But let us beware 
 of entertaining too familiar ideas of Jehovah, and abusing 
 his wonderful condescension to the forgetfulness of his 
 awful greatness.) 
 
 We said that this feast is the spot where the eternal 
 God meets those with whom he enters into covenant. This 
 fact, then, must give to this idea of a feast a most impres- 
 sive limit. We meet, not simply one another, not merely 
 those who are mortals like ourselves, but the eternal Je- 
 hovah. This feast was designed to represent the intimate 
 union and friendship which the great Jehovah would 
 maintain with his people. Here, then, we find a limit to 
 the idea, which we ought always to bear in mind. It is 
 
76 THE sacrament a feast of alliance. 
 
 not a feast where we assemble with our equals merely, 
 but where the everlasting God condescends to meet us as 
 our friend. This is the nature of our sacrament. When 
 we speak of it as a feast, this is the idea we ought always 
 to attach to it. 
 
 III. But this idea must be justified. This is the third 
 topic of our discourse. 
 
 All are accustomed to regard this ordinance as the 
 meeting of common friends at the table of their common 
 Master. But the other idea which w r e have introduced is 
 not so familiar. However, we have no doubt you will 
 perceive its propriety and truth. 
 
 The sacrament we celebrate is, you know, a feast of 
 sacrifice. Jesus Christ, the great atoning sacrifice for the 
 sins of a w T orld, is the offered victim. Now, what is the 
 idea of a feast of sacrifice h We say it is that the God 
 who is honoured by the sacrifice holds intercourse with 
 those who come to the sacrificial feast, as intimate as the 
 intercourse of those “ friends who eat together at the same 
 table.” This is the original and true import of a feast of 
 sacrifice. The various nations of the ancient world all 
 had this idea, and we find it too prominent in their his- 
 tory to be overlooked. It entered into the alliances that 
 men made with one another, arid those they made with 
 the Deity. When they entered into treaties, or covenants, 
 or alliances with one another, when warring nations made 
 peace, they slew victims, prepared a common table, and 
 sat down together at their repast, to signify the intimacy 
 of their union. This was the meaning of every feast of 
 sacrifice. The contracting parties were represented by it 
 as intimately connected as the friends who are sheltered 
 by the same roof, and fed from the same table. If these 
 parties were mere men, then it was men simply who ate of 
 
THE SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE. 77 
 
 the victims immolated. If one of the parties was divine, 
 then — if the alliance formed was an alliance made between 
 man and his God — his God was to be a partaker of the 
 victim. 
 
 We find this idea of a covenanting feast both in profane 
 and sacred history. 
 
 The pagans who ate the flesh of their sacrifices, called 
 their repast a feasting with the gods. Homer tells us 
 that Jupiter came down to the Ethiopians to a feast which 
 they had prepared for him, and that he was accompanied 
 by all the gods. He introduces one of his personages 
 declaring, “ The gods become visible when we sacrifice 
 hecatombs to them ; they keep the festival with us, and 
 are seated by us at the same table.” He tells us that 
 Agamemnon sacrificed an ox to Jove, invited the flower 
 of his army to the feast, and the offering was accepted. 
 
 The same idea is taught abundantly in the sacred Scrip- 
 tures, sometimes directly, and at others by inference, or 
 evidently implied. Moses, speaking of the priesthood, 
 says : They shall be holy unto their God , and not profane 
 the name of their God : for the offerings of the Lord made 
 by fire, and the bread of their God , they do offer . Here 
 we have the plain language, the bread of God. The same 
 idea is included in almost all the offerings of the altar. 
 A part was eaten by the priests, a part given to the people, 
 and a part consumed by fire. This last was considered as 
 the part of God, and the whole ordinance was one of 
 alliance or covenant — one of friendship, of union. 
 
 This explanation will unfold to us the meaning of eat- 
 ing and drinking, sometimes spoken of in such connection 
 that we are not apt to understand their import. When 
 Moses, and Aaron, and Nadab, and Abihu, and seventy of 
 the elders of Israel went up the mount before the promul- 
 gation of the law, it is said, They saiv the God of Israel; 
 
78 THE SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE. 
 
 and there was under his feet as it were a 'paved work of a 
 sapphire stone , and as it were the body of heaven in his 
 dearness. ( And upon the nobles of the children of Israel 
 he laid not his hand ) ; also they saw God , and did eat 
 and drink. Why eat and drink ? Manifestly they were 
 just contracting an alliance with Jehovah. The festival was 
 a sacrifice, part consumed by fire, and part eaten by men. 
 
 We have not time for more proofs. Let these suffice 
 to justify our explanation. They teach us that this is a 
 festival of alliance. The Lord’s supper is a feast of sacri- 
 fice, just as the festivals of sacrifice among the Jews. 
 This is the original import of all sacrifices ; they bound 
 the contracting parties as friends and brothers. And how- 
 ever they may have differed in some particulars, or how- 
 ever our festival may differ from theirs, this is one of the 
 essential notions it includes. It represents the God of 
 heaven as holding friendly and familiar intercourse with 
 men, as meeting in their assemblies, as united to them 
 in covenant, as holding with them most endearing inter- 
 course. Christ is the sacrifice, a sacrifice to be accepted 
 of God and man. 
 
 IV. About to meet around his table, improve this sub- 
 ject for your personal preparation. 
 
 Coming with a humble and a contrite heart, you may 
 have the assurance of the presence and the blessing of 
 your God. If you can confide in the mercy of God 
 through this great sacrifice, and take upon yourselves the 
 conditions of the covenant, this table of the Lord will 
 not be approached in vain. Here God himself con- 
 descends to meet you. He lays aside the terrors of ma- 
 jesty in which he is sometimes robed, to represent him- 
 self as your friend and brother. He enters into covenant 
 with you. He offers strength to your weakness, pardon 
 
THE SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE . 79 
 
 for your sins, grace to help and hope to cheer. He unites 
 himself to you to be your constant ally, to defend you 
 from your foes, to soothe you in your sorrows, to be your 
 constant companion as you travel through this vale of 
 tears. Here he appears in all the attractions of Jais grace, 
 with all the gifts of his Spirit, and all the demonstrations 
 of his love. 
 
 Let this feast, then, be a source of consolation to the 
 soul which can enter into covenant with God. If you can 
 renounce your sins ; if you can give yourself up to be for 
 Christ and not for another ; if you can say to him, over 
 these august symbols of his sufferings, that you will re- 
 nounce the world and its deceitful pleasures for the ser- 
 vice of Him who has bought you with his blood, — he will 
 meet you as your friend ; he will say, Be of good cheer , thy 
 sins are forgiven thee. 
 
 Ay, humble penitent, this festival is for your joy. 
 Here we would have you feel the full extent of your 
 felicity, and find your heart kindling with higher and 
 holier love as you call to mind the benefits and conde- 
 scending mercy of your God. He will listen to the sigh 
 that heaves your bosom as you confess your sins. He 
 will gather the tears of your penitence, and preserve in 
 heaven your prayers among the vials of his odours. As 
 you eat this bread and drink this cup , he will say to you, 
 I am the bread of life — the blood of Christ cleanseth from 
 all sin. And he will send you from his table cheered and 
 comforted. 
 
 But are there not some about to approach this board 
 to whom he will say, Who hath required this at you-r 
 hands ? Recollect, heedless man, you are dealing with 
 the Deity. If he does represent himself coming into 
 these assemblies as the friend, and guest, and ally of his 
 people, he does not come to give countenance to the 
 
80 THE sacrament a feast of alliance . 
 
 thoughtless, nor to speak peace to the ungodly. The 
 great God with whom we covenant can penetrate the 
 deepest recesses of every heart. Before him the hypo- 
 crite is unmasked, the worldling has no disguise, and the 
 heart which finds its usual pleasures in scenes of thought- 
 less merriment uncountenanced by this Bible and un- 
 sanctioned by this Saviour, is open to his view. Such a 
 heart — a heart still retaining the savour of its ungodly 
 pleasures, where Christianity must lose its character and 
 sink itself in the world — is in no mood for entering into 
 this feast. The spirit of the world still lingers around it, 
 and the spirit of this festival can find no admission. Such 
 a heart can never enter into this friendly alliance, for it is 
 bound to the pleasures of carnality. The eye of God is 
 upon it, and repentance alone can avert the curse. 
 
 But those who take no pleasure in ungodliness may 
 find in this feast sweet intercourse with heaven. Those 
 who have no joys so dear that they will not renounce 
 them, no pleasures so enchanting that they will not resist 
 them, no passion so fond that they will not sacrifice it 
 whenever the interest of their covenanting Saviour de- 
 mands — those are the persons who can enter into the spirit 
 of this festival, and realize its joys and its benefits. 
 
 And this is the meaning of this feast. It is a festival 
 of alliance between the sinner and his God. On the one 
 hand, he devotes to God himself and all he has ; he re- 
 nounces the world and its vanities ; he denies himself, 
 and lives for his God. On the other hand, God conde- 
 scends to meet him with his grace, his pardon, his peace ; 
 he gives him joy in his countenance, and promises to him 
 a fulness of joy hereafter. In one word, he gives him all 
 the benefits of that Saviour in whom dwells all the fulness 
 of the Godhead bodily. And, in order to annihilate the dis- 
 tance between the frail creature and his God, so that this 
 
TEE SACRAMENT A FEAST OF ALLIANCE. 81 
 
 creature may enjoy communion with him, Jesus Christ 
 clothes himself in our nature, saying, I will declare thy 
 name unto my brethren . 
 
 Here, then, we have the key to unlock the treasury of 
 grace. Let us give ourselves to Jesus Christ, and receive 
 from his fulness in return. 
 
 Children of God ! you are about to assemble around 
 your Father’s table. It becomes you to have your hearts 
 open to his grace, and confiding in his love. Though 
 Jesus Christ, on the mount of crucifixion, offered up the 
 last sacrifice for sins, yet the holy supper is properly con- 
 sidered a feast of sacrifice. In that supper, you meet 
 God as reconciled by the death of his Son. You and your 
 Maker were enemies. On your part, your sins made you 
 fearful, and your hearts were estranged from the love of a 
 holy law and a holy God. On his part, he was angry 
 with the wicked ; the sword of justice glittered in his 
 hand ; lightnings flashed and thunders rolled around his 
 throne ! There came a voice, Awake, 0 sword , against 
 my shepherd , , and against the man that is my felloiv. Jesus 
 Christ received the blow, God accepted the sacrifice, and 
 you are now openly to profess that you accept it also. 
 Come, then, meet your reconciled God as friend meets 
 friend, when, after sad estrangement, feelings of enmity 
 are hushed, and they rush to the embraces of each other’s 
 love. God — the infinite God — is as ready to meet you in 
 friendship as you can be to meet him. Be not afraid. 
 Honour him with your confidence. If you accept Jesus 
 Christ as your sacrifice, you need not be afraid of sin, of 
 Satan, of God’s justice, of death, of hell ; — all things are 
 yours : for ye are Christ's , and Christ is God's . 
 
 6 
 
VI. 
 
 (I%e Sorb’s u Cutrmmvt. 
 
 “ And Moses took half of the blood, and put it in basins ; and half of 
 the blood he sprinkled on the altar. And he took the book of the 
 covenant, and read in the audience of the people : and they said, 
 All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient. And 
 Moses took the blood, and sprinkled it on the people, and said, 
 Behold the blood of the covenant, which the Lord hath made with 
 you concerning all these words.” — Exod. xxiv. 6-8. 
 
 I T is scarcely more lamentable than it is common, that 
 we are benefited too little by the institutions of the 
 Lord. The methods in which God speaks to us are 
 greatly varied, and they are all designed to increase our 
 strength for his service, and add to our felicity in serving 
 him. He addresses us in the works of his fingers — in the 
 heavens that sparkle with his glories, and the earth that 
 smiles with his goodness. He speaks to us in his provi- 
 dence. The “ rolling year” presents to our notice the 
 successive footsteps of the Deity, and we cannot but re- 
 cognise that extensive goodness which hears the young 
 ravens cry , and “ tempers the breeze to the shorn lamb.” 
 He speaks to us in his word ; and here we behold the 
 highest effort of Omnipotence, if we may so express it, 
 for the good of man. All that he has here spread before 
 us testifies his divine compassion. To save the sinner is 
 the sole, great object of the holy word. To accomplish 
 this, we have all these doctrines, and instructions, and 
 exhortations, and promises ; all this history and biography, 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER A CO VENANT. 83 
 
 spreading before us the record of ages and the lives of 
 saints ; all these institutions of Sabbaths and sanctuaries, 
 placing before us the very pledges of Jehovah ; and these 
 sacraments, writing out those pledges in the blood of 
 Jesus. And, after all, how small sometimes is the benefit 
 we derive from all this ! Have you not wondered , Chris- 
 tian, ah ! and mourned too, to find yourself so little pro- 
 fited even by the solemn ordinance which spreads before 
 you the sacrifice of the Son of God ] Have you not some- 
 times wept over these consecrated symbols, and felt that 
 your heart was more for heaven ; and yet, in a short time, 
 the feeling passed away, and you were sad — sad with the 
 conviction that even this holy ordinance had been too pro- 
 fitless to your heart ? 
 
 The design of this solemn ordinance is, to cherish and 
 cultivate the graces of the Christian. God would have 
 us grow better by the ordinances he has established, and 
 become stronger in faith, and more meek, and holy, and 
 happy, by meeting at his table. And it is very unfor- 
 tunate for us if we do not gain these benefits. It is a sad 
 discovery which the Christian makes, when he finds him- 
 self no stronger in grace year after year. How mourn- 
 fully the thought comes over the heart, when he reflects : 
 “ Time after time I have been at the Lord’s table, and it 
 is all lost upon me. Communion season after communion 
 season has passed away, and I have made no advances. 
 Death is still as dreadful ; the parting with this world is 
 just as severe ; the grave, the judgment, eternity, are just 
 as awful!” These are sad reflections; and yet, if you 
 were to die to-night, perhaps you would be forced to 
 make them — perhaps you would be compelled to confess 
 that your communion with Jesus Christ at his table had 
 done you but too little good. 
 
 My dear friends, these seasons ought not to be lost 
 
84 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT . 
 
 upon ns. They ought to increase our Christian virtues, 
 and prepare us for more fidelity and delight in the service 
 of our Master, and more composure and joy when our 
 Master calls us hence. Probably the great reason why 
 we are not more profited by these solemn occasions, is 
 our inadequate ideas of the ordinance we celebrate. We 
 are apt to have very imperfect conceptions of the nature 
 of this sacrament, and therefore it does not hold over us 
 the strong influence it might do. Hence, to correct this 
 evil, we must correct our conceptions ; we must enter 
 into the nature of the ordinance ; we must put it to our 
 own hearts, ivliat ive are doing when we come to the table 
 of the Lord. 
 
 This ordinance may be contemplated from different 
 points of view. Christ calls us to contemplate it as a 
 covenant between the Christian and his God. 
 
 The sacrament of the Lord’s supper is a covenant ; and 
 if we can spread before you the entire meaning of that 
 covenant, you will be more likely to derive advantage from 
 the observance of it. In order to do this, we go back, for 
 the sake of a full example, to the covenant which God 
 made with the children of Israel. We will — 
 
 I. Show that the covenant which God made with the 
 Israelites was essentially the same as that which he makes 
 with us, 
 
 II. Consider the circumstances under which it was 
 made. 
 
 III. The nature of it. 
 
 IV. Its voluntary pledge. 
 
 V. Its extensive obligation. 
 
 VI. Its bloody seal. 
 
 I. We must show you that the covenant which God 
 
THE LORD'S SUP TER A COVENANT \ 
 
 85 
 
 made with the Jews is in substance the same as that 
 which he makes with Christians. We have- two methods 
 of showing this : The first, from the nature of the case ; 
 and the second, from the language of the Scriptures. 
 
 1. From the nature of the case. The Israelites w 7 ere 
 the same by nature as we are. They possessed the same 
 wickedness of heart, the same perversity of disposition, 
 and they needed the same pardon, and sanctification, and 
 redemption. They were dealing with the same God, re- 
 ceiving the same promises of grace, and aiming at the 
 same heaven. They were under the same incapacity of 
 atoning for sin, the same inability of attaining heaven by 
 their own goodness. Hence, what the unchangeable 
 Jehovah required of them, he must, in substance, require 
 of us. Religion now is what it ever has been. Some of 
 the circumstances may be different, but the substance is 
 the same. The Jews were looking forward to a Saviour 
 to come ; we are looking to that Saviour whose blood 
 has been already shed. But in each case there is the 
 same reliance on the promise and grace of Jehovah. Hence, 
 the same consecration, the same spirit of devotion, the 
 same holiness of character, the same yielding up of self 
 in obedience to the Almighty, is enjoined on us as was 
 enjoined on them. And hence, also, the covenant made 
 with the Israelites must be essentially the same covenant, 
 in spirituality and force, as that which God now makes 
 with us. 
 
 We ought, perhaps, to add, that so far as the circum- 
 stances are concerned, we are far more favoured than they 
 were. We have more instruction in the doctrines of 
 redemption. We have more perfect knowledge of the 
 victim of the covenant. We see the blood of redemption 
 flowing from the Lamb of God, and know more perfectly 
 what it is that taJcetli away the sin of the world. We 
 
86 
 
 TEE LORES SUPPER A COVENANT . 
 
 have, therefore, more attracting views of the gracious 
 condescension of God than he vouchsafed to afford to 
 them. Hence, we ought to feel ourselves more strongly 
 bound instead of less strongly, and have a more awful 
 fear of violating the covenant which we make. We shall 
 see presently that an inspired writer has told us so. 
 
 2. The language of the Scriptures proves to us that the 
 covenant of the Christian and the covenant of the Israelite 
 are essentially the same. Take the proof in four distinct 
 articles. 
 
 (1.) That of the Israelite embraced the same spiritu- 
 ality and the same Saviour. We have both these in the 
 same text. St. Paul tells us, They did all eat the same 
 spiritual meat , and did all drink the same spiritual 
 drink : for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed 
 them; and that Rock was Christ. And if both covenants 
 embrace the same Saviour and the same spirituality, 
 they must be essentially the same, differing only in circum- 
 stances. 
 
 (2.) The Israelites are held up to us as monitory ex- 
 amples of sinning against the same Saviour, which could 
 not be proper if they were under the articles of a different 
 covenant. St. Paul tells us (in the same chapter), With 
 many of them God was not well pleased ; for 'they were 
 overthrown in the wilderness. And then he tells us, 
 These things were our examples, to the intent we shoidd not 
 lust afier evil things , as they also lusted. And then he 
 goes on to caution us in several particulars of their 
 example, and among the rest, Neither let us tempt Chkist 
 — (the same Saviour, you perceive) — as some of them also 
 tempted , and were destroyed^ of serpents. If the Israelites 
 are proper examples of monition to us, they must have 
 been under a covenant essentially the same, differing only 
 in circumstances. 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 87 
 
 (3.) Again : The Israelites had the same promises that 
 we have, for St. Paul tells us that they, not having received 
 the promises, but having seen them afar off, were persuaded 
 of them , and embraced them. And if their faith rested 
 upon the same promises, it must have been the same kind 
 of faith as ours ; and the covenant which contained the 
 promises, as an inducement to faith, must have been the 
 same covenant, differing only in circumstances. 
 
 (4.) Again : Our covenant enjoins fidelity, by the same 
 sanctions ; only, an intensity of these sanctions is press- 
 ing upon us by reason of our better circumstances. St. 
 Paul says : For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast, 
 and every transgression and disobedience received a just 
 recompense of reivard, how shall we escape if we neglect so 
 great salvation ? Here it is intimated that our violation 
 of the covenant will more awfully expose us. Notice the 
 same sanction and the like exposure, where St. Paul com- 
 pares the condition of the Israelites with the condition of 
 those under the gospel. He says : See that ye refuse not 
 him that speaketh. For if they escaped not ivlio refused 
 him that spake on earth, much moke (notice these words) 
 shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh 
 from heaven . Here it is not barely intimated, but plainly 
 declared, that our violation of the covenant will more 
 awfully expose us. We have, therefore, the same sanctions 
 as the Israelite had. 
 
 We conclude, then, since the covenant of the Israelites 
 embraced the same spirituality and the same Saviour, — 
 since the violators of it are presented as monitory ex- 
 amples to us, — since their covenant contained the same 
 promises (based, you will notice, on the same Saviour), — 
 since it was urged by the same sanctions, and thus bound 
 its subjects to the same fidelity and obedience ; — since in 
 all these tilings’ the Israelitish covenant was the same as 
 
88 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 ours, it must have been essentially the same covenant, 
 differing only in circumstances. Our principle, therefore, 
 is established, that the two covenants are substantially the 
 same. 
 
 The circumstances in which they differ are nothing 
 material. They result, not from the nature of the case, 
 but from the ages of the world. The Israelite lived in 
 an age when the Victim of the covenant was not yet 
 slain. Jesus Christ had not yet died ; and as a conse- 
 quence of this, the Jew must be offering sacrifices and 
 be attentive to other observances typical of a coming 
 Saviour. But this has nothing to do with the essence of 
 the covenant. The substance is the same, whether we 
 look forward to a Saviour to come, or look back, through 
 the lapse of ages, to one who has already atoned for the 
 sins of a world. The sanction only is varied by the vari- 
 ation of circumstances. We have more light than the 
 Israelite, and therefore we shall be more criminal if we 
 violate our covenant engagements. This is the reason 
 why we alleged that we ought to have a more awful fear. 
 This is the reason why St. Paul says, much more shall 
 not we escape , if we turn away from him that speaheth 
 from heaven. We shall be, this afternoon, in more solemn 
 circumstances than were the Israelites at Sinai. 
 
 We have been the more particular in this article, because 
 we believe many Christians mistake the nature of their 
 covenant, not believing that a violation of it now is so 
 awful a sin as it was with the Israelites. But we have 
 seen it to be more awful. We have heard the apostle’s 
 strong language, Much more shall not we escape ! 
 
 II. We enter upon the consideration of the circum- 
 stances under which the covenant was made. These 
 were of a most interesting kind. The Israelites had been 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 89 
 
 delivered from the power of the Egyptians by the hand of 
 the Almighty, and conducted away to a barren wilderness. 
 They had seen many proofs of God’s power, and had been 
 the subjects of miraculous deliverances. The destroying 
 angel that smote the first-born of Egypt, had passed harm- 
 less by their dwellings, guarded by the hallowed blood 
 that was sprinkled upon their door-posts. The Bed Sea 
 had rolled back his waves to afford them a passage, and 
 again heaved in his billows upon the pursuing host. The 
 Angel of God and the pillar of cloud that went before 
 them, had retired as the foe approached, and stood, the 
 emblem of Omnipotence, between God’s chosen and their 
 foes. The Angel of the Covenant, clothed in a cloud by 
 day and in fire by night, had accompanied them week after 
 week. Bread had come down from heaven ; waters had 
 gushed from the smitten rock, and Joshua had routed the 
 hosts of Amalek only when Moses, on the hill-top, held 
 up the rod of God in his hand. All these miracles they 
 had witnessed, testifying at once the power and the good- 
 ness of their Deliverer. 
 
 But they had not yet entered the promised land. For 
 fifty days they had been traversing the desert, and they 
 were now encamped at the foot of Sinai. Moses had been 
 on the awful mount, in converse with the Deity. He had 
 received the articles of the covenant which was now to be 
 ratified, the requirements which the Almighty made, and 
 the blessings which he promised, and had come down from 
 the mountain and written them in a book. He was acting 
 as a mediator between his God and the hosts of Israel ; 
 or perhaps we should rather say, he was the messenger of 
 God to present to them the covenant they were about to 
 receive. He had just built an altar at the foot of the 
 mount, and, at a little distance, twelve pillars : the altar, 
 to represent the Almighty in the league they were forming 
 
90 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 and to indicate tlie method in which the sinner may 
 approach him ; the twelve pillars, to represent the twelve 
 tribes who were entering into solemn covenant with God. 
 Sacrifices were now offered ; and, in the space between 
 the altar and the mount of God on the one hand, and the 
 pillars and the people of Israel on the other, moved Moses 
 — at once the herald of God and the hope of man. The 
 blood of the sacrifices and the book of the covenant were 
 in his hand. Behind him was the mount, still covered 
 with the cloud (the symbol of the Deity), and sending up 
 its smoke from amid the thick darkness where God was. 
 Before him were the hosts of Israel, waiting to receive or 
 to reject the covenant of God. What an awful moment ! 
 God to be an enemy, or to be a friend ! Will they receive, 
 or will they reject the covenant of God] Alas! my 
 brethren, does not our observation teach us that men have 
 no fondness for alliance with heaven 1 When we come 
 here to renew our covenant, how many of our friends are 
 absent ! how limited the number that enter into league 
 with heaven ! 
 
 III. But Moses proceeded in his ministrations ; and 
 the proceeding will instruct us in the nature of the 
 covenant. 
 
 Moses took half of the blood and put it in basins , and 
 half of the blood he sprinkled on the altar . I wish you to 
 notice this division of the blood : it is the very key to 
 the nature of the covenant. Half of the blood was 
 sprinkled on the altar, and the altar was here the repre- 
 sentative of God : the sprinkling of it signified that he 
 was ready, on his part, to ratify the covenant which 
 Moses was presenting. The other half of the blood was 
 reserved till the people had heard all the words of the 
 covenant from the written record, and had testified their 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 91 
 
 acceptance. (It is worthy of remark, that they had before 
 heard it, and before accepted it ; but now they were 
 receiving it in solemn form, as it was written in a book 
 and to be sealed with blood). And he took the book of 
 the covenant , and read in the audience of the people; and 
 they saidy All that the Lord hath said will we do , and be 
 obedient. And Moses took the blood and sprinkled it on 
 the people . This was the half of the blood that had been 
 reserved till the people had formally consented to the 
 articles that were written in the book. 
 
 Now, what is the meaning of this division of the blood, 
 part sprinkled on the altar and part upon the people ] 
 We say, it signifies the reciprocal nature of the alliance. 
 God made engagements to them, and the blood, sprinkled 
 on the altar, was the seal. They made engagements to 
 God, and the blood, sprinkled on themselves, was the 
 seal. The contracting parties came under reciprocal en- 
 gagements to one another. 
 
 Here, if I am not mistaken, we may find the correction 
 of a very common error, — an error which, probably more 
 than all others, deprives us of the benefits of this sacred 
 ordinance. It is no uncommon thing for Christians to 
 come to the renewal of their covenant, with very inade- 
 quate notions of its import. They come to receive the 
 pledge of God’s blessings, but not to render back the pledge 
 of their devotion. They imagine that God is here offering 
 them unconditional favours, and the whole design of their 
 coming is to receive them. They come to receive the seal 
 of pardoned sin, but not to set their seal that they will 
 serve their Master. The consequence is, that their feelings 
 are not affected as they would be if they had not misinter- 
 preted this covenant. And there are those who pretend to 
 be teachers of God’s ordinances, whose instructions lead to 
 this error. We are sometimes told that God is here only 
 
92 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 offering liimself to us in his promises, and not in tlie least 
 presenting requirements. Let us correct this error; and in 
 order to do so, let us trace the reciprocity of engagement 
 in the formation of covenants, and learn to avoid this dan- 
 gerous principle. 
 
 If we enter more fully into the meaning of this division 
 of the blood, we shall find it to contain a most awful sur- 
 rendering of ourselves to the hand of vengeance, if we dare 
 to violate the covenant that it seals. 
 
 It was the practice of the Chaldeans, when they were 
 contracting alliances among themselves or with the neigh- 
 bouring nations, to sacrifice the victims, divide them into 
 parts, and place those parts opposite to one another, leav- 
 ing a space between them. The contracting parties then 
 passed through the space between the parts of the divided 
 victims, solemnly repeating at the same time, Let it not 
 thus be done unto us. By this ceremony they consented 
 to be slain, as the victims had been, if they should be un- 
 faithful to their agreement. This is the most ancient 
 account we have, and it places before us the exact mean- 
 ing of this division of blood. We have other instances of 
 this nature, and though the history of the transaction is 
 less full, the significance is still apparent. In Jeremiah 
 xxxiv. we have the same rite : Thus saith the Lord : I will 
 give the men that have transgressed my covenant , which 
 have not performed the words of the covenant which they 
 had made before me , ivhen they cut the cal f in twain , and 
 passed between the parts thereof the princes of Judah , and 
 the princes of Jerusalem , the eunuchs , and the priests , and 
 all the people of the land , which passed between the parts 0/ 
 the calf ; I will even give them into the hands of their 
 enemies. Here, evidently, was the sacrifice cut into pieces; 
 and the people took on themselves the covenant by passing 
 between the parts. Hence comes the Scripture phrase, to 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER A CO VENANT . 
 
 93 
 
 enter into covenant. It is not always called forming or 
 malting a covenant, but entering into covenant, because 
 they passed between the parts of the divided victim. We 
 find something of the same kind as early as the days of 
 Abraham. God directed him (when he was confirming 
 his covenant) to take a heifer of three years old , and a she - 
 goat of three years old , and a ram of three years old . And he 
 took unto him all these , and divided them in the midst , and 
 laid each piece one against another . And afterwards, in his 
 vision, it is said, he beheld a smoking furnace , and a burn- 
 ing lamp that passed between those pieces: in that same 
 day , the Lord made a covenant with Abraham . 
 
 Indeed, this idea of a covenant, and this method of 
 entering into covenant by the division of the sacrificed 
 victim, are so essential to the thing itself that it enters 
 into the very language ; — the Hebrew word for “ covenant ” 
 signifies a thing cut or divided. 
 
 We trace the same idea of a covenant among other na- 
 tions. To strike a covenant is the common phraseology 
 of the Latins, because in making it they struck down and 
 divided the victim. To cut an oath is the common expres- 
 sion of the Greeks, because in taking the oath of a cove- 
 nant, they cut in pieces the victim. And there is a rem- 
 nant of this method of making a covenant or taking a vow, 
 among the Algerines of the present day. When the cor- 
 sairs are in distress at sea, endangered by the violence of 
 a storm, or chased by some enemy’s vessel, they light up 
 candles in remembrance of some ancient saint, or collect 
 money to present at his shrine. And if these measures 
 fail and the danger increases, they sacrifice a sheep or more 
 than one if they think the danger very pressing. They 
 cut the victim, after it is slain, into two parts, with all 
 haste ; and they throw one of the parts over the right and 
 the other over the left side of the ship. In this way, they 
 
94 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 think they have made a covenant with death , and with 
 hell are at agreement. Thus we see, that even among the 
 piratical outlaws of society there is still retained something 
 of the manner of passing into covenant. 
 
 We could overwhelm you with proof, in this article, both 
 from sacred and profane history. We think, however, 
 that we have already said enough to convince you of the 
 correctness of our exposition of this division of the blood, 
 and the meaning of it. 
 
 IY. The Almighty compels no man to enter into cove- 
 nant with him. The act, on the part of the individual, is 
 a voluntary act. God presents the plain conditions of this 
 covenant, and the sinner receives or rejects them as he 
 chooses. God does, indeed utter his command that sinners 
 should repent and walk in all the ordinances of the gospel. 
 But if the sinner obeys, he obeys voluntarily. God does 
 not force him to repent, does not force him to enter into 
 covenant. He takes upon himself, by his own act and 
 own desire, the covenant which God presents. You will 
 notice this in the words of our text : A ll that the Lord hath 
 said will we do, and be obedient ; and this promise had 
 been made before, while the negotiation was pending, in 
 almost the same words. We find, in chapter xix., that 
 the people said, All that the Lord hath spoken v:e will do. 
 And now, when the negotiation was come to an end, and 
 the covenant was to be ratified and sealed, the same pro- 
 mise is repeated. You will notice too, that the promise is 
 repeated before the blood is sprinkled on the people. God 
 will seal no one with the blood of the covenant who does 
 not give this voluntary pledge. 
 
 Here, then, in our fourth article, we have a confirmation 
 of what we said in the third, and the enforcement of the 
 engagement by a voluntary pledge. 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 95 
 
 V. Learn the same from our fifth article : the extensive 
 obligation of the covenant. All that the Lord hath said 
 will we do, and he obedient. Here is no reserve. The 
 promise is extensive. It embraces all that the Lord hath 
 said. The covenant we make with God is one that binds 
 to obedience, and to obedience in all things. 
 
 Let us see if we cannot bring this subject home to our- 
 selves by a profitable — 
 
 Application \connected with the seal ]. 
 
 We have before us the identity of the Israelites’ cove- 
 nant with our own ; the circumstances under which their 
 covenant was made ; its reciprocal nature ; its voluntary 
 pledge ; its extensive obligation. 
 
 These circumstances are just yours, my brethren. If 
 you are Christians in sincerity and truth, you are not yet 
 in heaven. You have the wilderness yet to travel before 
 you get to the promised land. You have still duties to 
 do, trials to endure, hardships to encounter. God is offer- 
 ing, in this ordinance, to enter into an alliance with you, 
 and become your guide, your strength, your friend. If you 
 receive him as such, he will conduct you safely. Though 
 the path you tread is rough, and the obstacles that oppose 
 are numerous, still God is stronger than your foes, and will 
 make even rough places smooth. 
 
 How, if you would be profited by this alliance, recollect 
 where you are standing. You are not yet in heaven, Canaan 
 is not yet conquered ; and you have no security, — no, not 
 even from this hallowed covenant, — that you will ever enter 
 into rest, if you are not travelling towards it. God gives 
 you no token that your duties are done, or that you have 
 none to do. You are not called to enter into. a covenant 
 of idleness, but a covenant of action ; and if you would re- 
 ceive benefit from tliis renewal of your league with God, 
 
96 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT . 
 
 you must not come to gain his permission to be idle. One 
 reason why these seasons of alliance profit you so little is 
 that you form mistaken notions respecting them. I put it 
 to your own conscience, hearer : have you not sometimes 
 come to the communion-table and taken upon you the seal 
 of the covenant, and then felt that you were secure and had 
 nothing to do ; that God had pledged himself for your 
 salvation, and you were safe 1 
 
 But you had mistaken your covenant. One great object 
 of it is to bind you to obedience and fidelity ; and you can 
 not enter into covenant with God, except by a voluntary 
 pledge of entire obedience : all that the Lord hath said 
 will we do, and be obedient . This is the oath of the cove- 
 nant, and God will not accept your consecration if you 
 do not willingly pronounce it. By your taking upon you 
 this solemn oath, God would bring you to feel yourself 
 bound to him and his service by an additional obligation 
 — by a voluntary pledge. 
 
 There is something in our very nature which forces us 
 to feel more perfectly an obligation which we have acknow- 
 ledged. The obligation may be as perfect without an 
 acknowledgment as with it. It may be founded on the 
 nature of things. It may have its enforcement by the 
 plainest principles of justice, and come down upon us with 
 the sanction of the mightiest authority. Yet if we have 
 never acknowledged the obligation, we do not so fully realize 
 it. All the clearness of its justice and all the power of its 
 sanctions do not bind us so perfectly as we can be bound. 
 It is when we acknowledge the obligation, when we take it 
 upqn ourselves by our own act, when we voluntarily pro- 
 mise to receive it, — it is then that we add the last item to 
 its power. By such a promise the obligation rests upon 
 us, not only from the nature of things and the principles 
 of justice, but from our own act. Every man feels that he 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 97 
 
 lias some right and control over himself ; and the law that 
 binds him is more perfectly realized w 7 hen he has volun- 
 tarily surrendered himself to its requirements. Then con- 
 science will hold up to him not only the abstractions of 
 justice, but the confessions and promises he has made — 
 his voluntary pledge, his recorded and blood-sealed oath. 
 To this principle of our nature the Almighty appeals. He 
 requires of us to be his by taking upon ourselves the obli- 
 gation, by giving ourselves to Jesus Christ, and pronounc- 
 ing by our own act the holy truth, W e are not our own , 
 we are bought with a price; and by uttering, as we take 
 this seal, All that the Lord hath said will ive do. 
 
 Do you hesitate to pronounce this oath] Then you 
 will not enter into covenant with God, and you need ex- 
 pect no benefit from this communion. You must not 
 come here to cast off the obligations to holiness, but to 
 take them solemnly upon yourself. This sacrament is not 
 simply a pledge of the Almighty to you, it is also a pledge 
 of yourself to him. And when you come to it only to 
 obtain remission of past offences, and to gain the assurance 
 of God’s favour, — when you come to it, thinking that in 
 this ordinance God promises everything and requires 
 nothing, you mistake your covenant, and will lose its 
 blessings. 
 
 There are two very common sentiments of this error, 
 which are apt to enter into our feelings and our practices, 
 even if we do not allow them to be our principles. The 
 one is, that in this covenant Jesus Christ is offering him- 
 self to us in all the benefits of his obedience and sacrifice, 
 and is requiring of us no obedience in return. The other 
 is, that in this covenant Jesus Christ is offering himself 
 to us far enough to compensate for any deficiency there 
 may be in us; that if w r e fail in our obedience, his own 
 obedience will so far come in its stead. 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 After much thought I have been unable to determine 
 which is the worst and most dangerous of these errors. 
 The one destroys all principles of Christian fidelity, and 
 is the basis of a false faith and heartless reliance upon the 
 satisfaction of Jesus Christ. The other fosters a spirit of 
 self-righteousness, mingles the merits of the sinner with 
 the merits of his Saviour, and does almost as much as the 
 former to destroy the principles of obedience. Let us not 
 run into either of these errors. They are both opposed to 
 the covenant we are about to renew. Jesus Christ does 
 not here offer himself to us to excuse us from obedience, but 
 to bind us to it. Jesus Christ does not here offer himself 
 to us to compensate for our defects, but to be our only 
 and entire sufficiency. He requires of us to say to him, 
 A ll that the Lord hath said will we do. 
 
 Do you refuse to pronounce this oath] Then you do 
 not enter into covenant with God. But why should you 
 refuse it ? God does not require of you to redeem this 
 promise in your own strength. If you were to rely upon 
 yourself to do all that the Lord hath said , you would fail 
 in every instance. If your hope were in your own powers, 
 well might you refuse to make this solemn pledge. But 
 your trust must be in the grace of Jesus Christ. He 
 gives himself to you when you give yourself to him. He 
 asks of you to rely upon his grace, to receive his grace, to 
 yield yourself to the control of his grace. It is through 
 your own faculties, your voluntary obedience, your heart 
 given up to his influence, and your life yielded to his con- 
 trol, that he would have you redeem the pledge you are 
 about to make. And it is by furnishing you with grace 
 and strength in all these respects, that he will redeem the 
 pledge he makes to you. Jesus Christ knows all your 
 weakness, all your temptations, all your trials. He does 
 not require of you anything which he will not give you 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 99 
 
 grace to perform* He does not ask of you to bind your- 
 self to him more closely than he binds himself to you. 
 God would exalt you in this covenant. He would not 
 treat you as inactive and senseless matter, nor operate 
 upon you as if you were incapable of holy aims and gene- 
 rous sentiments. He condescends to come down and 
 unite himself to you, that you may be exalted to sit in 
 heavenly places in Christ Jesus. 
 
 Do you hesitate to renew your covenant ? There is, my 
 brethren, there is, I confess, something awful in this league. 
 The poor, frail, sinful mortal, — the creature whose thou- 
 sand imperfections come floating over his memory, — here 
 takes upon himself the oath to be faithful to his God ! 
 Passing into covenant under the recollection of all that 
 weight of wrath which Jesus Christ suffered when he 
 groaned in Gethsemane and died on Calvary, he consents 
 to become the victim of the same wrath for ever, if he is 
 not faithful to his word ! These are fearful reflections for 
 creatures like us. But while we consent to what is awful, 
 let us not lose sight of what is consoling. Let us keep in 
 mind that we have in ourselves no strength nor sufficiency 
 to be faithful, and that God only requires of us to rely on 
 him and exercise the grace and strength he gives. And 
 when we remember the sufferings of the victim of this 
 covenant, and repeat in solemn supplication to God, “ Let 
 it not thus be done unto us,” — let us bear in mind that 
 this is a covenant of repentance. We come to its security 
 only by repentance, and we pledge ourselves to live a life 
 of repentance for all our sins, and to trust always for sal- 
 vation, not in our obedience, but in the blood of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 Do you hesitate to renew your covenant? Alas! my 
 brethren, where shall we go if we turn away from God ? 
 What Saviour shall we find if we reject Jesus Christ ? 
 
100 
 
 THE LORD'S SUPPER A COVENANT. 
 
 What security shall we have if we find none in the blood 
 and bonds of this covenant? -And if it is an awful thing 
 to enter into such a covenant with such a God and such 
 an obligation, with such an oath and such a victim, is it 
 not still more awful to refuse it ? Then let us see that we 
 refuse not him that spedketh ; for if they escaped not who 
 refused him that spake on earth , much more shall not we 
 escape if we refuse him that speaJceth from heaven . 
 
 What wait we for, then, but — 
 
 VI. The bloody seal. 
 
 This is the last article of our discourse, my hearers, and 
 this we shall defer till we come to the table of our Master. 
 
 THE BLOODY SEAL.* 
 
 [A Seal.] Blood : the victim is slain. 
 
 ON THE PART OF GOD. 
 
 1 . Of forgiveness. — Call upon all sinners — Do you say too 
 
 humiliating? — bitter herbs. 
 
 2. Of grace. — Israel had yet to travel, to suffer, to fight, 
 
 to conquer; — weak, then strong. 
 
 3. Of redemption :—for thou wast slain. — All that sin 
 
 deserved fell on the head of the devoted Saviour 
 —soul troubled — 0 my Father , if it be possible ! 
 In short — 
 
 4. Of heaven. — Isaiah liv. 10 and li. 6 — to Him that hath 
 
 loved us. — Then where will those be who have no 
 covenant ? Ashamed ! 
 
 * These fragmentary notes, annexed to the manuscript sermon, formed the 
 basis and will be found to give an outline of the remarks under the sixth head, 
 which were subsequently delivered at the “table of the Master.” 
 
THE LORD'S SUPPER A CO VENANT. 
 
 101 
 
 ON THE SINNER’S PART. 
 
 1. Of trust in Christ's righteousness . — Act of faith. 
 
 2. Of reliance on his grace. 
 
 3. Of obedience to his laws ; of fidelity. — Faithful unto 
 
 death. — Awful! see the consoling . — Why require 
 this] Because he would have us unite ourselves 
 to him in the same close, constant, perfect manner 
 as he unites himself to us. 
 
 In short — 
 
 4. Of entire surrendry — not his own — bought — first time, 
 
 — no half-way Christians — sacred host. 
 
VII. 
 
 M(m steepest Cfmit? 
 
 ** Woman, why weepest thou’?” — John xx. 13. 
 
 M ARY, to whom these words were addressed, stood by 
 the tomb of Jesus. It was a dark hour to her grief - 
 struck heart. Hopes long indulged, seemed for ever dis- 
 appointed ; the fondest expectations had given place to 
 unmingled sorrow. She had stood by the cross of Jesus, 
 and heard him, in preparation for his death, commit to 
 the care of the beloved disciple her who gave him birth. 
 This last act of filial affection, performed on the cross 
 itself, seemed like the dying farewell that the departing 
 spirit leaves for those it loves. 
 
 The Lord had been crucified. The faith of his followers 
 was shaken. The enemies of Jesus were exulting, and 
 his friends covered with mourning. Amidst the insults of 
 an unbridled populace he had expired, — suffering that kind 
 of punishment and death which even Roman cruelty never 
 allowed to be inflicted upon a Roman citizen, however 
 criminal, but reserved for the despised foreigner and the 
 meanest slaves. Little seemed to remain but the mourn- 
 ful duty of rendering funeral honours to the dead. It is 
 a sad office to visit the tombs of those we love. Then 
 the recollection of past endearments swells in gushing 
 tenderness over the soul ! The one w T ho loved and 
 cherished us is gone. Senseless beneath the sod we gaze 
 
WHY WEEPEST THOU! 
 
 103 
 
 upon, the heart that once yearned over us is still. Never 
 again shall it swell in the fondness of its affection, or sadly 
 throb when hurt by our unkindness. We cannot call 
 back from the grave the loved one to requite his kindness, 
 to confess our follies, and atone for the errors which so 
 often pained the living. Our tender regrets can only be 
 acknowledged to the tomb. There we may confess our 
 errors, may testify our penitence, may indulge our grief, 
 and bedew with our tears the tomb of one we loved. 
 
 On such an errand of sadness and affection Mary had 
 gone early to the tomb. She loved much , for she had much 
 forgiven . While living, Jesus Christ had witnessed the 
 affection that she bore to him ; and now he was dead, she 
 would breathe the same affection, though in sadness, by 
 the cold rock where he slumbered, and water his tomb 
 with her tears. 
 
 But though the friends of J esus on earth were sad, the 
 heavens had not forgotten him. Angels robed in white 
 came down to the guarded sepulchre. They rolled away the 
 stone, and Jesus Christ, the conqueror of the grave, arose. 
 
 It is a sad solace to mourn by the grave of departed 
 friends, still, there is a solace in bedewing their ashes 
 with our tears. To know they are sleeping in the quiet 
 house, no longer disturbed by the afflictions of life, no 
 longer distressed by the unkindness and cruelty of a 
 thankless world, to feel that ingratitude and hatred and 
 bitter malignity shall no more assail them, soothes at 
 least the poignancy of our grief, gives a calmer tenderness 
 to the melancholy that spreads over the soul. But even 
 this sad solace is denied to her who came when it was yet 
 dark to the sepulchre . She seeth the stone taken away , and 
 her affectionate pilgrimage to the grave of Jesus only en- 
 hances her grief. She announces the fact to his disciples ; 
 they visit the tomb themselves, and depart for their own 
 
104 
 
 WHY WEEPEST THOU? 
 
 home . But Mary still remains. She has abandoned her- 
 self to grief, and, in the forgetfulness of disappointed af- 
 fection, still lingers by the lonely tomb. At this moment 
 of sorrow the heavenly messengers address her, Woman , 
 why weepest thou ? So absorbed by the thoughts of her 
 Lord that she is unterrified by the vision and the voice of 
 angels, she replies, Because they have taken away my Lord , 
 and I know not where they have laid him. Immediately 
 Jesus Christ himself puts the same question, Woman, why 
 weepest thou ? She replies, not knowing to whom she 
 speaks, Sir, if thou have borne him hence , tell me where thou 
 hast laid him ! Jesus makes himself known to her by 
 simply pronouncing the name, Mary ! It was the voice 
 of Him she had known and loved, and whom she expected 
 to find slumbering in the tomb. 
 
 The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are cardinal 
 doctrines of Christianity. Strike out these from the sys- 
 tem, and I confess I should not value all that is left. The 
 moral precepts would still be beautiful, but where would 
 be their divine enforcement ? — the dogmas of philosophic 
 heathenism would be able to compete with them. The 
 disclosures of another world would still be grand, but 
 what would prove their truth ? — the dreams of poetic fancy 
 would claim an equality. The strain of its sentiments 
 would still be interesting, but they would interest only 
 like a fable — what would testify their truth ? And more 
 than all, what would comfort the sinner ] The soul that 
 is burdened with guilt needs something to relieve it from 
 its load. The heart oppressed with grief needs some 
 solace for its sorrows. The mind, agitated and distressed 
 with fears, cannot be comforted with uncertain conjecture. 
 And the conscience, tormented with awful forebodings, as 
 the light of truth comes in upon its darkness, can gather 
 secure peace from nothing save the love of Christ. 
 
WHY WEE PEST THOU ? 
 
 105 
 
 It is the high privilege, and the dearest, choicest joy of 
 our ministry, to speak comfort to the afflicted. Standing 
 by the tomb of the risen Saviour, we would say to all 
 who love our Lord, and who seek him even in his deepest 
 humiliation, Why weepest thou ? We would comfort the 
 distressed, soothe the fearful, encourage the timid to hope, 
 and pour the kindness of divine compassion into the soul 
 sorrowful for sin. There is no trouble of the afflicted soul 
 that may not find its remedy in the love of Christ. To 
 every weeping, despairing sinner, we may say, Why weepest 
 thou ? 
 
 Come, then, mourning sinner, open your heart to the 
 consolation of the gospel ! We stand here to announce 
 to you mercy that knows no limit among men, grace that 
 is without discrimination to the penitent, and eternal life 
 bought by the blood of Christ. We announce to you that 
 Saviour whose love has stilled the sighs of many a heaving 
 bosom, and we say to you, Whosoever cometh to him he 
 will in no wise cast out. 
 
 1. In spite of the darkness and ignorance that sin 
 spreads over the human mind, there is still light enough 
 to convince man that he is a sinner. If we examine the 
 history of the human race, from the earliest ages and 
 through the darkest periods, we find the proof of this 
 position written as with sunbeams upon its page. The 
 most ignorant and the most enlightened ; the vicious and 
 the moral ; the philosopher, moving so proudly through 
 the halls of science, and by achievements of intellectual 
 greatness demonstrating the greatness of the human soul, 
 and the degraded, debased, uninstructed, almost unnoticed 
 barbarian, whose whole efforts seemed confined to shield- 
 ing his body from hunger and inclement skies ; those 
 scorched by southern suns and those chilled by northern 
 cold; in short, all mankind, in all ages, have professed the 
 
WHY WEE PEST THOU? 
 
 i:>6 
 
 conviction that their God was not at peace with them. 
 We do not deny that there have been some whose in- 
 dividual speculations have led them to the opinion that 
 man is not guilty, and God not displeased. But there 
 have been no classes or societies of people whose senti- 
 ments have not been opposed to these speculations. The 
 belief that man, that dying man, is a sinner, that the 
 Deity, or deities, which rule over him are offended, has 
 been the common belief of all nations , and is still the 
 sentiment of all individuals whose native darkness has 
 not been deepened by the follies of unfounded conjectures. 
 Hence we find the heathen philosopher, whose studies 
 could investigate and arrange and classify the various ob- 
 jects of earth, and whose scientific skill could measure the 
 heavens, and foretell the times of the darkened sun and 
 labouring moon; and the savage, whose mind chained in 
 ignorance knows not the sublimity of its powers, — we find 
 them equally conscious of their danger, and alike wor- 
 shipping as sinners at the altar of some imagined deity. 
 Hence we find the unequalled Cicero, whose learning and 
 eloquence swayed haughty Borne in the days of her 
 brightest splendour, robed in the vestments of the high 
 priest, and wielding the pontific axe around the altars of 
 his heathen deities. Hence, too, the vales of our own land 
 have witnessed the frenzy of the Indian prophet, when, 
 painted for the work of death, he danced wildly around 
 his victims, and wildly howled ; and its mountains have 
 echoed the death shrieks of that victim as he fell beneath 
 the tomahawk. Hence the blood of the sacrifice has dyed 
 the snows of the Esquimaux, and congealed in the frosts 
 of Patagonia. It has moistened the sands of Africa and 
 Arabia, has dripped from the altars of the Druid, and 
 gushed around the senseless Juggernaut. 
 
 This common sentiment of mankind, — ’tis nature speak- 
 
WHY WEEPEST THOU ? 
 
 107 
 
 ing out nature’s want, — this universal conviction of sinful- 
 ness, I am unable to regard as much less than, itself alone, 
 positive and sufficient proof of the fact. Were it not so, 
 would the Creator of the human soul have allowed it to 
 be so indelibly written on the soul itself ] Could a feel- 
 ing, productive of so much misery (and of no felicity, if 
 untrue), have been suffered by the God of goodness to 
 take such strong hold of the mind, if there were no 
 foundation for it in mournful fact 'l 
 
 But all the devices of heathen superstition have been 
 unable to satisfy the mind that the sinner could be for- 
 given, and his God reconciled. The sacrifices of idolatry 
 and ignorance could never be relied upon with unshaken 
 confidence. Though the distressed sinner presented vic- 
 tims of more and more value, till, having exhausted the 
 treasures of his wealth, he devoted to death the children 
 of his love, still his conscience was not at peace, and 
 nothing told him his sins were forgiven. The truth that 
 man feels himself a sinner is not more plainly recorded in 
 his actions, than the truth that all his attempts to satisfy 
 his conscience and satisfy his heart have been ineffectual. 
 These attempts were only the efforts of ignorance and de- 
 spair. Hope hardly smiled on them, and conscience never 
 said, It is enough. The mistaken votary went back from 
 the sacrifice of his children, to find his God still an enemy 
 and his home vacant of its murdered inmates. 
 
 But the darkness and the despair of sin vanish before 
 the light and hope of the gospel. Here we behold the 
 Lamb of God that taketh away the si?i of the world . The 
 victim slain, when viewed in the light of unadulterated 
 truth, is seen to be sufficient for all transgression, and the 
 pacified conscience drinks in joy from that truth* The blood 
 of Christ cleanseth from all sin. 
 
 I am unable to conceive in what maimer the conscience. 
 
108 
 
 WHY WEEPEST THOU ? 
 
 the mind, the heart of any sinner could rest upon the 
 atonement of a created Saviour. That idiot dream would 
 strip me of every hope, and leave me as sad as if I mingled 
 in heathen rites, and wept over the cold corpses of my 
 children slain in sacrifice. I am unable to conceive how 
 any rational mind can suppose a created being capable of 
 doing anything more than his duty to his Maker ; how 
 such a mind could ever believe that any creature of God 
 could serve God better than his creation required, and 
 thus not only be just himself before his Maker, but be 
 more than just — bring his Creator in debt to him, and 
 have a righteousness sufficient for the souls of others. If 
 God is my Creator, he has a claim upon all I am and all 
 I can do, — and I can never do more than my duty, — and, 
 when I have saved myself, plead before God my righteous- 
 ness to exculpate some less happy fellow- creature. Nor 
 could I rest my salvation on a created arm ; I should al- 
 ways feel insecure, and I could almost as soon gather hope 
 from the offerings of the blinded heathen, the blood of 
 self-ordered sacrifices. And why should I not as soon 
 rest my soul upon these as on the merits of any created 
 being h Both are creatures of God, and I cannot under- 
 stand why one, as an offering to God, should not in itself 
 be as acceptable as the other. It is, indeed, derogatory to 
 the Deity to suppose he is to be worshipped as though he 
 needed anything, and to suppose him propitiated by costly 
 sacrifices of his own creations is very much like supposing 
 him to resemble one of us. Such costly sacrifices, when 
 furnished by ourselves, might testify how much we desired 
 his favour, but, when furnished by him from his own finite 
 creatures, are not susceptible of any explanation. It is 
 the Deity of our Saviour that gives value to his sacrifice. 
 It is this alone that enables me to rely upon it ; and sooner 
 than rest my hopes of forgiveness upon any created being, 
 
WHY WEEPEST THOU ? 
 
 109 
 
 I would cut myself loose from such moorings, and venture 
 on the ocean of eternity without a friend and without a 
 Saviour. Sooner could I hope, myself, to be righteous 
 before God, than expect another creature to be more than 
 righteous, and God his debtor. 
 
 In the sacrifice of Jesus Christ we have everything the 
 heart can desire. He is the mighty God, the prince of 
 peace, and the sinner need not fear to rest his soul in his 
 keeping. 
 
 There are times when the heart is more than usually 
 filled with sadness. It is one effort of the adversary to 
 deprive the Christian of his comfort. Perhaps some poor 
 sinner here finds the memories of his sins coming in a cloud 
 of gloom over his soul. He thinks of their countless num- 
 ber, he dwells upon their high enormity, he considers their 
 varied character, and he asks, Can such iniquities ever bo 
 forgiven, and such a sinner saved ] 
 
 Why weepest thou ? The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth 
 from all sin. He was wounded for our transgressions, he 
 was bruised for our iniquities ; the chastisement of our peace 
 ivas upon him ; and with his stripes we are healed. Here, 
 then, you may find all you need ; you may rest your soul 
 upon the divinity of his sacrifice, and mingle your tears 
 with his blood. We love to say to you, mourning sinner, 
 that there is no limit to his mercy. But seek not your 
 consolation by concealing your guilt. Tell over all your 
 sins, weigh their enormity, and measure their aggravations; 
 let the catalogue swell before you as it will, and the recol- 
 lection of your guilt gather deeper sadness upon your 
 heart. Still, Why weepest thou ? Jesus Christ is ready 
 to forgive. Pour your sorrows into his bosom; mingle 
 your sighs with his groans ; dry your tears by his tomb, or 
 blend the peace of believing with the godly sorrow of the 
 heart. Jesus Christ would not have you forget your sins; 
 
110 
 
 WHY WEE PEST THOU ? 
 
 neither would lie have you forget his sacrifice. Never 
 attempt to gain consolation in any other way than by 
 pleading guilty and praying for peace. You need not 
 mourn in despair : Why weepest thou ? there is balm in 
 Gilead , a physician there . 
 
 2. But notwithstanding this fulness of forgiveness vouch- 
 safed in the atonement of Jesus, there are times when the 
 heart does not distinctly receive it ; a cloud intervenes be- 
 tween the soul and the Sun of Righteousness; the heavens 
 are turned into brass, and the cries of the sinner seem to 
 be sent back into his own bosom. Though he believes in 
 Jesus Christ, and would seek him even at his tomb, yet a 
 sense of his loving-kindness is withdrawn, and, like Mary 
 he laments, They have taken away my Lord , and I know 
 not where they have laid him. 
 
 If there is in the sorrows of human nature one feeling of 
 sadness deeper than any other, it is simply this. This is 
 the desertion of the soul. It is the heart robbed of its 
 hopes ; it is the lonely widowhood of the bereaved spirit, 
 abandoned to its own sorrows. It is unlike the sadness of 
 the desponding sinner that never hoped, never loved, and 
 never rejoiced. It is a deeper wretchedness, a more tender 
 agony, more cheerless distress. The joy which it has 
 known and valued is taken away; it feels what it has lost , 
 not the want of what it never had, and whose worth it 
 never knew. 1 suppose it is the same kind of feeling that 
 Jesus Christ had upon the cross, in those hours of dark- 
 ness when the sun refused its light, and when the dying 
 Saviour, forsaken of his Father, cried, My God , my God , 
 why hast thou forsaken me ? 
 
 And if any of us find ourselves in this sorrowful con- 
 dition, if we have lost the sense of the love of Christ, and 
 seem deserted and abandoned of heaven, let us go, like 
 Mary, to the sepulchre. No sinner ever went there to 
 
WHY WEEPRST THOU) 
 
 111 
 
 weep in vain. Why weeded thou ? is the language of the 
 gospel, of angels, of Jesus Christ himself, to the sinner that 
 seeks him early at the tomb. If we keep at a distance 
 from Jesus Christ, ashamed of the humility of disci pleship, 
 ashamed of the nature and recoiling from the strictness of 
 the duties he enjoins, we shall find no diminution of our 
 darkness. We may, indeed, in the delirium of the world, 
 and the forgetfulness of heaven, chase away for a moment 
 our gloom, but our joy will be of a deceitful character, and 
 serve only to enhance our sadness. Like the lightning 
 that plays upon the cloud of the midnight heavens, it will 
 only reveal the gathering terrors of the storm, and vanish, 
 to leave us darker still. Let us, then, follow Jesus Christ, 
 though in darkness and to the grave. Why weepest thou ? 
 will be the language of his mercy. And this is the high 
 privilege of all who, in any manner, have lost the joys and 
 consolations of their religion. You need not be always in 
 fear and sadness. Why weepest thou ? Jesus Christ is of 
 tender mercy; follow him, and sorrow shall be lost in joy! 
 Who is among you that feareth the Lord , and obeyeth the 
 voice of his servant, that walketli in darkness and hath no 
 light ? Let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay 
 upon his God. 
 
 3. But the soul that sorrows is ingenious to increase its 
 sorrows. Its own unwortliiness is often made to furnish 
 an argument of gloom. 
 
 Those who have no doubt of the ability and readiness 
 of Christ to save, and no doubt that he possesses a fulness 
 of grace and consolation now to bestow upon the believer, 
 often deprive themselves of every consolation by mistak- 
 ing the methods of his grace. They suppose there is lov- 
 ing-kindness for others, but none for them. Others are 
 more worthy than they ; others do not possess a heart of 
 so much insensibility and sin ; others are very pure and 
 
112 
 
 WHY WEEPEST THOU? 
 
 nigh to God, and the joys of his love are not denied to them. 
 But they are afar off! too unworthy to be noticed of heaven ! 
 They dare not approach Jesus Christ, and rest upon his 
 mercy! But the methods of grace are forgotten when we 
 indulge such thoughts. Why weepest thou ? Jesus Christ 
 does not console because we are worthy of his consolation, 
 — because we have any goodness in ourselves to recom- 
 mend us to him, but because we cast ourselves upon him, 
 and trust his unmerited compassion. We honour him 
 most when we trust in him most perfectly; and we exer- 
 cise such trust when we feel our sinfulness most strongly. 
 The sinner is never so well prepared for the exercise of 
 consoling faith as when he finds he can do nothing. The 
 very feeling of unworthiness which sometimes troubles the 
 heart of the poor penitent is the only worthiness that Jesus 
 requires. We are none of us worthy of the least of his mer- 
 cies, and would to God thatwe felt it more deeply! we should 
 not then live so far from him, and walk so carelessly be- 
 fore him ; w r e should not then pray so feebly for his grace, 
 and come so coldly to the sacramental board. God would 
 teach every soul he deigns to bless, that his blessings are 
 all unmerited, and what he requires of us is to know and 
 feel that they are so. And there is no evidence of our 
 being the real disciples of Christ better than this strong, 
 deep feeling of our entire unworthiness of any of his mer- 
 cies. If we feel ourselves worthy of him, it is certain 
 proof that we are not so, for it shows that we are ignorant 
 of our own nature, and have not been taught of the Holy 
 Ghost. 
 
 And if any of you have been afflicted with the fear that 
 Jesus Christ would show you no mercy because you were 
 not more worthy of him, though you desire his salvation 
 and are willing to forsake the world and follow him, let 
 me say to you, in the language of the blessed Jesus, Why 
 
WHY WEEHEST THOU'/ 
 
 113 
 
 weepest thou ? Fear not, broken spirit! there is mercy in 
 heaven, there is tender compassion in Jesus Christ. Only 
 live nigh to him ; rest your heart upon him ; carry your 
 unworthiness and your sins to his sepulchre, and dry your 
 tears in converse with your risen Saviour. 
 
 The resurrection of Jesus Christ was the joy of the in- 
 fant Church. His followers, dispersed and disheartened by 
 his death, lived to see him again in their circles, and listen 
 to the instructions of his lips. He rose to give joy on earth. 
 The first words he uttered were words of consolation. 
 Standing by the vanquished grave robed in the spoils of 
 death, he speaks to the waiting believer, Why weepest 
 thou ? He suffered not the tender bosom to heave with 
 uncertainty. He drieth the mourner s tears. The earliest 
 at the tomb was the earliest to be consoled; and she who 
 came weeping in bitterness, retired, weeping for joy. 
 
 And think you Jesus is not still the same tender friend, 
 the same compassionate, consoling Saviour h Why weepest 
 thou ? Gather all your afflictions, your fears, your distress- 
 ing doubts and despondency, and bring them to the grave 
 of Jesus, and he will say to you, Why iveepest thou ? 
 
 This affecting sympathy of the dying and of the risen 
 Saviour is worth more than worlds. Let the joys of earth 
 depart; let the hopes , even, of the world decay; let these 
 eyes grow dim, this frame bend downward with the weight 
 of years ; let earthly friends forsake me, swept away in 
 death and carried to the grave — but leave, oh, leave me 
 the compassion of the blessed Jesus l These eyes, gush- 
 ing with tears — this bosom, heaving with sobs — this heart, 
 distressed with sorrows — still I will not despond while I 
 can hear the language of Jesus, Why iveepest thou? 
 
 It is no ordinary friend that you are called to remember. 
 It is he who was crucified for you, and who burst from 
 the cold, damp vault of death to speak to you in consoling 
 8 
 
114 
 
 WHY WEEPEST T 110 VI 
 
 accents. Honour him by confidence equal to his consola- 
 tion. Distrust not his readiness to save. Accept the 
 comfort he offers you, and drink in the tenderness of his 
 language, Why iveepest thou ? 
 
 Celebrate the praises of your risen Lord. Call heaven 
 and earth to witness your gratitude. Renew your cove- 
 nant with God. Come to his table with a penitent and 
 believing heart, and whatever may be your sins, whatever 
 may be your sorrows, whatever fears gather in sadness 
 over the soul ,fear not — it is Jesus who speaks to you, — 
 Why iveepest thou ? 
 
 My dear friends, I know this is a tearful world. Dis- 
 tress and fear are natural to us as the breath of life. We 
 think of God, and are troubled. We know the cold grave 
 will soon be our bed, and that the God we shall meet in 
 eternity is a holy God ; and not a sin of our life, of our 
 hearts, will be kept out of sight at the judgment- seat of 
 Almighty God. But oh, what a difference it makes to 
 us when we see Jesus Christ going up upon the throne of 
 judgment ! With bloody side and wounded hands he sits 
 there in judgment for us — yea, for us ! If he were a 
 creature, we might tremble, but he is the mighty God. 
 He knows what the redemption of a sinner demands, and 
 lie knows he has rendered it. Oh, it will be sweet for 
 the believer to rush to the judgment-seat of Christ — his 
 best friend is on it ! 
 
 And why need the believer fear to die ] Jesus Christ 
 died, and death is now a vanquished enemy. When we 
 die, Jesus Christ will know it. He will come again and 
 receive us to himself. 
 
 Then why should we stand by the sepulchre weeping ? 
 This ought to be a day of solemn joy in the tabernacles of 
 the righteous. You are going to anticipate heaven. You 
 are going to meet the risen Jesus to-day. You are going 
 
WHY WEEPEST THOU ? 
 
 11 5 
 
 to remember his death — the redemption of sinners — and 
 to rejoice in the open fellowship of God. Be not afraid ! 
 Old communicant and young communicant^ be not afraid ! 
 Love God — love Jesus Christ. You have no other friend 
 who loves you like the Saviour, and your fellowship in his 
 love to-day is designed to cheer and comfort your hearts, 
 and fit you for death and heaven. The Lord meet us at 
 his board, and bless us ; and to his name be eternal 
 praises ! Amen. 
 
VIII. 
 
 Christ owr Ipassobtr. 
 
 f ‘ For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us.” — 1 Cor. v. 7. 
 
 T HERE is something singularly striking in that expres- 
 sion of St. Paul, — 1 determined to know nothing among 
 yon save Jesus Christ , and him crucified . To a mind which 
 does not enter somewhat fully into the nature of Chris- 
 tianity, this seems to be a very limited field of thought ; 
 and to a heart which has not caught much of the spirit 
 of Christianity, this limitation will be very unwelcome. 
 But St. Paul knew the nature and breathed the spirit of 
 his religion. Jesus Christ , and him crucified, opened to 
 this apostle no narrow field. It was a theme never ex- 
 hausted : he found it an unbounded range. It was a sub- 
 ject of which his heart was never weary; its pulses seemed 
 to beat more warm and full, as its affections centred more 
 exclusively on the cross. 
 
 In every system there is some pervading principle, some 
 controlling law, some ruling spirit which gives character 
 to the system and forms its distinguishing mark. Every 
 school of philosophy and the arts possesses some such dis- 
 tinctive feature, and its professors or practitioners are dis- 
 tinguished, in point of excellence, very much according to 
 the immediate application they make of the ruling prin- 
 ciple of their system. The mathematician boasts of his 
 definitions, and the more immediate his application of 
 
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 117 
 
 them the more excellent his skill. The physiologist fol- 
 lows the law of induction, and the linguist appeals to 
 common usage; and the security of both of them lies 
 wholly in their adherence to the true principles of their 
 profession. The astronomer, who measures the orbits of 
 the planets, and tells us the times they will occupy in 
 moving along their celestial track, would soon lose him- 
 self in the heavens but for the laws of motion and gravi- 
 tation which hold him secure. It is the knowledge of 
 this pervading principle which gives him confidence and 
 secures him truth. And so in every other system. There 
 is always some controlling power, influencing everything 
 connected with it, no less really (if not manifestly) than the 
 sun holds in their orbits the planets that surround him. 
 
 In Christianity, Jesus Christ , and him crucified , is the 
 living principle. Here is the distinguishing, the control- 
 ling power; and everything else is not only subordinate, 
 but everything else derives its whole importance from 
 this. Strike out this, and all is lost. You might as well 
 strike the sun from the heavens, and expect that the 
 bodies which roll around him w T ould hold on their way 
 and shine with the same ceaseless splendour. 
 
 St. Paul well knew what was the controlling, presiding, 
 pervading principle of religion, and he would never lose 
 sight of it. Jesus Christ , and him crucified , was always 
 in his eye. 
 
 Hence we find this great apostle ever lingering around 
 the cross. His arguments come fresh from Calvary ; they 
 are drawn from the living fountain; their force, their 
 unction, is the blood of Jesus. Hear him exhorting the 
 believer, and he makes Jesus Christ the point of his re- 
 mark: As ye have therefore received the Lord Jesus , so 
 ivalk ye in him , rooted and built up in him. Hear him 
 lifting his warning voice to the unbeliever. Jesus Christ 
 
118 
 
 CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 is the awful subject that loads his words with alarm : The 
 Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty 
 angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know 
 not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction . 
 Hear him dwelling on the mysterious purposes of God. 
 Jesus Christ is at once their mystery and their manifesta- 
 tion : According to the eternal purpose which he purposed 
 in Christ Jesus our Lord . Hear him endeavouring to lift 
 the believer away from earth. Jesus Christ is the buoy- 
 ant principle that would fix and fasten his heart on 
 heaven : If ye be risen with Christ, seek those things which 
 are above, where Jesus Christ sitteth on the right hand of 
 God. Hear him striving to sweeten the felicities of 
 domestic life, and sanctify the bonds of love. Jesus Christ 
 is still his theme : Husbands, love your wives, even as 
 Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it. In- 
 deed, he carries this argument of Jesus Christ (the Alpha 
 and the Omega of religion) into every doctrine, and every 
 principle, and every duty, till, having accompanied the be- 
 liever through his whole life, he stands in holy triumph, 
 and preaches Jesus by his grave, For if we believe that 
 Jesus Christ died and rose again, even so them also which 
 sleep . in Jesus will God bring with him. He sanctifies 
 their dust; he seals the door of their sepulchre, and 
 writes on it the death-warrant of death : I will be thy 
 plagues, 0 death ! — the title-deed of eternal being, — I am 
 the resurrection and the life . 
 
 In the words of our text, he is preserving the same 
 system. Exhorting the Corinthians to pnrity, both to 
 purify their Church from unworthy members and their 
 hearts from feelings of malice and wickedness, he charges 
 them to purge out the old leaven, to take away that conta- 
 gious iniquity which was likely to infect the whole ; and 
 
CHRIST OUR. PASSOVER. 
 
 119 
 
 the argument by which he enforces the exhortation is the 
 argument of Christ. For even Christ our passover is sacri- 
 ficed for us. Here we find this great apostle making Jesus 
 Christ not only the substance of the Christian dispensation, 
 but the substance of what was shadowed forth in one of 
 the most solemn and expressive types of the Jewish eco- 
 nomy. His argument for purity has particular reference 
 to the Jewish feast of unleavened bread, which immediately 
 succeeded the paschal supper; so that the expression of 
 our text would naturally suggest to the mind that feast, 
 so expressive of purity. But our present design is not to 
 consider that connection, but to confine ourselves to the 
 passover as a type of Jesus Christ. 
 
 That the Jewish passover was typical of Jesus Christ 
 needs no proof; it is sufficiently manifest in the words of 
 our text, Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. 
 
 Not entering into the full explanation of this type of 
 Christ, we will remark on some of its leading ideas : — 
 
 I. The circumstances under which the passover was 
 instituted. 
 
 II. The extent. 
 
 III. The manner in which it was to be eaten. 
 
 Only these three things, and these as simply as possible. 
 
 I. The circumstances under which this feast of the pass- 
 over was instituted are very remarkable. The Israelites 
 were in the power of their enemy. For more than two 
 hundred years they had borne the galling yoke of Egyp- 
 tian bondage. Their fathers and mothers had gone down 
 to dust, leaving them no inheritance but the chain of 
 slavery and the lash of the taskmaster. In unrelaxed 
 servitude they sighed, and sighed in vain. This typifies 
 the bondage of the sinner. Aside from the redemption of 
 
120 
 
 CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 Jesus Christ, lie has no resource. He is in the power of 
 his enemy, and, if no deliverer arise, his slavery will be 
 eternal. God had raised up Moses to stand before Pharaoh 
 and demand the release of the oppressed. One plague 
 after another, in swift and awful succession, had spread 
 over the guilty land. Still the heart of the king was har- 
 dened, and the chain was not loosed. One plague more 
 upon Pharaoh and upon Egypt , saith the Lord ; all the 
 first-born in the land of Egypt shall die. The angel of 
 death was coming in the night to smite the first-born in 
 every house. To secure themselves against his stroke, 
 every family of the children of Israel was to sacrifice a 
 lamb, and sprinkle its blood on the two side-posts of the 
 door of their houses, and also over the door ; it was not 
 to be sprinkled upon the door sill (though everywhere else 
 around it), because blood, even only typical of Jesus 
 Christ, is never to be trodden under foot. When the 
 blood was thus sprinkled, the Israelites were to lock them- 
 selves in their houses ; death, the destroyer, was coming. 
 God 'was visiting in vengeance, and wherever he beheld 
 the blood upon the lintel and the two doorposts , the Lord 
 would pass over, and not suffer the destroyer to come in. 
 What madness it would have been to have neglected the 
 sprinkling of the blood, before the darkness of that awful 
 night set in ! Death, death would have entered there. 
 What madness it would have been to have gone abroad 
 while the destroyer was passing over the land ! There 
 was no security save in being sheltered in a house marked 
 with blood. And what madness it is with the sinner to 
 neglect the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus till the destroyer 
 comes ! Then it will be too late. Everlasting destruction 
 will be the portion of every soul not sprinkled and guarded 
 by the blood of Christ. There was a great cry in Egypt; 
 there ivas not a house where there was not one dead. At 
 
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 121 
 
 midnight the Lord smote all the first-born in the land. 
 But the Israelite, defended by the sprinkled blood, was 
 safe; death would not touch him, and he was released 
 from his bondage. 
 
 The children of Israel were ever afterward to observe 
 the Lord’s passover. It is a night to be observed unto the 
 Lord. But I do not find that this sprinkling of the blood 
 was ever practised in after generations. The paschal 
 lamb was slain and the paschal supper eaten, till Jesus 
 Christ abolished the passover when he instituted our 
 sacrament. But I find no proof that the blood was ever 
 sprinkled but once. £ And I suppose the reason of this to 
 be, that every soul once sprinkled with the blood of Christ 
 is safe. That blood, once applied to the soul, is never 
 washed away ; it is always there ; true love to Christ is 
 never gained to be lost.) 'J * 
 
 II. But the paschal feast was always to be partaken of, 
 because Jesus Christ is not only to be received once, but 
 to be the constant bread of life ; he is to be the constant 
 support and nourishment of the believer’s soul. 
 
 There is one thing in this eating of the paschal supper 
 which we would especially notice : the paschal lamb was 
 to be wholly eaten — none of it was to be left till morning. 
 Jesus Christ our passover is to be wholly received. The 
 believer is to embrace a whole Saviour. Jesus Christ is 
 to be received in all his nature and his offices, and just as 
 he is offered to us in the gospel. “ Christ and his yoke — 
 Christ and his cross — as well as Christ and his crown.” 
 Faith is that act of a renewed soul whereby we receive and 
 rest upon J esus Christ alone for salvation, according to the 
 sure warrant of the gospel. It takes Christ as he is offered. 
 
 Perhaps there is no point on which the professing Chris- 
 tian is more liable to err than on this. There is such a 
 
122 
 
 CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 thing as a partial reception, or a receiving him in a man- 
 ner in which he is not offered to us ; and it is this which 
 constitutes the foundation of much false religion, even 
 among those who are the true friends of Christ, while it 
 leads many souls to ruin. 
 
 There is much danger that Jesus Christ will not be 
 wholly received by those who profess to believe in him. 
 We have no doubt that many give him only a partial 
 reception, and rejoice in that hope which will vanish when 
 God taketh away the soul. And we have no doubt that 
 many true believers feed only partially on him, and, while 
 they suppose themselves nourished by his grace, are really 
 deluded by the devil. 
 
 When, in any manner, we mingle anything else with the 
 merits and atonement of Jesus Christ, we do not live wholly 
 upon him. It is to be feared that there are many w r ays in 
 which many persons unconsciously do this. Four parti- 
 culars will evince our idea : — 
 
 1. When men receive Jesus Christ, as they think, to 
 make amends for their imperfections — to stand as their 
 defence and surety where they cannot be their own, they 
 give him but a partial and unprofitable reception. Jesus 
 Christ is a whole Saviour. He is not offered to you merely 
 to compensate for something lacking in your own righteous- 
 ness ; he is offered to you to be your righteousness, your 
 only hope. If you are justified at all, you must be justi- 
 fied solely by his blood. You need to look to him as 
 having borne the punishment of your sins, the penalty of 
 the law of God. God does not say to you, Do what you 
 can for yourselves, and then come to Jesus Christ for all 
 the rest you need. He tells you that you can do nothing 
 for yourselves ; without Christ you are under condemna- 
 tion; and can no more recommend yourself to him than 
 the poorest, vilest criminal that deservedly languishes in 
 
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 123 
 
 a dungeon cell. I do not say you have committed crimes 
 as great as his, but I say you can no more recommend 
 yourself to God, and no more enter into heaven. And if 
 you rest upon Christ only to make up your deficiency, you 
 do not receive a whole Saviour, and therefore do not receive 
 him at all. 
 
 Probably there is much of this in the world. Almost 
 every man feels something of frailty and deficiency, and 
 probably very many live upon Jesus Christ only to supply 
 wdiat they themselves lack. Convinced of their deficiency, 
 they pretend to come to him. And when a deluded heart 
 has once felt that Jesus will save, there is rejoicing of 
 course, because God is supposed to be reconciled and 
 heaven secured. But this is not receiving a whole Saviour. 
 The man who rests at all upon himself is deluded and 
 deceived; he does not live upon Jesus Christ. 
 
 2. When we receive Jesus Christ only as our security 
 for the future, we deceive ourselves. There are some 
 whose conduct and apparent feelings lead us to suppose 
 they would have Christ for their Saviour when they come 
 to die, and they receive him for the present only far 
 enough to become, as they imagine, interested in him here- 
 after. They give themselves partly to Jesus Christ, as they 
 think, now, resolving to be more perfectly his before they 
 die. Part of their heart they withhold — part they vainly 
 suppose themselves to surrender. All they want of a 
 Saviour is to secure them hereafter; and they live upon 
 him now only so far as to gain, as they suppose, a title to 
 heaven. 
 
 This is not true religion. If you rest upon him now 
 with only half your heart, resolving to be more nearly 
 allied to him hereafter while you refuse it for the present, 
 your religion is vain. 
 
 3. When we receive Jesus Christ only as a sacrifice and 
 
124 
 
 CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 not as a legislator, our reception is partial and vain. 
 Many persons suppose themselves relying upon him, whose 
 reliance is not such as he requires, and not such as will 
 save the soul. He asks to be received in all his offices, — • 
 Prophet, Priest, and King. He not only makes atonement 
 for sin, but he points out the way to heaven. How, that 
 man who merely relies on the blood of Christ to save him, 
 while not going, or trying to go now, in the way that 
 Jesus Christ would lead him, is no Christian. What is it 
 to be a Christian ? Is it to sit down contented, rejoicing 
 that Jesus Christ will save us when we are dead and gone; 
 or is it to follow Jesus Christ, to obey when he speaks, to 
 walk where he points, and tread in the path of holiness 
 he opens? That reliance on Jesus Christ which leaves 
 holiness out of the question, which releases the creature 
 from allegiance to heaven, which blots out the law of 
 God as a rule of duty, is no saving faith. And many 
 persons who think themselves Christians, and sure of 
 heaven, have just such a reliance as this. They trust in 
 Jesus Christ not only to shield them from the condemna- 
 tion of God’s holy law, but to release them from their 
 obligations of obedience to it. They sometimes tell us 
 (abusing their Bible) that they are not under the law, but 
 under grace. With them it is a light thing to break the 
 law of God, because Jesus Christ has satisfied its claims 
 for them. Atonement for sin has been made, and there- 
 fore they take encouragement to sin ! It is true that the 
 sincere and well-instructed believer is not under the law 
 as a system of justification, but he is under it, and always 
 will be under it, as a rule of life ; and so long as he is 
 sincere and well instructed, he will consider himself so. 
 Man is just as guilty, and ought to feel himself just as 
 guilty, for every violation of the law of God, as if no 
 mercy pointed him to the blood of atonement. And he 
 
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 125 
 
 ought to shudder at every wilful violation of it, just as 
 much as if no Saviour had died. Yet, I fear that many 
 who hope in Christ, hope in him no less to free them from 
 obedience, than to secure them from hell. Indeed, this 
 has grown into a principle, and some openly contend that 
 we are not, as Christians, bound by the moral law. But 
 what a principle ! Not bound by the law — holiness ! 
 What then are we 1 moral beings cut loose from allegiance 
 to God! moral beings flung by the very hand of God 
 from beneath his rule ! moral beings let loose from law, 
 and at liberty to sin ! Ah ! indeed, on this principle there 
 is no such thing as sin in the believer. If he is not under 
 obligation to obey the law as a rule of life, then he cannot 
 disobey, and consequently cannot sin ! But, strange as 
 this principle is, it is too common. The minds of Chris- 
 tians are not always free from its temptations, and their 
 hearts still less so. Have you not sometimes had this 
 temptation — the unworthy thought that sin is less dread- 
 ful because of atoning blood 1 Have you not been almost 
 ready to take encouragement to sin from the fulness and 
 freeness of Christ’s all-sufficient and satisfying sacrifice ; 
 and because you were not to be saved by works of righte- 
 ousness , thought more lightly of sin h What a strange 
 kind of religion this would be, should you adopt it ! An 
 argument for sin drawn from the blood of Christ ! and 
 religion release from holiness ! What strange inconsis- 
 tencies ! But, strange as they are, they are not uncommon. 
 They arise from the partial reception of Jesus Christ — • 
 from receiving him as a sacrifice and not as a lawgiver. 
 There is no religion in this. J esus would make you holy ; 
 he would teach you to obey, and love to obey, a holy law ; 
 he would prepare you for a holy heaven. If you would 
 be saved, you must receive a whole Saviour — the whole of 
 the paschal lamb was to be eaten. In those who are true 
 
1 26 CHRIST 0 UR PASSO VER . 
 
 believers there is also an error in the practice of the mind 
 and heart (not in the state of justification) which partly 
 resembles the error of some of the deceived. The deceived 
 are often in this error, and true piety, misguided, is in it 
 sometimes. 
 
 4. When we mingle our own graces with the merits of 
 Jesus Christ, and feast our hearts upon them, we are prac- 
 tically giving to the Saviour an erroneous reception, or a 
 partial, and therefore a false one. This error is more 
 common than is imagined. A heart over which the Holy 
 Ghost has moved in renewing power, still retains much 
 of its original corruptions ; the chaos is not all reduced 
 to order, and even such persons are extremely liable to 
 err. And how often we find those whom we believe to 
 be Christians running into this delusion of the devil, 
 mingling their own graces with the blood of Christ, and 
 rejoicing quite as much in their own feelings as in their 
 Saviour. They feed on their own high emotions; they 
 tell us how full they are of grace — how happy they are, 
 when, evidently, they are happy only in themselves ; they 
 live on their own experience instead of living upon Christ. 
 Their view is directed to their own hearts when they 
 would find comfort, and in miserable delusion they find 
 it there. Is this the exercise of true piety h No ! it is 
 pitiable delusion — it may be only false religion. It is 
 mingling fictitious piety with the blood of atonement; it 
 is vain self-confidence, and self -rejoicing, and living and 
 trusting upon self. The true believer (when not deluded) 
 believes not in himself, but in his Saviour; lives not on 
 himself, but on Christ Jesus. Just in proportion as this 
 delusion prevails, just in that proportion is Jesus Christ 
 abandoned. 
 
 These are methods (and we could mention others) in 
 which men give partial reception to Jesus Christ, and fall 
 
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 127 
 
 into mistakes in religion. Let us learn to avoid them. 
 Let us accept a whole Saviour. Let us cultivate true 
 piety, and not rejoice in the delusions of error. The 
 manner in which the passover was to be eaten was the 
 third idea we mentioned. 
 
 III. It was to be eaten with bitter herbs. The Israelite 
 was thereby reminded of the bitterness of his bondage ; 
 his deliverance would appear more valuable in proportion 
 as he knew and realized the condition from which he was 
 released. The Christian should copy his example. The 
 humility of penitential recollections is proper for the 
 communicant. This should always be in his bosom when 
 he comes to Jesus Christ. He should consider his con- 
 dition and the benefits of redemption together. He 
 should never lose sight of his helplessness and sin ; he 
 should cultivate a humble temper, and endeavour to 
 possess a broken and contrite heart. 
 
 1. Consider what your condition was. You were in 
 worse than Egyptian bondage. The Israelite, forced to 
 labour for no profit, galled by the chain that bound him, 
 driven by the lash of his taskmaster, was in a condition 
 more enviable than yours. You were wholly in bondage, 
 led captive in the strong cords of sin, and you could look 
 forward to no period of release. Sin reigned, and you 
 were its slave. Sometimes you felt its evil, and rose to 
 gain the mastery ; you resolved to struggle and be free. 
 For a brief moment you fought against its power, but the 
 unavailing effort only served to reveal your impotence and 
 the strength of the chain that bound you. Your resolving 
 never effected your deliverance ; you struggled and sunk 
 down in more hopeless bondage. Without God, you 
 might have writhed for ever in vain. Sin was your 
 bondage, and in it you would have lived and died. If 
 
]28 
 
 CHRIST OVR PASSOVER. 
 
 you are free, God in grace was your deliverer. Motives 
 did not release you. You were the miserable slave of the 
 world and sin. Warnings did not release you; you could 
 go from the coffin to the club, and dissipate the fear of 
 death with the mirth of your returning laughter. Dis- 
 appointments did not release you ; you rushed more 
 madly after a deceiving world. Purposes, resolves were 
 vain, and but for infinite grace, you would have been still 
 the slave of the world and sin. 
 
 2. Consider your exposure. God was your enemy, and 
 you were his. He loved your happiness, indeed, and 
 therefore saved you ; but he had no love for your character, 
 and you had none for his. You were in hostility to 
 heaven, in rebellion against God. God’s holy nature was 
 your terror, his holy law condemned you, his holy heaven 
 was uninviting. Every instant you were exposed to the 
 sword of justice. God might justly have cut you off at 
 the very moment he gave you freedom. 
 
 “Blood sprinkled o’er the burning throne, 
 
 And turned the wrath to grace.” 
 
 3. Consider what would have been your end. It is a 
 solace to the burdened slave when he can look forward to 
 the end of life as the end of his afflictions. Every day of 
 misery leaves one less. Every sigh he heaves brings him 
 nearer to his release; death will come, and his spirit will 
 be free. But you were in bondage that death would only 
 deepen ! Ho redeeming angel would watch around your 
 dying pillow to bear your departing spirit to a happier 
 clime. Ho ! For you the doom was written, for you the 
 prison-house was built. Eternal wrath was the holy 
 penalty of the violated law. But for God’s mercy 
 you might now have been the hopeless tenants of the 
 eternal prison-house ; justly might you have been for 
 ever lost ! 
 
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 129 
 
 4. What are you still ? Have you no sins that call for 
 sorrow ? Where is the fidelity you owe to your Master ? 
 where the love you owe to his disciples h Whence arises 
 the stupidity of your attempted devotions, the barrenness 
 of your hearts, and the coldness of your affections toward 
 one another ? Whence comes your lack of tenderness to 
 the weak, and of faithfulness to the erring ? Do you not 
 feel that you have much to repent of? that you loye, 
 honour, and serve Jesus Christ too little ? Come with 
 repentance to your passover ; come, empty of yourselves, 
 that you may be filled with Christ. Come, mourning for 
 sin, and mourning that you have been so unfaithful and 
 ungrateful to Him who loved you and gave himself for you . 
 Come, praying for pardon ; come, believing in J esus. Be 
 penetrated with a sense of your sins. Jesus Christ will 
 be most precious to you when sin is most bitter. Be 
 softened under a sense of his mercy : there is no fear he 
 will not take away, no sorrow he will not console, no sin 
 he will not forgive. You have only to belong to him, 
 have his blood sprinkled on your soul, and the destroying 
 angel will pass over you. Death may come, but death 
 cannot hurt you ; death and the grave are yours, if you 
 are Christ’s. Only live upon him — receive a whole Saviour 
 - — lose yourself in him — let your life be hid with Christ in 
 God. Then you may say, joyfully, — 
 
 “ Farewell, every fond ambition. 
 
 All I’ve sought, or loved, or known ; 
 
 Yet how blest is my condition, 
 
 Christ and heaven are still my own.” 
 
 But me thinks I hear the sighs of some burdened spirit, 
 fearing to approach the table of the Lord. Some trembling 
 believer counts over the multitude of his sins. Ah ! woe 
 is me ! I have been too unfaithful ! How can such a one 
 sit down at the table of Jesus ? Will he not frown upon 
 9 
 
130 
 
 CHRIST OUR PASSOVER . 
 
 me, and send me away loaded with his curse instead of 
 enriched by his blessing ? 
 
 My dear friend, where shall we go if we turn away from 
 Jesus Christ? If we cannot find consolation here, where 
 can we find it ? But for this Saviour, but for this blood, 
 grief might bathe us in eternal tears, and nothing, nothing 
 save the sadness of eternal despair might be our portion ! 
 Fear not, sorrowing believer! Jesus Christ is the minister 
 of consolation: come to him with that wounded heart, 
 and he will bind it up in tenderness, and bathe it in his 
 blood. The sigh that heaves your bosom is a sigh heard 
 in heaven, and heaven shall send its mercy to the penitent 
 believer. Behold , I stand at the door and knock : if any 
 man will hear my voice , and open the door , I will come in 
 and sup with him , and he with me. 
 
 But God in infinite mercy permits some to come to the 
 children’s table to-day who formerly have been strangers, 
 without the bread of life and the love of the Father. My 
 dear friends, I tremble for you because I know what a 
 poor weak sinner’s heart is — how easily he is overcome. 
 But I rejoice for you, because I know where such a sinner 
 can go and hide himself from his fears, his weakness, and 
 his foes. We bless God, for your sakes, that he brings 
 you to his board. In the name of Jehovah Jesus we bid 
 you welcome. In the presence of God, and angels, and 
 men, and devils, you are about to devote yourselves to 
 Jesus Christ ! Solemn transaction ! High heaven will 
 witness the scene. Spirits of love will look down from 
 their blissful abode, and there will be joy in heaven over 
 the sinner that repentetli. Child of redemption ! be not 
 afraid; God is as ready to meet you in friendship as you 
 are to meet him. Honour him with your confidence. 
 Make Jesus Christ yours, and you need not fear sin, 
 Satan, God’s justice, or the damnation of hell. All 
 
CHRIST OUR PASSOVER. 
 
 131 
 
 tl dngs are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is 
 God's. 
 
 Come, ye Unpardoned ! Christ is for you. We have re- 
 demption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins. 
 
 Come, ye unhappy ! Christ is for you. Believe, and 
 though ye sow in tears, ye shall reap in joy. lie that goeth 
 forth and weepeth , bearing precious seed, shall come again 
 with rejoicing. 
 
 Come, ye stout-hearted, and far from righteousness ! It 
 is better to bend in love than break in wrath. Cast down 
 the weapons of your rebellion : as God did beseech you by 
 us, we pray you in Christ's stead , be ye reconciled to God, 
 for he hath made him to be sin for us, who lcnew no 
 sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in 
 him. 
 
 Come, any sinner ! Christ is sacrificed, and you may 
 live. Him that cometh unto me, I ivill in no wise cast 
 
 out Behold, I stand at the door and knock 
 
 The Spirit and the Bride say, Come ; and whosoever will, 
 let him take of the water of life freely. 
 
 My brethren, you will meet new friends at the com- 
 munion-table. Bless God for it ! I hope you will yet 
 met them in heaven, and bless him for it there ! But 
 oh! I want another thing of you at this communion 
 season. You have other friends who have not yet escaped 
 out of Egypt. They will not be with you at the passover. 
 They have not set their faces toward the wilderness, and 
 I am afraid you will never meet them on the green fields 
 of a heavenly Canaan. Will you not want them with you 
 on your wilderness-journey ? and when you buffet the 
 waves of death, as you pass over Jordan, will you not 
 desire to be able to say to them, Farewell for a little 
 moment; we shall soon meet in heaven? My brother, 
 my sister, can you die quietly till more of those you love 
 
132 
 
 CHRIST OUR PASSOVER, 
 
 are converted to God ? Pray for the unconverted ! This 
 is what I want of you. When your own soul is full, 
 when you can say, “ I’ve Canaan’s goodly land in view,” 
 when your heart swells to the measure of the mercy that 
 has redeemed you, pray down that mercy upon hearts 
 now exposed to the vengeful justice of God. Try the 
 power of communion-prayer ! It will pierce heaven. It 
 will open it. And if sparing mercy ever allows you to 
 come again to the banqueting-house, you shall render 
 other thanksgivings for the souls redeemed by the good 
 grace of God. 
 
 May the Infinite One be present with you, your 
 Redeemer, strength, and consolation ! 
 
IX. 
 
 |WIjoIb .% iCamli of ! 
 
 “ The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold 
 the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world.” — John 
 i. 29. 
 
 T HE Christian religion considers man in two very 
 different points of view. On the one hand, it beholds 
 him as he is ; on the other, it contemplates him as he 
 may be. It embraces the extremes of his case, and when 
 it speaks to him, it would fasten his mind upon them. 
 
 It always addresses him as a sinner. It charges him 
 with being vile, and rebellious, and guilty; wholly incap- 
 able of being just with God. It looks upon him as poor 
 and helpless, doomed by the power of his corruptions to 
 endure a bondage from which he can never release himself. 
 It beholds him so much attached to his condition that he 
 has not the least inclination to leave it — his heart not 
 right with God, and having no desires to become so. It 
 beholds him sighing away a few days of a chequered 
 existence on earth, at last to lay his body in the dust, 
 where the ivorm shall feed sweetly on him. And then it 
 follows him onward to another world, and listens to his 
 eternal sentence, filled up with that awful imagery bor- 
 rowed from devouring flames , the ivorm that dieth not , and 
 the fire that is never quenched. 
 
 Who can look upon this picture of the sinner and not 
 feel that he is examining one of the most mournful subjects 
 
134 
 
 BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD / 
 
 that ever occupies tlie human mind ^ Who can listen to 
 what the Bible tells him about himself, and not feel his 
 soul stirred within him as it paints his character and 
 points him to his prospects ? 
 
 But there is another light in which Christianity would 
 teach us to look upon ourselves. If it tells us we are 
 guilty, it says also to us, Behold the Lamb of God , that 
 taheth away the sin of the world / If it sees us in bondage, 
 it points to the right arm of the Lord that can strike off 
 our chains and set us free. If it hears our sighs, it tells 
 us how our mourning may be turned into joy . Christianity 
 teaches us how to triumph over our miseries; she offers 
 to remove our guilt, to take away bitterness from our tears, 
 and hopeless sorrow from our sighing ; she offers to go 
 with us to the spot where these bodies shall moulder away, 
 and to force the grave to give back its dead. And then 
 she would lift us away to join in the songs of the redeemed, 
 where heaven offers the full measure of its joys, and eter- 
 nity alone can limit their duration. 
 
 What a vast difference there is between the sinner 
 redeemed and the sinner in bondage ! The one moves on 
 through the world as if this life were his all, and at best 
 gathers but a few vain pleasures, whose sweet is sin and 
 whose end is misery. The other makes of this world a 
 voyage to heaven. The one is forgiven of God; death 
 cannot hold him; hell has no claims upon him. The 
 other refuses forgiveness ; lie opposes his own salvation ; 
 death is coming upon him, the grave opens her mouth, 
 and hell is moving toward her prey ! The one enjoys the 
 smiles and is fitting for the presence of God. The other 
 is under the condemnation of the Eternal, and fast fitting 
 for the society of fiends. We can scarcely exaggerate the 
 difference between those who are in the bondage of Satan, 
 led captive at his will, and those who are enjoying the 
 
BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD t 
 
 135 
 
 glorious liberty of the sons of God. Angels in heaven notice 
 this difference, and therefore there is joy among them over 
 even one sinner that repenteth. 
 
 The sacrifice made for sin in the blood of Jesus Christ 
 at once teaches us the sad condition of the sinner, and 
 the blessedness of that condition that is offered to him. 
 The cross is alike the argument for humiliation and joy. 
 How great must have been the ill desert of a sinner when 
 nothing but such a satisfaction could buy off his crimes 1 
 How glorious must be that heaven purchased for the re- 
 deemed at such a price ! 
 
 The sacrifice we contemplate, therefore, stands associated 
 with all that is miserable, and dreadful, and degrading in 
 sin, and with all that is blessed in having it forgiven. It 
 calls us to count over our iniquities, to weigh our crimes, 
 to measure our guilt, and graduate our humility and re- 
 pentance by the divine sacrifice that could expiate all. It 
 calls us to realize our obligations to Him who hath bought 
 us with his blood ; and while we estimate these obligations 
 by the contrasted gloom and glories of hopeless sin and 
 an opening heaven, — gloom, vanishing as we gaze upon 
 the cross, and glories, opening as we prostrate ourselves 
 before it, this sacrifice calls on us to pronounce our vows* 
 All that the Lord hath spoken we will do , and be obedient. 
 Let this be the promise of our hearts, as we listen to this 
 message, Behold the Lamb of God that taketli aivay the sin 
 of the world . 
 
 The death of Jesus Christ was an atonement for sin; 
 j t was a lesson of holiness ; it made satisfaction to divine 
 justice; it furnished arguments for holy living. 
 
 I. It was an atonement for sin. JThe Lamb of God 
 taketh aivay the sin of the world. 
 
 My brethren, if we ought ever to marvel at the pride 
 
138 
 
 BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD / 
 
 and perverseness of human nature, surely we may do so 
 when we find men blind and base enough to blot this 
 article from their creed. It is not within our province or 
 our desire to bring railing accusations against those that 
 do so, but we cannot avoid astonishment that such men 
 have not been better instructed by the language of Scrip- 
 ture, by the arguments of reason, by the history of all 
 religion. Let us notice these three : — 
 
 1. The language of Scripture is peculiarly clear on this 
 point. I affirm that there is not a single truth more 
 clearly taught in the whole word of God, than that the 
 death of Jesus Christ was the procuring cause of the pardon 
 of sin and the salvation of the redeemed ; that those who 
 are pardoned are pardoned through his sacrifice; those 
 who are saved are saved by his blood. 
 
 (1.) What but this can be the meaning of those unnum- 
 bered passages which speak of his having made peace 
 through the blood of his cross , to reconcile all things unto 
 himself; of those afar off made nigh by the blood of Christ. 
 The blood of Christ cleanseth us from all sin. We have 
 redemption through his blood. Ye are not your own , ye 
 are bought with a price. Feed the flock of God , which he 
 hath purchased with his oivn blood. If the doctrine of 
 the atonement can be explained away in the face of such 
 language as this, there is no doctrine that cannot. With 
 the Bible for my guide, I could as soon doubt the existence 
 of sin as the reality of Christ’s atonement. There is no truth 
 more explicitly taught in the whole Bible than this. 
 
 (2.) Not only express declarations record it, but it is 
 implied where there was manifestly no design to teach it, 
 but to appeal to it as a known and acknowledged truth. 
 Walk in love as Christ also hath loved us , and given him- 
 self \ for us an offering and a sacrifice to God. The design 
 here was not to teach the doctrine of atonement, but to 
 
BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD! 
 
 137 
 
 enforce tlie precept of fraternal love ; and the sacrifice of 
 Christ for us is appealed to as an argument to bind to 
 brotherly affection. The New Testament is full of such 
 argumentation, and it is wholly destitute of appropriate- 
 ness if the atonement of Christ for sin is denied. 
 
 (3.) If we turn to the pages of the Old Testament, we 
 shall find them filled with such types, and ceremonies, 
 and prophecies (not to say explicit declarations), as no 
 ingenuity can explain except on the principle that Jesus 
 Christ laid down his life to make propitiation for the sins 
 of the world. Indeed, there is no state of the Old Testa- 
 ment Church which does not furnish thick proofs of the 
 truth of our position ; there is no year of its history which 
 is not crowded with images of a dying Saviour, with pro- 
 phetic types of the sacrifice he offered up. 
 
 You may go back to the very garden which God planted 
 for the abode of the sinless, and, even before its shrubbery 
 had wilted and its soil had sent up the briar and the thorn, 
 you may hear the voice of Jehovah promising a suffering 
 Saviour. The Father of the Faithful received the repetition 
 of the same promise, and this promise, an apostle tells us, 
 relates to Jesus Christ. Now to Abraham and his seed 
 were the promises made. He saith not to seeds, as of 
 many , but as of one. And to thy seed , which is Christ. 
 
 You may join in the first homage ever offered by a 
 sinner and accepted by his God, and you will find the 
 atonement acknowledged in the offerings of Abel. Cain 
 believed in no atonement ; he wanted no type of the blood 
 of Jesus. He was the first sinner that rejected salvation 
 bought by blood ; and all who follow his sad example will 
 receive his awful rejection of God. 
 
 Trace the history of the Church from age to age, and 
 you find its ceremonies and ordinances one perpetual proof 
 of the promise of God, and the faith of holy men in the 
 
J 38 
 
 BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD! 
 
 atoning blood of a Saviour. We know not how special 
 was the faith of the Old Testament saints. Doubtless it 
 was less special than that of those who have history in 
 room of prophecy, and substance in place of shadow. But 
 there can be no doubt that the faithful who lived before 
 the incarnation and death of the Saviour possessed the 
 general idea that the expected Messiah was to make satis- 
 faction for sin. Their faith rested on the promise of God, 
 telling them what should be : ours is based on the inspired 
 history of what has been. The generals of both are the 
 same ; the specialties are different according to the different 
 dispensations of the Church. They all died in the faith , 
 says St. Paul, not having received the promises , but having 
 seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them , and em- 
 braced them. 
 
 However indefinite we may suppose the knowledge of 
 ancient saints to have been (since it was gathered from 
 types, and symbols, and shadows, and prophecies), still it 
 seems almost impossible that there should not have been 
 considerable minuteness attending it. The constant sac- 
 rifices they presented would not have been viewed as 
 themselves the propitiation for sin. Men who knew less 
 of God, his nature, and his perfections, might have viewed 
 them thus, but men who had studied the nature and per- 
 fections of Deity under such masters as Moses, and David 
 and Isaiah, and Daniel, must have known it was not 
 possible that the blood of bidls and goats should take away 
 sin. Nothing, therefore, but faith in the atoning blood 
 of a promised Saviour, can explain the constancy with 
 which they observed the commanded rites, and offered the 
 expensive typical sacrifices. 
 
 Moreover, if you examine the predictions of the prophets, 
 you find them proclaiming so clearly the death of Jesus 
 Christ that they appear rather as histories recording the 
 
BEHOLD TITE LAMB OF GOD! 
 
 139 
 
 event, than as prophecies announcing its approach. And 
 however these predictions may have been understood then, 
 they are at least the most positive proof that the instruc- 
 tions of the ancient dispensation embraced a Saviour suf- 
 fering for the sins of the world. 
 
 Listen to the strains that floated around the prophetic 
 lyre of David, and you hear them sighing forth the descrip- 
 tion of the sufferings of Jesus : My God , my God , why hast 
 thou forsaken me? I am a worm of the dust and no man : 
 a reproach of men , and despised of the people. All they 
 that see me laugh me to scorn : they shoot out the lip at me ; 
 they shake the head , saying , He trusted in the Lord that he 
 would deliver him ; let him deliver him , seeing he delighted 
 in him. One would almost suppose, on hearing this de- 
 scription, that David had stood on Calvary, heard the groans 
 of a dying Saviour, and witnessed the insults that 'were 
 heaped upon him. 
 
 Listen to the graphic description of Isaiah, and you find 
 him portraying the sufferings of Jesus and the atonement 
 he made for sin, as clearly as any of your preachers ever 
 dare to proclaim these truths : He is despised and rejected 
 of men — a man of sorrows , and acquainted with grief — 
 surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorroivs — 
 he was wounded for our transgressions , and bruised for our 
 iniquities : the chastisement of our peace was upon him , and 
 until his stripes we are healed — the Lord hath laid on him 
 the iniquity of us all — he is brought as a lamb to the slaugh- 
 ter — for the transgression of my people was he stricken — he 
 hath poured out his soul unto death — he bare the sin of 
 many , and made intercession for the transgressors. One 
 would almost suppose that Isaiah too had stood by the 
 cross of the dying Jesus, and afterwards recorded the trans- 
 actions of his crucifixion with a historian’s accuracy. 
 
 Listen to the voice of Daniel, and you hear of sin and 
 
140 
 
 BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD! 
 
 its atonement as clearly as we ever dare to preach them to 
 you : Seventy weeks are determined to finish the trans- 
 
 gression , and to make an end of sins , and to make reconci- 
 liation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteous- 
 ness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy , and to anoint 
 the Most Holy ... the Messiah shall be cut off \ but not for 
 himself. 
 
 And hear Zechariah, also kindling with the spirit of 
 prophecy, pour forth the exclamations of an ancient be- 
 liever, rehearsing the promise of his Maker: Awake , 0 
 sword , against my shepherd and against the man that is 
 my fellovj , saith the Lord of hosts. So full and so clear are 
 ancient predictions and ancient history. The images of a 
 dying Jesus are scattered everywhere along the history of 
 the Church and the writings of the prophets. Ordinances, 
 ceremonies, promises, prophecies, all unite in one harmoni- 
 ous voice : Behold the Lamb of God , that taketh away the 
 sin of the world. 
 
 (4.) There is one other consideration we ought, as Chris- 
 tians, as believers, to take along with us. It is the argu- 
 ment by which God would win us, or rather, the founda- 
 tion on which is based the right he claims over us. What 
 is this argument, this foundation on which rests his claim *? 
 I do not say there is only one. I know he has various 
 holds upon us, and claims us as his, and bound to obey 
 him, on various grounds. But I say the claim of the Deity 
 to us is more frequently based on redemption than on any 
 other principle. This is the most usual argument by which 
 he would make us feel our obligations to him. We cannot 
 now enter into this article. A full examination would re- 
 quire a volume. But if you will notice, as you read your 
 Bible, on what principle God claims you, you will find it 
 the principle of redemption more frequently than the prin- 
 ciple of creation even. It has been said that the most 
 
BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD! 
 
 141 
 
 perfect right is that of creation ; that God has more entire 
 right over ns because he created us, than for any other 
 reason. I will not say that his right, based on creation, 
 is not perfect, but I do say it is not more perfect than his 
 right based on redemption, and is not so often mentioned 
 in his word. The principle of redemption forms even the 
 very preamble of the moral law, the system which embraces 
 everything of holiness : I am the Lord tliy God , which 
 brought thee out of the land of Egypt , out of the house of 
 bondage. And this redemption, you know, was typical of 
 the spiritual deliverance of Jesus Christ. It is similar to 
 the argument of the apostle : Ye are bought with a price, 
 therefore glorify God. Now, if we believe in no suffering 
 of Jesus Christ for us, where is the force of this reasoning? 
 More, if we believe not that we are wholly lost, worse than 
 annihilated, that it would have been better for us never to 
 have been born unless we have been redeemed by Jesus 
 Christ, then there can be no reasonable conclusiveness in 
 these arguments of inspiration, and no propriety in so often 
 appealing to the price paid in blood. 
 
 But we will not pursue this. We have only to say, that 
 whatever view we take of the Holy Scriptures, we behold 
 the cross ; whenever we listen to them we hear them say 
 to us, Behold the Lamb of God, that taketliaway the sin of 
 the world. 
 
 2. We might also appeal to Reason. We might ask her 
 to show us how a sinful creature could ever render to his 
 Creator so much more than his duty required as to com- 
 pensate for past deficiences, and thus atone for his sins. 
 Indeed, we might ask her explanation how any created 
 being, ever so holy and high, could serve God better than 
 justice required, and thus bring his Creator in debt to him. 
 If there is sin, and God is just, Reason must despair of 
 salvation, except when her eye is directed to a divine Savi- 
 
142 
 
 BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD l 
 
 our. Behold the Lamb of God , that taketh away the sin of 
 the world . 
 
 3. The history of all religion is a strong confirmation of 
 the same principle. There is a wonderful correspondence 
 between the word of God and the history of man. Nations 
 who never had the Bible, and never heard of a dying 
 Saviour, have always embraced bloody sacrifices in their 
 religion. Conscience, and the light of nature to instruct 
 it, have been sufficient to assure them that their accep- 
 tance with Deity must depend on something without 
 themselves. Their history gives the uniform testimony, 
 that ivithout shedding of blood is no remission of sins ; and 
 expresses the uniform desire to behold the Lamb of God, 
 that taketh away the sin of the world . This fact is alto- 
 gether inexplicable except on the principle of satisfaction 
 for sin being shadowed forth in these ancient ordinances 
 from which, through corrupt tradition, have arisen these 
 universal offerings. 
 
 But we need neither the testimony of man nor the his- 
 tory of corrupt religion to guide us. If we will hear the 
 Holy Spirit, the words he speaks to us will guide us to the 
 Lamb of God , that taketh away the sin of the world . 
 
 What an abundant source of consolation here opens to 
 the believer ! He beholds not the blood of his own offer- 
 ings ; not the virtue of his own oblations ; not the smoke 
 of his own sacrifices ; but the Lamb of God. The victim 
 was appointed of God, and accepted of God. In him God 
 is ever well pleased, and the believer in him may approach 
 his God as the child cometh to his father. 
 
 The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world, 
 scatters his consolations all along the believer’s pathway, 
 as he walks through trials and temptations and fears in his 
 pilgrimage. 
 
 Looking back on the life you have lived, you will find 
 
BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD! 14a 
 
 it full of sins and follies. Here (you will say to yourself) 
 I was presumptuous, and ran into temptation, like St. 
 Peter, — there I was incredulous, like St. Thomas ; at one 
 time I was conformed to the world, — at another, my zeal 
 for God was little better than zeal for my own sake. But 
 if you have still an eye of faith, it will rest upon the 
 Lamb of God : he has borne my sins — he has made recon- 
 ciliation for iniquities. 
 
 Looking at yourself in the light of God’s holiness, you 
 will despair of heaven ; you will find your heart full of cor- 
 ruptions, and your life but too faithful a copy of your heart. 
 You will look upon the Lamb of God: the fountains of 
 Deity are there open to you : the sins of a world are 
 expiated. 
 
 You will contemplate the destinies that await you. 
 Sickness and death are in the world. You will say to 
 yourself, In a little time this frame will be disordered, these 
 bones filled with pain. I shall be stretched upon the death- 
 bed, bidding adieu to all my heart holds dear. I shall see 
 around me the friends with whom I have walked life’s 
 vale, and taken sweet counsel ; and the anguish of their 
 affection will but render more severe the breaking of the 
 cords of life. 
 
 But, with the eye that Stephen had, you may look in 
 upon the glories you are going to meet. Lord Jesus , re- 
 ceive my spirit , is a prayer that will console the friends you 
 leave, and the faith that can make it will take aw*ay the 
 terrors of a dying hour. 
 
 But death only introduces me to judgment : we must all 
 appear before the judgment-seat of Christ. I shudder at 
 that trial. Every wwd, every thought of my wdiole life 
 is to be laid open. I, who have so often sinned and re- 
 fused to reform ; I, wdiose conscience is so polluted, — how 
 can I meet in judgment an awful and offended God? Be- 
 
144 
 
 BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD! 
 
 hold the Lamb of God ! It is lie who is seated upon the 
 judgment-seat; the accusations of that tribunal are silenced; 
 — J esus Christ has silenced them ; he bore the inflictions 
 of justice, and the believer in his blood is free. 
 
 It is thus that his satisfaction throws its supports and 
 its consolation around us. The pathway of the pil- 
 grim is everywhere cheered by some benefit of the dying 
 Saviour. 
 
 t 4 
 
 II. But these benefits are all arguments for holiness ; 
 the death of Jesus Christ is one of the strongest pleas that 
 heaven makes to us. 
 
 1. Divine justice never appears so awful as when we 
 behold it going into heaven for its victim. It is when we 
 behold it satisfied with nothing but the humiliation and 
 sufferings and death of the Son of God, that we are able 
 to understand something of its strictness. It is then we 
 learn most perfectly the keenness of that sword which is 
 drawn against the offender. 
 
 This is the idea of the text. We are called to behold 
 the Lamb of God- that talceth away the sin of the world, in 
 the sense of subduing it, as well as atoning for it. He 
 wdio rests only on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to satisfy 
 justice in his behalf, without learning from that sacrifice 
 to fear that justice, has only taken a single step in Chris- 
 tianity. Shall I not rather say he is no Christian 1 I 
 will not pronounce how dim may be the light, and how 
 erroneous the ideas of a true child of God, but I will say 
 that he who makes Christ the minister of sin ; he who is 
 more free to transgress because Jesus Christ has freely 
 died, knows nothing of the saving experiences of the 
 godly, and breathes nothing of the holy spirit of Chris- 
 tianity. Jesus Christ takes away sin by taking away the 
 love of it, whenever he takes away sin by cancelling the 
 
BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD! 145 
 
 guilt of it. Acceptance in Jesus Christ always causes the 
 individual to hate sin more instead of hating it less. 
 
 2. And this is another argument for holy living written 
 in the blood of the Lamb. There is nothing that shows 
 the evil of sin so plainly as the sacrifice required to 
 expiate it, and consequently nothing more powerful to 
 subdue its reign in the soul. It is when the believer 
 enters into the mysteries of the incarnation — when he sees 
 Him who thought it not robbery to be equal ivith God 
 coming down from heaven on an errand of suffering and 
 love — when he beholds Him in whom dwells all the fulness 
 of the Godhead bodily undertaking the personal labour of 
 blotting out sin, and then unable to do it but only in his 
 blood — it is when he fixes his mind and heart on this, 
 that he estimates sin as he ought. Then he estimates it 
 by divinity ! the divinity of the Lamb of God , that taketh 
 away the sin of the ivorld ! No eye, anointed of God, can 
 look upon the cross without seeing the evils of sin and 
 arguments for holiness. 
 
 3. Again. The great object of the death of the Son of 
 God presents the same argument. To purify unto himself 
 a peculiar people , zealous of good works , the apostle tells us 
 was the object of his giving himself for us. Consequently, 
 without holiness his sacrifice will do us no good. If we 
 are not influenced by it to holy living, however we may 
 imagine ourselves interested in it, we know nothing of it 
 as we ought : we are yet in our sins. 
 
 Indeed, in whatever connection we view this sacrifice, 
 the claims of holiness meet us. God would at once 
 entitle us to heaven and prepare us for it. 
 
 Enter into these considerations as you approach the 
 table of your Master. Let the emblems of a crucified 
 Saviour teach you the most solemn lessons of godliness. 
 Let them tell you of all your ill-desert, and assure you 
 10 
 
146 
 
 BEHOLD THE LAMB OF OOD! 
 
 that without his sacrifice all the sighs that might heave 
 your bosom, all the penitence that might break your 
 heart, all the offerings you might present, and all the 
 prayers that in desperate agony you might send up to 
 heaven, would avail nothing to save you from the pit. 
 Let these emblems teach you that there is no sin which 
 Jesus Christ refuses to expiate, no sorrow which Jesus 
 Christ refuses to console, no fear which Jesus Christ 
 refuses to assuage. 
 
 Cherishing such contemplations, you cannot fail, under 
 grace, of renewing your covenant acceptably to God. You. 
 will do it as if self were annihilated ; you will do it in the* 
 humblest, holiest penitence ; you will do it in the most 
 exclusive faith in the blood of atonement ; you will do it, 
 swallowed up and lost in that God who here unites you 
 to himself; ye are dead , and your life is hid with Christ 
 in Cod . 
 
 Communing thus with Jesus, you cannot fail of catch- 
 ing the spirit of heaven. Earth will lose its attractions, 
 and when you go forth the world will take knowledge of 
 you that you have been with Jesus. 
 
 Some of you come from the world. Ye have never 
 before been at the Lord’s table. We have known your 
 trials and fears while seeking Jesus, and we bless our 
 Lord and Master that he has lifted the burden from your 
 sinking hearts. But our solicitude for you is not ended. 
 We shall notice hereafter whether you seem to live nigh 
 to Jesus, and let the savour of his love spread its tender- 
 ness over your whole heart. I pray my blessed Master to 
 make you happy, very happy Christians. But, I am 
 afraid for you. Ye are young in grace, and most of you 
 are young in years. The world is full of temptations, 
 especially to young men, and you tread a path spread with 
 the snares of the devil. As I look back upon the youth 
 
BEHOLD THE LAMB OF GOD / 
 
 147 
 
 of my own religion, I remember liow much the grace of 
 my heart often suffered ; I feel as if I would willingly 
 assail every young Christian with tears and entreaties of 
 warning. Oh, if I could recall those years, I would cling 
 closer to Jesus, t No other interest should encroach upon 
 the interests of the heart’s communion with Jesus ; no 
 other elevation should call me down from the spot where 
 the cross was planted ; no other garden should win me 
 from that .garden where there was a sepulchre. 
 
 My young friends, much depends upon your beginning 
 in religion. I ask you, I entreat you, be wholly Christ’s. 
 Make it your solemn purpose henceforth to serve God and 
 God only. Come to his table to-day to renounce the 
 world, and choose holiness and heaven. Come to be 
 sprinkled with the blood of atonement. Come to take the 
 mark of God upon your foreheads. Come in the senti- 
 ment of that communion-song : — 
 
 “ Jesus, I my cross have taken, 
 
 All to leave and follow thee; 
 
 Naked, poor, despised, forsaken, 
 
 Thou y from hence, my all shalt be.” 
 
 If you come thus, be not afraid ! the Saviour will meet 
 you, and go with you to the end. 
 
 But is there no more room at the Lord’s table ! Why, 
 then, are there so many that turn away ? I would carry 
 this question, if I could, into the inmost recesses of your 
 hearts. I would write it in the blood of the cross, and 
 utter it in tones gathered from the words of its dying 
 victim. Why, why, dying fellow-sinner, wilt thou not be 
 at the communion table to-day ? My dear friends, can 
 you answer it? Do you not need Jesus $ Are you not 
 hasting in a tearful path to another world, no friend to 
 welcome you to glory, and shelter you from the thunders 
 of the judgment of the most high God ? 
 
X 
 
 &bi lUsurmticm of Jfmts Christ. 
 
 “It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at 
 the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” — 
 Rom. viii. 34. 
 
 THE gospel is full of consolations to the believer. This 
 J- is one of its distinguishing features; this is, indeed, 
 its characteristic excellence. It is good tidings; and 
 though often considered by those who imbibe none of its 
 spirit, and love not the Saviour it reveals to us, as a 
 system of severity and gloom, yet this is only the testi- 
 mony of its enemies, of those who are strangers to its 
 spirit and its blessed hopes. 
 
 The gospel of Jesus Christ holds out its consolations to 
 every stage of life, and presents an antidote to all the 
 fears of sin. It greets the little child, as he comes upon 
 the theatre of life, with those affectionate words of Jesus 
 Christ, Suffer little children to come unto me and forbid 
 them not , for of such is the kingdom of heaven. It opens 
 to them the baptismal fount, and assures the believing 
 parents that if they love them on earth, Jesus Christ loves 
 them in heaven. It attends the passing pilgrim, who is 
 seeking another country , even an heavenly , through all the 
 sorrows and labours and toils of his pilgrimage, giving 
 him that blessed assurance that his light affliction , which 
 is but for moment , worketh for him a far more exceeding 
 and eternal weight of glory. It accompanies him while he 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 140 
 
 passes through all the stages of his earthly being ; and 
 when he has travelled down to his sepulchre, and is stand- 
 ing among vaults and tombs and graves, and over the 
 mouldering bones of the dead, himself just sinking to the 
 dust, it says to him, This corruptible must put on in - 
 corruption , and this mortal put on immortality : so when 
 this corruptible shall have put on incorruption , and this 
 mortal shall have put on immortality , then shall be brought 
 to pass the saying that is written , Death is swallowed up in 
 victory. And it enables the believer to reply, 0 death , 
 where is thy sting ? 0 grave , where is thy victory l The 
 sting of death is sin , and the strength of sin is the law ; 
 but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through 
 our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 In short, the gospel has consolations everywhere, and 
 these all offered through the Son of God. In the words 
 preceding this text, the apostle was dwelling in a kind of 
 holy triumph upon the privileges of the believer : If God 
 be for us , who can be against us ? Who shall lay anything to 
 the charge of God's elect ? It is God that justifieth ; who is 
 he that condemneth ? It is Christ that died , yea , rather , 
 that is risen again , who is even at the right hand of God. 
 
 The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the 
 apostle’s stronghold of consolation; and this is the subject 
 which shall now occupy us; It is Christ that died , yea , 
 rather , that is risen again. 
 
 There is no doctrine, my brethren, more full of consciing 
 promise than that of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It 
 is a pledge of our own. As we follow to the grave those 
 we love, or as we descend ourselves into its bosom, we 
 need not sorrow as those which have no hope ; for if we 
 believe that J esus Christ died and rose again , even so them 
 also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. 
 
 There is no subject which has a stronger tendency to 
 
150 
 
 TIIE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 stagger belief than tliat of tlie resurrection of the dead. 
 After repeated trials, I have been unable to conjecture 
 that anything could be affirmed, not absolutely contrary 
 to reason and to the perfections of the Deity, which I 
 should be more ready to disbelieve than I should be to 
 disbelieve the resurrection of the dead. There is some- 
 thing in it so contrary to all we are led by experience to 
 expect, that it takes us away from the common field of 
 thought, and transports us to the region of miracles. The 
 resurrection is a miracle. It is a thing wholly dissimilar 
 to anything we see or know. Nature has no resemblance 
 to it. The grass of the field that greets the spring-time 
 with its lovely hues, carpeting our earth in green, withers 
 and dies. The trees of the forest, smiling under the suns 
 of so many summers, and enduring the peltings of so many 
 winters, whose branches have afforded shade to fathers and 
 afterwards to sons, and then to their sons, from generation 
 to generation, do not live for ever. Everything around us 
 is tending to decay. Men live, but they die. Our fathers , 
 ivhere are they ? and the prophets , do they live for ever ? 
 There is nothing that we behold bearing any analogy to 
 the resurrection. We may fancy an analogy, as many un- 
 wise defenders of sacred w T rit have done, but still it is only 
 a fancy. Correct thinking will convince us there is no 
 resemblance in fact. The trees that are dead are dead 
 for ever. Others may spring up in their places, but the 
 fallen never rise. The graves of our fathers are not opened; 
 we have seen no one rise again ; the dead are slumbering 
 in dust. There is, therefore, something in the resurrec- 
 tion of the dead wholly opposed to our natural expecta- 
 tions. If we believe it we must believe on the ground of 
 miracles ; and our mind needs the most satisfactory proof. 
 
 Let us see what witnesses the Bible points out to us to 
 prove the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This shall be our 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 lol 
 
 first topic. Let ns examine into the credibility of these 
 witnesses. This shall be our second. I trust we shall 
 find, from the examination of these two articles, that it 
 would be a hard matter to be an infidel; that there is such 
 testimony to the resurrection of Jesus Christ as no mind 
 could reject without being prepared to reject all human testi- 
 mony and take refuge in the darkest shades of scepticism. 
 
 I. The number of witnesses who give testimony to any 
 fact is a most material point. Our mind is so constituted, 
 that we are obliged to give more weight to the testimony 
 of many than to the testimony of one. It is more probable 
 that a few should be false or mistaken, than that many 
 should be so. This is a plain principle. Our mind acknow- 
 ledges it, our courts act upon it. 
 
 When St. Matthew was just finishing his Gospel he in- 
 troduced this most important topic. He tells us that 
 Jesus Christ appeared to Mary Magdalene and the other 
 Mary, and they came and held him by the feet and ivor- 
 shipped him . He tells us also that he was seen in Gali- 
 lee of the eleven disciples, when some doubted. I suppose 
 the meaning is that they doubted at first, or when he was 
 some distance from them ; for it is afterwards said, he came 
 and spake unto them , and then, it seems, there was no 
 doubt. It is important to notice this, as it shows us 
 they were not credulous and ready to believe anything, 
 but would not believe without good and sufficient proof. 
 
 St. Mark closes his Gospel with the record of the same 
 appearances, and adds another instance: After that he ap- 
 peared in another form unto two of them as they walked 
 and went into the country . 
 
 St. Luke includes, in the last chapter of his Gospel, all 
 these instances, and relates more particularly the conver- 
 sation of the risen Saviour. 
 
152 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 St. Paul, in 1 Cor. xv., lias brouglil together a still 
 greater number of witnesses, and also other instances 
 of his appearance after his resurrection from the dead. 
 These are his words : He was buried , and rose again the 
 third day according to the Scriptures he was seen of 
 Cephas , and then of the twelve; after that he was seen of 
 above Jive hundred brethren at once , of whom the greater 
 part remain unto this present , but some are fallen asleep. 
 (St. Paul, you perceive, was appealing to living witnesses 
 when he wrote this. If any one doubted , they were alive 
 and could be examined.) He proceeds : After that he ivas 
 seen of James , then of all the apostles , and last of all, he 
 was seen of me also . 
 
 St. John tells us of no other witnesses than those we 
 have named ; but what is a natural circumstance, he tells us 
 of three different times when he appeared to his disciples. 
 It was no hasty glance. It w r as no hurried interview. 
 Even the incredulous Thomas was compelled to believe. 
 
 These are the witnesses we have to the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ. Their number is more than five hundred. 
 Had there been but few, the suspicion would have been 
 very natural that those few might possibly have been mis- 
 taken, or that they had the intention to deceive for- some 
 selfish purpose. But since there was such a multitude, 
 and since they had such repeated interviews, even scepti- 
 cism itself cannot pretend any deception. 
 
 II. In the second place, we proposed to examine the 
 credibility of these witnesses. Now, there are six things 
 which affect the credibility of witnesses : — 
 
 1. The credibility of witnesses is affected by their 
 capacity as men of discernment, capable of judging on the 
 subject to which they testify. Those who are not men of 
 sufficient discernment to understand those matters of which 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 153 
 
 they give evidence, are not to be received as witnesses. I 
 would not receive the testimony of an illiterate man on 
 any subject in science which he could not comprehend ; 
 and I would not credit the testimony of a blind man in 
 relation to colour, nor that of a deaf man in reference to 
 sounds. By this I do not mean that a witness must 
 understand the subject to which his testimony applies, but 
 that he must be capable of understanding the facts to 
 which he testifies. The testimony of a man wholly igno- 
 rant of philosophy is just as sufficient to prove many 
 philosophical facts, as if he were most deeply instructed 
 in all the science of the schools. It is a philosophic fact 
 that all bodies unsupported fall to the surface of the earth. 
 The fact is one thing; the philosophy of it is quite another 
 thing. But if one knows nothing of the philosophical 
 explanation of it, still if he knows the fact, if he has eyes 
 to see it and mind enough to understand that he does see 
 it, his testimony in regard to the fact is equally as good 
 as that of the scholar, who is able to explain and demon- 
 strate all the laws of gravitation. 
 
 Now, the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is 
 110 complicated subject. If he was seen alive after his 
 death, We know that he rose from the dead. Jesus Christ 
 died. This is an acknowledged fact. The enemies of 
 Christianity, so far from disputing it, have been fond of 
 casting it out as a reproach to our holy religion. And 
 the testimony of any man as to his resurrection may be 
 received, if he is capable of judging whether one is alive 
 or dead. 
 
 But those who saw and conversed repeatedly with Jesus 
 Christ, after he came back from the sepulchre, were men 
 of good understanding. They were not likely to be de- 
 ceived ; more, it was impossible that they should be de- 
 ceived. Most of them had known Jesus Christ before he 
 
154 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST 
 
 was crucified. They had been in his society, they had 
 listened to his instructions, they had conversed familiarly 
 with him ; and when he afterwards was seen by them, 
 surely they were capable of judging of an object of sight. 
 The capacity of such men as Matthew, and Peter, and 
 James, and John, and Paul, is surely the last thing to be 
 called in question. We might as well question the capacity 
 of this congregation to say whether they hear the words I 
 am speaking, as to question the capacity of the witnesses 
 I have mentioned to say whether they saw Jesus Christ 
 after he was risen. If they had opportunity to know the 
 fact of which they testify, it is enough ; their capacity to 
 know is beyond question. 
 
 2. The opportunity for knowing is the second thing 
 which affects the credibility of witnesses. Men may have 
 different degrees of confidence on any subject, according to 
 their opportunities for information. If I have but a dis- 
 tant view or a hasty glance of any object of sight, I am 
 not so likely to be certain in relation to it as if I had a 
 nearer approach and a longer time to behold. To render 
 our testimony credible on any subject, we must have 
 opportunity to know the facts of which we testify. It is 
 not always enough that we are ourselves satisfied : we may 
 be credulous and easily imposed upon. We must have 
 such an opportunity to know, that with suitable attention 
 any deception would be impossible. 
 
 Now, those who testify to the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ had no hasty glimpse of his risen body. They saw 
 him for a long space. They conversed with him — walked 
 with him — ate with him. They saw him, not at a dis- 
 tance, but near at hand. And they were not disposed to 
 be credulous and believe without sufficient opportunity to 
 judge ; for when they saw him at a distance and before 
 he approached them, they doubted . It was only his nearer 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST . 155 
 
 approach, their better view and more continued intercourse, 
 that satisfied these cautious men. And one of them car- 
 ried his caution and his incredulity to such an extent that 
 he would not believe, except lie should see in liis hands the 
 print of the nails , and put his fingers into the print of the 
 nails , and thrust his hand into his side . All this Jesus 
 Christ granted to him, and even the incredulous Thomas 
 was compelled to exclaim, My Lord, and my God ! The 
 disciples, in a body, saw Jesus three different times. The 
 woman to whom he first showed himself after his resur- 
 rection (as if to honour that affection which lingered around 
 his grave), held him by the feet. Now, when witnesses 
 have had repeated opportunities of knowing, when they 
 have seen and felt and heard, surely their power to know 
 the truth cannot be questioned. 
 
 And what is very material as to the power of knowing 
 or the capacity to judge, is the singular fact that they did 
 not expect his resurrection. Plainly as he had prophesied 
 it, still they did not understand his prophecy till after its 
 fulfilment. For as yet they knew not the Scripture, that he 
 must rise again from the dead; and when the women who 
 were first at the sepulchre announced to the disciples his 
 resurrection, their words seemed to them as idle tales, and 
 they believed them not His resurrection, therefore, was 
 contrary to their expectation, and consequently they were 
 not under the influence of strong desire and eager to be- 
 lieve it. Their personal opportunity, as well as personal 
 power of judging cannot be called into question. 
 
 3. The third thing which affects the credibility of wit- 
 nesses, when there is more than one witness to the same 
 fact, is their agreement . When there is any contradiction 
 or inconsistency between the testimony of different wit- 
 nesses, our minds are in doubt; we know not what to be- 
 lieve. On the contrary, a perfect agreement strengthens 
 
156 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 our conviction. I mean, a perfect agreement as to the 
 essential fact to which they testify. If there is a very 
 nice and scrupulous agreement as to all the circumstances 
 of the case, as to all those little things to which the atten- 
 tion is not called, but which are remembered, as it were, 
 by accident, this sometimes creates a suspicion of previous 
 concert, of conspiracy together to testify to the same thing. 
 We expect men to differ somewhat in reference to such 
 things, because they are not subjects of attention, but 
 rather matters of casual impression, and we expect the 
 casual impressions of men to be somewhat different : a 
 principle w T ell understood in the best courts of justice. 
 
 Now, these witnesses unanimously testify that they 
 saw Jesus Christ alive after he had been crucified. If 
 their testimony is false, then there was a company of 
 more than five hundred impostors, all perfectly agreeing 
 in their testimony. Who can believe that such a numerous 
 company, of such different age, and capacity, and disposi- 
 tion, so widely separated as some of them were from each 
 other, would so perfectly agree in maintaining a false- 
 hood, and not one of them ever disclose the imposition 1 
 Had they been base enough to conbbive such an imposi- 
 tion, surely some of them would afterwards have disclosed 
 it, when motives as powerful as the dungeon and the 
 stake were urging them to it. But no Christian retracted 
 his testimony — no Christian disclosed the imposture— no 
 Christian saved his life by convicting his accomplices. 
 
 4. The time of bearing witness is the fourth thing 
 which affects the credibility of witnesses. The memory 
 of man is treacherous. Many things float over it, and 
 are gone. Not only so, but lapse of time disarranges it, 
 and spreads confusion where once there was order. Not 
 only so, but the indistinctness of years gives rise to error; 
 and as we frequently contemplate in connection what was 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 157 
 
 and what might have been, we are exposed to mingle 
 fancies with facts, and to render ourselves incapable of 
 distinguishing between them. 
 
 But the resurrection of Jesus Christ was no compli- 
 cated subject. Had these witnesses seen him h Had 
 they conversed with him ? Had they been with him in 
 the house, at meat, or by the way in conversation h No- 
 thing can be more simple than the subject of their testi- 
 mony, which admits of no mistake from the imbecility of 
 memory or from confusion in recollection. Besides, their 
 testimony was given at the time. No lapse of years had 
 spread its shades over their memory, and thrown the story 
 into partial oblivion. 
 
 Again : the time of giving this testimony is incom- 
 patible with the supposition that it was not an honest tes- 
 timony. The enemies of Jesus Christ had just triumphed. 
 Proud of their success, they were rendered doubly bold 
 against all who confessed him, while as yet Jewish malig- 
 nity had lost none of its bitterness. His foes were yet 
 burning in anger, and their hands were still wet with his 
 blood. At this very period, while his enemies were 
 triumphant, and furious, and vigilant — while they were 
 yet watching to give the last, finishing stroke — at this 
 very time, within three days after his death, his disciples 
 announced his resurrection. Does this look like dis- 
 honesty ? Has it the aspect of imposition h Artful men, 
 determined to give currency to a falsehood, would have 
 chosen a more favourable time to spread the report. They 
 would have delayed till vigilance was released, fury ap- 
 peased, and suspicion lulled to sleep. And they might 
 have presented a most urgent reason for doing so ; they 
 might have pointed to the Sanhedrim boiling with rage, 
 and to Calvary still moist with his blood. But they made 
 no delay. They announced the resurrection of Jesus at 
 
158 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST . 
 
 the very time when his enemies were expecting the de- 
 claration, and had taken all possible measures to prevent 
 its being believed. If their seal and stone upon his 
 sepulchre, and the watch that guarded it, had kept his 
 mangled body in their possession, they might have pro- 
 duced it, and would have done so in order to crush the 
 attempt of the disciples whom they hated, and the reli- 
 gion which their wickedness could not endure. But, in- 
 stead of this, they gave large sums of money to the Boman 
 soldiery, to say to the common people that the disciples 
 came by night and stole him aivay while we slept — a tes- 
 timony not likely to be believed, since it was death for a 
 Roman soldier to slumber on his watch, and since one 
 could not be supposed to have very accurate knowledge of 
 what was transpiring while he was asleep. If the soldiers 
 were sleeping, how could they know that the disciples 
 stole him away'? This is the only instance I know of 
 where men have deposed to that which was done while 
 they were asleep. We find no such inconsistencies in the 
 testimony of those who bear witness to the resurrection of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 5. The fifth circumstance which affects the credibility 
 of witnesses is, the place in which they give their testi- 
 mony. The exaggerated tales of travellers have long been 
 the subject of common remark. The wonders they pre- 
 tend to announce to us are in distant lands. They are 
 separated from us by pathless oceans and mountains of 
 fearful height. It is difficult to detect the falsehood, or 
 to discover the truth, when the testimony is given in a 
 place far distant from the scene of the transactions that 
 are told. This difficulty of discovery sometimes em- 
 boldens base men to violate the truth. But it was in no 
 distant region that our witnesses told of the resurrection 
 of Christ. They published it at Jerusalem ; they preached 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. |59 
 
 it in the temple, in the streets, in the synagogues. They 
 gave forth their testimony just by the grave of Jesus and 
 on the hill of Calvary. They gave it in the presence 
 of his murderers ; and Christianity began her triumphs 
 on the very spot where mistake or imposture must have 
 failed. 
 
 6. The last circumstance we name as affecting the cre- 
 dibility of witnesses is, the motives which induced them 
 to testify. One whose personal interest is to be secured 
 by the establishment of the things to which he testifies, 
 is not considered so credible a witness as one whose in- 
 terest is not involved. The reason is obvious. All men 
 are, in some sense, selfish. To promote their own interest, 
 they may be induced, in some cases, to bear false witness. 
 We have seen too much of the weakness of human virtue 
 and the power of self-interest, to entertain the opinion 
 that all men are likely to speak the truth when interest 
 seems to require falsehood. We are fully persuaded that 
 men have preferred, and men may again prefer, their tem- 
 poral interests to their salvation, so far as to depose 
 falsely, even in the name of that God who has said, All 
 liars shall have their part in the lake whicli hurneth with 
 fire and brimstone; which is the second death. 
 
 But it is self-interest alone that can induce men to tes- 
 tify falsely. Men deceive to promote their own purposes. 
 Their designs may be vastly different. One may have 
 purposes of wealth ; another of pride ; another of ambi- 
 tion ; another of pleasure ; but still it is only self-interest, 
 only the preference of present objects to those of another 
 world, which can induce them to testify falsely. 
 
 Now, on the principles of infidelity, that is, on the sup- 
 position that these witnesses bore false testimony, there 
 is something that can never be explained. Let the infidel 
 tell me how it is that more than five hundred men could 
 
160 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST . 
 
 be induced to sacrifice their dearest temporal interests for 
 the propagation of a falsehood. Their testimony gained 
 them nothing in this world ; and surely no man could 
 even imagine that God would be better pleased with him 
 for imposition, and fraud, and deception. Their testi- 
 mony cost them all the severities of malignant persecution. 
 The most vigorous punishments were inflicted upon them ; 
 jails were filled, chains forged, fires kindled around their 
 consuming bodies ; and, if they were false witnesses, they 
 must have endured all this for no other purpose than to 
 offend God and plunge themselves into hell. 
 
 Moreover, if they were false, why, among such a multi- 
 tude and under such circumstances, was there no contra- 
 diction detected and no recantation made h They were 
 examined by their enemies — men of office, and talent, and 
 discrimination, — men capable of tearing off the disguise in 
 which falsehood arrays itself, and of putting to blush 
 dishonesty and deception. And yet there was no contra- 
 diction among the whole multitude ; and as to their re- 
 cantation, every man will confess it must have been 
 expected if they had been false. Had some plan of self- 
 interest induced them to commence a deception, had they 
 expected thereby to gain some temporal advantage, surely 
 they would not have persisted in it when they saw the 
 attempt vain, their expectations frustrated, and found 
 themselves languishing in dungeons or expiring in flames. 
 Bring a false witness to face death ; let him look upon 
 the implements of his execution ; show him his coffin, 
 and wrap him in his grave-clothes ; and then, while he 
 turns pale and trembles at the sight, let him consider that 
 the confession of his falsehood will rescue him, and not to 
 confess it will only take him, through the agonies of death, 
 into the presence of an awful God, offended with his 
 falsehood — the false witness will retract ; he will confess 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 3 61 
 
 his falsehood; he will not persist in his perjury when he 
 can have no motive for it but agony, and death, and hell. 
 But these witnesses which we have mentioned made no 
 retraction. Standing by the stake, they reiterated their 
 testimony with their last breath, and were ushered into 
 the presence of God — Jesus and the resurrection on their 
 lips. 
 
 Never was there a fact substantiated by more unques- 
 tionable proof than that which the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ possesses. The mind that can reject such testi- 
 mony never can be convinced by any testimony of the 
 human race. 
 
 This resurrection is a most consolatory truth to the 
 believer. The faith of the Christian makes him one with 
 Jesus Christ, and he learns to realize the blessedness of 
 the hope that them which sleep in Jesus ivill God bring 
 with him. 
 
 The resurrection of the dead is a doctrine peculiar to 
 our religion. Whatever faint notions of it the heathen 
 may ever have entertained, they were all borrowed from 
 the revelation of God. The most polished and enlight- 
 ened heathen that have lived, have been in darkness as 
 to this interesting topic. Even if they believed in the 
 immortality of the soul, they had 110 ideas about the re- 
 surrection of the dead. The Roman and the Greek went 
 down into the grave as if its bars were eternal. But 
 Christianity unlocks the sepulchre. Angels in shining 
 garments awake the dead. This corruptible puts on in- 
 corruption , and this mortal puts on immortality. 
 
 How perfect is the triumph of our religion ! There is 
 something awful, dreadful in the dissolution of the body. 
 Death is the dread of nature. Every beast fears it. Every 
 bird shrinks from it. They utter no other cry so piercing 
 as their death-cry. The fear of death seems to awaken 
 11 
 
162 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 in all living creatures tlie most tormenting distress. And 
 when I think of my own dissolution, — when I say to my- 
 self, These limbs shall stiffen — this tongue shall falter — ■ 
 the blood shall curdle in my veins, — I seem to be contem- 
 plating the most distressing subject. My coffin ! my 
 funeral ! my grave ! — I shudder at them ! But Jesus 
 Christ flings glory across the gloom. He wore grave- 
 clothes, and hallowed the dress of the dead. He went 
 down into the sepulchre, and softened and sanctified the 
 bed of the believer. 
 
 The believer, then, sinner as he is, may glory in Jesus 
 Christ. He may say to himself, Let this body die, — let 
 it be hidden in darkness and moulder into dust : it be- 
 longs to Jesus Christ; he has made it the temple of the 
 Holy Ghost : true, he will take down this tabernacle, 
 but he will build it again ; in my flesh shall I see God. 
 
 Yes, the believer may triumph in Christ. As death 
 makes inroads upon his Christian society, as those who 
 love our Lord are, one after another, taken away from his 
 earthly fellowship, still he may console himself with the 
 hopes of the resurrection. He may say, Let my friends 
 fall around me — let me receive their last sigh and close 
 their dying eyes — let me follow to the grave the sweetest 
 solace of my life; she who was my joy in sorrow, my star 
 in darkness ; who watched around my sick-bed ; whose 
 kindness took from languishing its discouragement, and 
 from anguish its keenness ; she who walked life’s vale with 
 me, hand in hand, she must go down to the grave in 
 silence! — but Lazarus , my friend, sleepetli ; if I believe, I 
 shall see the salvation of God. 
 
 My dear friends, let your hearts be cheered with the 
 consolations of Jesus Christ. You honour him most 
 when you have the brightest ideas of his mercy. Let 
 your hearts be filled with his love. And if there is one 
 
THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 163 
 
 poor, broken- hearted sinner really contrite before God, but 
 who yet fears, and doubts, and is distressed, I would say 
 to him, Fear not , be of good cheer , thy sins are forgiven 
 thee. Oh ! Jesus Christ is richer in goodness than the 
 most affectionate of us have believed. Who shall lay 
 anything to the charge of Gods elect ? It is Christ that 
 died , yea, rather , that is risen again , who is even at the 
 right hand of God. 
 
 The resurrection of Jesus Christ was the finishing stroke 
 in the work of redemption. The ransom of the sinner 
 was paid ; the Father had accepted it ; the Holy Ghost 
 was ready to confirm it, sealing the promise on the heart 
 of the believer ; and Jesus Christ had come back from 
 the grave, its conqueror, and laden with spoils. Now 
 there is freedom of access to God. No flaming cherubim 
 guard the mercy-seat. It is sprinkled over with the 
 blood of the Saviour of the world. Let that blood be 
 sprinkled on your conscience, and your covenant with God 
 is sealed. 
 
 But the resurrection accords with the whole economy 
 of God. It is a lesson of holiness, a fountain flowing 
 with motives for all godly living. It demands of those 
 who would have part in Christ’s resurrection, to come 
 to this holy ordinance and partake of these august em- 
 blems, saying, in their hearts, to God, — I am crucified 
 with Christ; the love cf Christ constraineth me, because 1 
 thus judge that if one died for all, then were all dead; and 
 that he died for all, that they which live should not hence- 
 forth live unto themselves — (what an unbounded charter 
 of himself the believer gives to Jesus Christ !) he re- 
 peats that they ivhicli live shoidd not henceforth live unto 
 themselves, but unto him which died for them and rose 
 again. This is the language with which you should adopt 
 this ordinance. It is the lesson of holiness and consecra- 
 
164 THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST. 
 
 tion, gathered from the death and resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 I hope you are prepared to enter into this sentiment. 
 You ought now to surrender yourself to him just as per- 
 fectly as you would desire to be his in that day when the 
 trump of the archangel shall announce the resurrection of 
 the dead ; when you shall come forth from the darkness 
 of the opened grave, and hear Jesus Christ proclaiming 
 from the clouds, I am the resurrection and the life . 
 Come to his table with such a sentiment, and then indeed 
 will your covenant be ratified and your consecration ac- 
 cepted of God. 
 
 My dear brethren, we are going, this afternoon, to cele- 
 brate the dying love of our now risen Saviour. We ought 
 to do it in such a manner as to give us better preparation 
 to die, and to rise and be with him. In order to do so, let 
 us remember why he died. Let us say, as we approach 
 the Lord’s table, He died to save this poor, guilty soul ! 
 I was under the curse of God. Divine justice demanded 
 my destruction. My sins were sinking me to ruin. I 
 deserved hell, and my immortal soul must have been for 
 ever miserable had not the Saviour died ! Blessed, 
 blessed Master ! He saved me ! Poor sinner that I was, 
 I could do nothing for myself. He loved me ! He bore 
 my sins ! He took my place, and it was for me that the 
 strokes of divine justice fell upon his holy head. He 
 died, and has risen again. God has accepted the sacrifice, 
 and I am coming to his table to signify that I accept it 
 too. Let us remember who it was that died. Not a mere 
 man : such a sacrifice and Saviour would never do for 
 sinners like us. It was Emmanuel , — God with us. He 
 it is that covers our persons with his own, that the strokes 
 of divine wrath may reach him without falling on us. 
 Let sin, therefore, be what it may ; let divine justice be 
 
TITE RESURRECTION OF JESUS CHRIST . 
 
 165 
 
 what it may ; let the black guilt of this poor, hopeless 
 spirit be what it may, I know there is forgiveness ; for 
 the eternal Son of God, who travelled in the greatness of 
 his strength , can respond to all there can be in the depths 
 of my iniquity and in the depths of the Deity who is 
 offended with it. Let us remember the love which prompted 
 his death. It was love that brought him from heaven. 
 Say to yourself as you come to this table, He loved me 
 and gave himself a ransom for me. I see proofs of his 
 love scattered all along, from his manger cradle to his 
 marble tomb. 
 
 Let us remember him with hearts overflowing with 
 gratitude and love. Let us say, His grace has bidden us 
 to his banqueting -house. A little w T hile ago we were 
 enemies to God. Our affections were on the world. We 
 saw no beauty in Christ. If God had hurried us out of 
 the world in a state of unrepented sin ; if he had not 
 snatched us, <25 brands from the burning, we might, instead 
 of coming to his table in peace and love and joy with 
 the people of God, have been even now bound in the 
 chains of darkness and everlasting despair. Grace, grace 
 has saved us ! x My soul is satisfied. Christ has died — 
 Christ is risen again. I am my beloved’s , and my beloved 
 is mine. 
 
XI. 
 
 for owr Crunsgr^ssious. 
 
 fe He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our ini- 
 quities ; the chastisement of our peace was upon him ; and with 
 his stripes we are healed.” — I sa. liii. 5. 
 
 /THE chapter from which these words are taken contains 
 J- a very full account of the sufferings of Jesus Christ, 
 and the design of those sufferings. So plainly and so 
 fully are his trials and agonies here described, that the 
 description seems more like a history written after that 
 great event than like a prophecy foretelling it. The whole 
 circumstances of the case are so minutely described, that 
 one would suppose Isaiah must have mingled in the 
 school of Jesus Christ with his disciples, when he was on 
 earth, and must have stood on the top of Calvary in that 
 dark hour when Jesus Christ expired. But Isaiah was 
 dead and gone long before Jesus Christ was born ; his 
 body had gone down to the dust, and his soul was 
 mingling with disembodied spirits in the eternal world. 
 But he did not depart from this house of his pilgrimage 
 before God had shown him the great plan of redemption, 
 and caused him to write this chapter so full of instruction 
 for your heart and mind. He commences with a lamenta- 
 tion which the ministers of Jesus Christ are forced to 
 make, Who hath believed our report , and to whom is the 
 arm of the Lord revealed ? Isaiah had preached about a 
 coming Saviour, but he mourns that so few had believed 
 
WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 J67 
 
 on him. He appears to turn away from the wicked world, 
 disheartened, and sighing over the hardness of poor, 
 perishing sinners ; and when he could get no comfort from 
 man, he carries back his complaint and pours his tears 
 into the boson of his God : Lord , who hath believed our 
 report , and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed t 
 Ministers of Jesus Christ now are often forced to the 
 same sad office ; they unfold the counsel of God, they tell 
 of Jesus Christ , and him crucified , they see around them 
 many unbelieving sinners, for whose salvation they have 
 preached and prayed and wept, and when the heart is 
 sinking under the thought that those loved ones will be 
 lost, they turn away to their Master with the sad com- 
 plaint, Who hath believed our report ? 
 
 The prophet goes on to mention the unreasonable rejec- 
 tion of the Saviour. Sinners do not see him to be such a 
 Saviour as they need. For he shall grow up as a tender 
 plant. The Jews expected him to come in great pomp 
 and power, and restore to their nation its temporal pro- 
 sperity ; and, as a root out of a dry ground , he was born 
 in a low condition, and laid in a manger. Can any good 
 thing come oilt of Nazareth ? was the sneering interrogation 
 of those he came to redeem. They would as soon expect 
 a plant to flourish on an arid soil, moistened by no timely 
 showers, as expect deliverance and redemption from one 
 born, like Jesus, in exile, humiliation, and scorn. He 
 hath no form nor comeliness , and when we shall see him there 
 is no beauty that we slioidd desire him. Just so, many of 
 these poor sinners think. They see no excellency in Jesus 
 Christ. He was the mock and scorn of the world. He 
 was a kind of outcast from human society, and had not 
 where to lay his head; and then he was arrested as a male- 
 factor, and crucified among thieves. And there is a pride 
 of heart in the unconverted sinner which cannot bear to 
 
168 WOUNDED TOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 be humbled down before such a Saviour, and take redemp- 
 tion as a gift, and not a deserving — and take it from Him 
 whose act of procurement reminds them that they deserve 
 h ell instead of heaven. He is despised and rejected of men; 
 a man of sorrows , and acquainted with grief ; and we 
 hid as it ivere our faces from him : he was despised , and 
 ice esteemed him not. 
 
 Foolish, guilty, dying sinners reject Jesus Christ now 
 iust as they did then. The obstinacy of the Jew is acted 
 over again. How many of us here are rejecting his salva- 
 tion ! How many of our hearts here are untouched, 
 unmelted by his mercy ! Hearer, this Saviour died for 
 you! He stood in your law-place and bore your law- 
 penalty. His sufferings were strictly vicarious, and not 
 merely exhibitory of God’s hatred of sin. And you, every 
 hardened sinner among you, if you only saw in just con- 
 viction your character and guiltiness, would see also your 
 need of his sacrifice. Linked together in human minds 
 are difficulties on the atonement and defects of conviction 
 of sin. Rely upon it, whenever any of us sinners sees his 
 true character, he will see that he needs something more 
 than plans, and exhibits, and demonstrations, to save him. 
 He will know well that he needs a friend to stand in his 
 place, to bear his burden, and just conviction will put into 
 his lips that song of the sacrament, “ For thee, my soul, 
 for thee !” True conviction leads to just conceptions of 
 the atonement. Christ died for you. He offers to save 
 you. He calls on you to trust in him. And though your 
 stout heart rejects him, I tell you, Surely he hath borne 
 our griefs and carried our sorrows. In him we may have 
 all our hearts can desire. Let us not imitate the folly of 
 his murderers; they esteemed him stricken, smitten of 
 God, and afflicted. Because he was given over into the 
 hands of his enemies to die, they imagined that God was 
 
WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 169 
 
 his foe, or that he suffered just as other men suffered, by 
 misfortune or crime. But they were mistaken. He was 
 wounded for our transgressions , he was bruised for our 
 iniquities : the chastisement necessary to procure our 'peace 
 was upon him , and with his stripes we are healed. All 
 we, like sheep , have gone astray ; we have turned every one 
 to his own way ; and the Lord hath laid on him the ini- 
 quity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted , 
 yet he opened not his mouth. He is brought as a lamb to 
 the slaughter ; and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb , 
 so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison 
 and from judgment , and who shall declare his generation ? 
 for he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the trans- 
 gression of my people was he stricken. 
 
 This is the strain in which Isaiah preached about Jesus 
 Christ. And it cannot fail to strike you that the gospel 
 is the same now that it was then. All those saints that 
 have been gathered from this wicked world into heaven 
 have been saved, just as we must be saved, by the blood 
 of atonement. They have gone up to glory, in every age, 
 from the days of Abel until now. Some have gone from 
 these seats, and may now be looking down from heaven 
 upon those they knew on earth, to see if they love Jesus 
 Christ, and are about to celebrate his dying love. None 
 have been saved, and none can be saved, except through 
 Him who was wounded for our transgressions and bruised 
 for our iniquities. 
 
 We come here to-day to engage in the most solemn, 
 most sweet, most interesting business that I know of, on 
 this side of eternity. There is nothing else which ought 
 so to affect our hearts as the ordinance of the Lord’s sup- 
 per. This institution brings to mind all our misery, all 
 our salvation. It places before us the august emblems of 
 our crucified Master, and calls us to pronounce over his 
 
170 
 
 WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 broken body and shed blood the sacramental vow. It is, 
 therefore, one of the most affecting solemnities in which 
 we shall ever be engaged till we get to heaven. Let us 
 endeavour to prepare our hearts for it, while, without 
 speculation and with as much simplicity as we can, we 
 attend to the two great ideas of the text. 
 
 I. Our sins. 
 
 II. The sufferings of Jesus Christ to atone for them. 
 
 I. It is proper to enter fully into the consideration of 
 our sins, for unless we come to this sacrament as sinners ; 
 unless we come here with penitent, broken, and contrite 
 hearts ; unless we come here with that deep humiliation 
 which empties us of self, we shall fail of entering into the 
 meaning of our ordinance, or holding communion with our 
 Saviour. The Jews ate their passover with bitter herbs to 
 remind them of the bitterness of that bondage from which 
 they had been delivered, and of the haste with which they 
 had been obliged to flee out of Egypt when they had not 
 had time to gather that which would be more agreeable to 
 the taste. Our ordinance should remind us of a bondage 
 more cruel than Egyptian, and teach us, too, that this is 
 not our rest, for our home is in heaven. 
 
 First, then, the number of our sins. Quicken, disciple 
 of Jesus Christ ! quicken your recollection. Go back to 
 the years of your childhood and youth. Let busy memory 
 call up from forgotten years the thousand sins which time 
 has almost worn from the brain. How early you went 
 astray ! How obstinately you sinned against instruction ! 
 How often, when you resolved on reformation, did you 
 yield to the next allurement, and forget your vows ! The 
 very scenes against which reason and conscience, and even 
 the Holy Spirit, cautioned you, soon witnessed again your 
 
WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 171 
 
 presence, your levity, your sin ! How many Sabbaths you 
 violated ! how many sermons were lost upon you ! how 
 many mornings and evenings passed away and no prayer 
 went up from your heart to heaven ! Think not that we 
 are preaching too severe a morality. You owe every 
 moment of your existence to the Supreme Being, and if 
 you spend one moment undirected by his law, you sin and 
 you are guilty. We make a great mistake when our vain 
 hearts flatter us that God only requires some of our time, 
 some of our talents, some of our heart, and leaves us at 
 liberty to bestow the rest as we choose. We have not 
 such a God to rule us. The God of the Bible claims all 
 that we are. Jesus Christ claims us as the purchase of 
 liis blood ; the Holy Spirit claims to rule and sanctify us, 
 to dwell in our hearts, our very bodies becoming temples of 
 the Holy Ghost And since all our conduct should be 
 regulated by the great principle of obedience to God, of 
 what untold iniquities have we been guilty as we have 
 been moving on in disobedience ! As we look back on 
 our life, recollection fails us, and well may we say with 
 the psalmist, Who can understand his errors ? As we 
 attempt, by a kind of sacred arithmetic, to cast up the full 
 number of our sins, we are lost in the multitude, and can 
 only cry out, like David, 0 Lord, let thy loving -hind ness 
 preserve me , for innumerable evils have compassed me about ; 
 they are more in number than the hairs of my head. As 
 we look into the heart, especially as it is while unsancti- 
 fied by the Holy Spirit, we are compelled to exclaim, 
 Every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is only evil 
 continually ; our iniquities are increased over our heads , 
 and our trespass is grown up unto the heavens. 
 
 Surely our hearts should be affected with the number of 
 our sins. Had we sinned but once, the law of God would 
 have condemned us, and we could not have justified our- 
 
172 WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 selves. But we have sinned times without number ; our 
 sins are more than the hairs of our head ; no mind confined 
 in this prison of clay, can tell over all our sins, no arith- 
 metic but that of eternity can calculate their amount ! 
 
 I have sometimes endeavoured to aid myself on this 
 article, and school my heart rightly, by attempting to con- 
 ceive what I should be thinking of if I should spend the 
 coming centuries of my eternity in hell. I know I deserve 
 to do so. Even now, as I know the God of justice, and 
 by the light of his character get some glimpses of my 
 own, I do well know that I have sinned enough to call 
 forth the deep damnation of his wrath ! Nothing, nothing 
 but grace, rich grace can save me ! But if I were lost, if 
 I were to spend millions on millions of ages in eternity, 
 thinking how I came to my hopeless doom, what amazing 
 recollections would overwhelm me. I should remember 
 sins which now have escaped me. I should remember my 
 childhood and youth. In those sunny years, what foolish 
 guiltiness I perpetrated ! what anger and envy and malice 
 towards my little companions ! what unkindness towards 
 my brothers and sisters ! what disobedience to my parents ! 
 what deep plunges into wild and wicked pleasures! I 
 should remember the bustle and ambition of manhood. 
 Craving covetousness would not let me find time to pray. 
 The bright morning of God dawned on me year after year. 
 I could go forth under his sun, and breathe his air, and 
 tread on his earth, and spend the very powers of mind he 
 gave me, and the very vigour he put into my muscles, 
 sinning against him. I should remember lost Sabbaths — 
 seasons of warning, illness, and danger — seasons of stifled 
 conviction, when my heart resisted the Holy Ghost, who 
 aimed to keep me from hell — sermons which half con- 
 verted me — and ministers of God who tried to save me as 
 a brand plucked from the burning. I should remember 
 
WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 173 
 
 how God’s patience bore with me ; and from liis justice, 
 his kindness, his purity, his Christ, and his communions, 
 I should swell the catalogue of recollections to deepen the 
 amazements of a hopeless perdition. But I cannot bear 
 this conception ! Away, away, anticipated perdition ! 
 The number of my sins is well known to my God, and all 
 I would do with their inconceivable amount is to let them 
 swell the gratitude of this heart that One able to bear them 
 all was wounded for my transgressions; and if I believe, 
 because he lives even I shall live also. 
 
 2. There is an enormity in our sins which we ought to 
 remember. The undisturbed sinner, moving on in his 
 career of carelessness, does not realize the great evil of the 
 sins he commits. He thinks of transgression against God 
 as a trifle. He flatters himself that he is not very guilty. 
 To be sure, he will acknowledge that he has fallen into 
 some slight errors, and perhaps that he has committed 
 many little offences. But the real nature of sin is hidden 
 from him ; his deceitful, desperately wickecf, heart has hid- 
 den it. He will not open his eyes to look upon it as it is, 
 and as God tells him it is. One in his carelessness is apt 
 to think of an offence against God very much as he would 
 think of an offence against his equal, if, indeed, he does 
 not think less of it, and feel less guilty for it. But this is 
 not the rule of righteousness. We should measure the 
 enormity of our sin by the evil of it ; and we should mea- 
 sure the evil of it by the majesty of the Deity we have 
 offended, and by the eternity of that punishment which 
 God pronounces over it. 
 
 The majesty, the excellence, the holiness of the God we 
 have offended should teach us the magnitude of our sins. 
 Every sin is open rebellion against the spotless Jehovah. 
 It is lifting up the arm against the Deity. It is saying to 
 God, We will not obey ! It is an offence against every 
 
174 WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 perfection that adorns the Godhead, an attack upon every 
 attribute of Deity. Men are wont to proportion their 
 respect, in some degree, according to their estimation of 
 the character of those to whom they render it. They have 
 more respect for a good man than for a bad man. And 
 when they behold any individual abusing, insulting, and 
 vilifying a man of exalted excellence and worth, they can- 
 not but look upon that individual as showing a most un- 
 worthy disposition ; they estimate the badness of his dis- 
 position in some measure according to the excellence and 
 worth which his disposition abuses. They would not 
 think him so bad if he only disregarded and abused a man 
 possessing one degree of merit ; but when the man 
 possessing two, or ten, or a thousand degrees of merit does 
 not command his respect, they behold in him a superior 
 degree of baseness and impudence. Let them apply the 
 same rule to their sins. These sins are an offence against 
 the Deity ; they are impudence and insulting rebellion 
 against God. All the perfection and excellences of the 
 adorable Jehovah are not sufficient to restrain the sinner ; 
 he disregards and sins against them all. The excellence 
 of the Godhead, therefore, should measure the enormity of 
 sin. And hence, when the eyes of the sinner are'opened, 
 when his attention is arrested by the Holy Spirit, when 
 he comes to the light and sees himself as he is, we find 
 him estimating sin by a new standard ; we find him dis- 
 tressed because God is offended, because he has sinned 
 against such unequalled goodness. Oh, it is the blaze of 
 God’s purity that troubles him ; and the cry bursts from 
 his lips, Against tliee , thee only have I sinned , and done 
 this evil in thy sight. 0 Lord , be mercifid unto me ; heal 
 my sold , for I have sinned against thee. 
 
 Yes, it is the excellence of God himself that should 
 measure the enormity of sin. It is not an equal that is 
 
WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSION S. 175 
 
 offended, it is the holy , Zord 6W. Genuine convic- 
 tion by the Holy Ghost is distinguished from the alarms 
 of mere natural conscience, by taking its light and 
 guidance from the character of God. 
 
 But perhaps some of you will better conceive of the 
 greatness of sin by the evil — I mean the misery — it pro- 
 duces. God says, The soul that sinneth , it shall die. He 
 has explained to us what he means by this ; not that its 
 existence shall cease, but that the miseries it shall endure 
 will be so great that they are truly described by the awful 
 agonies of dissolution. Sin is death. It is the utter loss 
 of all spiritual life, all affections pleasing to God, all feel- 
 ings capable of being happy in the presence of God and in 
 serving him. And the awful end to which this spiritual 
 death is conducting the unconverted sinner is described by 
 going away into everlasting 'punishment — by flames of 
 torment — by blackness of darkness — by the worm that dieth 
 not , and the fire that is never quenched. I know that our 
 minds are apt to recoil from such descriptions ; still God 
 has written them. And they mean misery — unequalled 
 and eternal misery. You may measure, therefore, the 
 magnitude of sin by the depth and eternity of its wretched- 
 ness. Stretch your Imagination ! measure the soul’s im- 
 mortality ; follow the lost spirit onward from age to age ; 
 behold its capacities ever expanding, its miseries ever 
 deepening, its eternity never, never ending ; and when you 
 have measured its infinity and its eternity of wretchedness, 
 you will have the measure of this enormous evil. 
 
 I know that a deceitful heart often flatters us that w T e 
 are not great sinners, and deserving of great condemnation. 
 But this vain flattery would cease, if w T e w r ould honestly 
 examine our own hearts, and earnestly pray to God to 
 preserve us from delusion. Only those persons wdio 
 seldom examine themselves, seldom try themselves by the 
 
176 
 
 WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 word of God, and seldom pray to God for wisdom, imagine 
 their sins are small. 
 
 3. The motives which induce us to sin are a foundation 
 for deeper penitence and humility. 
 
 There would be no end to an enumeration of the various 
 motives which have led us to transgression. But put 
 them all together, think of every enjoyment that you have 
 promised yourself, of every hope you have indulged, and 
 every sinful pleasure you have gained, or can ever gain, 
 and what is the amount of all ? Vanity, nothing but 
 vanity ! Threescore years and ten will sweep them ail 
 aside. The motives to sin are therefore very weak, but 
 the motives to holiness swell beyond all human concep- 
 tion. Heaven is full of them. Eternity measures them, 
 and the soul’s immortality alone can realize them. Be- 
 hold then the folly of the sinner while he will not forsake 
 his sins ! He prefers earth to heaven, values time more 
 than eternity, and forfeits the bliss of eternal ages for the 
 vanities of an expiring life ! Surely the small motives 
 there are to sin, contrasted with the immense motives to 
 holiness, manifest a guilt of the heart which ought to fill 
 our souls with the deepest contrition. 
 
 4. There is one more article which should influence our 
 penitence. It is the effect our sins have had on others. 
 Sin is a contagious evil : one sinner destroyetli much good . 
 We are so situated in human society that we cannot avoid 
 holding an influence over one another. Are you a father ? 
 Your children will be influenced by your example. If no 
 altar is reared in your house on which to offer the daily 
 sacrifices of a pious heart, your children will have little 
 respect for prayers and devotement to God, and your 
 family, which ought to be a nursery of piety, will be apt 
 to become a school of carelessness and sin ; your children 
 will be emboldened by your example to neglect their 
 
WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS, 177 
 
 Maker, and your sin will tend to produce a double destruc- 
 tion, that of your own soul and theirs. And so of all 
 other relations : mothers and sisters, friends, brothers, are 
 exerting an influence of everlasting importance. And 
 when we review our life, what an amount of pernicious 
 example and influence do w 7 e find ! Had we destroyed 
 ourselves only, the evil would not have been so lamentable, 
 But we have dragged others into the same gulf wherein 
 we have so thoughtlessly precipitated ourselves ! This 
 thought should deepen our contrition, and pour a holier 
 earnestness into our prayers for their salvation. 
 
 But it would be vain to attempt the enumeration of all 
 the unhappy characteristics of our sins. Suffice it to say 
 that our sins have flung our souls into ruins, they have 
 rendered us altogether helpless, and in ourselves as hope- 
 less as if the death-knell of the soul w^ere rung, and the 
 execution of eternal punishment begun. 
 
 II. But he was wounded for my transgressions. Jesus 
 Christ helped , us when we could not help ourselves. It 
 was his sacrifice that appeased our offended God. The 
 blood of atonement has been shed, and now we can stand 
 here and say, God can be just and the justifier of him who 
 believes in Jesus . This is the consolation of the gospel ; 
 this is the triumph of redeeming mercy. And is not this 
 another argument for penitential sorrow Who can con- 
 template his sins as the cause of the agonies that Jesus 
 suffered, and not be compelled to view them as more evil 
 than he ever viewed them before 1 Who can thus contem- 
 plate them, and not humble himself before God to a lower 
 depth, and send up a more piercing cry to heaven ? Who can 
 look on Him whom he has pierced , and not mourn and be 
 in bitterness , as one is in bitterness for a first-born ? There 
 is no spot where penitence gains its perfection, save at the 
 12 
 
178 
 
 WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 cross of Jesus Christ. It is when the tears of contritior 
 mingle with the blood of Jesus that the soul of the sinner 
 is released from its burden, and he learns how blessed it 
 is to repent. Before he comes to the blood of atonement, 
 fear agitates him, guilt distresses him, remorse consumes 
 him ; but when he looks upon his dying Saviour, good- 
 ness, grace, love, mercy, melt him as he loves to repent. 
 
 But more particularly : — 
 
 1. In the sacrifice of Christ the pardon of sin is secured. 
 The poor sinner might have spent his days in grief, and 
 his nights in remorse; the morning might have witnessed 
 his sighs, and the evening his lamentations ; and even his 
 eternity might have rolled on its ages of misery, — and 
 still, still not one sin would have been blotted out, or one 
 stain washed from his soul. 
 
 2. In the sacrifice of Jesus Christ the justice of God is 
 satisfied. Let that holy perfection claim what it may, 
 Jesus Christ has magnified the law and made it honourable. 
 When the guilty sinner had forfeited the life of his soul, 
 when this holy perfection of the Deity was arrayed against 
 him, when the arm of justice was ready to descend, Jesus 
 Christ flung himself beneath the blow, and the sword of 
 divine justice was bathed in his blood. Yerily, he was 
 bruised for our iniquities. 
 
 3. In the sacrifice of Jesus Christ an everlasting 
 righteousness is procured for the sinner. Place me in 
 heaven clad in my own righteousness alone, and I could 
 not remain there ; those holy scenes and that holy society 
 would spurn me from their embrace. But give me a 
 Saviour’s righteousness, and, firm as stands Gabriel upon 
 the battlements of heaven, I, sinner as I am, can stand 
 beside him. 
 
 4. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ has obtained that grace 
 which subdues the heart. The effect of our transgression 
 
WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 179 
 
 is to render us no less obstinate than guilty. The heart 
 of sin i3 a hard heart. Nothing can soften it into relent- 
 ings but the blood of Jesus. The sinner might spend all 
 his days, exert all his energies, and give himself to the 
 object with a devotement that should know neither 
 weariness nor limitation, and after all he could not soften 
 down the unrelenting hardness of his heart, nor bring one 
 feeling into subjection to the love of God ; but when he 
 throws himself at the foot of the cross, Jesus Christ saves 
 him, his heart softens, peace comes over his soul, and for 
 the first time he is reconciled to God, and reconciled to 
 himself. Human hearts never become better without 
 faith. 
 
 The ordinance you contemplate calls you to enter these 
 two articles — your own guilt and helplessness as a sinner, 
 and the full redemption of a crucified Saviour. God, in 
 this institution, would have you sink self and exalt your 
 Saviour. You come here to confess that you deserve 
 nothing but the eternal wrath of God, and to feel that 
 God freely gives you eternal felicity. You come here to 
 acknowledge you were a poor outcast, a helpless sinner, 
 and to feel that you are made a child of God, an heir of 
 glory. In one word, you come here to swear allegiance 
 to Jesus Christ; to say that you are not your oivn , you 
 are bought with a price ; to consecrate, over these sacred 
 symbols of a dying Saviour, both your bodies and your 
 souls to God. Are you ready to enter into the oath of 
 the covenant h Does your whole soul welcome this solemn 
 transaction, which surrenders everything to Jesus Christ h 
 Enter into the meaning of this ordinance, This do in re- 
 membrance of me. Kecollect that course of holy obedience 
 which Jesus Christ pursued. See him an outcast and 
 scorn of sinners ! Behold him led away from the hall of 
 Pilate, scourged, and insulted, and vilified ] Go walk 
 
180 
 
 WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 beside him as he climbs the hill of Calvary, his body 
 bending beneath the weight of his own cross, and his soul 
 sinking beneath the still heavier burden of your sins and 
 mine ! Go stand on the hill of crucifixion, when an 
 earthquake rocks your steps ; when the graves open and 
 the dead come forth ; when the sun takes in his beams, and 
 darkness hangs like a pall upon the skies, as if heaven had 
 hung on mourning because Jesus Christ must die ! 
 
 And when you have witnessed that last agony of Christ, 
 and heard him cry, My God! my God! why hast thou 
 forsaken me ? then say to yourself, All this was done for 
 the redemption of this poor guilty soul. 
 
 Surely love and humility should blend sweetly their 
 influences as you remember Jesus Christ. The tears of 
 penitence should mingle with the tears of joy. 
 
 Jesus expects you to devote yourself wholly to him, as 
 you come to this holy ordinance. He expects to have 
 you say, Here, crucified Saviour, I cast myself on thy 
 mercy. I surrender myself to thy grace. I give my body 
 and my soul to thee. Come to this table with such a 
 dedication, and you will go away with the mark of God 
 upon you. Then earth cannot claim you, death cannot 
 injure you, the grave cannot hold you, for Jesus Christ is 
 yours, and you are his. 
 
 And let me ask you, as you handle these consecrated 
 symbols — let me ask you to send up one prayer to heaven 
 for those dear friends who are yet in their sins. Pray, oh 
 pray for them ! They know not the love of Jesus, their 
 hearts are not sprinkled with his blood, they cannot enter 
 into the meaning of this joyful solemnity. Pray for 
 them, that the next time we celebrate this dying love of 
 Christ they may say, We, too, will go with you, for he was 
 wounded for our transgressions , he ivas bruised for our 
 iniquities. 
 
WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 181 
 
 But we cannot thus summarily dismiss this subject. 
 We have mentioned the number of our sins, their enor- 
 mity, their contemptible motives, and their effect upon 
 others. Over against them we have placed the ideas that 
 the sacrifice of Jesus Christ secures the pardon of sin, 
 satisfies the justice of God, brings in an everlasting righte- 
 ousness, and procures, when accepted by faith, a grace 
 which subdues the heart of sinners. Both these classes 
 of ideas ought to have a very sensible effect upon you at 
 the communion table. 
 
 You do not know — in this world you never can know 
 — all the evil of sin ; but as you lift the emblems of the 
 crucifixion, strive to have some just impressions of your 
 own unwortliiness. You were a lost sinner. God was 
 offended. The pit yawned, and you were hasting towards 
 its opened mouth. All there was in God was against 
 you, except his redeeming love. Say, then, what place of 
 humility is low enough for you ! What sackcloth you 
 ought to put on ! What ideas of your own meanness and 
 guilt ought to overwhelm your understanding ! Shall 
 pride, or prayerlessness, or selfishness, or self-righteous- 
 ness, be allowed to have place any longer in your heart ] 
 By the broken bread, by the flowing wine, sacred emblems 
 of an adorable love, I conjure you, put far from you every 
 disposition of self-consequence and self-exaltation ; put 
 before your mind the God you offended, the improprieties 
 you perpetrated, the hardness of your heart, the blind- 
 ness of your understanding, the obstinacy of your will, 
 and, above all, your lack of love and service of God since 
 you professed to take Christ as your Redeemer and Mas- 
 ter. Let such ideas fill you with humiliation and shame, 
 and holy purposes to love and serve God better, down to 
 the last breath of life. 
 
 You know not, my hearers — in this world you never 
 
182 WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS. 
 
 will know — the full of those benefits which abound to 
 you through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. You need 
 blended faith and love to make your sentiments comport 
 with your solemnity. Without them, I charge you, touch 
 not that bread ! — lift not that cup ! But if you cordially 
 trust in Christ, and love him, appropriate to yourself from 
 the fountain of redemption all you want. You want 
 much. 
 
 You, a sinner, undertake to meet God at his table. 
 You undertake, worm, wicked, dust and ashes as you are 
 — you undertake to commune with the King of Icings and 
 Lord of lords. In the name of his eternal majesty, by 
 the blood of his smitten Son, we bid your faith and love 
 welcome into his holy presence-chamber. Be not afraid ! 
 God will love you as tenderly as you can love him. 
 
 Since you hoped in his mercy, you remember a host of 
 failings — unfaithfulness, impatience, coldness in prayer, 
 lack of brotherly affection, vain thoughts, worldliness ; 
 and as these things come up in recollection, even while 
 your face is towards the communion table, you are tempted 
 to turn away. Conscience whispers, He that eateth and 
 drinketli unworthily ; and your bleeding heart would give 
 ten thousand worlds for a moment of communing courage. 
 Alas ! my unworthiness, my unworthiness ! Trembler ! 
 I am glad you feel so. Now, I can say to you, The 
 bruised reed will he not break ; the smoking flax will he not 
 quench. Your longing for communion with God, mingled 
 with a sense of your unworthiness, makes all the worthi- 
 ness of Christ your own. 
 
 But the failures of the past bear dismally on the 
 thoughts of the future. You are afraid, in this wicked 
 world, beset with snares, tempted of the devil, allured by 
 enticing companionship, and exposed to fiery trials — you 
 are afraid your weak heart will fail, to the dishonour of 
 
WOUNDED FOR OUR TRANSGRESSIONS . 
 
 183 
 
 your profession and your God ! I am glad of it. Now 
 [ can say to you, Fear not , thou worm Jacob ! I wilt 
 help thee , saith the Lord , and thy Redeemer , the Holy One 
 of Israel. Thou shalt thresh the mountains and beat them, 
 small , and make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them , 
 and the winds shall carry them away , and the whirlwind 
 shall scatter them , thou shalt rejoice in the Lord , and 
 
 shall glory in the Holy One of Israel. Christian ! remem- 
 ber, at the table of God, that the Lord your Redeemer is 
 also the Lord your strength. 
 
 There is one thing more. Your heart can never rise 
 to the measure of your felicity till you feel your relation- 
 ship to death and heaven. You are in the world ; you 
 will soon pass out of it. You are among the living; you 
 will soon be mingled with the dead. A bed of languish- 
 ing, dissolving nature, and the dark valley are before you. 
 But, leaning on Him who hath destroyed that enemy who 
 had the power of death, you may bid defiance to the 
 King of Terrors. A mansion is prepared for you, a house 
 not made with hands , eternal in the heavens. You are to 
 ree God face to face. You are to be like him. You are 
 to enter into the joy of your Lord . You are to dwell 
 among saints and angels. Earth, sin, temptation, fear, 
 trial, left for ever behind, you are to be eternally happy 
 in the unmeasurable love of God. Anticipate that hap- 
 piness now ; enlarge your heart to the dimensions of that 
 love. The song in heaven is the same as your own. 
 Surely, if you can sing nothing else, you can sing over 
 this sacrifice that anthem of heaven, Unto him that loved 
 us , and washed us from our sins in his own blood , and hath 
 made us kings and priests unto God and his Father ; to 
 him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
XII. 
 
 §didxers m Christ. 
 
 ‘‘Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed 
 us, is God ; who hath also sealed us, and given us the earnest of 
 the Spirit in our hearts.” — 2 Cor. i. 21, 22. 
 
 OE a purpose wliicli we need not now notice, St. Paul 
 
 here speaks of the security and privileges of Chris- 
 tians. They are stablished in Christ ; God hath, stablished 
 them. He hath anointed them, sealed them, given them 
 the earnest of the Spirit in their hearts . 
 
 This is a part of religious experience. What God has 
 given, they have realized. The realization, the experience, 
 hath confirmed them ; and therefore, to them, all there is 
 embodied in the principles, the- hopes, the promises of 
 their religion, is yea and amen in Christ Jesus. They 
 are stablished in Christ , confirmed, assured of his truth 
 and grace. This is the general sense of the text. Every 
 soul that hath made trial of faith knows this. The new 
 creature in Christ , the soul born of the Spirit , has expe- 
 riences in spiritual matters which, in whatever else they 
 may fail, never fail in this, that they always keep him 
 convinced of the reality of experimental religion — of the 
 fact that there is such a thing as a change of heart — a 
 renovation of soul by the Holy Spirit. This conviction, 
 I say, is stable in regenerated souls. 
 
 To this conviction, fixed and rendered unalterable by 
 experience, the divine writers often appeal. They argue 
 
BELIEVERS STABLISHED IN CHRIST. 185 
 
 with a believer, persuade him, exhort him, instruct him 
 on this principle. They expect him to understand things 
 which a natural man does not. They expect him, as a 
 yiew creature , to have the qualities of a new creature, and 
 to be stablished (among other things) on principles pecu- 
 liar to his renovated and spiritual nature. This is the 
 general remark we make on this text. 
 
 And we need nothing further, nothing beyond this 
 general sense of the text, and this general remark upon it, 
 to introduce the plan of the sermon we preach from it. 
 The plan is this : — 
 
 I. To remove a difficulty (if folly and obstinacy in the 
 hearer do not keep the truths we shall utter from his 
 mind) which sometimes occurs respecting the method in 
 which a believer is established in his confidence, and con- 
 sequent hope and peace in his religion. 
 
 II. To examine the metaphors employed in the text, 
 fix their sense, and^pthus still further unfold its meaning. 
 Anointed is a figurative word; unction is another; earned 
 is another. We must explain them. 
 
 III. To enter more deeply into the subject-matter of 
 the text, the extent of the special ideas contained in it, 
 as we explain the spiritual and real meaning of its figures. 
 
 IV. To ask you to make application of this truth to 
 your own hearts, for the occasion whose solemnities await 
 you. We will blend this last matter with the others. 
 
 .We enter upon the first head. 
 
 I. The desirableness of having lived in the first age of 
 Christianity is an idea which has occurred to many a serious 
 mind. In that age' such wonders would have been 
 enough for the satisfaction of any open beholder. No* 
 
186 BELIEVERS STABLISHED IN CHRIST. 
 
 tiling was wanting for the confirmation of Christianity. 
 Miracles the most wonderful attested it. Men born blind 
 were made to see. The maimed were made whole. 
 Fevers fled at the touch of Jesus Christ and his disciples. 
 The earth shook, the dead lived again, and Ananias and 
 Sapphira fell dead at the apostles’ feet, and such things 
 were then done as many a serious mind is led to imagine 
 would have been for ever sufficient to have given it un- 
 shaken conviction and comfort about all the realities of 
 our holy religion. 
 
 My brethren, that is an infidel notion, not a Christian 
 one. It is an error. We do not say a Christian may not 
 sometimes entertain it, for a Christian may be greatly 
 mistaken. But we do say that we have no occasion to 
 mourn over the darkness of the dispensation in which 
 it hath pleased God to give us birth ; we have no occa- 
 sion to lament that we did not live when our eyes could 
 have witnessed the prodigies wrought in the sight of the 
 infant Church. Had we lived then^t would have been 
 no better for the establishing of our faith. The Holy 
 Spirit gives now all the spiritual communications which 
 he imparted then. There is no alteration in the basis or 
 the substance of Christianity. He which stablisheih us is 
 God. 
 
 With respect to this difficulty, which we sometimes 
 fancy attends Christianity in the present age, and some- 
 times think of as an excuse for our weak faith and un- 
 established hearts, we desire you to weigh the following 
 three considerations : — 
 
 1. If we had lived in the age of miracles, a more 
 troublesome difficulty would have attended us. We should 
 have had occasion to fear that we yielded to Christianity 
 by constraint ; that the demonstrations of miracles had 
 conquered us ; that our fears and our imaginations had 
 
BELIEVERS ST A BUSHED IN CHRIST. 
 
 187 
 
 been caught by the astonishing prodigies which met our 
 eyes, and that we had been brought to confess Christ 
 more by the overwhelming of our astonishment than by 
 the attachment of our hearts. We should have had 
 reason to fear that we had been drawn to our religion by 
 the compulsion of outward signs, rather than by the in- 
 ward teachings of the Holy Ghost, induced by love, and 
 ready to follow ou.r Lord from the principles of a new and 
 holy nature. 
 
 This would have been a worse difficulty. It is one 
 which belongs to the heart. It has its seat in the very 
 vitals of Christianity. A man’s heart, deceitful above all 
 things and desperately wicked , is always his most trouble- 
 some evil, and an advantage given to that deceitfulness 
 is an affliction in the worst of all places. It is of more 
 trouble to us all to get along with the uncertainties which 
 concern our affections, than those which concern merely 
 our mind. And if, instead of living here where the con- 
 vincing and sanctifying influences of the Holy Spirit are 
 poured out, we could go back to the earliest times of 
 Christianity and live amid the miracles of the Holy Ghost, 
 we should be in worse circumstances (in this respect) : we 
 should have reason to fear that all the yielding of our 
 hearts to Christ had come from amazement and astonish- 
 ment at miracles ; that our faith was a constraiued faith ; 
 that it was not one which ivorks by love. We should say 
 to ourselves, We confess Christ, indeed, but how can we 
 help it It We have been driven to it, perhaps, not 
 drawn to it. We have seen the miracles ; we have 
 eaten of the loaves and fishes ; we have seen cloven tongues 
 as of fire ; we have seen the dead bodies of Ananias and 
 Sapphira. Alas ! how shall we determine that all our 
 faith is not rather of necessity than of love % of conquered 
 understanding more than of conquered heart 1 My 
 
188 
 
 BELIEVERS STABLISHED IN CHRIST. 
 
 brethren, we may be stablished in Christ without this 
 heart-trouble. 
 
 2. Take a second consideration. The mind would gain 
 nothing, while the heart would lose much, by the change we 
 have supposed. Let us not weave apologies for our weak 
 faith. We have means enough for being stablished in Christ. 
 
 In this age we have all the advantages from the miracles 
 and such like early circumstances, which we could have 
 had if we had been permitted to behold them. We have 
 more : we have our religion attested to us by more proofs 
 addressed to our minds than ever the apostles had. 
 
 As to the miracles themselves, we have them proved to 
 us by the testimony of eye-witnesses in great numbers ; 
 witnesses, competent, consistent, never retracting their 
 testimony in jail or on the gibbet — a testimony given at 
 the time, and in the very place, and in the presence of 
 thousands who could have refuted it, if it had been un- 
 true — a testimony never questioned, even by the enemies 
 of Christianity on the spot (for they could not say Jesus 
 Christ did not cast out devils, but only that he did it by 
 the aid of the prince of devils ), and all this testimony given 
 and adhered to by men for no other earthly gain than the 
 loss of all things. What gained James and Cephas by 
 their testimony to a risen Christ'? or the five hundred 
 brethren who saw him at once ? or the disciples in Galilee, 
 who beheld him cleaving the clouds of heaven, ascending 
 to his God, now our God, and his Father, now our Father ? 
 Let their bloody history tell. Are we accustomed to find 
 men bearing testimony to known falsehoods, when they 
 know that the utterance of their testimony whets and 
 points the dart of death at their hearts ] 
 
 We know of a multitude of miracles. If we had lived 
 in the age of Christ, perhaps we should have seen but few, 
 certainly we should not have witnessed or known of all 
 
BELIEVERS S T A BLISIIED IN CHRIST. 
 
 189 
 
 recorded in our New Testament. The testimony of these 
 prodigies has come down to us through men whose com- 
 petency and veracity may be trusted (if anybody’s can 
 be) ; and, what is of peculiar importance to notice, it has 
 come to us through different parties, somewhat hostile to 
 one another, and watching, each, for any error or concep- 
 tion into which the other might fall. The proofs of the 
 existence, action of Jesus Christ, of St. Peter, of St. Paul, 
 are as good as those we have of Philip of Macedon, of 
 Alexander, or of Caesar. These last could have been as 
 easily coined by falsehood and wickedness, 01 arisen from 
 blunders, as the first. Indeed, more easily, we could prove, 
 if we had time. 
 
 There never was a miracle wrought while Jesus Christ 
 was on earth which constituted a more perfect testimony 
 to our religion than the prophecies which have been ful- 
 filled and are fulfilling since he ascended back again into 
 heaven. If I had been a Jew, and stood by and seen 
 Jesus Christ turn water into wine, my obstinacy or my 
 scepticism could more easily have believed that my eyes 
 bad deceived me, that some deception had been practised 
 upon me, than my obstinacy or my scepticism can lead me 
 to believe there is any deception practised in the history 
 of the miracles recorded in the New Testament. We err 
 in no small measure when we suppose that the sight of a 
 miracle would of necessity make a man a believer in Chris- 
 tianity, and its friend. Many of the Jews whose eyes had 
 witnessed miracles, disbelieved. They attributed them to 
 the power of the devil ; they thought Christ had made a 
 league with the prince of hell. Equal obstinacy and 
 wickedness might have made us copy their example. We 
 have no reason to lament that we were not born in Pales- 
 tine, and not allowed to live in the time of Jesus Christ. 
 That would not have stablished us in him. 
 
190 
 
 BELIEVERS STABL1SHED IN CHRIST. 
 
 3. The third consideration must be divided. Not all that 
 it contains can be received by all these hearers. Alas ! 
 that it cannot ! If they all possessed such hearts of love 
 as they ought to possess, they could deceive it all. But 
 the natural man understandeth not the things of the Spirit 
 of God , neither can he know them , because they are spirit- 
 ually discerned. And until these graceless auditors will 
 change from their graceless course, and study divine truth 
 on their knees before God ; until they will attend to Bibles, 
 and sermons, and arguments, and proofs about the cross, 
 for the solemn sake of the salvation of their own souls, 
 they never will, they never can apprehend the whole 
 force of that conviction which attaches a sincere Christian 
 to the cross, and stablishes him in Christ. May the infinite 
 Spirit now come down to bring them to this ! 
 
 But there is one part of this consideration which may, 
 perhaps, be received by the graceless. It is a small part. 
 They must judge of it, while we take leave at this point 
 of them, and confine ourselves to those whose hearts have 
 experienced the love of Jesus. 
 
 And, my brethren, my dear brethren, how is it that 
 God hath stablished you in Christ ? whence is the calm 
 and settled confidence in the security of your religion, 
 with which you will come to-day to the death-feast of 
 your Saviour ? It comes from your heart’s experience. 
 You have been with Jesus. You have opened your hearts 
 to him. You have tried his love. You have laid down 
 your burden and submitted your souls to his Spirit and 
 his blood. At the cross, where heaven and earth meet, 
 where God and the sinner are friends, your faith has been 
 established. There God has anointed you, sealed you, 
 given you the earnest of the Spirit in your hearts , and 
 you are established in Christ. Ye need not be soon shaken 
 in mind, for ye are confirmed by the inward witness ; and 
 
BELIEVERS STABLISHED IN CHRIST . 
 
 191 
 
 that principle of surety yields in strength to no other, 
 while it surpasses every other in comfort. 
 
 The principle is this : Man is gifted with different 
 organs and faculties, by which he judges of truth as his 
 experience is brought into exercise. His eyes see : this 
 is an item of experience. His ears hear : this is another 
 item. He loves, he hates, he covets : these are items of 
 experience. He sins, and conscience accuses him : this 
 is experience. Now I can trust the experience of my 
 mind, my conscience, my heart, with respect to the facts 
 that meet them, as rationally as I can trust the experience 
 of my eyes or my ears. Thus the Holy Spirit establishes 
 those who do not resist him. He gives them a witness 
 within themselves . They have an experience as real, and 
 which they may trust as rationally, as when their eyes 
 see the sun, or their ears hear the thunder. I know I 
 am a sinner. I know I need pardon. I know I am a 
 creature of wants and woes, of fears and weaknesses. 
 The shuttle is weaving my shroud, and the chisel and 
 hammer may have been already lifted on the stone that 
 shall stand at my head. To such a creature — to me — to 
 such a sinner, to such a perishing sinner, the blessed gos- 
 pel of my blood-dyed Saviour speaks ! It tells me of 
 pardon, the sweetest word that ever fell upon a sinner’s 
 ear ! It tells me of holiness by the Holy Ghost, of God 
 reconciled, of peace of mind, and heaven. I go to the 
 cross, I open my mind to the Holy Spirit. And as I 
 experience what a believer may, I can no more doubt 
 the reality of my experiences, than I can doubt about 
 day and night, about the sun, the thunder, my family, 
 death, or anything else that meets my organs of sense. 
 The things of the gospel meet my nature, my conscience, 
 my heart, my sorrows, sins, and hopes of immortality ; 
 and I can no more disbelieve that it is true and good for 
 
192 
 
 BELIEVERS STABLISHED IN CHRIST. 
 
 me, than I can disbelieve that it is a 'pleasant thing for 
 the eyes to behold the sun , or that the food which sustains 
 my life is a reality ! And especially, when time is given 
 me, and I have vicissitudes and trials to pass through, 
 and, amid them all, in joys and sorrows, in sickness and 
 in health, as I hold my friends to my bosom or resign 
 them to the bosom of the grave, can test the promises of 
 my covenant God, I would not relinquish the confirmation 
 of a believer for any other kind of confirmation. Heart 
 proof is better than eye proof. The demonstration of a 
 pacified conscience and a soothed heart is of more worth 
 to him that has it than if he had stood by and seen 
 Lazarus come forth , bound hand and foot ivith grave- 
 clothes. 
 
 This is the idea of the text ; this is Christian experi- 
 ence ; this is the method in whiqh you are established , 
 my brethren, and find the promises of God and the pro- 
 visions of God all yea and amen in Christ Jesus , to the 
 glory of the Father ; for ye are anointed , sealed, ; ye have 
 the earnest of the Spirit in your hearts. 
 
 I know it breaks the order of this sermon, but I wish 
 to pause here. Pardon me ! I must pause. I hope there 
 are not many who will understand me, when I name in 
 this connection a particular thing. But some of you will. 
 The thing ought to be named. I hope there are not 
 many of you who have ever been harassed, dreadfully tor- 
 mented with sceptical thoughts about the whole reality 
 of revealed and experimental religion. Such thoughts are 
 terrible. When the mind is sensible of sin, of want, of 
 weakness, and is contemplating another worlds and death, 
 and God, and is thinking about safety in Christ, then to 
 have the dark wave of doubt roll over it all, — Is God a 
 reality h Christ a reality 1 pardon, and peace, and regene- 
 ration, and heaven, are they realities ? — I say, to have this 
 
BELIEVERS STABLISIIED IN CHRIST . 
 
 193 
 
 dark wave of doubt roll over all tlie Bible presentation is 
 one of the most dreadful torments that ever assailed a 
 crushed, distracted heart. The conflict is terrible. I 
 suppose it is a conflict with the prince of hell. The apostle 
 has described it as a wrestling. We wrestle not against 
 Jlesh and blood , but against principalities and powers . 
 Satan is shooting into our souls his fiery darts, kindled 
 into flame by the very fires of hell. 
 
 The soul is sensible of its wants : it wants what it can- 
 not see . It wants some help for its weakness, sin, and 
 fear, and some foothold on another world ; some rock 
 amid this ocean of existence, heaving and darkened with 
 tempest. What will become of me ? where can I rest ? 
 where can I hide me and be safe ? The soul, too, is half 
 sensible that the God, the Christ, the pardon, and peace, 
 and heaven told of in the Bible, are precisely what it 
 needs if it could believe them. But when just on the 
 point of accepting them, Satan makes his onset : How 
 am I certain that Christ, and peace, and pardon, and a 
 home in heaven are verily realities ? The external proofs 
 are clear, but that does not satisfy me. I want more : 
 I want — I know not what. This struggle is terrible. 
 The soul wrestles. Satan wrestles. Truth, reason, de- 
 monstration, and all the wants of the soul are on the side 
 of the Bible and Christ ; but still the adversary is able to 
 fling a dreadful midnight of doubt over them all. 
 
 Now, how is that midnight cleared away ? how is that 
 Satan overthrown? We have no hesitation in the answer. 
 The soul comes off conqueror in this conflict by no ex- 
 ternal demonstrations. It had enough of them all the 
 time. It gains the victory by acting upon the demon- 
 strations ; by proving God through taking him at his 
 word ; by fleeing to Christ, and feeling that the everlast- 
 ing arms are around the troubled spirit. Then the soul’s 
 13 
 
194 BELIEVERS STABLISHED IN CHRIST. 
 
 experiences are added to truth’s demonstrations ; and, by 
 a conscience pacified, by a heart satisfied, by a soul in felt 
 communion with God, by spiritual food and spiritual life, 
 doubt is dissipated and the devil baffled. What is a 
 Christian h is he not a child of God 1 When do you 
 expect a child to be satisfied ? Where , but on the paren- 
 
 tal bosom, and under parental smiles ] when , but when 
 he rushes into the arms open to receive him, and his ears 
 drink in the' sound, This , my son , was dead , and is alive 
 again ? 
 
 My brethren, I mean some of you (ah, blessed be God, 
 I need only mean some !), I advise you never to attempt 
 to baffle the temptations of sceptical thoughts by mere 
 external demonstrations. Wrestle on that field, and Satan 
 will be too mighty for you. The external demonstra- 
 tions are enough for you to act upon. Act y then. Trust 
 to God. Flee to Christ, and live. Lean on God, and 
 love him, and the universe shall sooner sink than the 
 everlasting arms give way underneath you. You will be 
 confirmed, stablished , as the text has it, by those internal 
 experiences of faith which live beyond the devil’s ap- 
 proach, You will be anointed, sealed , and have the witness 
 of the Spirit in your hearts. 
 
 You perceive we have arrived at the — 
 
 II. Second head of this discourse. I am sorry I men- 
 tioned it. We have entered st> much already into the 
 blessed sense of the text, that our hearts may be chilled at 
 the idea of examining its figures. But bear with it : it 
 will not take long, and methods of true interpretation will 
 be of importance to us in places less desirable than the 
 communion table. 
 
 In respect to the figurative terms of the text, let me 
 ask you to notice, 1st, That it is God who is said to have 
 
BELIEVERS STABLISHED IN CHRIST. 
 
 195 
 
 stablished believers. It means the Holy Spirit. He is 
 the author of security and comfort. He alone it is whom 
 Jesus Christ meant in that passage, — When the Spirit of 
 truth is come , he will guide you into all truth ; for he 
 shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear 
 that shall he speak , and he will show you things to come. 
 He shall glorify me , for he shall receive of mine and show 
 it unto you. It is the teaching of the Holy Spirit. It is 
 the spiritual experience of the soul in religion. 
 
 Notice, 2d, There is nothing in the text to indicate 
 that it has any reference to the miraculous powers or 
 operations of the Holy Spirit. Some have thought that 
 anointing means miraculous gifts. It is a mistake. The 
 sealing , the earnest , are as much applied to miracles in 
 the text as anointing is ; and one of these at least is said 
 to be in our hearts. The apostle does not speak of him- 
 self merely, and of others who wrought miracles ; he says, 
 stablished us with you — all of us, as believers. Manifestly 
 he is referring' to what is common, in some degree, to all 
 Christians. 
 
 Notice, 3d, That the distinctive meanings attached by 
 some expositors to these three words — unction > seal , and 
 earnest — have no foundation in this passage or its connec- 
 tion. It is only a fancy. By unction they suppose mir- 
 acles are meant, which went to confirm or stabUsh those 
 who wrought or witnessed them. By sealing y they sup- 
 pose sacraments are meant, which carry the stablishing of 
 the believer a step further. By earnest , they suppose 
 comforts are meant, which fill up the measure of a be- 
 liever’s certainty, bringing him to the last kind of evidence 
 which God employs to establish his faith. All this, in 
 my opinion, is making a fanciful use of the text. 
 
 Notice, 4th, That the text, or the chapter, contains no- 
 thing to countenance the opinion of other expositors, who 
 
196 
 
 BELIEVERS STABLISHED IX CHRIST . 
 
 affirm that, as this anointing , sealing, and earnest are all 
 from the Holy Spirit, therefore they all mean the same 
 thing. 
 
 Notice, 5th, That neither here, nor elsewhere in the 
 sacred Scriptures, is anything found to establish the 
 opinion of another class of expositors, who maintain 
 that these words refer to three different kinds of opera- 
 tions of the Holy Spirit. The Bible explains three kinds 
 no more than six, or any other number. 
 
 Notice, finally, That to say these three words all mean 
 the same thing ; that the apostle conveys by three words 
 no more than by one, is to make the Holy Spirit employ 
 a very unreasonable style. 
 
 My brethren, I take the text in its plainest significance. 
 It is a figure. Some make too much of it, others too 
 little. As usual in contentions, truth lies with neither 
 party, but in the middle. The Holy Spirit is the Sancti- 
 fier and the Comforter. He stablishes believers in Christ 
 by his own operation. These operations have in the text 
 three comparisons in the three words, unction , seal , earnest. 
 Not that the Holy Spirit does three different works on the 
 heart, but while his operation is one and the same in kind , 
 as he sanctifies believers, their experiences constitute what 
 is called an unction, a seal , an earnest. 
 
 Still it is a figure — its meaning, this : — 
 
 The first word, unction, is a metaphor taken from the 
 anointing oil poured in ancient times upon the heads of 
 persons set apart to some official station, as kings and 
 priests. 
 
 The second is a metaphor taken from the common cus- 
 tom of fixing seals to important papers ; covenants, deeds, 
 for example. 
 
 The third is a metaphor taken from the custom of giv- 
 ing, at the time when a bargain or sale is made, a part of 
 
BELIEVERS STA BUSHED IN CHRIST. 
 
 197 
 
 what is covenanted to be given, a part of the purchase- 
 money, for example, as a pledge, an earnest of the rest. 
 You have this custom. The form of your deeds of real 
 estate recognises it. Among your ancestors, when a man 
 sold his farm, he took up a handful of the earth in his 
 hand and gave it into the hand of the man who bought it, 
 signifying that he transferred the whole to him ; and this 
 handful of earth was the earnest , the pledge. This is the 
 significance of the metaphors. 
 
 III. The third head of our sermon will apply it to 
 Christian experience as the believer is stablished in Christ. 
 
 1. He hath anointed us. The believer is rationally 
 established , because he finds himself set apart , in his reli- 
 gion, to important station and destiny. It would be easy 
 to fill a volume on this point. We have but time for 
 a single thought. 
 
 Every just and wise view that a man takes of his own 
 thinking spirit convinces him that his Maker designed him 
 for some important ends. His soul is a wonderful subject 
 of contemplation. What is it ? what was it made for ? 
 His thoughts, — with what lightning rapidity they pass 
 from object to object, and move through all worlds, over 
 time and eternity, in a single instant ! His affections, — 
 what wonderful bliss in them when he is happy! what 
 wonderful bitterness, when his heart bleeds over the coffins 
 of his kindred ! His conscience, his fears, his hopes, all 
 that belongs to his spiritual being, seems to assure him 
 that purposes of no small moment must have induced his 
 Creator to bring him into existence. Are these purposes 
 answered here? Does man do anything between his 
 swaddling-bands and his shroud which comports with all 
 the designs which his qualities indicate? Was he made 
 for nothing but to sin, to sigh, and to expire? Was his 
 
198 
 
 BELIEVERS S T A BL IS II ED IN CHRIST , 
 
 Maker malignant towards liim when he put into his heart 
 those “longings after immortality'?” Remorse and fear 
 assail the sinner while his “ eyeballs are turned towards 
 the mouth of the vale where the last glimmerings of light 
 linger ; and as the invisible hand irresistibly urges the 
 reluctant wretch forward to his opened grave, must horror 
 and dismay suspend all his faculties, must chill despair 
 creep through his vitals, and brood sad and heavy over 
 his heart, and darkness which may be felt oppress and 
 overwhelm the departing spirit ] ” Blessed be the God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ , who, according to his 
 abundant mercy , hath begotten us again to a lively hope by 
 the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead , to an in- 
 heritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away. 
 It is that .inheritance alone which explains the mysteries 
 of my being, my mind, my remorse, my immortal longings. 
 I am stablished in Christ , when, by an unction of the 
 Holy Spirit, I see that important ends are to be answered 
 by my redemption, ends which comport with the qualities 
 of my being and my eternal destination. 
 
 Having an unction of the Holy Spirit, the believer 
 realizes that he is called to glorify God. His home is 
 eternity. His inheritance is heaven. His body is the 
 temple of the Holy Ghost : and as he approaches that awful 
 hour of dying, when the strongest powers of nature fail, 
 visions of God burst upon his enraptured sight, the melody 
 of heaven floats along the air, angels wait to minister to 
 the heir of salvation, Jesus, the friend of sinners, comes to 
 receive him to himself, and death is swallowed up in victory . 
 
 All this tends to stablish the believer in Christ ; for this 
 is reasonable, this is worthy of man and worthy of God, 
 and nothing short of it is. And if we cherished this 
 unction more, my brethren, we should be better Christians. 
 The Holy Spirit anoints us to an important destiny. We 
 
BELIEVERS S T A B LIS II ED TV CHRIST. 
 
 199 
 
 are kings and priests unto our God. We are to glorify tlie 
 Father; we are the purchase of the blood of the Son; we 
 are the recovering work of the Holy Ghost; we tire to 
 vanquish sin, to bruise Satan under our feet ; we are to 
 walk with God ; we are to be spectacles to angels and men 
 how poor sinners like us can be justified, and have peace 
 with God, and walk with Christ in white in the streets of 
 the New Jerusalem. Our anointing is for this. If we 
 considered it more, we should be more established; we 
 should see that the gospel gives us what our nature wants, 
 — our hopes, and fears, and sorrows, our sins, and sick- 
 nesses, and graves ; we should experience more of the 
 fellowship of God in our high calling — we should taste , 
 and therefore we should see that the Lord is good. 
 
 2. He hath also sealed us. We explained the figure. 
 It does not refer to the sacraments, but to the interior 
 grace of the regenerated creature. The seal leaves an 
 image of itself. Sanctification leaves the image of God 
 upon the soul. The foundation of God standetli sure , hav- 
 ing this seal ; the Lord knoweth them that are his , and let 
 every one that nameth the name of Christ depart from 
 iniquity. God knows his people. They are sealed as his. 
 They have the family mark, not merely by external signs 
 in the sacraments, but by a more holy signal, — they depart 
 from iniquity. 
 
 By this, the experience of true believers stablislies them 
 in Christ. They know the truth of Christianity in a 
 manner peculiar to themselves. To-day, as she comes to 
 the communion, one will say to herself, “ A little while 
 ago I did not care for Christ. I was a wild, giddy girl. 
 My fancy was vain. My heart was obstinate and hard ; 
 and I was moving towards eternity only to leave the follies 
 and sins I loved for the dreadful retributions of God. 
 O my Saviour, — 
 
200 
 
 BELIEVERS STABLISIIED IN CHRIST. 
 
 Wliy was I made to hear thy voice, 
 
 And enter while there's room, 
 
 When thousands make a wretched choice, 
 
 And rather starve than come ? 
 
 ’Twas the same love that spread the feast, 
 
 That sweetly forced me in, 
 
 Else I had still refused to taste, 
 
 And perished in my sin.’ ” 
 
 Another will say, “ How different I am now from what 
 I was ! Once I loved the world ; I lived for it, laboured 
 for it ; it was all my portion and desire. My father coun- 
 selled me, my mother prayed for me as long as she lived, 
 but I went from her funeral as fond of the world as ever, 
 and with as little abiding impression of death as if my 
 tears had not watered her grave ! Such a sinner, proof 
 against so many warnings and entreaties and strivings of 
 the Spirit, I know it was nothing but God that called me 
 off from the world.” 
 
 Another will say, “ Once more, before I die, my God 
 allows me to come to the communion. I have been there 
 many times. It has always been good for me to be there. 
 Such calmness, such a sweet sense of pardon has come 
 over my soul, such a willingness and desire to be Christ’s. 
 I can look back on my life, now almost spent, and remem- 
 ber my God has never forsaken me. I have been through 
 trials, very heavy trials. But even when my own heart 
 has sunk within me, my God has never given me up. He 
 has stood by me, and comforted me when nothing but 
 God could have kept me from sinking. Christ is my best 
 friend. I chose him early, and I have followed him long, 
 and I remember his thousand mercies to my soul. I will 
 go and celebrate liis love once more, ere my grey hairs go 
 down to the grave.” 
 
 My brethren, these are what we call the sealing of the 
 spirit, to stablish believers in Christ. The principle is 
 
BELIEVERS STABLISHED IN CHRIST . 
 
 201 
 
 this: they experience in their own souls such things as 
 they know could come only from God. They know that 
 they never should have gotten the victory over the love of 
 the world, sin, temptation ; never have stood the furnace 
 of their fiery trials, and come out alive, except the grace 
 published in the gospel had been given to them. That 
 given, they are stablished in Christ, because they are sealed. 
 Every lineament of holiness is a part of their sealing — 
 some of the image of God. The humble temper, the for- 
 giving disposition, the spiritual-mindedness of believers 
 are from the Holy Spirit, and while their souls experience 
 love, joy, and peace in God, as they trust in Christ, they 
 are stablished in him. 
 
 3. Hath given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts. 
 We explained the figure. As it introduces the idea of 
 Christian experience, it means comforts which the Chris- 
 tian sometimes enjoys ; it means foretastes of heaven — 
 an earnest — a little part of that felicity which we are 
 going to have, if we ever get home to heaven. 
 
 These earnests may be rare among Christians. I am 
 afraid they are, except with those who maintain a very 
 close walk with God. But they who do have them are 
 stablished by them — are confirmed in the faith by their 
 own experiences, as God gives them the earnest of the Spirit 
 in their hearts. 
 
 The principle is the same which I stated a little while 
 ago : it regards the nature, qualities, and wants of man. 
 
 I reason thus : I know I am a helpless creature, and 
 need something to comfort me amid the trials of life, and 
 some friend to go along with me into that dark valley 
 of death where all earthly friends can do me no good. I 
 want something that can comfort a sinner like me when 
 ail the world forsakes me, or I am leaving the world. 
 Creatures are not enough. Creature comforts wither, and 
 
202 BELIEVERS STA ELIS TIED IN CHRIST . 
 
 our dearest friends, even if they do not die in our arms, 
 cannot, with all their affection, bestow what my soul needs. 
 The gospel calls me. I fly to Christ. I have found the 
 friend my soul needs. He pardons my sins ; he tells me 
 not to fear, for he will never leave me nor for mice me. He 
 will cleanse me in his blood ; he will shelter me by his 
 power • he has bared his own bosom to the sword to save 
 me, when he was wounded for my transgressions. 
 
 As I believe all this, I can no more doubt that it is 
 true, that it is adapted to my nature and wants, that it is 
 good for me, than I can doubt the reality and benefit of 
 any other friendship for which my nature is formed, and 
 winch I am permitted to experience. Thus God, the 
 Holy Spirit, establishes the believer in Christ. He shows 
 us that even mortality is swallowed up of life , and he that 
 hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God , who also 
 hath given us the earnest of the Spirit. 
 
 These earnests are greatly diversified. They are, how- 
 ever, all foretastes — 
 
 “Joys of heaven to earth come down.” 
 
 But they are as various as the comforts of the Holy Com- 
 forter. Aged Christians probably have most of them, 
 when earthly comforts have vanished, and, weaned from 
 the world, they have their conversation in heaven . But 
 young Christians may have them. They may be enjoyed 
 by any of us, who, in the fellowship of the Father and his 
 Son Jesus Christ, will live above the world. 
 
 It is a foretaste of heaven, an earnest of the Spirit , when 
 a Christian retires from the world and learns to delight in 
 contemplating the saint’s everlasting rest — his home, his 
 hope, his all. 
 
 It is a foretaste of heaven when, amid his trials, the 
 believer exercises unshaken trust in his God. I Icnow 
 
BELIEVERS ST A BUSHED IN CHRIST. 
 
 203 
 
 that my Redeemer liveth; and though , after my skin , worms 
 destroy this body , yet in my flesh shall I see God , whom 
 mine eyes shall behold for myself 
 
 It is a foretaste of heaven when a Christian, cut off from 
 earthly comforting, reposes upon his heavenly Father. 
 
 “The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want 
 He makes me down to lie 
 
 In pastures green ; he leadeth me 
 The quiet waters by.’’ 
 
 It is a foretaste of heaven when the old communicant, 
 going once more from his Master’s table, refreshed and 
 strengthened, lifts his voice, trembling with age, Lord , 
 now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace , for mine eyes 
 have seen thy salvation. 
 
 It is an earnest of heaven when the young communicant 
 can take the cup from his lips : — 
 
 “ ’Tis done! the great transaction’s done ! 
 
 I am my Lord’s, and he is mine. 
 
 He drew me, and I followed on, 
 
 Charmed to obey the voice divine. 
 
 Now rest, my long divided heart! 
 
 Fixed on this blissful centre, rest ! 
 
 With all things else I freely part ; 
 
 Jesus is mine, and I am blest ! ” 
 
 It is an earnest of heaven when, by the blessed grace 
 of God, a believer is permitted to come to the communion 
 table with one very dear to him, who never accompanied 
 him thither before. What joy, what gratitude to God, 
 what delight in this fresh fellowship with the child, the 
 wife, the brother or sister witxi whom now he expects to 
 hold fellowship in heaven ! Hand in hand, he says, we 
 shall vulk on the flowery mount, whose base is laved by 
 the river of God. We shall sing together, we shall see 
 Christ together ; never, never shall we be separated as long 
 as eternity shall roll. 
 
 To-day this house would be an earnest of heaven, and 
 
204 
 
 BELIEVERS S TABUS TIED IN CHRIST. 
 
 more like it than ever earthly house was, if we could 
 meet all our children, and the friends most dear to us, 
 drawn in love to the table of Christ. Oh, what delight 
 would fill parental hearts ! what praise and glory would 
 go up to the God of heaven ! with what ecstasies of de- 
 light, what transports of joy would each of us say, Return 
 unto thy rest , 0 my soul , for the Lord hath dealt bountifully 
 with thee. 
 
 That is an earnest of heaven which is sometimes experi- 
 enced just on its borders. The bed of death is its borders, 
 when a believer lies on it. The calm, strong faith some- 
 times experienced there ; that solid, solemn peace with 
 God ; that serene waiting for the last pulse to stop, and 
 Christ to come and take his ransomed child to himself ; 
 that Come , Lord Jesus , come quickly! that trembles on 
 the pale lips — these are some of the earnests of the Spirit 
 in the heart that will soon cease to beat. 
 
 We are coming to that spot. The sentiments fit for 
 the service of to-day are the best preparations for it. 
 We come to take Christ, and therefore all things . Over 
 the assembled guests at his table, his voice utters, The 
 mountains shall depart , and the hills be removed \ but my 
 kindness shall not depart from thee , neither shall the cove- 
 nant of my peace be removed. Lift up your eyes to the 
 heavens , and look upon the earth beneath; for the heavens 
 shall vanish away like smoke , and the earth shall wax old 
 like a garment , but my salvation shall be for ever , and my 
 righteousness shall not be abolished. 
 
 He which stablisheth us in Christ , and Hath anointed 
 us, is God. O death, where is thy sting ? O grave, 
 
 where is thy victory ? At the communion table may 
 God seal us, and prepare us to speak thus in the coming 
 hour ! may he give us the earnest of the Spirit in our 
 hearts. Amen. 
 
XIII. 
 
 <f brill not $riabc gou Comfortless. 
 
 i( I will not leave you comfortless ; I will come to you.” — J ohn xiv. 18. 
 
 M Y BRETHREN, when you have read of the lives and 
 privileges of ancient Scripture believers, probably the 
 idea has often occurred to you that there is a mournful 
 difference between their privileges and your own. You 
 live at a great remove from those manifestations that you 
 read of in the Scriptures, and you are sometimes tempted 
 to think that it will be vain for you to try to equal the 
 piety of ancient saints, if you cannot have their privileges 
 to aid you. If you could hold converse with Jesus Christ 
 from day to day, like his disciples, if you could witness 
 tongues of fire, if you could stand by and see men raised 
 from the dead, if you could hear the risen Saviour say, 
 Reach hither thy finger and thrust it into my side , you 
 imagine that your Christian faith would have a more happy 
 confirming, and especially that your Christian comforts and 
 hopes would be more consolatory, cheering, and constant. 
 
 There may be some truth and there may be some 
 illusion in this idea. We will not now attempt to dis- 
 criminate between them. The idea is natural, and not 
 to be altogether blamed. It may arise, not entirely from 
 a vain curiosity, but from an affectionate heart, and a 
 desire to be drawn nearer to God, and a commendable 
 longing after more comforts and satisfaction of soul. 
 
206 I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS. 
 
 Such comforts are very desirable for us. To have a 
 sense of God’s presence, to possess a comfortable assur- 
 ance that we are accepted of him, and are on our way to 
 our heavenly inheritance, are sometimes very necessary, 
 both for our fidelity and to keep us from despair. 
 
 But we must learn to be satisfied with God’s methods 
 of giving such joys. We cannot have the Saviour with 
 us as he was once with the disciples. They could not 
 always have him. Me ye have not always with you. 7 
 go to my Father. Sorrow filled their hearts when they 
 heard it, and I shall not blame that sorrow which fills 
 yours when you long after more intimate fellowship with 
 God, and think of the privileges which you imagine would 
 make you happier disciples. 
 
 The words of the text were uttered in relation to a 
 similar sentiment. It was a privilege to live with Jesus. 
 The disciples were now to lose that privilege. The time 
 was come for Jesus to depart out of the world. The 
 supper was instituted. His betrayer had gone out on 
 his cruel errand. His foes were embodied. The wood 
 of his cross was cut, and it only remained that he should 
 have his last conversation and prayer with his disciples, 
 and then go away to the garden of agony, to the hall of 
 judgment, to the closing bitterness of the cross ! I will 
 
 not leave you comfortless; I will come to you Jesus 
 
 Christ is the same yesterday , to-day , and for ever . In 
 that priesthood he exercises within the veil, he stands, the 
 same friend he stood at the communion table in Palestine. 
 We have not an high priest that cannot be touched with a 
 feeling of our infirmities I will not leave you comfort- 
 
 less. For all his disciples to the end of time this promise 
 is recorded, and the faithful and true ivitness will verify it. 
 
 I will not trouble you now to hear the explanations and 
 proofs of this promise. It is enough to remark that the 
 
I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS. 207 
 
 comforts intended liere are mostly those of faith, love, 
 peace, reconciliation to God, assurance of liis favour, and 
 such other sentiments as tend to make believers happy ; 
 and that they are bestowed through the operations of the 
 Holy Spirit, as the holy Comforter in the hearts of the 
 children of God, giving them fellowship with Jesus 
 Christ as their Kedeemer, their own friend, and elder 
 brother. They are the blessed experiences of God’s people, 
 when they love God, and hope in his favour, and are com- 
 forted as his children. 
 
 But it often occurs to us that we find a lacking in these 
 our comforts. Some believers, when they contemplate 
 coming to the Lord’s table, find their hearts destitute in 
 a sad degree of the comforts which they desire, and which 
 they know are to be found in the true experiences of piety. 
 They have faith, some faith, and perhaps they do not 
 doubt it. They have some hope, some humility, some 
 repentance, some disposition and devotion to the service 
 of God. But their comforts are few. There is little 
 sweetness in their hopes, little joy in their faith. They 
 seem to themselves to be outcast, disinherited children. 
 They seem to be away on the mountains round about 
 Jerusalem, looking with longings toward the temple, but 
 not able to come in before the altar, the ark, and the 
 mercy-seat. They scarcely dare come to the Lord’s table. 
 A cloud, a dark cloud, seems to hang over that table. 
 
 In relation to such a state of mind we have chosen this 
 text. And though the gloomy ingenuity of despondency 
 is exceedingly prone to turn such passages against itself 
 by saying, “ There is a promise of comforts, but I am 
 comfortless,” and therefore not a true disciple of Christ ; 
 still, let us see if God’s children ought not to be and 
 cannot be cheered with the promise, I will not leave you 
 comfortless. 
 
208 I WILL NOT LEA VE YOU COMFORTLESS . 
 
 The state of mind is this : Those who have some be- 
 lief that they are born of God are troubled in heart because 
 their comforts in religion are so small and few; their joys, 
 their buoyancy of spirits are so small, and so often inter- 
 rupted, that they doubt whether they are Christians, and 
 ought to come to the Lord’s table. 
 
 In regard to this, I have the following tilings to say : — 
 
 1. In Christian comforts there are different degrees. 
 In my opinion, there is more difference among Christians 
 in respect to their comforts than in respect to their holi- 
 ness, their faith, or their fidelity. Our comforts, our emo- 
 tions of pleasure are connected with our animal nature 
 more closely than are our virtue and faith. At any rate, 
 there are different amounts of Christian comfort. Different 
 believers have arrived at different stages of divine joy. 
 The same believer, at different periods of his life, will ex- 
 perience very different frames of mind, and in no respect 
 will his experiences wax and wane more than in respect 
 to his conscious enjoyments in religion. 
 
 This idea is appropriate to our circumstances and our 
 subject. At communion seasons we are accustomed to 
 have our thoughts turned to the wonders of redeeming 
 mercy, the love of a dying Saviour, the efficacy of divine 
 grace, and the sentiments which believers experience. We 
 meditate on that peace which passeth understanding ; that 
 joy unspeakable and full of glory ; we go from the Betli- 
 Jehem-cradle through the garden to the cross, dowrn to the 
 sepulchre, and then away over Mount Olivet to the ascen- 
 sion from Bethany. These are captivating themes. Not 
 every degree of animation and joy is able to enter into 
 them to its satisfaction. But it is possible for us to be 
 true Christians, and not at every moment or at every com- 
 munion be able to be filled with joy and peace in believing . 
 It w T as only Peter, and James, and John, who were taken 
 
I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS. 209 
 
 up to the mount of transfiguration. It was only Moses 
 who climbed the heights of Pisgah, and looked over the 
 swellings of Jordan into the Canaan of promise. Those 
 rapturous emotions^ excited in the bosom of some favoured 
 believer, and appropriate to the objects and duties of our 
 communion seasons, are not the only evidences of piety. 
 We may have faith and salvation without them. And 
 the trembling believer, who sincerely supposes that his 
 Master calls him to his board, ought not to be haunted 
 with the fear of communicating unworthily, because he is 
 conscious of not yet having reached the full exaltation of 
 joy and bliss of which the Scriptures speak. Who has 
 reached it? Whose heart swells to the measure of redeem- 
 ing mercy? Whose comfort, Christian felicity, is not 
 rebuked by the truths of our communion table ? the over- 
 flowings of the love of God? We ought not to let the 
 imperfection attaching to our joys blast them entirely. 
 We ought to be thankful for the crumbs even that fall 
 from the Master's table. Not at every moment does the 
 true believer sing his sweetest songs in the house of his 
 pilgrimage. -His walk is sometimes through a vale of 
 tears. Not every true Christian is translated like Enoch, 
 or rides like Elijah, to heaven by a chariot and horses of fire. 
 
 2. In this state of mind we ought to weigh well the 
 aim of those scriptural passages which seem to condemn 
 us. In my opinion those passages were not given to be 
 used as, in our lack of comforts, we are prone to use them. 
 They were not given as tests of religion, so much as pro- 
 moters of a more tender, and affectionate, and devoted 
 piety. I have been examining the Bible in regard to this 
 most interesting point, and a multitude of texts convince 
 me of this. He that believeth shall be saved. This is a 
 test of religion. If we have not faith, we are not on the 
 way towards heaven. The God of hope fill you with all 
 14 
 
210 / WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS. 
 
 joy and, peace in believing. This is not a test of religion ; 
 it is a prayer — a pastoral and apostolic prayer for joy and 
 peace to the apostle’s beloved. Ye rejoice with joy un- 
 speakable and Jull of glory . This is not a test of religion. 
 It is a passage of Christian experience, and does not de- 
 clare that all Christians must always rejoice so. The same 
 remark holds good in relation to other passages. 
 
 But when our comforts are few, we are apt to take 
 those texts which give to the believer the highest exalta- 
 tion in joy, peace, and a heavenly frame of mind, as tests 
 of piety. They were not designed for this ; they were 
 rather intended as promoters, motives, encouragements to 
 us to aim after a more blessed nearness to God, and more 
 of the sweet fruits of heavenly-mindedness. Many of them 
 are purely biographical. They tell us how David felt ; 
 how Moses, Isaiah, Jacob, Paul, felt; how the Elijahs, 
 the Zaccheuses, the Simons, were lifted on the wings of 
 exulting sentiments of joy, to soar beyond the cloudy 
 atmosphere of doubt and gloom; but they do not tell us 
 that the poor beggar-men who cried along the highway 
 after Jesus — that the trembling woman in the crowd, who 
 thought by stealth to touch the hem of his garment — that 
 the publican, smiting his breast in the temple — were not 
 accepted % No, no ! the joys and comforts we read of 
 are not tests of religion. In a low state of comfort the} r 
 seem to condemn us, because then our mind, our heart, 
 our quickened sensibilities, do not take in all their signi- 
 ficance. We think they ought to do so if we are Chris- 
 tians. And because we have not the highest of all joys , 
 we are afraid we have no faith. We should learn to under- 
 stand better the aim of such passages. They aim to express 
 all there is in religion ; to unfold, as far as language can, 
 the fulness of its blessedness. Hence — ■ 
 
 3. When our religious comforts are small, ana we sadly 
 
I WILL NOT LEA VE YOU COMFORTLESS. 211 
 
 call in question our acceptance with God, and our fitness 
 for the Lord’s supper, we ought to reflect that there are 
 different kinds of proofs of piety, as there are different 
 exercises in religion. The evidences of experimental 
 religion are very numerous- All our views, all our sen- 
 sibilities, all our purposes, all our motives, and all these 
 respecting ourselves, respecting our Saviour, our life, 
 death, and eternity, may be examined for the purpose 
 of deciding whether we are in the faith , or not. It may 
 be some evidence to us that we are Christians, when our 
 mind is filled with comfort and joy, but we ought not to 
 make too much of it. The misfortune of a comfortless 
 mind is this : it will take nothing but comfort as an evi- 
 dence of its religion. Its misfortune and its error are one. 
 It will turn away from penitence, from humility, from 
 purposes to follow holiness ; with any, with all of these, 
 it will not be satisfied. Lack of personal delight and joy 
 spreads a gloom over everything else. There is something 
 very distressing in all this. In such a frame of despon- 
 dency, the individual will look at nothing only as he looks 
 at his own dark heart to see it. Tell him of God, and he 
 will bring up his heart, and hold it between his eye and 
 his Maker. Tell him of Christ, and he will bring up his 
 heart, and hold it between his eye and the cross. Tell 
 him of the covenant, and he will read its articles only as 
 he looks at them through the glooms of the same sad 
 heart. Everywhere that comfortless heart comes before 
 him, and prevents, and distorts, and darkens his view. If 
 he could forget it he would be more wise and more happy, 
 but he cannot. He thinks he must not. He imagines it 
 would be wickedness in him to be cheered by any promise of 
 God. He can only sit down in sackcloth by the altar, and be- 
 wail his state : 0 that it was with me as in months that are 
 past , when the candle of the Lord shone on my tabernacle ! 
 
212 I WILL NOT LEA VE YO(J COMFORTLESS , 
 
 This is a sad condition. He ought to remember that 
 his bewailing may be as strong an evidence of his religion 
 as would be the counterparts he longs for. When Peter 
 went out and wept bitterly ; when David cried, Restore 
 unto me the joys of thy salvation; when Job bewailed, 0 
 that I knew where I might find him ! these were as real 
 proofs of piety as when the one said, I vnll not deny thee, 
 and the other sung, The Lord is my shepherd , I shall not 
 want; and the other exclaimed, J know that my Redeemer 
 liveth. A comfortless heart should remember that joy is 
 one of the fruits of the Spirit. On the same tree of life 
 cluster love, long-suffering, gentleness , goodness , temperance . 
 If leaves hide joy from our view, or dimness of vision 
 does not behold it, let us not refuse to look at the rest. 
 The most infallible proof of our being partakers of Christ 
 is found in our steady aiming, with all our might, to ful- 
 fil the conditions of our salvation, to serve God, to follow 
 holiness, to put on Christ. If one is conscious that he is 
 sincerely doing so, and at the same time is longing after 
 Christ — after communion with God, under a sense of the 
 truth, the excellency, the safety of Christianity — and at 
 the same time sincerely and solemnly purposes to adhere 
 to Christ as well as he can, he has three evidences of 
 being in a gracious condition, either one of which is of 
 more weight than the comforts he longs for. They that 
 sow in tears shall reap in joy. He that goetli forth and 
 weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again 
 with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him. 
 
 The comforts of a Christian heart may be some evidence 
 of being in a state of grace, but we should learn to give 
 the proper place and rank to such evidences. They are 
 worth little when they stand alone. They are worth little 
 when some of them do not arise from a consciousness of 
 having surmounted some of the difficulties of our salva- 
 
7 WILL NOT LEA VE YOU COMFORTLESS . 213 
 
 tion, and from a trust in grace that we shall yet be enabled 
 to surmount the whole. 
 
 4. When the Christian’s heart is greatly destitute of 
 comfort, of the vivacity and sprightliness of joyous ex- 
 ercises, he often accounts for this on the principle that 
 God would not thus deny what the believer calls the 
 light of his countenance, if he had not been very unfaith- 
 ful, or on the principle that he is rot in a state of grace. 
 But often he is in double' error here. One item of it is, 
 that he takes nothing but liveliness of affection, vivacity, 
 joy, to be the light of God's countenance; whereas the 
 calmness of a sedate submission, patience, the firmness of 
 a purpose to serve God, and things of a like nature, may 
 as really be the approving smiles of his heavenly Father. 
 The other item is, that he makes an excessive application 
 of a general principle. Although it is true, in general, 
 that God does not withdraw the light of his countenance 
 from his people only as they are unfaithful to him, still, 
 he has not told us that we shall always be in joy if we 
 are always faithful. If we are not unfaithful, he will not 
 be angry with us ; but we may think him angry when he 
 is not. Ecstasies are not to be enjoyed always. Peter 
 must go down from the mount of transfiguration ; Paul 
 must come back from the third heavens ; the disciples 
 must leave the communion table, and go to Gethsemane ; 
 and after the crucifixion they must mourn, We thought 
 this had been he who should have redeemed Israel. God 
 may have reasons for denying us comforts, which are not 
 to be found in our lack of fidelity or in our graceless con- 
 dition. They may be found in his own sovereignty, or 
 the depths of his unfathomable wisdom. Remember, he 
 does not keep us here on the earth merely to smile upon 
 us. He calls us to serve him, to endure hardness, to 
 run a race , to fight a good fight ; and if grief filled the 
 
214 ~ / WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS. 
 
 hearts of the disciples when the Saviour left them, we 
 may expect that, for the same cause, it will sometimes 
 fill ours. He thus tries our fidelity, and gives us after- 
 ward the greater felicity from our consciousness of having 
 served him when we did not know that he loved us. Let 
 us not abuse a general principle. Let us not miserably 
 conclude we are in a graceless state, because we resemble 
 the disciples after their Master had left them. Let us 
 cling to the promise, I will not leave you comfortless ; I 
 will come to you. The very fact that our hearts feel their 
 need of what is promised, is to be numbered among the 
 evidences of a gracious condition. It was the child of 
 Israel that hung up his harp by the waters of Babylon, 
 and wept when he remembered Zion. The silence of his 
 songs, his very tears, were testimonies and tokens that his 
 heart yearned with a child’s affection for Jerusalem, his 
 happy home. Hone but a child could have said, If 1 
 forget thee , 0 Jerusalem , , let my right hand forget her cun- 
 ning . 
 
 A comfortless believer should examine whether his 
 affection of mind does not arise from his change of cir- 
 cumstances. Our situation greatly influences our spirits. 
 We cannot avoid it. Grace does not render us insensible. 
 Isaiah could not avoid it when, under the affliction of a 
 barren ministry, he went out from the society of men, 
 and, seated on the lone cliff of the mountain-rock, lifted 
 his eyes from the sackcloth that covered him — Lord , who 
 hath believed our report ? Jeremiah could not avoid 
 it, when, for the same reason — an unfruitful ministry 
 — he wished he had never been born — Woe is me, my 
 mother ! thou hast borne me a man of contention and 
 strife to the whole world; and then resolved never to 
 preach again — I will not speak any more in the name of 
 the Lord . Jesus Christ could not avoid it — Now is my 
 
I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS. 215 
 
 soul troubled ; and what shall I say ? Father , save me 
 from this hour. 
 
 Believers are not superior to circumstances, and some- 
 times changes in these strip us of our privileges, and we 
 are obliged to leave our Christian society, and the Chris- 
 tian ministry under which we were converted and com- 
 forted, for other society, and another ministry less helpful 
 to us. Of this affliction from change of ministry I should 
 not do justice to you or to myself if I did not say that 
 I feel the painfulness and the humiliation of the idea. 
 Sometimes these changes deprive us of our retirement and 
 leisure, and fling us into the cares and perplexities of the 
 world. Such things must affect us, and they will have 
 more or less influence on our comforts in religion. Our 
 lack of these comforts may spring from these changes, 
 and ought not, then, to drive us to despondency. No, 
 no ! it may be uncomfortable, but Jacobs must some- 
 times give up their Josephs to go down into Egypt; but 
 Egypt is God’s, and shall yet give her corn to go to the 
 famine of Canaan, and send back Joseph to the grey hairs 
 of his weeping father. Only, abuse not this principle to 
 make it an excuse for your sinning. If you are longing 
 after more comfort in religion, you will have no disposi- 
 tion to do so. But the principle we announce is a truth. 
 Our religious joys are unavoidably diminished by some 
 of the changes that pass over us. Such changes affect 
 them especially. They , our comforts, are the sweet, and 
 gentle, and tender, and fragile things of our religion. We 
 may be Christians if our changes do affect them. Such 
 changes nip the buds and blight the tender shoots and 
 blossoms of our Christian ecstasies and joys, but they pass 
 harmless over the rock of our Christian principles and 
 Christian purposes. If these purposes and principles are 
 not shaken by them, we ought to take courage and con- 
 
216 J WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS. 
 
 solation from the text, I will not leave you comfortless ; / 
 will come to you. The promises shall yet be verified. 
 
 6. Akin to this is a sixth idea. It belongs to old age. 
 My fathers, my elder brethren, I do not aspire to teach 
 you anything on this point, but I tell you what you very 
 well know is true. Age deadens animation ; it chills the 
 currents of joy. All our delights in religion, as I said, 
 are more intimately connected with our physical nature 
 than our faith, Christian virtue, or our fidelity. Age will 
 be very likely to remove some of the zest and liveliness 
 of our delights. And if we have not been converted and 
 established in our faith till years have stiffened our muscles 
 and benumbed our nerves, and rendered us less susceptible 
 of mental animation and joy, we need not be disheartened 
 and sad because we lack the quickness of joy of which 
 the Scriptures speak, and which we sometimes behold in 
 younger believers. Our souls may have faith, though our 
 hearts are incapable of the joys and ecstasies of a more 
 youthful existence. 
 
 7. The ministry under which we are may be of a kind 
 to keep our hearts destitute of fervid and joyous emotions. 
 In order to guard us against the deceitfulness of sin, and 
 mere formality and heartlessness in religion, our clergy- 
 men, as they ought to do, often dwell upon the efficacy of 
 divine grace, and the experiences which it produces in 
 renewed and heavenly affections. This teaching is some- 
 times misunderstood, and we are led to expect in Chris- 
 tian experience, and especially in conversion, something 
 like the wonderfulness and suddenness of a miracle — an 
 overpowering tide of rapturous and vivid joy in the Saviour. 
 We take such things as the only just proof of religion, 
 and essential to the character of a believer. Hence, when 
 we have them not, we fear we are abandoned of God. 
 The evil may be in our teachers more than in our own 
 
I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS . 
 
 217 
 
 hearts. They may have failed to make their cautions 
 well understood. And especially they may have failed — 
 the idea is due here — I am painfully certain it is due — 
 they may have failed to represent rightly the blessed com- 
 passion of Christ to the trembling, and to execute that 
 blessed commission, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. 
 Ah ! yes, we do fail often ; certain women were obliged to 
 go alone to the sepulchre to weep, and be comforted by 
 Christ, when the disciples, who might have been expected 
 to lead them there, were fled, and sorrowful, out of Jeru- 
 salem. 
 
 Finally, our mourning under spiritual desertion may 
 arise from the very tenderness of a filial affection, and 
 a sense of the greatness of the benefit — -to be permitted 
 to enjoy the communion of God. It may be the long- 
 ing of the child after the counsels and bosom of his 
 Father. It may be such misery as none but a child of 
 God can feel. It may be such a lack and such a long- 
 ing of soul after God, as can never be exercised except 
 by the most tender and affectionate piety. Hypocrites 
 are not apt to complain of spiritual desertion. It was 
 the family of Christ whose hearts were filled with sor- 
 row when he was about to leave them. Such persons in 
 such sorrow he will not leave comfortless ; he will come unto 
 them. 
 
 If such is the sorrow of any of your hearts, my brethren, 
 in your afflictions and trials, he will come unto you; he will 
 not leave you comfortless. 
 
 Are your spirits depressed and sorrowful ? So were 
 those of the disciples at the first communion solemnity 
 that ever was. Jesus Christ uttered the text to comfort 
 them. Oh, allow it to comfort you ! Have faith in his 
 promise. If there is any place this side of heaven where 
 a poor sinner’s soul should be comforted, that place you 
 
218 1 WILL NOT LEA VE YOU COMFORTLESS. 
 
 are now .to occupy. You are, as tlie adopted child of 
 heaven, to take all the blessings which the overflowings 
 of heaven pour down upon your head. You are to use 
 an argument, a plea, which brings all the universe to 
 your feet. As you lift the cup, you are to say, He that 
 spared not his own Son , but freely delivered him up for us, 
 how shall he not with him also freely give us all things ! 
 — and you will drink of it. He will give them. You 
 shall have just as much of the world, and just as little ; 
 iust as much of pain, affliction, tears, toil, triumph, feli- 
 city, and just as little ; just as much of life , and just as 
 little — as shall be best for your immortal good. Take 
 Christ, and you take everything. Are your souls longing 
 after a sense of his goodness 'l I am glad of it. He 
 satisfieth the longing sold , and filleth the hungry soul with 
 his goodness. Are you depressed — your soul fearing it is 
 abandoned of God, because you have few comforts % My 
 dear fellow-sinner, where will you go to find comforts if 
 you cannot find them in Christ and at the communion 
 table ? You are called there to be comforted. Come, 
 needy of it : come, willing to get it ; come, expecting it ! 
 
 “ Let not conscience make you linger, 
 
 Nor of fitness fondly dream ; 
 
 All the fitness he requireth 
 Is to feel your need of him.” 
 
 He will not leave you comfortless. If you had fione of 
 this lack, and none of these longings after intimate and 
 comforting communion with God, I should hardly bid 
 you welcome to his table. Be not overwhelmed in sad- 
 ness. If God had no mercy for you, he would not have 
 called your thoughts from vanity towards salvation ; he 
 would not have plucked you out of the whirl of the world 
 —he would not have sent you his Holy Spirit., and spared 
 you to this hour to seek comforting preparation for your 
 
I WILL NOT LEAVE YOU COMFORTLESS. 219 
 
 death-bed and your heaven. Dry your tears, or pour them 
 into the bosom of him who loved you , , and gave himself a 
 ransom for you . He will not leave you comfortless ; be 
 will come to you . He does come. He stands before you 
 to-day, and, lifting the bread and the wine, he says, Take, 
 eat, drink ye all of it. Obey in humble, affectionate faith, 
 and you shall go out from his banqueting house, sweetly 
 saying, Return unto thy rest, 0 my soul ! for the Lord 
 hath dealt bountifully with thee. The blessed God grant 
 this to all our souls. Amen. 
 
xrv. 
 
 Cfre Italic of CIjrist Corrstnuiuilj its. 
 
 “ The love of Christ constrainetli ns: because we thus judge, that if one 
 died for all, then were all dead : and that he died for all, that they 
 which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto 
 him which died for them, and rose again.” — 2 Con. v. 14, 15. 
 
 I T is one tiling to hear about religion, and it is quite 
 another thing to experience its power. The human 
 mind is capable of quite a tolerable understanding of the 
 great principles of salvation, while the heart itself remains 
 in all its unregenerate darkness. The deficiencies of in- 
 tellectual apprehension in such a case have been often ex- 
 plained to you, and you understand the points at which 
 the religious knowledge of an unbeliever must always stop ; 
 you know the sense in which a man not born again cannot 
 see the kingdom of God. 
 
 This idea often becomes very necessary to us when the 
 expressions of the Scriptures are descriptions of a sanctified 
 man’s experiences. In such experiences, let the uncon- 
 verted man know that there is always something which 
 he cannot understand, something which lies beyond the 
 reach of the mightiest mind that ever was, and which will 
 be for ever hidden from every mind not willing to be taught 
 by the Holy Spirit. And in such experiences let those of 
 us who think we are Christians, know that there may be 
 much which our weak love and feeble piety must fail of 
 understanding correctly. But in such experiences, let the 
 
THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRA INET1I US. 221 
 
 humblest, poorest, most ignorant believer on earth know 
 assuredly there is nothing which he may not himself reach, 
 nothing from which he is debarred, nothing in whose full 
 light and bliss and peace his piety may not aspire to par- 
 ticipate. By grace we may know all things , with open face 
 
 beholding the glory of the Lord , ourselves changed into the 
 same image from glory to glory. 
 
 The text we have read to you is in the style of expe- 
 rience. It tells how the writer himself felt ; unfolds the 
 working of his heart upon the great principles of Christian 
 salvation and Christian duty. 
 
 St. Paul was neither a madman nor a fool. He had 
 been called both. And the text constitutes a part of his 
 defence against the dark-minded accusation. 
 
 St. Paul was a Christian. He was a minister of the 
 gospel. In both respects he had excellences; and we are 
 at a loss which most to admire, — his ardour, fidelity, and 
 heroism as a preacher, or the depth of his experiences as 
 a Christian. But we well know which we ought to admire 
 most. It was his piety as a believer which gave birth to 
 all his excellences as an apostle. And this piety, after 
 all, was what most distinguished him, and made him a 
 mark for the shafts of ridicule and the attacks of persecu- 
 tion. Nothing could abate his ardour or limit his zeal. 
 Born of God , he constantly gave evidence of his lineage — 
 he acted as if he were born of God . Called into the minis- 
 try of reconciliation, with all its arduous work, he moved 
 under the influences of that piety whose experiences taught 
 him what a blessed thing it was to be a Christian, and 
 made him live to endure all things , to persuade other sin- 
 ners to be reconciled to God. He went from city to city, 
 traversed one province after another, became familiar with 
 scourging and stoning, the madness of mobs, jails, fetters 
 of iron. But no sooner out of one difficulty than he was 
 
222 THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINETH US 
 
 back again at his old business, preaching the gospel, and 
 telling of the love of Christ, and demonstrating to all men, 
 from Caesar downwards, that malignity could not weave a 
 scourge bloody enough, or build a dungeon dark enough, 
 or invent a death dreadful enough, to frighten him from 
 preaching the gospel, or to cool the ardour of his Christian 
 affections. 
 
 But they said he was beside himself; they called him 
 fool , and mad. And when he comes to refer to those 
 slanders, he refers to his heart to answer them. He seems 
 to care very little what they call him, or do to him, if 
 he can finish his course , and succeed in the ministry to 
 testify the gospel of the grace of God. He allows men to 
 say bad things of him , to have it all in their own way 
 when they attack him. He only refers to his heart, and 
 preaches on. He even adopts the hard names his enemies 
 apply to him. For whether we be beside ourselves, it is 
 to God; or whether we be sober , it is for your cause : for the 
 love of Christ constraineth us; — he died that they which live 
 should not henceforth live unto themselves , but unto him 
 which died for them and rose again. 
 
 You notice how, in this expression, he unfolds his own 
 sentiments in connection with the grand Christian duty 
 that lie lays down. That duty is to live to Christ. It is 
 the duty of all men for whom Christ died. St. Paul felt 
 it himself, would have other men feel it ; and the only de- 
 fence he makes against the insinuation that he is mad , 
 consists in the avowal of such Christian experiences 
 as show that he was fit to be an apostle. The love of 
 Christ constraineth us; if we are beside ourselves , it is 
 to God. (Would that he had more imitators among the 
 ministry, in this manner of defending himself. The 
 best of all possible defences is piety and devotement to 
 duty.) 
 
THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINETII US. 223 
 
 I cannot avoid remarking here this peculiarity in the 
 inspired writers — a peculiarity which I do not remember 
 ever to have heard mentioned. No matter where they are 
 or what the accusation against them, their pleading mainly 
 consists in laying open the feelings of their own hearts, 
 and avowing as their own the principles, duties, and senti- 
 ments of men of God. They pour the truths of Chris- 
 tianity into the ears of Festuses and Agrippas and Felixes; 
 into the ears of mobs at Jerusalem, and philsophers at 
 Athens ; and everywhere these truths come out as effusions 
 of the heart, parts of their own experience and piety. You 
 may find a remarkable passage to this effect in the next 
 chapter to the one from which our text is taken : Giving 
 no offence in anything that the ministry be not blamed. 
 But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, 
 in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, 
 in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in 
 watchings, in fastings ; by pureness, by knowledge, by long- 
 suffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned, 
 by the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour 
 of righteousness on the right hand and on the left, by hon- 
 our and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as de- 
 ceivers and yet true, as unknown and yet well known, as 
 dying and behold we live, as chastened and not killed, as 
 poor yet making many rich, as having nothing, and yet pos- 
 sessing all things. 0 ye Corinthians, our mouth is opened 
 unto you, our heart is enlarged l 
 
 What a wonderful blending of apostolic preaching and 
 Christian experience ! What a chapter on vital religion, 
 heart, and life ! So everywhere. Our rejoicing is this, 
 the testimony of our conscience. Thanks be unto God which 
 always causetli us to triumph in Christ. All things are 
 for your sakes, that abundant grace might redound to the 
 glory of God. The love of Christ constraineth us. Whether 
 
224 TEE LOVE OF CHRIST C0NSTRA1NETII US. 
 
 toe be beside ourselves , it is to God ; whether we be sober , it 
 is for your cause . 
 
 The devotions of to-day are rather those of experience 
 than those of mere doctrine. We are to celebrate the 
 death of Christ. We are not to celebrate it as a mere 
 historical and glorious fact, but as a fact of immense in- 
 terest to us. Our propriety and our profit will depend 
 quite as much on the temper of our hearts, as on the cor- 
 rectness of our principles. Happy for us if we can sym- 
 pathize with the apostle in the text, and blend together 
 like him the truths of God, the ecstasies of an ardent 
 piety, and a disposition, under the control of both, to dis- 
 charge the earthly offices of a believer, so happily described 
 by living unto him who died for us and rose again. 
 
 The expressions of the text deserve more mature con- 
 sideration than we have time to bestow. However, we 
 cannot pass them over in silence. You may extend in 
 your meditations the hints we shall hastily throw out, as 
 we now pass from the general sentiment that breathes over 
 the text to the particulars of expression. 
 
 The love of Christ. We do not know what it means. 
 It may mean his love to us, or it may mean our love to 
 him. Take your choice. It makes no difference which. 
 It is one of the most wonderful peculiarities of the sacred 
 Scriptures that their very ambiguities and obscurities never 
 harm a devoted piety. If any one had asked St. Paul 
 whose love he meant here — ours to Christ, or Christ’s to us 
 — I do not believe he would have answered the question, 
 but rather have left the inquirer to suppose either or both. 
 
 The love of Christ constraineth us. This constraining 
 may mean a solemn and swaying influence by which the 
 apostle and other faithful believers, for he speaks of him- 
 self only as an example, only in the way of piety, and not 
 apostleship, — it may mean a powerful influence by which 
 
THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONS TRA IN E Til US. 225 
 
 believers are led on in the path of godliness. It may 
 mean the love of Christ binds us to our course, collects us 
 together, and concentrates all our aims in the same thing — 
 to live unto Christ. If the expression is taken in this 
 sense, it is one of those happy descriptions of religion 
 which defy all counterfeiting. It comes from the heart. 
 It is experience. It is a summary of religion. Men 
 thought the apostle was mad — beside himself. He replies 
 by a definition of Christianity, The love of Christ con- 
 straineth us. When you can answer in this method, you 
 need not care what men say about you. 
 
 It may mean simply a general union of all believers in 
 the same object : the love of Christ constraineth us, binds 
 us together heart to heart, as if all hearts were but the 
 heart of one man. If it is to be taken in this sense, St. 
 Paul has reference probably to those party strifes in the 
 Corinthian Church which did so much to dishonour 
 religion, to diminish at once the felicity and the influence 
 of piety, to prevent its growth, and which party strifes 
 the apostle would censure. He did censure them in 
 another place. There is not a more sure signal of spiritual 
 pride and declined piety, than when men begin to extol 
 ministers, and cannot say a word about religion without 
 having the name of their favourite in their mouth : I am 
 of Paul , and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas. Shame ! 
 shame ! Is Christ divided ? If men loved Christ more, 
 and loved pride, noise, and self-exaltation and vanity less, 
 we should not hear so much about men — their names 
 bandied about in ostentation, to the shame of Christ. 
 
 But the love of Christ here seems to us rather to signify 
 its transporting influence; the love of Christ impels us, 
 bears us away. It would be very wonderful indeed if the 
 matters of our religion did not sometimes lead us into 
 practices which mere men of the world and sin consider 
 15 
 
226 THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINETH US. 
 
 extravagant. They do consider them so. They have said 
 that we neglect our necessary business to spend important 
 time in prayer. They have said we should beggar our 
 children by donations to the cause of Christ. They 
 have said that we sunk our honour, and made our very 
 souls mean-spirited, when we pocketed an affront or bore 
 an injury rather than quarrel. Says the apostle in another 
 place, We are fools for Christ's sake. The minds of 
 believers are sometimes so constrained , so taken up with 
 heavenly things, that they forget to eat their bread, like 
 David. Their thoughts are on their souls, on their God, 
 on the souls of other men, or wandering far away to that 
 home, that house not made with hands. In such a case 
 they are constrained, transported, abstracted from earthly 
 things. They say, Whom have I in heaven hut thee ? and 
 there is none in all the earth that I desire besides thee. 
 This, in my opinion, is the meaning of the text. If we 
 are in such a state of duty and devotedness that the world 
 wonder as if we were beside ourselves, it is to God, says the 
 apostle. The love of Christ constraineth us : he died that 
 we should henceforth live unto him. 
 
 Because we thus judge. A believer has some “ method 
 in his madness.” He judges, reasons, concludes. He 
 employs the logic of the Holy Ghost, takes his premises 
 from God, and draws his conclusions with an eye full 
 fixed on immortality. Would that all men were such 
 maniacs. St. Paul, in this clause, turns from the trans- 
 port to the logic w r hich awakened it — we judge. 
 
 This sober judging embraces two things. The first is, 
 That if one died for all , then were all dead. St. Paul 
 never forgot the character of an unregenerated and un- 
 redeemed condition. When raised up, and seated in 
 heavenly places in Christ, he loved to look down on the 
 hole of the pit whence he was digged . He remembered the 
 
TIIE LOVE OF CUEIST C0NSTRA1NETII US. 227 
 
 valley of dry bones, where he once lay in his nakedness 
 and exposure. A sinner without Christ is dead in a 
 double sense, and this death drawing after it the threatened 
 dreadfulness of another. First, he is dead in law. The 
 law condemns him, and for himself he can offer no ransom. 
 Second , he is dead in fact. He has no spiritual life. And 
 from his condition he can work out for himself no deliver- 
 ance. And from these two facts, he is exposed to that 
 everlasting destruction which the Scriptures call the second 
 ' death. This was his state when Christ found him, when 
 Christ died for him . St. Paul takes this into the account : 
 he takes another thing in his judging. 
 
 lie died for us , that they which live should not henceforth 
 live unto themselves , but unto him who died for them and 
 rose again. It is no wonder that the love of Christ trans- 
 ported him, and bore him on. He sees it taking him 
 from the dead to make him alive unto God. He gathers 
 the impulses of his piety as he blends in his mind the 
 miseries of man and the offices of his Redeemer, till he 
 comes out info the light of his Saviour’s resurrection. 
 
 These are the clauses of the text. If we combine them 
 all, we shall see that the aim of the apostle is to express 
 the power of those sentiments which the love of Christ 
 ought to produce in the heart, leading Christians to actual 
 religion, — that is, to live henceforth not unto themselves, 
 but unto their Lord and Master. This is religion. This 
 is at once our calling and our blessedness. 
 
 Such impressions of the love of Christ ought to con- 
 strain us to this service, for two reasons : — 
 
 I. This was the design of the death of Christ. 
 
 II. The death of Christ is peculiarly calculated to effect 
 it. Let us attend to these two ideas to make up this 
 sermon. 
 
228 THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAIN ETH US. 
 
 I. To bring us to live unto the Lord who died for us, 
 was the design of his offices. 
 
 If Christ’s redeeming work had only needed to influence 
 something out of ourselves — to affect the law — to amaze 
 angels — to astound devils — to influence God — or to spread 
 the majesty of God’s moral government over the inhabit- 
 ants of eternity, it would not have been necessary that he 
 should come into the world, and pass through scenes of 
 ignominy and shame in the eyes of men. He might have 
 done his work in the other world. But the aim of his 
 offices was rather personal than public. This is an im- 
 portant idea. It is a very blessed idea. I love to think 
 how peculiar was the tenderness of God. He so loved the 
 world . Hot merely his law, his government, his honour, 
 even ; but, poor sinners ! This was the leading motive. 
 And this Christ has come into the world, and has passed 
 out of it through the jaws of the grave, and this gospel is 
 announced to us, in order to lead us to live different lives, 
 to crucify us unto self, sin, and the world, and fit us to 
 follow Jesus Christ to heaven. The death of Christ was 
 designed rather to affect man than God. He came to save 
 that which was lost, by his life-blood for a ransom, and by 
 purifying unto himself a peculiar people. He aimed at 
 sin, not its punishment, except to bear it, but its over- 
 throw. Hence it was that he said, I beheld Satan fall as 
 lightning from heaven. He was dashing down the throne 
 of the Prince of the power of the air. He was limiting 
 the influence and temptations of the great deceiver. 
 Hence it is, also, that we have that remarkable feature in 
 the Hew Testament history, which surprises and confounds 
 so many people. I confess it has often surprised and con- 
 founded me. I did not know what to make of it ; and if 
 1 know now, it was not speculation, but a sense of sin 
 that taught me. I allude to the casting out of devils by 
 
THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTliAINETII US. 229 
 
 Jesus Christ. This forms a prominent feature in his 
 biography. The meaning of it is, that by the coming of 
 Christ the power of malignant spirits was restrained — 
 spirits once angels in heaven, and who, if they had re- 
 mained there, would this morning have been waiting to 
 rejoice over any one sinner here who would repent , but who 
 are now malignantly plotting our ruin. By the coming of 
 Christ, the power of these sinning and fallen spirits was 
 limited. Satan fell as lightning. Christ grappled with 
 him in his own domain. Legions of devils obeyed him 
 and his apostles. And we have this remarkable feature 
 in the New Testament, in my opinion, on purpose to teach 
 us that Christ came to destroy the works of the devil , and 
 to save us only by snatching us out of the devil’s hands. 
 He would teach us to feel that we need a Saviour who 
 can not only cope with depravity, but who can cope with 
 the devil that tempts us ; that our condition as sinners 
 lies so much beyond any recuperative power there can be 
 in the will of the flesh , or in the will of man, that it needs 
 a power able to do battle with the prince of hell ! He 
 would teach us to feel that his sacrifice, his love, his 
 death and resurrection, have all this one grand aim, to 
 deliver us from sin and the snares of the devil, and bring 
 us to live for him and heaven. 
 
 And when you come to celebrate his death to-day, your 
 celebration will be a happy one, — I know it will be a 
 happy one, — if you come to have sin mortified, and get 
 animation and strength for this one purpose, to live unto 
 him who died for you and rose again , to be fitted for 
 heaven. Who of you will come with such a spirit to-day? 
 Who of you will come here, entering with all his heart 
 into the design of the death of Christ, and joyfully pur- 
 posing henceforth to die unto sin and live unto God ? 
 The communicant who will do this may have full hope, 
 
230 THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINETII US. 
 
 full peace ; he has a right to them. He enters into the 
 very design of the death of Christ, and he may retire 
 from his table, exclaiming, I am crucified with Christ ; 
 nevertheless I live , yet not 7, but Christ liveth in me : and 
 the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the 
 Son of God , who loved, me and gave himself a ransom for me. 
 
 My brethren, our calling is a holy calling. Our com- 
 munion is a holy communion. The benefits our sacra- 
 ment proposes to us are all proposed in one way, and that 
 is the way of a positive holiness, of living to Christ for 
 something beyond the domain of death and the devil. 
 You do not enter into the full design of his death if you 
 do not find in it something more than mere pardon ; 
 nor into the design of your sacrament, if you take it 
 merely as the seal of a bill of indemnity. In the death 
 of Christ you are to find a fountain filled with motives 
 to holiness. In your sacramental act you may indeed 
 find all the comfort a poor sinner’s soul needs, when you 
 solemnly take the bread, saying, The Lord hioweth them 
 that are his ; but you must take that comfort only when 
 you take the other part of the seal, and can lift the cup, 
 saying, Let him that nameth the name of Christ depart 
 from iniquity. Bear with me. I must condense all the 
 materials for this head of the discourse into a single re- 
 mark, though I know not how to leave it here. The 
 remark is, that the death of Christ is barren to us, our 
 feasts of communion barren, and we go from such con- 
 templations and such places of fellowship with the Father 
 and his Son Jesus Christ , to mourn in darkness, and fall 
 into sins again, and to have doubts and fears trouble us 
 as we look forward to death and the judgment of Almighty 
 God, mainly for this one cause — we do not come as joyful 
 sacrifices to Christ, and give away ourselves to live to him 
 who died and lives again for us. This is our failure. 
 
THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINETII US. 231 
 
 This is the principal reason for barrenness of soul amid 
 the love of Christ and communion seasons. 
 
 We haste to the — - 
 
 II. Second matter we mentioned. The death of Christ is 
 peculiarly calculated to make such impressions on our hearts 
 as to constrain us to live for him, for eternity, and heaven. 
 The very story ought to produce this effect, because, — 
 
 1. It brings to mind our state without him. Then 
 Ivere all dead. That state, certainly, some of us can never 
 forget ! Time, eternity, can never wear out from our 
 memory the traces of those impressions which the Holy 
 Spirit made on our hearts when we were led to see what 
 we were. We were dead in sinfulness, in guilt, in law. 
 We found our sentence written, and our doom deserved ! 
 God was against us. We were unholy, and he a pure and 
 perfect God. We struggled to get out of the evil, but 
 truth pursued us. We could do nothing. 
 
 “Buried in sorrows, guilt, and sin, 
 
 At hell’s dark door we lay.” 
 
 And as we remember it well, it would be strange indeed 
 if we could not sing on, — 
 
 “ But we arise by grace divine, 
 
 To see a heavenly day.” 
 
 This is the constraining of the love of Christ. The recol- 
 lection of our guilt, our entire helplessness and depravity, 
 blended with the remembrance of the infinite personage 
 whose compassion and death saved us — surely there is 
 something in this of most constraining tendency. Some 
 of you will feel it to-day, as you ponder your gracious 
 recovery. You will say, A little while ago I was sunk in 
 the world. I was proud, prayerless, ungodly. I was on 
 the highway to hell. I danced on the brink of the bot- 
 
232 THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINETH US. 
 
 tomless abyss. Oh, if I bad died then ! but, blessed be 
 God, I did not. And, as you lift the cup of blessing, 
 your heart will exclaim, lie sent from above , he took me , 
 he drew me out of the deep waters; he delivered me from 
 my strong enemies , and from them who hated me, for they 
 were too strong for me. 
 
 Bely upon it, the blending together a sense of our de- 
 pravity and desert of divine anger on the one hand, and a 
 sense of divine deliverance on the other, is a thing vital 
 to our religion. You will always find those persons who 
 are deniers of the deity of Christ, to be deniers of the 
 entire depravity and helplessness of man ; and hence you 
 will always find them failing in the impressions which the 
 love of Christ ought to make upon hearts. And hence 
 you will always find them failing in the experiences of a 
 spiritual existence. They will live unto taste, unto poetry, 
 unto outward human morals, unto reason, philosophy as 
 they call it, but you will not find them living unto Christ , 
 constrained by the love manifested in his death to redeem 
 them from perdition. This forms no part of their theo- 
 logy, no part of their experience. But let it be yours. 
 Ever remember that you were dead , and ever feel that you 
 are indebted for deliverance to a God who would not give 
 you up — to the love and death of his eternal Son. 
 
 2. The love and death of Christ are calculated to make 
 such an impression upon us, because these are the things 
 which throw a new lustre over the divine character. Christ’s 
 death is a demonstration to us. It demonstrates more 
 than all the universe besides. Nothing else on earth, 
 nothing in heaven, could make such a disclosure of God’s 
 character. It demonstrates to us, that when God speaks 
 to us he speaks in love ; when he calls us to live unto 
 Christ , he calls us in love. If God Almighty can do any- 
 thing to demonstrate to fallen sinners the benevolence of 
 
THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTUAINETH US. 233 
 
 his character, he has done it already — our sacrament cele- 
 brates it. 
 
 We have often troubled ourselves with speculation on 
 the question, “What is the essence of sin? ” A vain specu- 
 lation, mainly, we admit ; perhaps a rash one. When 
 God tells us that sin is the transgression of the law , and 
 tells us also what law is, we ought probably to be satis- 
 fied. But after all, it seems to us that sin maintains its 
 influence in the soul of man mostly by two devices, de- 
 ceptions, both of which are assailed in the text. The one 
 of them is a suspicion of God’s good-will. Satan tempted 
 Eve by infusing this suspicion into her mind. He told 
 her that God knew that she would be a gainer by eating 
 the forbidden fruit. He made her suspicious that God 
 was no true friend to her. Unbelieving sinners have 
 something of the same impression. They have unbelief, 
 and what is that but suspicion of God ? what is that but 
 a suspicious refusing to trust God’s promises and God’s 
 Son ? Now, in the gift and death of Christ God is aim- 
 ing to overthrow this suspicion. He attacks unbelief with 
 demonstrations of wonder, divinity, and blood. He proves 
 to us that he is no hard master — that he has no unfriendly 
 designs ; and he scatters the demonstrations from the 
 manger of Bethlehem, along the track of the flight into 
 Egypt, up to the hill of Nazareth, around the lakes and 
 mountains of Judea, into the halls of Caiaphas and Pilate, 
 among the flowers of Gethsemane, on the rocks of Calvary, 
 and from the tomb of Arimathea to the top of Mount 
 Olivet. And then it blazes along the ascension-track, 
 soon to blaze there again when the ascended Saviour shall 
 return in like manner as human eyes saw him cleave the 
 clouds, and soar to his God and our God , lvis Father and 
 our Father. If all this does not demonstrate God’s good- 
 will to sinners, what could demonstrate it? If this is 
 
234 TIIE LOVE OF CHRIST CONST RAINETII US. 
 
 not enough, then God cannot demonstrate it — lie has not 
 another Son, And he tells us this is his glory. He has 
 no interests which are not ours. His glory is in saving, 
 not damning sinners. His delight is in the outpourings 
 of that love and that grace which gather you to-day at the 
 communion table. 
 
 Ought not this to constrain you ] Ought it not to trans- 
 port you out of yourselves to live unto him who died for you 
 and rose again ? Could anything else so powerfully assail 
 your unbelief h or cause you to say, like our apostle, I die 
 daily ? Your salvation is very dear to God. He delights 
 and glories in saving you, poor worms of the dust ! Oh, 
 the gems in the diadem of the King of Icings are the souls 
 of redeemed sinners ! Hence. — 
 
 3. The death of Christ is peculiarly calculated to make 
 impressions on us, because it calls us to live unto him for 
 our own benefit, as well as his glory. It blends our 
 benefits and his glory together, and thus attacks the dark 
 selfishness of our sin. This selfishness is the other of the 
 two devices by which sin maintains its influence. It de- 
 ceives, makes us believe that our felicity is to be secured 
 by our living unto ourselves . This is what the text 
 
 means when it maintains that the love of Christ calls us 
 to live unto him. It would be well for us if we would 
 heed the text more, and the suggestions of selfishness less. 
 To die unto self is one of the believer’s most amazing 
 privileges. It is what the love of Christ asks of us, and 
 he loves us far better than we love ourselves. I repeat it : 
 the love of Christ asks us to live no more unto ourselves. 
 It proposes something better — to live to him. Our salva- 
 tion comes in such a method as to hedge up the way of 
 our selfishness. Love, mercy, grace, compassion, ask us 
 to live to Christ. Oh, if the fallen angels, the devils in 
 hell, could have such an offer as unconverted sinners have 
 
THE LOVE OF CHRIST C0NSTRA1NETII VS. 235 
 
 here, how they would exult, and rush to improve it ! But 
 ye, sinful and selfish and blinded men, neglect it ! Your 
 unbelief, and blind, deceived selfishness, shut out from 
 your hearts the love of Christ ! I tell you, your unbelief 
 does God an injustice ; it is a dark slander on the charac- 
 ter of his mercy ! I tell you, too, ye are your own worst 
 enemies ! Ye know not what ye are doing ! Your sel- 
 fishness, which refuses to live unto him who died for all, 
 is a most lying and pernicious influence. Give up your 
 unbelief ! Crucify self, and live unto Christ, and you shall 
 be saved. But, — 
 
 4. Finally, my brethren, the death of Christ ought to 
 have this constraining influence on your living, because 
 it speaks to your gratitude. This is the last thing. You 
 may combine here, if you will, everything else. In every 
 particular in which we glorify God and live unto Christ, 
 we benefit ourselves. We do it in all moral duties, in all 
 spiritual graces, in all self-denial, in all heavenly hopes. 
 If you have much piety, you will be thankful for the call 
 to live unto him who died for you. You will feel it a pri- 
 vilege. You will be willing to become another Abraham, 
 and go out on the promise from home and country, not 
 knowing whither you are going. You will be ready to 
 become another Moses, choosing rather to suffer affliction 
 with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin 
 for a season. You will feel, like St. Paul, constrained . , 
 transported by the love of Christ ; and you will go from 
 the communion table joyfully, gratefully resolved to live 
 no more for self and earth, but for Christ and heaven, to 
 him who loved you , and gave himself a ransom for you. 
 
 That love, that ransom, come before you to-day in sig- 
 nificant emblems. You memoralize the dying of Christ. 
 Ilis death was the, procuring cause of your mercies. He 
 * died in misery to redeem you from everlasting death, from 
 
236 THE LOVE OF CHRIST CONSTRAINETH US. 
 
 wratli, from hell ; and now he comes to ash you to live 
 unto him, and have everlasting life, everlasting glory. If 
 you ought to have hearts overflowing with gratitude and 
 love anywhere on this side of the new Jerusalem, you 
 ought to have them at the communion table. 
 
 Our sacrament tells you that Christ loved you most 
 tenderly. He saw you under the gathering curse. He 
 took your place. The blow ready for your head fell on 
 his ; and can it be possible that you are not ready to lift 
 the cup, and say from the bottom of your heart, I love 
 Him who first loved me ? 
 
 “From the highest throne of glory 
 To the cross of deepest woe, 
 
 All to ransom guilty captives — 
 
 Flow, my praise, for ever flow I ” 
 
 Our sacrament tells you that once you were a lost 
 sinner — dead — bleached by the winds of heaven in the 
 valley of dry bones. You will remember it. You will 
 look with adoring wonder as you recall your hardness, 
 your blindness, your unbelief. 
 
 “ Jesus sought me when a stranger, 
 
 Wandering from the fold of God; 
 
 He, to rescue me from danger, 
 
 Interposed his precious hlood.” 
 
 Our sacrament tells you that you are called to die unto 
 sin. It shows you that sin is such an evil that it could 
 be healed by nothing but the amazing life and death of 
 the Son of God. You will remember your calling. And 
 when you call to mind how weak and imperfect you are, 
 how slowly and imperfectly you have walked in the way 
 to heaven, you will exclaim again, — 
 
 Oh ! to grace how great a debtor, 
 
 Daily I’m constrained to be ! 
 
 Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter, 
 
 Bind my wandering soul to thee! ” 
 
THE LOVE OF CHRIST C ONSTRA IN ETH US. 237 
 
 Our sacrament tells you that you are called to live in 
 newness of life. And can you refuse any obedience to a 
 Saviour whose blood became the signal of his kindness, 
 who has led you on thus far, who has stood by and 
 cheered you in trials and fears, and who is coming to 
 meet you again, and says to your distresses now, Fear not , 
 thou worm J acob I when thou passest through the waters , I 
 will be with thee , and through the rivers, they shall not 
 overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire , thou shalt 
 not be burnt 7 
 
 Our sacrament is a death-feast, instituted as a memorial 
 of love just as Jesus Christ was about to die and return 
 to heaven. And can you refuse heart or life to Him who 
 has promised to come again and transport you to the 
 bosom of God ] We trust not. Cords of love will be 
 woven round your hearts. Heaven will be opened to-day. 
 The Spirit of God will descend upon you. Eicli effusions 
 of divine love will be shed abroad in your hearts. You 
 may know it by this token, when your spirit whispers to 
 his God and your God, his Father and your Father, Tice 
 love of Christ constraineth me ... . because he lives, I shall 
 live also. God grant it ! Amen. 
 
XV. 
 
 (Ithigiit not (£Ijrisf to babe Suffereb ? 
 
 “ Then he said unto them, 0 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that 
 the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered 
 these things, and to enter into his glory V’ — Luke xxiv. 25, 26. 
 
 I NHERE was something very affecting in that interval of 
 time between the death of Jesus Christ and his ascen- 
 sion into heaven. The disciples felt it ; the whole Church 
 felt it. The mind of the Church was abashed, the dis- 
 ciples were scattered abroad, and as they began to gather 
 together again as crushed hearts will do in the depths of 
 a common affliction, they scarcely knew of a single word 
 of comfort to breathe over the sorrows that filled their 
 hearts. Their Master was dead. They had seen him in 
 whom they trusted seized as a common culprit. Con- 
 founded and abashed, they had forsaken him and fled. 
 He had been dragged from court to court, and when 
 malignity had wrung the unwilling sentence from the lips 
 that uttered his doom, and the remorseless rabble were 
 assembled to gratify their vengeance by witnessing it, 
 dark and bloody tragedy as it was, all the people that came 
 together to that sight , beholding the things which were done , 
 smote their breasts and returned And; all his acquaint- 
 ance , and the women that followed him from Galilee , stood 
 afar of, beholding these things. He had died. He had 
 finished the work which the Father had given him to do. 
 He had passed through all the stages of his humiliation, 
 
OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO HA VE SUFFERED ? 239 
 
 and was no longer that man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief Ee had brought in his everlasting righteous- 
 ness , had put away sin by the sacrifice of himself pouring 
 out his blood as a ransom for the souls of guilty men. 
 Through the gates of death he had gone to the grave, and 
 stayed there long enough to demonstrate the reality of his 
 dying. He had risen a king and conqueror, and come 
 back from the dominions of death, to which he had gone 
 as a captive and a culprit; and he was now about to 
 ascend in triumph, openly, amid the shouts of angels, to 
 appear in the presence of God for us. What an interesting 
 moment ! 
 
 The disciples knew not all that was done, the Church 
 was dissolved in tears, or stupified in the mute astonish- 
 ment of grief ! What a tender and terrible crisis ! Seven 
 miles out of Jerusalem are two of his heart-fallen followers, 
 communing together in their sadness. What can they 
 say % what can they hope ? Ah ! heaven has mercy for 
 us often when our sad hearts give it no credit. To a 
 stranger who joins them those two disciples explain the 
 cause of their sadness. Jesus of Nazareth , a prophet 
 mighty in deed and word before God and all the people , , 
 the chief priests and our rulers have delivered to be con- 
 demned to death , and have crucified him . We trusted that 
 
 it had been he which should have redeemed Israel ; besides , 
 to-day is the third day since these things were done. Yea , 
 certain women who were early at his sepulchre made us 
 astonished ; they found not his body , but came , saying 
 they had seen a vision of angels which said that he was 
 alive . And certain of them which were with us, went to 
 the sepulchre, and found it even so as the women had said ; 
 but him they saw not . 
 
 That stranger was Jesus Christ, to whom they were 
 telling their sorrows, and who now utters to them the 
 
240 OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO IIA VE SUFFERED / 
 
 words of tlie text, 0 fools , and slow of heart to believe all 
 that the prophets have spoken ! Ought not Christ to have 
 suffered these things , and to enter into his glory ? He ex- 
 plains to them the Scriptures to prove this, accompanies 
 them to the village to tarry for the night, blesses and 
 breaks bread for them, is known, and vanishes out of their 
 sight . Instantly they set out for Jerusalem, find the other 
 disciples gathered together, saying, The Lord is risen 
 indeed , and hath appeared unto Simon. The light dawneth. 
 The Church gathers up her strength, and dries the tears* 
 of her sadness. The Scriptures are verified. Jesus 
 Christ has redeemed Israel , and will honour all the trust 
 that hearts have ever reposed in him. He has suffered. 
 He ought to have suffered. On that vital fact rested all 
 the revealed salvation. It is done. The Son of God has 
 finished the work he came from heaven to do. It was a 
 sufficient sacrifice. Death has owned it, the grave has 
 owned it, — when they could not retain their victim ; and 
 devils shall own it; the kingdom of wickedness and error 
 begins to tremble whenever the proclamation of atoning 
 mercy is flung out upon a world of sinners; and the great 
 Captain of salvation, standing by his opened tomb, alive 
 again, affirms to the trembling sinner that he has put away 
 sin by the sacrifice of himself Thenceforth the gates of 
 heaven are unbarred to sinners, and even now floods of 
 living waters are flowing down to refresh and cheer the 
 heritage of God. 
 
 To-day you expect, my brethren, to celebrate this 
 death. You are to engage in that solemnity which 
 memorializes the very essence of the way of your salvation. 
 To prepare your souls for that solemn service, you need 
 nothing so much as just sentiments respecting the Ke- 
 deemer’s death, and due feelings of faith and reliance 
 upon it. These two things are indispensable. In order 
 
OUOITT NO T CHRIST TO II A VE SUFFERED ? 241 
 
 to aid you I have chosen this text. Aim to fix all its 
 significance in your mind, and feel it in your heart. I 
 declare to you, if I know anything of a Christian’s diffi- 
 culties, there is none which he ever meets with of so 
 arduous a nature, as to be properly affected with the death 
 of the Son of God. Just where the very essence of our 
 salvation lies, it seems to me that the worst evils of our 
 hearts come into operation. Unbelief is the damning 
 sin of the world, we know ; and it seems to me that the 
 worst fault of Christians is the remains of that same sin, 
 which keeps them from such sentiments regarding Christ, 
 and such an embrace of Christ as the gospel calls them to 
 exercise. Amid the remaining influences of worldliness 
 too much indulged, amid the glooms of doubt and a sad 
 distrust of God, amid forgetfulness of the Scriptures, and 
 above all (I know what I am saying; I have weighed it 
 well), amid a slowness of heart to come, in all our weak- 
 ness and wickedness and want, to Jesus Christ, as if we 
 were welcome to all his benefits, bad and base and grovel- 
 ling as we have been, — these very seasons of refreshing 
 become barren to us, and we are not filled with the joys 
 which God offers to forgiven sinners. The disciples, after 
 the crucifixion, are not alone. Even now, we are fools , 
 and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have 
 spoken. But let us try. Ought not Christ to have suffered 
 these things , and to enter into his glory ? 
 
 Christ is the Redeemer and Saviour of sinners. His 
 sufferings and death formed the great atonement for sin, 
 by which, and by which only, sinners can be saved. This 
 is our theme. This is the general sense of the text. We 
 proceed to the demonstration 
 
 I. In order to prepare the way for the more scriptural 
 parts of what we intend to say, and in order, if possible, 
 lfi 
 
242 OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO HA VE SUFFERED ? 
 
 to gain the attention of those unsanctified minds which 
 never yet have felt the influences due to the sacrifice of 
 Christ, we will present, aside from the Scriptures, some 
 presumptive suggestions in favour of the doctrine of the 
 satisfaction rendered by the death of Christ for the guilt 
 of sinners. 
 
 1. Such a satisfaction by suffering is not unreasonable. 
 We are not going to submit the decisions of God to the 
 limited reason of humanity. We think we have discovered 
 the firmest foothold on which reason can ever stand. 
 She stands on a rock when she simply believes what God 
 says. The best, the strongest of all possible reasons that 
 I can have for the perfect conviction of my mind is, 
 because God has affirmed the thing. That affirmation is 
 an end of argument, of all proof, of all demonstration. 
 God cannot lie. The impossibility resides in his very 
 nature, in his character and existence as God. If he 
 could lie, be would not be God. On the same principle, 
 he cannot be unreasonable, cannot do or require what is 
 unreasonable. To do so would be contrary to his deity, 
 and prove him no Deity at all. And if, in the sufferings 
 of Christ as an atonement for sin, any one could prove 
 anything unreasonable, we should at once be compelled to 
 abandon the doctrine, even if the abandonment should 
 spread the pall of death eternal over the whole family of 
 man. But it is not unreasonable. There is much in it, 
 indeed, above reason, beyond it, but nothing contrary to 
 it. This is the first ground for presuming the doctrine 
 may be true. 
 
 2. The second is, that the doctrine is reasonable — not 
 merely not opposed to reason, but in entire accordance 
 with it, so far as reason can understand anything of the 
 significance. It is not a discovery of reason. She never 
 could have dreamed it. But, revealed to her, affirmed of 
 
OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO IIA YE SUFFERED ? 243 
 
 God, and the affirmation accompanied with explanation 
 enough to show that this doctrine of atonement is truly 
 sublime, majestic, godlike, reason receives all its mysteries 
 just on the principle that she receives all the other mys- 
 teries that she knows belong to the Deity; such as his 
 eternal self-existence, his omniscience, and the righteous- 
 ness which belongs to his dark and wonderful providence. 
 The suffering of Christ was on account of the sins of men. 
 Sin is the transgression of law. Law is the will of Deity ; 
 and its violation, while it is a dishonour to, and an out- 
 rage upon the government of God the most high, is itself 
 a disorder, and mars the peace and tends to the still 
 further miseries of the deathless spirit in man. The sin- 
 ner being in this condition — the penalty of a deep damna- 
 tion hanging over him, unable to deliver himself, and 
 precious as his capacities for eternal weal and woe have 
 made him, is there not something positively reasonable 
 that God should not at once and willingly abandon him 
 to be an eternal victim of misery and despair ? In such 
 a case, is it not reasonable to look around before taking a 
 final plunge into hell, and inquire if there is not mercy in 
 God, and some ground of hope for the guilty] And when 
 the gospel tells us that the eternal Son of God has come 
 in our nature to seek and to save that which was lost ; has 
 magnified the law and made it honourable , standing firm 
 on the very spot where man fell ; has been wounded for 
 our transgressions , bruised for our iniquities , receiving the 
 very strokes which armed the hand of vengeance against 
 us ; has brought in an everlasting righteousness , needed in 
 heaven’s high chancery, not for himself, for he knew no 
 sin , and deserved no suffering, but needed to cancel the sin- 
 ner’s guilt, and acquit him at the bar of trial — is there 
 not something in this which seems reasonable ] some- 
 thing like God to do ] something which reason might at 
 
244 OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO HA VE SUFFERED ? 
 
 least have sighed after ] if, indeed, she could not hope ever 
 to hear of. I admit that despair, deep, dark, unsoothed, 
 eternal, would be the most reasonable thing in man, if he 
 knew at all the evil of sin, and the Son of God had not 
 taught him of forgiveness. But I maintain that when the 
 gospel has told him of the sufferings of Christ for him, 
 hope, divine hope within him, becomes as reasonable as 
 despair would be without it. The majesty and the mys- 
 tery of the deliverance — ah ! yes, the very mercy of the 
 deliverance — accord with the majesty and mystery and 
 mercy of God, as far as our limited intellect can compass 
 such things. 
 
 And if we pursue the idea onward from the deliverance 
 itself to its bloody method, our presumptive suggestion 
 will not be diminished. Sin was an infinite evil ; it woke 
 the anger of an infinite God, and deserved the fire that is 
 never quenched. The Saviour was an infinite personage, 
 and in that nature wdiich had sinned, as man , clothed in 
 humanity, his deity enabled him to bear the wrath of 
 God for us. Just so throughout the whole method. Sin 
 was against law. It was reasonable that Christ should 
 honour the law when he would save the sinner. Sin 
 forfeited the love of God. It was reasonable that recovery 
 should exhibit love, that God should love his Son for that 
 benevolence which led him a willing victim to death, and, 
 on his account, should restore his love to those who had 
 forfeited it. Reason would expect the transactions of 
 recovery to have close reference to the evils of ruin. Both 
 the fact and the method of atonement afford ground for 
 presuming that the doctrine may be true. They pave the 
 way for its instant and reasonable reception. 
 
 3. A third consideration is found in the human con- 
 science. I do not forget that in fallen man this is a faculty 
 that has felt the shock of the fall, and is not therefore to 
 
OUOIIT NOT CHRIST TO HA VE SUFFERED? 245 
 
 be trusted in the way of proof. But I do not summon it 
 as a witness. I only appeal to it as a part of human 
 nature, furnishing some presumption that Christ ought to 
 suffer. And what does conscience suggest ? In all true 
 convictions of sin, conscience not only robs us of self- 
 approval, but invariably alarms our fears. She makes us 
 tremble at the idea of suffering under the just anger of 
 God. Hence, what are her suggestions h Invariably 
 some suffering, some sacrifice to appease the vengeance 
 that is feared. Conscience, by her own intuition, by her 
 own nature and spontaneous promptings, never resorts to 
 'power merely, for the purpose of gaining peace, or to 
 wisdom merely, or even to naked clemency merely. She 
 cannot rest there. She wants to see the ground of the 
 clemency, and always looks for it in some suffering, some 
 sacrifice. It would be a very difficult thing to pacify an 
 awakened sinner’s conscience if he were to be left with the 
 idea that he had done an injury to moral government 
 which could never be repaired, and given an insult to the 
 moral Governor which could never be wiped away. Tell 
 him of power to pardon, and he would tremble. Tell him 
 of wisdom, and he would tremble still. Tell him of good- 
 ness to forgive him, and he will rather long for it than 
 believe it — -he wants to see the ground of it. Tell him of 
 sufficient sacrifice, and he will hope — he has the ground 
 of it then ; he finds it in the sufferings, the satisfaction 
 which stands between him and the justice at which he 
 trembles. This is the third ground for presuming the 
 doctrine may be true ; the third item of preparation in 
 man for receiving it ; the third suggestion, apart from the 
 Scriptures, that Christ ought to suffer. 
 
 4. The fourth is found in the religious history of man. 
 This history has one striking feature, a feature which de- 
 monstrates the truth of what we have just affirmed about 
 
246 OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO IIA VE SUFFERED ? 
 
 tlie demands of conscience. It is this, that among all 
 nations, religion has always embraced the idea of sacrifices, 
 of some offering, some victim, some suffering as an expia- 
 tion for sin. Consult history, bring up the religion of the 
 most savage tribes, and of the most refined of polished 
 nations. Venture back into antiquity as far as history 
 can lead you, and come back along the march of centuries 
 down to the present period. Examine the different kinds 
 of religion, the purest and the most dark and unreasonable. 
 Everywhere one fact will stare you in the face. Turn 
 which way you will, you meet it. You may find it among 
 the wild men of the woods at the base of your own Rocky 
 Mountains. You may find it in bygone ages on the plains 
 of idolatrous Chaldea. You may find it in ancient Egypt, 
 in Athens, in Jerusalem. This fact is, that mankind have 
 sought the favour of God by sacrifices. Whatever varieties 
 or contrarieties there may be in their religion, herein there 
 seems to be a uniform agreement. They sought to pro- 
 pitiate the Deity by sacrifices. Perhaps this idea arose 
 from neither conscience nor reason. It would be difficult 
 to show how it could. Reason could never demonstrate 
 nor conscience furnish any assurance that God could be 
 pacified towards the sinner by the sinner’s offering to God 
 in sacrifice what belonged to God already. Probably this 
 custom originated in the ancient revelation of God, and 
 has been handed down by tradition, preserved to some 
 extent amid all the darkness and superstition of idolatry 
 and barbarism. But no matter how or whence. The fact 
 is so. And it shows that mankind have expected a par- 
 don of sin and the favour of God, by suffering, by sacri- 
 fices. Conscience has sought for peace in that way. Hence 
 the thousand altars and thousand costly temples of 
 heathenism. Hence that cutting of the flesh with stones , 
 and that dreadful offering of the fruit of the body for the 
 
OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO II A VE SUFFERED ? 247 
 
 sin of the soul. Such is the one great fact which lives 
 and lingers everywhere in the religious history of man. 
 The few brutal atheists in the world, and the few trembling 
 souls who try hard to be deists, are not enough, and not 
 of dignity enough to be named as an exception. Now this 
 fact is not mentioned as proof of the doctrine of atonement, 
 but it is mentioned as a suggestion that it may be true ; 
 and as a proof that the reason, conscience, and the history 
 of man have no just ground to complain of our Christianity 
 when it teaches that Christ ought to suffer as a satisfaction 
 to divine justice for the offence of sinners. 
 
 5. There is a fifth and final presumption. In order to 
 understand it, unite in your minds three ideas. Let the 
 first be the majesty of God ; the second, the offence of 
 sin; the third, the infinity of Christ’s sacrifice. These 
 three ideas all accord. There is no jarring among them. 
 We see in an instant that they can all enter into the same 
 system. They are all alike in one grand peculiarity, that 
 is, they are all unlimited in magnitude. There is no ma- 
 jesty like God’s majesty ; no offence greater than sin’s 
 offence; no sacrifice like that of Him who was slain, the 
 august victim of redeeming power and love. These three 
 ideas all enter into the Scripture doctrine of atonement. 
 That atonement is represented as honouring the infinite 
 though violated majesty of God; as wiping out the deepest 
 of all stains, and as rendered by him who was the Ancient 
 of days , travelling in the greatness of his strength , coming 
 up ivith dyed garments from Bozrah . Change any one of 
 these ideas, and you alter the system. Blot out any one 
 and you ruin it. If the idea of sacrifice can come in at 
 all, while God retains the magnitude of his majesty, and 
 while sin is exceeding sinful , it must come in as an infinite 
 sacrifice. There must be a proportion between the great- 
 ness of God, and the evil of sin which offends, on the ono 
 
248 OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO HA VE SUFFERED ? 
 
 hand, and tlie sacrifice which atones for sin, on the other. 
 Mankind without the gospel have been perpetually hunt- 
 ing after this proportion. They have reared the most 
 costly temples, sacrificed the most precious victims, en- 
 dured the most painful sufferings, ever aiming to reach 
 the greatness of God and the extent of sin’s evil. The 
 antiquary can tell you, as he moves among the ruins of 
 ancient cities in the old w T orld and in the new, how large 
 a portion of those relics which have defied the crumblings 
 of time were indebted to religious intents for their costli- 
 ness and strength and durability. And because, simply 
 because mankind without the gospel never have been able 
 to find this proportion, conscience has not been pacified 
 by the altars of heathenism, and fear, darkness, and de- 
 spair have hung around the death-bed, and gathered over 
 the dreadful eternity of the dying heathen. It is the in- 
 finity of Christ’s sacrifice which answers the longed-for 
 preparation. Christ ought to have suffered these things , and 
 to enter into his glory . 
 
 We dismiss this first article. These five arguments are 
 enough. They show that the doctrine of a divine atone- 
 ment through the sufferings of Christ, when presented to 
 the judgment of our mind, advances nothing which we 
 have any reason to reject. If we find such a doctrine 
 advanced in the Bible, we have already five grounds for 
 presuming its truths — five urgencies to conduct us to the 
 cross. Then, — • 
 
 II. We do find it in the Bible. I have been trying 
 to imagine or conceive of the manner in which the risen 
 Saviour preached this fact to those two sad-hearted dis- 
 ciples. He did preach it. Christ ought to have suffered 
 was his theme ; and beginning at Moses and all the pro - 
 phets, he expounded unto them . . . the things concerning 
 
OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO II A VE SUFFERED ? 241 ) 
 
 himself. We dare not attempt to fill up his sermon. We 
 dare not imagine sentences which fell from his resurrec- 
 tion lips. But let us humbly follow his example. He 
 appealed to all the Scriptures. On this point we cannot 
 quote. Time compels us to classify. And to prove that 
 Christ ought to have suffered , we name seven hinds of 
 texts, or seven sorts of Scripture ideas, which establish 
 his atonement for sinners by his death : — 
 
 1. The first idea is that the sacrifices of the law were 
 but types and shadows of things, and the suffering of 
 Christ is the substance of the things typified. The value 
 or efficacy of those sacrifices arose entirely from their refer- 
 ence to Christ. Aside from this reference, we should have 
 five difficulties respecting them, — 
 
 (1.) They would appear to us unmeaning and useless. 
 (2.) They would appear to us a culpable waste of valu- 
 able property, and culpable destruction of the lives of the 
 slain victims. 
 
 (3.) They would appear to us a cruel and burdensome 
 exaction, an oppressive tribute. Hence, — - 
 
 (4.) We could not account for their appointment, or 
 their acceptance by a wise and merciful God. 
 
 (5.) We could not account for their authoritative disuse, 
 especially for their disuse on account of that reason laid 
 down in the New Testament — because Christ himself has 
 suffered. 
 
 But they were types. What did the Jews expect to 
 attain by these sacrifices h Evidently they expected the 
 forgiveness of sin. God told them to expect it. He says 
 of the offered victim, he did bear upon him all their ini- 
 quities. Since, therefore, these sacrifices were an expiation 
 only in type and figure, and since Jesus Christ in his 
 death is the substauce, the reality of the thing typified, 
 the conclusion is unavoidable that his suffering is the real 
 
250 OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO IIA VE SUFFERED ? 
 
 expiation for sins, and that according to the typical 
 economy, Christ ought to have suffered. 
 
 Consider, now, what a large portion of the Old Testa- 
 ment comes under this idea. Almost chapter after chapter, 
 book after book, prophet after prophet. To rej ect the atone- 
 ment is to reject the Old Testament by wholesale. But, — 
 
 2. The second idea in this classifying of the Scriptures 
 is the mode of all the divine promises. The very first one 
 in the Bible is an example. It embraces the humanity 
 and the suffering of Jesus. So of all the rest. There is 
 not a promise of pardon and deliverance from sin recorded 
 in the Bible, in connection with the mode of deliverance, 
 except that mode is the action, and, what is very remark- 
 able, commonly the suffering of Christ. It is this — it is 
 mercy’s voice, Spare , for I have found a ransom ; it is, 
 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire : a body hast 
 thou prepared me. Lo , I come to do thy will. All 
 the comforts which the Bible speaks to sinners, it connects 
 with him set forth to be a propitiation through faith in 
 his blood. 
 
 3. The third idea is, that Christ is repeatedly declared 
 to have died for us. Christ died for us, according to the 
 Scriptures , in which expression the fact is not only affirmed, 
 but spoken of as being the very thing which the Scrip- 
 tures would lead us to believe — Christ hath suffered for 
 sins , the just for the unjust. A large portion of the epistles 
 comes under this idea. 
 
 4. The fourth idea is, that our salvation is mentioned 
 constantly as the result of Christ’s death, of that death 
 alone. It is not mentioned as the result of his example, 
 as if his death only put the martyr’s seal to the truth of 
 his doctrine, so that we should believe in it. It is not 
 mentioned as the result of his incarnation, his teaching, 
 his miracles, his resurrection, his ascension. None of 
 
OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO IIA VE SUFFERED ? 251 
 
 these things appeased the anger of God, No ! Christ 
 died that we might live. The other parts of his ministry 
 were only subordinate, and necessary to this and to our 
 acceptance of it. His incarnation was so. It behoved 
 him to be made like unto his brethren — for what ? — that 
 he might be a merciful and faithful high priest to make 
 reconciliation for the sins of his people. And he hath 
 reconciled us to God by his death. Other things in Christ’s 
 ministry confirmed his doctrine as much as his death — - 
 perhaps more. But never — no, never — is our salvation 
 attributed to them, as it is to his death. 
 
 5. The fifth idea is that the Scriptures represent J esus 
 Christ as suffering punishment which was due to sinners. 
 He bore our sins in his own body. lie was made a curse 
 for us. He hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. The 
 chastisement of our peace was upon him. 
 
 6. The sixth idea is the consternation and agony of the 
 Saviour in prospect of death, and in enduring it. You 
 are familiar with the passages. You recollect the trouble 
 of his soul. You recollect the prayer, Father , save me 
 from this hour. You recollect the repetition of it, If it 
 
 * be possible , let this cup pass from me. You remember the 
 bloody sweat of Getlisemane, and the dreadful forsaking 
 of the Father , as he hung in agony and blood, surrounded 
 by taunting and jeers. How would you have expected 
 Jesus Christ to die? On the principle that his death was 
 only an ordinary death of violence and cruelty, you must 
 have expected that he would die with joy, with exultation, 
 with triumph. No dying being had ever such reason to 
 die so. He died in spotless innocence, with entire sub- 
 mission to the Father’s will. He died when he had 
 finished his work. He died full of love to God and man, 
 forgiving and praying for his enemies. He died in full 
 assurance of the joy that was set before him. He was 
 
252 OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO HA VE SUFFERED ? 
 
 going home to the bosom of his Father, amid the accla- 
 mations of angels, to enter upon the fulness of joy. With 
 less— a thousand-fold less — of these happy assurances, 
 even sinful men have died in joy, in exultation, in triumph. 
 Why, then, this agony and trembling in the death of 
 Christ'? The only answer is, He was suffering for sins 
 not his own. He stood at the tribunal of an awful justice. 
 Death for him was robbed of none of its terrors. 
 
 7. The last idea is, the final triumph of heaven. Saints 
 are going to triumph there. They will drop all their 
 sorrows as they drop the flesh. They will enter into the 
 joy of their Lord . But in the Scriptures heaven is repre- 
 sented as a purchased possession. The price paid for it 
 was the blood of the Bedeemer. Saints will not forget it. 
 In their songs of celestial delight they will remember it. 
 Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy 
 
 blood They see his face , and his name shall be in 
 
 their foreheads. 
 
 We close. These are the seven kinds of ideas which 
 we have found in the Scriptures to establish our doctrine. 
 Any one of these classes of texts would be sufficient. 
 But when we have all, and perceive how large a portion 
 of the whole Bible they form, we are compelled to affirm 
 that, if the Scriptures prove anything, they prove the 
 vicarious sacrifice of Jesus Christ to atone for the trans- 
 gressions of sinners. I declare to you, my brethren, that 
 if you remove the doctrine of this atonement from the 
 Bible, I know not what to make of it. To me, it becomes 
 worthless. Without this it is utterly unintelligible, con- 
 tradictory, absurd. They are fools , and slow of heart , 
 who deny that Christ ought to have suffered such things , 
 and to enter into his glory . Though he were a Son , yet 
 learned he obedience by the things which he sufeeked ; and 
 being made perfect he became the Author of eternal salva - 
 
OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO II A VE SUFFERED f 253 
 
 tion. We see Jesus .... for the suffering of death crowned 
 
 with glory and honour 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 salva- 
 tion perfect through sufferings. 
 
 But wliat are we going to behold ? Be astonished, 0 
 heavens! To-day, sinners in this place will turn their 
 back on this ordinance which memorializes this death and 
 atonement of the Son of God. These five facts which, 
 aside from revelation, are five powerful urgencies to receive 
 this revealed Christ for their own ; and these seven great 
 leading ideas, which we find on analyzing the Bible declara- 
 tions about Christ’s death, and which make a great por- 
 tion of the Scriptures, — these, all these have hitherto been 
 in vain ! My unconverted hearers, you could do nothing 
 more unreasonable than you are doing. You reject Christ. 
 You reject the offering which nature tells you that you 
 need, and the offering which the Bible tells you Christ has 
 made. This is no ordinary sin. As you turn your back 
 on the Lord’s tabic, remember it; remember the terrors 
 which gather around that text, Of how much sorer punish- 
 ment shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under 
 foot the Son of God , and hath counted the blood of the cove- 
 nant an unholy thing . 
 
 But the memorial will be honoured. Faith, and love, 
 and hope, and trust will here honour it. Hearts will circle 
 themselves around it. One communicant will say, The 
 law indeed condemns me, but Christ magnified the law. 
 Another will say, I am infinitely unworthy, but Christ is 
 infinitely worthy. Another, — I am going to the dreadful 
 tribunal of God, but Jesus has been there before me; his 
 bloody offering has silenced its thunders, and “ turned the 
 wrath to grace.” All unite in the sentiment, We love him 
 because he first loved us. 
 
254 OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO HAVE SUFFERED ? 
 
 Some of you have never before been at this ordinance. 
 You will approach it with mingled trembling and love. 
 Your thoughts will turn back upon your past life, and turn 
 in upon your strange heart; and shame and confusion of 
 face would cover you, and sin fill you with dismay, and 
 drive you back from Christ’s table, if faith and love 
 did not prevail over fear. But you will not go back ; you 
 cannot ; the love of Christ constraineth you. 
 
 My children — my dear children — I cannot tell you how 
 precious to me is this hour. I have watched over you ; 1 
 have loved you fondly. I have aimed to aid you in that 
 intimacy of communion, when you unbosomed to me your 
 sorrows and your fears. Allow me to say it : ye are my 
 jewels, my hope, my crown of rejoicing. I bless God for 
 your conversion to Christ. Happy this hour when I wel- 
 come you into his banqueting house. Come in the fulness 
 of faith and love. See that you renounce all sin in humble 
 repentance. Becollect you are called unto holiness. You 
 are to serve the world no more. You must be vessels of 
 honour , fitted for the Master's use. The more perfectly 
 and freely you consecrate yourselves to him in the cove- 
 nant-communion, the more securely you will be kept in 
 the hour of temptation, when the world shall try you, and 
 Satan shoot fiery darts at you, and your hearts sink within 
 you. The more perfectly and freely you appropriate 
 Christ by faith to your own souls in the covenant-com- 
 munion, the more will you please him. Call him your 
 own. Cleave to him as your own. Take him in all his 
 offices, and all his fulness. He lias loved you : see that 
 you love him. He has served you : see that you serve 
 him. From the nuptial-communion go on your way, hand 
 in hand, with him in your path of life. Consult him in 
 perplexity. Flee to him in times of danger. Lean upon 
 him when your weary steps stagger in rough places. Never 
 
OUGHT NOT CHRIST TO II A VE SUFFERED ? 255 
 
 distrust him; never desert or betray him. Love him 
 always. As you lift the cup to your lips, say, before the 
 spectators of earth and heaven, I give myself to Christ in 
 this cup of blood, for time and for eternity. I take Christ 
 to be my Eedeemer and my best Friend. 
 
 He will not forsake you. You may have sorrows, but 
 he will soothe them ; trials, but he will bear you through. 
 As you approach your last hour, he will come to your bed 
 of death (if it please him to give you a bed to die on), and 
 cleaving the vault of heaven with your released spirit in 
 his arms, he will say, Father , I will that those whom thou 
 hast given me be with me where I am , that they may behold 
 my glory . There again you shall sing the song of com- 
 munion, with him that loved us and washed us from our 
 sins in his oivn blood. 
 
XYI. 
 
 (iTbrist anb Ijint Cnuifrttr. 
 
 “ And I, brethren, when T came to you, came not with excellency of 
 speech, or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God : 
 for I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus 
 Christ, and him crucified.” — 1 Cor. ii. 1, 2. 
 
 P HILOSOPHY, so called, in tlie Church, and worldlings 
 and sin out of it, have often aimed at precisely tlie 
 same tiling. They have, indeed, had different motives, 
 employed different arguments about religion, and put on 
 very different appearances before the eyes of the Church 
 and the world. But after all, their mode has been very 
 much the same. And it is very remarkable how that 
 species of philosophizing about the vital subjects of Chris- 
 tianity, which endeavours to show these things to be only 
 according to the analogies of nature, and therefore only 
 part and parcel of the general administration of God over 
 his creatures, precisely agrees with that loved train of 
 pretended reasoning among irreligious men in which 
 they aim to get rid of the obligations of the Bible by 
 appealing to nature. These last, these men of worldliness, 
 profess to respect nature, her laws, her economy, and all 
 her aims ; and they profess to be willing to receive all her 
 obligations, even those of a religious kind. But they have 
 a great reluctance to take a single step out of her bound- 
 aries, and going away from the dim regions of her twilight, 
 to come out upon the field of peculiar revelation, all 
 
CHRIST AND IIIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 257 
 
 luminous as it is witli new and distinct instructions. 
 They will take the Bible as far as they think it agrees with 
 the doctrines of nature, or as far as all its theory, obliga- 
 tions, and promises lie along the line of a philosophical 
 analogy. But beyond this they are reluctant to go. And 
 beyond this many philosophizers in the pulpit seem 
 equally reluctant to go. And hence, any point in theory, 
 any doctrine about God, his laws, or his administration, 
 any provisions or promises, any mode of vengeance or 
 mode of mercy that comes up in the Bible, must be sub- 
 jected to the trial of philosophy, and laid down on the 
 line of their pretended analogy. With a little modesty, 
 indeed, they will only demand to explain the Bible by the 
 world, and not maintain its opposition to the world ; but 
 their explanation, as it falls on the ears of either those 
 within the Church or those without, tends more to fill the 
 minds of men with this “ philosophy,” than with the 
 Bible’s Christ, and tends more to fit the souls of men to 
 stay in this world than to depart out of it to a very dif- 
 ferent one. 
 
 With both of these classes of persons the mistake is 
 more deep and subtle than they are at all ready to con- 
 ceive. It lies in the very misconception of the nature and 
 application of their own rule . What analogy is, and 
 
 where it lies, are the grand points of their common blunder. 
 They place it wrong. God is, indeed, consistent. Traces 
 of resemblances run through all his works. But these 
 men of pretended philosophy commit the grand blunder 
 of comparing the high and holy science of religion with 
 the minor matters of a temporary world, instead of com- 
 paring it with God, from whom it emanates, and running 
 the line of their analogy up to the final judgment-seat, 
 and away on the broad eternity beyond it. The question 
 should be, not is this duty, doctrine, or promise like nature , 
 17 
 
258 
 
 CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED . 
 
 but is it like God 1 Philosophy is wrong, reason is wrong, 
 religious speculation is wrong, whenever it does not put 
 the universe at the feet of its infinite Author. 
 
 This “ religion of nature,” as they call it, ought not to 
 be expected by them, at most, to do anything more than 
 fit men to live in the world, among its rocks, and winds, 
 and trees, and blossoms, and under the clouds that hang 
 and the sun that burns above them. They ought not to 
 expect it to give them lessons to die, to leave this world 
 and live in another , where “ nature,” as they call it, is not 
 only dumb, but dead and gone ! burnt up — world and 
 heavens together ! Strange that they do not perceive that 
 they are the most ww-analogical reasoners in the world ! 
 They expect time to be a full index of eternity. A dis- 
 pensation that shall end, they expect to have enough in it 
 to explain a dispensation that is endless. They expect 
 nature, that shall die, to unfold the whole economy of im- 
 mortality ; a single letter of God’s alphabet to tell the 
 whole embodied wisdom of God’s omniscience. Whereas, 
 if they had not strayed out of the field of analogy they 
 would expect no such thing. They would expect God in 
 the spiritual system to be entirely above God in the 
 natural system ; and lessons that bear on eternity to be 
 as much beyond those that bear on time, as the mighty 
 sweep of eternal ages surpasses the little measure of an 
 hour-glass. And when, under the teachings and leadings 
 of nature, they have mounted among the stars, they would 
 never imagine that the new heavens and new earth which 
 God shall create , wherein dwelleth righteousness , can be ex- 
 plained by all the grandeur of God’s footsteps along the 
 pavement of the milky way. 
 
 Things seen are temporal. Things unseen are eternal. 
 And if God, presiding over eternity and spirits, is more 
 majestic and awful than God presiding over temporal 
 
CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 259 
 
 things, then analogy, the true analogy, demands of us to 
 expect him to furnish an economy for the eternal life of 
 sinners (if he furnish any at all) which nothing in the 
 material world of nature can ever resemble. One field of 
 God’s world is more glorious than another. The blossoms 
 of the spring-time are not alike, either in their beauty or 
 their fragrance. And the analogy which would read God 
 must not, therefore, confine God — must not expect to find 
 here , amid the teachings of more nature, and by the sight 
 of mere human eyes, the highest lessons to bear on an 
 eternity to come. But it ought to expect that an economy 
 which seeks our eternal salvation shall bear higher marks 
 upon it ; and that, as it mounts toward the heavens, it 
 shall become more like God, and shall never reach its 
 highest point till it reaches that spot where the eternal 
 throne blazes — where, lo ! in the midst of the throne is the 
 Lamb that was slain. 
 
 And, after all, redemption is more of a peculiarity than 
 of an analogy. It is an analogy only with God. It is 
 not an analogy with nature. It is like God. It is unlike 
 the world ; and the apostle thought it so : I came not 
 
 with excellency of speech , or of wisdom (philosophy), declar- 
 ing unto you the testimony of God . In opposition to 
 
 this, he tells us what he did do : I determined not to 
 know anything among you , save Jesus Christ , and him 
 crucified. 
 
 You will please to notice his discrimination (it justifies 
 the mode of this sermon) : First, his discrimination be- 
 tween what he calls excellency of speech or wisdom , and 
 Jesus Christ ; he rejects the one to cleave to the other. 
 Second, his discrimination further, after he has fixed on 
 the great object of his preaching — Jesus Christ It is not 
 Christ simply, nor in his common attributes or actions. 
 It is not his birth, his miracles, his words of mercy, his 
 
260 
 
 CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED . 
 
 mission to earth, nor his departure out of it. When the 
 apostle aims to tell us definitely what is the very essence 
 of his preaching, he tells us of the death of Christ — him 
 crucified , says he. When he would gather us at the very 
 centering spot of Christianity, where we may see all its 
 significance, he leads us up by the cross of the dying Be- 
 deemer of sinners. That is the spot, and there is the 
 object for human eyes and human hearts. You will go 
 there to-day, my brethren. Christ crucified will be set 
 forth among you. You are to memorialize his death . 
 You are not fit for that service ; no, no ! you will only 
 profane and contaminate the ordinance; you will eat that 
 bread and drink that cup unworthily , if your hearts can- 
 not sympathize with the crucifixion of the text, and if you 
 do not feel that for you there is something eminently 
 peculiar in the death of the Son of God. I hope you will 
 feel so. I trust you will. Bor that we have been endea- 
 vouring. On last Lord’s day we made this pulpit resound 
 with the words, No man liveth unto himself, and no man 
 dieth unto himself : . ... we live unto the Lord : we 
 
 die unto the Lord : ... . for to this end Christ both lived , 
 and died , and rose. During the week we took up the 
 subject again, and made this pulpit resound with the 
 words, Thou art worthy to open the book, . . . .for thou 
 wast slain and hast redeemed us by thy blood. But we 
 have not done yet ; and if your hearts do not justify us, 
 as they ought to do, the text does, when we mention the 
 same death again : I determined to know nothing among 
 you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 
 
 All the apostle’s preaching, his masterly reasonings, his 
 condensation of the history of the Old Testament, his ex- 
 amination of the ancient economy of types and shadows, 
 his unequalled eloquence when his trains of thought lead 
 him up among the attributes of God ; all these have re- 
 
CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED . 
 
 261 
 
 ference to tlie death of the Son of God. All he desired 
 was, to lead sinners to the blood of atonement, and, from 
 that starting-point, to set them on their upward march to 
 meet God in the skies. And that is all we desire. Bad 
 as your sins are, sad and sorrowful within you as your 
 hearts can be, estranged and cold as your affections may 
 be, we know that the felt influences of the death of Christ 
 constitute all you need. Aim to have them. Accompany 
 us for a few moments, as we explain and demonstrate the 
 discrimination of the text, assigning a very marked pecu- 
 liarity to the crucifixion of the Saviour. 
 
 This is our theme. We are going to maintain that the 
 death of Jesus Christ deserves all the consideration that 
 St. Paul gave to it ; that it is the one grand and supreme 
 feature of the Christian religion, lying beyond all the 
 analogies of all that we are accustomed to call “ nature ; ” 
 and that it is the one thing which gives value to Chris- 
 tianity. We enter upon the theme. We name some dis- 
 tinct ideas — hints — rather than fully- expanded argu- 
 ments. 
 
 I. We begin with the ordinance of the supper. We 
 name it first, lest if we should reserve it for the last (its 
 proper place), we should not have sufficient time left to 
 give it the consideration which, to-day, it justly demands. 
 It deserves no small degree of consideration. You have 
 no other ordinance like it; and you ought most seriously 
 to consider the circumstances of solemnity under which it 
 was instituted, and the deep significance of privilege and 
 obligation which hangs around it. We shall remark soon 
 how the achievements of Jesus Christ all looked towards 
 his death. When he instituted your ordinance, that 
 solemn hour had come. He was going to be smitten. 
 He knew it. He wished it. Nature shrank ! Jesus 
 
262 
 
 CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 Christ quailed at the horrors he anticipated, when in the 
 garden he sweat great drops of blood falling down to the 
 ground , and when he fell prostrate under the burden of 
 that prayer, Father , if it be possible , let this cup pass from 
 me ! But though he quailed, he did not retreat. Not as 
 I will , but as thou wilt , .... for this hour came I into the 
 ivorld. No man that reads the New Testament can doubt 
 for a moment that the soul of the Saviour felt death with 
 an unequalled solemnity and fearfulness. But the hour 
 was come. Assembled together, the little college of the 
 disciples was communing with its Master, and had just 
 finished the paschal ordinance — the most interesting, signi- 
 ficant, and solemn of all the ancient divine appointments. 
 Judas was gone out to betray him. None but friends, but 
 tried hearts, remained. At that moment the Saviour in- 
 stituted the supper. Its significance was his death. He 
 transferred all the solemnities of the passover (which lie 
 had just abolished) to this new and not typical ordinance, 
 and extended the obligation of its observance down 
 through the lapse of ages, to the time of his second com- 
 ing. We obey his injunction. We celebrate his death. 
 We utter our covenant oath, not like the Israelite, when, 
 sprinkled with bullocks’ blood himself, he stood before 
 the blood-sprinkled altar and solemnly swore, All that the 
 Lord hath spoken , we will do , and be obedient; but we 
 utter this oath, now a thousand times more solemn, when 
 we handle the symbols of this amazing death. 
 
 Now, is there not a marked peculiarity given, in this 
 ordinance, to the death of Jesus Christ? At a most 
 solemn hour the ordinance was instituted. It took the 
 place of an institution hallowed and revered for ages. It 
 represents a fact about which Jesus Christ seems to have 
 been more affected than he ever was about anything else. 
 Jesus did other things than die. He descended from 
 
CHRIST AND IIIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 263 
 
 heaven ; he was miraculously conceived ; he was born ; 
 he was tempted ; he was a man of sorrows and acquainted 
 with grief; he preached ; he raised the dead ; he was an 
 example of sinless obedience ; and after he had laid aside 
 the linen clothes of the grave and the napkin that was 
 bound about his head , he ascended into heaven, followed 
 by the wondering gaze of hundreds, and a cloud received 
 him out of their sight. 
 
 But you have no ordinance to celebrate any of these 
 •things. You memorialize only his death , not his birth, 
 the very date of which is concealed from the knowledge 
 of all mankind. The heathen and the politicians celebrate 
 birthdays. We celebrate a death-day. Our ordinance, the 
 most solemn and significant of all our observances, gives 
 a very marked peculiarity to the crucifixion of Jesus 
 Christ. While he takes care to conceal liis time of birth, 
 while he passes over all his other achievements, wondrous 
 as they were, at* the moment when he would concentrate 
 the souls of his disciples upon himself and bind them 
 to duty and to God, he memorializes his death — only his 
 death. 
 
 For my part, if Jesus Christ were on earth only as an 
 example of righteousness, I cannot conceive why he did 
 not institute for his followers a birth-feast, instead of a 
 death-feast. If his living, and not his dying, was the 
 great object of his mission, propriety would seem to re- 
 quire of him to make our memorial bring his living to 
 mind, as men of the world celebrate the birthdays of 
 statesmen, and warriors, and princes whom they would 
 honour. But the grand matter of his mission was not his 
 living. It was his dying. And with beautiful propriety, 
 when we are called on to memorialize the Saviour with 
 most solemnity, with most tenderness and affection, with 
 the very oath of the new covenant, binding ourselves with 
 
264 
 
 CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED . 
 
 the highest of all obligations, we then memorialize his 
 death. He taught this to us. He instituted the me- 
 morial for us. We shall be sorry if any heart fails to-day 
 of marking the peculiarity of the blessed ordinance. 
 
 II. If you had time to listen to the passages, it would 
 be very interesting to recite to you a collection of Scrip- 
 tures, to show you how all the other parts of Jesus 
 Christ’s earthly mission and ministry looked toward his 
 death. It would be an extensive collection. Let a few 
 suffice. His dying was the very purpose of his incarna- 
 tion. As the children are partakers of flesh and bloody lie 
 also himself likewise took part of the same. Why ? for 
 what purpose ? That through death he might destroy 
 him that had the power of death . ... It behoved him to 
 be made like unto his brethren . For what purpose 1 That 
 
 he might be a merciful und faithful High Priest to 
 
 make reconciliation for the sms of the people. And Rom. 
 v. 10 tells us, We are reconciled to God by the death of 
 his Son. 
 
 This death being the supreme purpose of his coming, 
 he always kept it in mind. He made reference to it in 
 strange places. An affectionate woman anoints his head 
 with precious ointment, and he justifies her affection and 
 the costliness of its offering by an idea taken from his 
 own coming death : She did it for my burial; it shall be 
 told for a memorial of her. When the three disciples had 
 come down with him from the Mount of Transfiguration, 
 he said to them, Tell the vision to no man until the Son 
 of man be risen again from the dead. His death w T as con- 
 stantly in his mind : Elias is come already .... and they 
 have done unto him whatsoever they listed; likewise shall 
 also the Son of man suffer . Ei'om that time forth Jesus 
 began to show unto his disciples how that he must go up 
 
CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 265 
 
 unto Jerusalem , and suffer many things of the eldei's , 
 and chief priests, and scribes , and be hilled. 
 
 Even in that dark hour of heaviness, when his soul 
 was exceeding sorrowful unto death , and human nature, 
 overwhelmed and confounded, began to be sore amazed , 
 — when he was forced to exclaim, Now is my sold troubled ’, 
 and what shall I say ? Father , save me from this hour , 
 — he repressed the prayer, looked death in the face as 
 the very object of his mission ; but for this cause came J 
 unto this hour. When, a prisoner in the hands of his 
 foes, indignant affection seized the sword for his righteous 
 vindication, he said, Put up thy sword into the sheath ; 
 the cup which my Father hath given me , shall I not 
 drink it ? And finally, when malice had come to the end 
 of her work, and the unpitying vengeance which hunted 
 him from the beginning was glutted with his blood, — 
 when, as he hung on the cross, he had commended his 
 mother to his beloved disciple, — after the vinegar, the 
 gall, and the spear, and after the soldiers had parted 
 among them the garments of their dying victim, — then 
 he exclaimed, It is finished; and gave up the ghost. Dying 
 had finished his work. He came to die. All his ministry 
 looked to this, and a multitude of Scriptures, proving it to 
 you, show that marked importance is attributed to liis 
 dying. 
 
 I know of but one idea in the Bible which even seems 
 to limit or qualify the force of this argument. It is the 
 resurrection of the Saviour. It is not to be denied nor 
 forgotten that the Scriptures attribute a magnitude of 
 importance to the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the 
 dead. If Christ be not risen , then is your faith vain ; ye 
 are yet in your sins. We are not to undervalue this re- 
 surrection ; but we are not to consider it as the substance, 
 nor even as the crowning part of the work of Christ. 
 
266 
 
 CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED . 
 
 We are not to be affected by it as we are to be affected 
 by bis death. His death was important to us as pur- 
 chasing our redemption ; his resurrection, as proving it 
 purchased. The one was the price of our souls : the 
 other, the demonstration that God Almighty had accepted 
 it. By his death and burial he had come to the end 
 of all this humiliation of his redeeming work. Hence- 
 forth, the scene changes. He went, captive — he comes 
 back a conqueror. Man rolls a great stone upon the 
 mouth of his tomb — but an angel from heaven rolls it 
 away. He rises to take possession of those prerogatives 
 which he has purchased by his death. His resurrection 
 is a part of his triumph and our own. He is declared to 
 be the Son of God with power, by the resurrection from the 
 dead; and because he lives , we shall live also. With these 
 recollections, we shall not be in danger of forgetting the 
 distinct and peculiar importance which belongs to the 
 death of Christ, as something of more value than the ordi- 
 nary parts of his ministry. 
 
 III. The peculiarity of significance and importance 
 which belong to the atoning death of Christ, may be 
 seen from the forbearance of God. That forbearance is 
 something to be accounted for. It is far more extensive 
 here among sinners, than on any ordinary principles we 
 could have supposed it would be. God bears with 
 sinners who seem to have become fully ripened for ven- 
 geance. He utters warning after warning in their ears. 
 With manifest reluctance he rises to execute his deserved 
 and dreadful tlireatenings. Before that time comes he 
 tells them that judgment is his strange work. He 
 calls to their mind how, many a time , he turned his anger 
 away and did not stir up all his wrath. He says, How shall 
 I give thee up , Ephraim ? how shall I deliver thee , Israel ? 
 
CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 267 
 
 Now, in what way are we to account for this long- 
 suffering of God ] We cannot account for it on the 
 principle that God is waiting for man to cancel his own 
 guilt, and return of himself to his duty and his God. It 
 is plainly stated in the Bible, that man’s power is utterly 
 insufficient to atone for sin and free himself from the 
 sway of corruption within him. We cannot account for 
 it on the principle of God’s natural benevolence, for we 
 have heard of another race of sinners to whom such 
 forbearance was never extended: the fallen angels are 
 in chains of darkness. And the Bible itself unfolds the 
 reason for the difference, in that expression, He took not 
 on him the nature of angels. It is because of what Christ 
 has done in his atoning sacrifice, that forbearance is ex- 
 tended to sinners here. That sacrifice has rendered their 
 salvation possible ; and the execution of God’s avenging 
 justice is stayed for a little while, that sinners may have 
 time to repent and flee to Christ and be delivered 
 from going down to hell. But for the death of Christ, 
 sinning man would have known no more of God’s 
 long-suffering than sinning angels knew. It is that death, 
 with its wonderful efficacy in opening the way of salva- 
 tion to sinners, which constitutes the reason why the 
 long-suffering of God ivaits. It is the reason why to-day 
 guilty sinners in this house, who still reject Jesus Christ, 
 are not blaspheming God amid the despair of hell ! 
 But for the very death which they neglect, instead of 
 turning their back upon the table of the Lord here, 
 they would be the companions of sinning angels whom 
 the natural benevolence of God did not reach and re- 
 deem. Surely we have another proof of the peculiarity 
 we named. 
 
 IV. In order to condense our materials as much as 
 
268 
 
 CHRIST AND IIIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 possible, we put two ideas together : the creation, and 
 the providence of God. The Bible has told us why 
 material things were made ; not for their own sakes, nor 
 for all the magnificent displays of power and wisdom 
 which they contain. The purpose of creation terminates 
 on Christ : all things were created FOR him . That moral 
 government and glorious redemption which he exercises 
 brought the world into being. Redemption, too, is the 
 grand object of divine providence, and the atonement i$ 
 the very centre and substance of redemption. Whatever 
 unbelievers and worldlings may think, this material world 
 was built, and it stands yet, and it is ruled for the sake 
 of those moral displays and achievements whose centre is 
 the cross of the Redeemer of men. The events of four 
 thousand years looked forward to that, and, notwith- 
 standing the fixed habits of warfare among the nations, 
 notwi tli standing the maddened passions of ambitious and 
 infuriated men, when the Redeemer was to come into the 
 world, peace touched the nations to quiet, and the clash 
 of arms was still. The devil does not own this world ; 
 and wickedness does not make it worse than before the 
 flood, simply because the promises which hang on the 
 cross of the Redeemer have not all been fulfilled, — simply 
 because our Lord reignetli : the government is upon his 
 shoulder . The millennium is coming For these reasons 
 the world is not a wandering star, abandoned in wrath, 
 discarded from use, rushing to destruction ; but is still 
 held for a design, and turned to an account the most 
 glorious. Its Maker has not denounced nor disowned his 
 property. It may be a rebel, but he is still a sovereign. 
 It may be recusant, but he is still its Lord. The Lamb 
 is in the midst of the throne; and for that reason the 
 world has not staggered like a drunken man ) and reeled 
 and sunk to ruin. 
 
CUPJST ANT) HIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 2G9 
 
 It is hardly conceivable how any rational mind can 
 ever imagine that God created and governs the world for 
 the sake of displaying his power merely, as he weiglieth 
 the mountains in scales , and the hills in a balance f and 
 talceth up the isles as a. very little thing ; or for the sake 
 of all that manifestation of mind made in this wonderful 
 world and among the wonderful beings who inhabit it ; 
 or, surely, for the sake of all that moral excellence which 
 the very best ages of the world have ever manifested. 
 Put the Church out of the question, omit that little com- 
 pany of believers who love the cross, and who, by its 
 influence, begin to have something of its spirit, and we 
 should like to challenge any unbeliever’s own reason to 
 answer the question, whether he could think it to be 
 worth while for God to build and govern such a world as 
 this, for the sake of all the felicity, the intelligence, the 
 power, the moral dignity there is about it. He could 
 not affirm this. Eeason would be compelled to rush into 
 the arms of revelation. Some higher moral good must 
 come; some more dignified bliss and aims than the un- 
 godly have; some more elevated attainments in moral 
 propriety and moral government, or this world’s existence 
 and control will be only a blot upon the reputation of 
 its builder and ruler. The seven-sealed Book must be 
 opened by the Lamb that was slain. 
 
 The Bible is reasonable, and a refuge for reason, — for 
 reason otherwise confounded by the irregularities of this 
 distressed world. It says to us, He hath created all things 
 by Jesus Christ , to the intent that noio unto the princi- 
 palities and poivers in heavenly places might be known , by 
 the Church, the manifold ivisdom of God. The Church is 
 the body of Christ. Yea, better, she is the Bride of 
 Christ. She is the purchase of his death. To the cross, 
 therefore, to that one spot, to that wondrous crucifixion , 
 
270 
 
 CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 there belongs a very marked peculiarity. Creation and 
 providence are subordinate to the moral government and 
 glories which stand connected with this dying Redeemer 
 of sinners. 
 
 Y. "No matter how deep conviction may be, or how 
 distressing the fears of future judgment and wrath that 
 gather over a sinner’s mind, there is nothing in all these 
 which ever leads to an ingenuous and genuine repent- 
 ance. I appeal to all the hearts in this assembly. I 
 appeal to you, ye stout-hearted and far from righteousness , 
 who neglect Christ to-day; ye who have often tried, by 
 summoning up the recollections of your guilt, and by 
 figuring the damnation of hell in your imagination, to 
 drive yourselves to a penitent hatred of sin ; I appeal to 
 you to say, if all these horrid images have not failed, and 
 left you as fond of sin and as far from God as before h 
 I appeal to you who come here to honour Christ to-day. 
 Do you not remember the wormwood and the gall of those 
 dreadful convictions, when you were afraid to lie down 
 at night lest you should wake in hell ? when you almost 
 expected to be made a vessel of wrath , and be dashed to 
 pieces by the thunders of God’s just indignation ? Do 
 you not remember that those horrors did not make you 
 repent ? that the more you felt them the more you 
 rebelled, the more you despaired the more fit you seemed 
 to be for the dreadful vengeance which you feared ? and 
 that the calmness and soothing of a genuine repentance 
 came over you only as you went up, in your wretchedness, 
 and poured out your griefs at the foot of that cross where 
 hung the bleeding Redeemer of men ? Oh ! it was the 
 persuasion of the mercy of God in Christ, it was this 
 death and its efficacy, which first touched your heart 
 with penitential sorrow Then you felt that sin was no 
 
CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 271 
 
 common evil against no common friend, and that it met 
 with what it needed — no common mercy. 
 
 VI. For a sixth argument, we will say the same thing 
 of a gracious confidence in God. Foolhardiness, I allow, 
 may be confident anywhere on this soil of probation, and 
 before the unfolding of that coming indignation which 
 shall consume the adversaries. It may appeal to nature 
 and history, and blind itself by a thousand delusions, and 
 believe a lie , to carve out a high road to destruction. 
 But the sober, reasonable, prayerful sinner has but one 
 ground and one plea of confidence in God. That one is 
 enough. The sinner who trembled at divine justice, w T ho 
 felt his heart sink within him, and began to wish the 
 mountains and rocks might fall upon him and hide him 
 from the face of Him ivlio sitteth upon the throne , may 
 now lift up his head and bid defiance to a whole universe 
 of accusation. Who shall lay anything to the charge of 
 God’s elect ? who is he that condemneth ? it is Christ that 
 died. 
 
 VII. For a seventh argument, we say the same thing 
 of communion with God. This communion is enjoyed 
 only through the medium of a crucified Christ. Through 
 him we come boldly to the throne of grace. Through him 
 we have access to the Father. The child of God never 
 loses the light of God’s countenance, never falters in 
 communion with God, except in proportion as his heart 
 fails to embrace, as his own , his crucified Redeemer. 
 Nature cannot have this communion. Grace only can 
 lead to it. The idea of pardon for a sinner is not found 
 anywhere in nature. It is whispered in no wind, twinkled 
 by no star, graven on no granite of earth, betokened by 
 no flower’s sweet beauty, echoed in no deep anthem of 
 
272 
 
 CHRIST AND IIIM CRUCIFIED.. 
 
 the ocean’s roar. Nature never promises forgiveness to a 
 sinner. Philosophy cannot search it out. The world, 
 the universe, has not a single hint that forgiveness is 
 possible, much less that adoption into God’s family is 
 possible. Christ crucified reveals and secures both; and 
 therefore a sinner may triumph in Christ , God being — 
 
 “ His Father and his friend.” 
 
 So of all other graces, privileges, felicities, hopes. We 
 speak to believers. They need no argument. They knoiv 
 it is so. They know that all Christian delights, improve- 
 ment, and foretastes of heaven result from their appreciat- 
 ing that unequalled divine love which operated by the 
 death of the eternal Son of God. To them the throne is 
 sweet because in the midst of the throne is the Lamb that 
 was SLAIN. 
 
 It were easy to add to these arguments. Proofs of the 
 same doctrine may be drawn from every quarter. All the 
 foundations of Christianity, all the good there is in it here 
 might be summoned to our aid. We could show you how 
 the spirit of vjorldliness will not give way till the disciple 
 looks at his Lord upon the cross, and learns to say, The 
 world is crucified unto me , and I unto the world : — how 
 the spirit of revenge will not give way, nor the spirit of 
 forgiveness come up over the heart, till the disciple con- 
 siders him ivho endured such contradiction of sinners 
 against himself and hears him praying in death, Father , 
 forgive them , for they know not ivhat they do. And after 
 we had shown the efficacy of this death all along the 
 pathway of the believer, and found in it the only solace 
 for him on his bed of dying, we could take you up to his 
 seat of song in heaven, to hear that anthem of glory, 
 Thou wast slain , and hast redeemed us to God by thy 
 blood ; — unto him that loved us and washed us from our 
 
CHRIST AND IIIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 273 
 
 sins in his own blood , and hath made us Icings and priests 
 unto God and his Father ; to him be glory and dominion , 
 for ever and ever . Amen. 
 
 My hearers, have we not made good the declaration 
 with which we commenced'? Are we not overwhelmed 
 with proofs that our religion is peculiar — is like God — 
 beyond nature — and that the central point of its glorious 
 significance is the crucifixion of the Son of God ] 
 
 My brethren, as we come to the communion to-day, 
 let us bring this idea along with us. Let us give our 
 solemnity all the peculiarity it claims. Let us remember 
 that this death which we celebrate is the most amazing 
 thing that ever transpired in the universe. God himself 
 never did anything else like it. The Son of God expires ! 
 The rocks were rent ! Graves were opened, and many 
 saints arose and came out of their graves and went into 
 the holy city ! And darkness hung like a pall over the 
 heavens ! With what solemnity should ye celebrate such 
 a death ! Will you approach that table as a common 
 spot h Solemn warnings caution you against it. lie that 
 eatetli and drinlceth unworthily , eateth and drinketh dam- 
 nation to himself 1 Remember, lie who is declared to be 
 the Son of God with power ... by the resurrection from 
 the dead , holds in his hand a rod of iron , to break his 
 enemies, , and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel I If 
 you come not in good conscience to enter into covenant 
 with God, sincerely purposing to die unto sin and live unto 
 Christ ; if you come not to take shelter for your guilty 
 head in his blood; if you come not to present your 
 bodies and spirits a living sacrifice unto God , hence- 
 forth to be his and not your own ; if you have no sense 
 of your deep and eternal obligation to serve him, as 
 bought ivith a price , God will frown upon your approach, 
 and you may expect the just judgments which lie pro- 
 18 
 
274 
 
 CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED . 
 
 nounces on those who say, The Table of the Lord is con- 
 temptible. 
 
 On the other hand, you cannot escape the solemn 
 obligation by neglect. No, never ! The dying com- 
 mand which calls you there, is not to be forgotten nor 
 unheeded. You must come, and come with a sincere and 
 believing heart, or you trample on the dying command of 
 Christ ! Those sinners of this assembly who neglect this 
 ordinance, hugging the world still and withholding their 
 hearts from Christ, commit a dreadful offence. God 
 deliver me from their guilt ! I cannot unfold it. St. 
 Paul seems to have been overwhelmed with the idea of it. 
 He cannot measure it. He merely asks, Of how much sorer 
 condemnation shall he be thought worthy , who hath trodden 
 under foot the Son of God , and counted the blood of the 
 covenant an unholy thing ? Here, then, sinner, read your 
 doom. The blood of the Son of God will cry to heaven 
 against you ! It will ascend from these courts to-day. 
 Why will you not heed it and tremble h What reason 
 can you give to God Almighty why you are not, to-day, 
 among his people, a penitent believer and a comforted 
 sinner ] You ought to be there. Soon, he will call you 
 to give an account for the blood of his Son. He will 
 say to you, Thou hast denied the Holy One l there re - 
 maineth no more sacrifice for sins ! rejecting the blood of 
 atonement, thou hast lost heaven ! ! 
 
 My brethren, that dreadful end is the doom of an 
 unbelieving neglect. You cannot contemplate it without 
 horror ! You cannot imitate these despisers of Jesus ! 
 Let not fear tempt you to do it. Come freely to the 
 Lord’s table. Come in welcome. Come in confidence 
 and love. Come to swear eternal allegiance to the Prince 
 of Life. Come to be comforted, refreshed, strengthened. 
 Come in all your weakness. Come to be forgiven. Come 
 
CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 
 
 275 
 
 to take all the blessings which the God of bounty has 
 provided for sinners. Ye are a chosen generation. 
 God loves you, if you love Jesus. He will love you 
 to the end. From the bed of death he will transport 
 you home to a sinless heaven; and after your tears 
 and trials and conflicts, it shall be told, amid the hal- 
 leluiahs of the upper sanctuary, These are they which 
 have washed their robes and made them white in the blood 
 of the Lamb. 
 
XVII. 
 
 Jfk tbcnt icr % <2mb. 
 
 “Now, before the feast of tlie passover, when Jesus knew that his 
 hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the 
 Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved 
 them unto the end.”— John xiii, 1. 
 
 I T was not without design that we arranged the exercises 
 which come around this season, and the ideas which 
 we proposed to present to you from this passage, so as to 
 bring the concluding exercise before you this morning. 
 You are here to-day on another communion festival. You 
 are coming to the table of the Lord. You have stepped 
 over another of those spaces which separate one sacramental 
 occasion from another; and now, as you recollect who it 
 is that has spared you, has held you up, and helped you 
 on, you remember that you have got so much nearer the 
 end, and come to-day to set up another of those way-marks 
 which denote your progress towards the city of God. You 
 have been accustomed to heed these seasons with strong 
 and peculiar interest. You have been accustomed to look 
 forward to them, and, surrounded with memorials of life’s 
 frailty, to reflect that you could not be certain of reaching 
 another. You have been accustomed to look back upon 
 them, and as you added one more to the list you were 
 numbering up, you took it as a fresh memorial to be 
 cherished among your grateful recollections. You have 
 been accustomed to enter into the exercises of these occa- 
 
HE LOVED THEM TO THE END. 
 
 sions, fearful that your heart would fall beneath their love, 
 that your soul would not respond to the measure of your 
 Lord’s affection, and that you would be forced to go out 
 from the table of your Lord, the burden still heavy upon 
 your heart, and darkness and clouds still hanging over the 
 pathway that conducts you to another world. It would 
 not be strange if such a mournful sensibility and fear pos- 
 sessed your soul this moment. The most difficult of all 
 the offices of a minister of the gospel is, unquestionably, 
 to conduct the worship of such occasions properly, to lead 
 the minds and hearts of the people so into the truth of 
 God, into the love of Jesus, that they shall come up to 
 such seasons in a fit frame of mind to commune with God, 
 and go, profited, confirmed, and cheered, to lead more holy 
 lives, and prepare more rapidly for death and heaven. 
 And while, in our continued exercises, we have aimed to 
 conduct you rightly towards the communion table, as we 
 have unfolded this text, it may be, it must be, that we have 
 failed to profit some of you, and you still fear that the sun 
 will go down upon you to-night, and leave you no more 
 like Christ and heaven than you were when it rose upon 
 you this morning! 
 
 These are precious seasons. They ought not to be lost. 
 They are covenant occasions. Christ opens the door of his 
 banqueting-house. He calls ! He calls to you ! God 
 bows the heavens. The Holy Ghost comes down. There 
 breathes over these solemnities the atmosphere of another 
 world, and the soul ought not to be profitless where 
 Jehovah proposes to take the sinner into an alliance wdtli 
 himself ! 
 
 And though you have gone over these passages of the 
 text before, — though you have wrestled in prayer as you 
 looked forward to this day, — still, there is a deeper mea- 
 sure in this love mentioned in the text than earthly lips 
 
278 
 
 HE LOVED THEM TO TIIE END. 
 
 and earthly aids are sufficient to make you understand ! 
 Pause, then, again ! Stop on the threshold this morning ! 
 Think, sinner, what you are, and what Jesus Christ is. 
 You — wretch, outcast, unworthy, sold under the curse, on 
 the high road to hell, the enemy of God ; Jesus Christ still 
 loved you. His love brought him from heaven. It bore 
 him through a life of sorrows. It nailed him to the cross. 
 If there is any one failure of human nature more signal 
 than any other, it is the failure to be duly influenced and 
 affected by the eternal, unfailing love of the Son of God ! 
 Pause, then. Lift up your heart and plead for aid. Say 
 to the risen Saviour, O thou Rock of Ages , thou infinite 
 Author of these solemnities, aid thy frail creature ! Thou 
 didst perfect thy work upon the cross ; come now and per- 
 fect it in this heart ! O God, let this love, these solemni- 
 ties, be our salvation ! Let the incarnation of thy Son, 
 the sorrows and sufferings of liis remembered history, the 
 wrath which he bore, — not for himself, but poured on his 
 head as he stood a victim for us, — his prayers, and tears, 
 and strong crying, his insults, his crown of thorns, his robe 
 of mockery, his vinegar and gall, the death to which thou 
 didst deliver him up, the faithfulness and power by which 
 thou didst raise him from the dead loaded with the spoils 
 of death and hell, — let all these truths, this wondrous love, 
 work, by thy good Spirit, our souls’ eternal salvation ! 
 
 We are not come unto the mount that might be touched , 
 and that burned with fire , nor unto blackness and darkness 
 and tempest ... .but we are come unto Mount Sion , and unto 
 the city of the living God , the heavenly Jerusalem . ... to the 
 general assembly and church of the first-born , which are 
 written in heaven , and to God the Judge of all ... . and to 
 Jesus the mediator of the new covenant , and to the blood of 
 
 sprinkling God of peace , who brought again from 
 
 the dead our Lord Jesus , that great Shepherd of the sheep , 
 
TIE LOVED THEM TO THE EXD. 
 
 279 
 
 through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make me per- 
 fect in every good work , to do thy will, working in me that 
 which is well pleasing in thy sight, through J esus Christ , to 
 whom be glory for ever. 
 
 And may God hear your prayer, and aid you to under- 
 stand the love of Christ , who loved his own ivliich were in 
 the world , and loved them to the end! 
 
 We will not trouble you to listen to even the briefest 
 outline of our three former sermons on this text. You 
 have been told of the Saviour’s life and love. His life, 
 his death, demonstrated his love. Let your hearts take 
 up the subject where we left it. They will do so without 
 any reluctance, when we announce to you the doctrine of 
 this morning. The love of Christ is a most wonderful love , 
 and ought most sensibly and perpetually to affect us. This 
 is our doctrine. We name to you eight particular ideas 
 for its elucidation : — 
 
 1. The freeness and sovereignty of Christ’s love. 
 
 2. His love was personal. 
 
 3. It was spontaneous and disinterested. 
 
 4. It was unlimited by the condition and character of 
 sinners who needed it. 
 
 5. It lasts to liis chosen people through all their changes 
 and trials. 
 
 6. Its magnitude is inconceivable. 
 
 7. It is unchangeable. 
 
 8. It is eternal, and ever more and more unfolding its 
 excellences. 
 
 These are the ideas, and although too many for our 
 time, we cannot spare any of them. 
 
 1. The love of Christ is infinitely free and sovereign. 
 It was from the beginning one of the promptings of his 
 own nature. If we look for the cause of it in man, we 
 shall look in vain. There w T as nothing in the lost race of 
 
280 
 
 1 IE LOVED THEM TO THE EXD. 
 
 sinners to furnish any claim to his favour. Never was 
 punishment more justly due, and so loudly called for. 
 The greatest of all possible evils had been perpetrated by 
 our lost race ; the greatest of all indignities had been 
 offered to the God of heaven. The righteous penalty of 
 the law might have been suffered, without the least im- 
 propriety, to take its course, and the pathway of humanity 
 which leads out of this world might have been left to lead 
 every mortal that traverses it down to the wretchedness 
 and horrors of the lost! The glories of the Godhead 
 would for ever have been untarnished; not an angel in 
 heaven would have wondered, after seeing the dreadful 
 rebellion of this world, if the groans of every death-bed 
 had been tempered with the horrors of hell, and as earth 
 lost an inhabitant the pit had gained another victim. God 
 was under no obligation to save us. Christ was under no 
 obligation to redeem us. The race was guilty and lost ; 
 the grave opened her mouth, and hell was moving toward 
 her prey. Jesus Christ, the Ancient of days , the eternal 
 Son of God, equal with the Father, beheld a vast multi' 
 tude of immortal beings, lost. They were lost to all 
 righteousness; lost to hope, to happiness, and to God. 
 They were lost, under all the righteous economy of God, 
 his holy law and providence, to all eternity. No extent 
 of suffering could save them ; it would neither expiate 
 their sin, nor, leading them to repentance, cause them to 
 cease from its perpetration. They were wretched , and 
 miserable , and poor , and blind , and naked. This Jesus 
 Christ, this King of ineffable glory, took a motive for their 
 deliverance from the benevolence of his own nature. He 
 was drawn to the work of redemption solely by his own 
 good-will. 
 
 There is, we are fully persuaded there is, — an extent to 
 the significance of this idea which we shall scarcely be 
 
7IE LOVED THEM TO TIIE END. 
 
 28 1 
 
 able to make you comprehend. We are aware that bene- 
 volence forms a part of the divine character, and that if 
 the Deity could cease to possess this quality in an infinite 
 degree, he would cease to be the Deity, the ever blessed 
 God. We are aware, also, that his own glory is enhanced 
 by the salvation of sinners ; that that display of the moral 
 perfections of the Godhead which hangs such wonders of 
 excellence and moral beauty around the salvation of sin- 
 ners, shall be admired and wondered at by adoring angels 
 in heaven, and all the redeemed of the Lord for ever. The 
 Bible will not let us forget that those outgoings of infinite 
 wisdom and power and love from the Godhead which 
 reach this revolted world ; which throw barriers across 
 the sinner’s pathway to hell; which have erected the 
 cross just by the side of it, compelling him, if he will go 
 to perdition, to go there wading in the blood of the Ke- 
 deemer of men ; which have flung wide open the pathway 
 to heaven, and poured down light thereon from the throne 
 of glory ; which have mingled a cup of consolation for 
 dying lips; which have gathered already an innumerable 
 company of happy saints into the city of God, to be with 
 God, and be like God, and enjoy God for ever and ever, 
 — the Bible will not let us forget that these achievements 
 of salvation are for the honour of Jehovah, to the praise 
 of the glory of his grace . But, after all, if we are not mis- 
 taken in the Bible’s meaning, the free, sovereign love of 
 J esus Christ for sinners took its rise from something else 
 than those motives of glory. The Bible certainly does 
 lead us often to step off in our contemplations from all 
 created foundations, and stand upon the steps that lead 
 up to the eternal throne. As we take our place there, it 
 rehearses in our ears, Jehovah hath made all things for 
 himself. We would not forget the lesson. But, if we err 
 not the Bible never mentions this idea to us except for 
 
282 
 
 TIE LOVED THEM TO THE END. 
 
 two purposes. One is a very dreadful one. It is- to bring 
 all tlie terrors of God to bear on the hearts of the ungodly. 
 It is to bid defiance to the pride of Pharaohs and Nebu- 
 chadnezzars, and Herods and Pilates, and let them know, 
 — every rebellious heart among the ungodly know, — that 
 they cannot even sin except by sufferance, and if they will 
 rebel, God has his bridle in their mouths , and his hook 
 in their nose , and will finally glorify his justice when he 
 locks them in hell. The Bible often does this; it says of 
 wicked men and wicked devils, God will be glorified; he 
 will make even their malice to glorify him. 
 
 The other purpose is a very blessed one. If by ex- 
 perience we know anything about the matter, the most 
 difficult of all persuasions of truth to bring home to the 
 human heart is the full and perfect persuasion of the 
 favour of God. When his awful attributes are known, and 
 the sinner’s own unworthiness and guilt are known ; when 
 the realized purity of God brings its light into the heart, 
 to detect its vileness, to reveal its guilt, and especially to 
 disclose to the sinner the awful imperfection of even his 
 repentance, his contrition, — that we cannot even be miser- 
 able rightly; then it is that despair begins to gather its 
 horrors, and the sinner is ready to say, God cannot save 
 me ! I must lie down in woe ! To meet this erroneous 
 conclusion, the Bible takes up the same argument as be- 
 fore. It lets the sinner make himself as vile and guilty 
 as he can. But, after all, it shows him that God can 
 draw motives for saving him from his own infinite perfec- 
 tions and glory. It asks him to step off from creation, to 
 stand up by the throne of the Infinite One, and hear those 
 words issuing from the lips of him who sitteth upon it, 
 
 Fou mine own sake for the sake of my own 
 
 great name. The Bible bids defiance to despair just as it 
 bids defiance to daring. It tells the trembling sinner, 
 
I IE LO VED TIIEM TO THE END . 
 
 283 
 
 ready to drop into hell, that God can save him, from 
 motives drawn from his own infinite and uncreated nature. 
 
 Beyond these two objects, we are not aware that the 
 Scriptures ever resort to this argument. Certainly, their 
 most common account of the love of God to sinners does 
 not attribute that love to the desire of God to enhance his 
 own glory. Jesus Christ’s love w T as infinitely pure and 
 free and sovereign. The Deity will be glorified by it ; 
 but love, spontaneous, free, sovereign, the benevolence of 
 his own nature, brought Jesus Christ from the skies, and 
 took him to the manger, the cross, and the tomb. If it 
 were just to enter into any such abstractions, if the Deity 
 could ever act without any reference to his own glory and 
 honour, we would say to you that Jesus Christ would have 
 done all he has to save you, moved by his own benevo- 
 lence and your miseries, without any regard to the glories 
 resulting from his redeeming achievements. 
 
 But you have the idea. He came to your redemption, 
 drawn by his own good-will. To accomplish it, an in- 
 finite sacrifice was indispensable. This sacrifice he offered. 
 He obeyed, he suffered, he died. He freely gave himself 
 up for you. He made his soul an offering for sin. The 
 soil of this guilty world drank his blood. His lifeless and 
 mangled body was carried to the grave. Scarcely for a 
 righteous man will one die. Christ commendeth his love 
 toivard us , in that while we were yet sinners , he died for 
 the ungodly. 
 
 2. The love of Christ was personal. Our hearts would 
 fail of something which they ought to apprehend if we 
 suffered not this idea to enter them. If we merely re- 
 garded the sufferings of the Saviour as a great govern- 
 mental transaction, having its primary or sole reference to 
 the universe, or world at large, our impressions would be 
 too general, and cold, and unaffecting. The whole go- 
 
284 
 
 HE LOVED THEM TO THE END. 
 
 veniment of God, indeed, will be affected by tlie Saviour’s 
 death, but that is only incidental. Christ died, my 
 hearers, for just such creatures as you and I; to save just 
 such guilty souls. The very first trophy of his sacrifice, 
 after his own death, was a thief whom be pardoned on the 
 cross, and took along with him as he went up to the 
 paradise of God. That guilty, polluted being he made the 
 companion of his journey as he entered into the world of 
 glory. Those polluted lips, which, quivering in death, 
 could only utter on earth the beseeching cry, Lord , remem- 
 ber me token thou comest into thy kingdom, before the sun 
 went down upon the world were uttering words of glory 
 in heaven, Who loved me and gave himself a ransom for 
 me. That very thief, whose ignominy and shame were 
 designed to enhance the Saviour’s own, was washed by 
 his blood, and borne away to be an eternal monument to 
 his praise. You are as welcome, every sinner of you — 
 you are as welcome to the love of .Jesus as he was. If 
 you wfill come to Christ, he will love you as personally as 
 lie loved him. He will pardon you as freely. Amd when 
 you die, he will conduct you as he did him in the same 
 opened path to immortality. He will come again , and re- 
 ceive you unto himself and translate you to the house of 
 many mansions. The gospel brings you a personal offer. 
 The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy 
 
 heart , that if thou shalt believe the Lord Jesus , thou 
 
 shalt be saved . 
 
 3. The Saviour’s love was disinterested. He could do 
 without sinners. For himself it was not necessary that he 
 should save them. He was infinitely above the possibility 
 of wanting anything from the hands of any created being. 
 He was supremely glorious and happy. In the bosom of 
 the Father he enjoyed, from all eternity, the boundless 
 and ineffable delights of his complacency. Heaven was 
 
HE LOVED THEM TO THE END. 
 
 285 
 
 his throne. The universe rose at his bidding. For by 
 him were all things created that are in heaven and that are 
 m earth , visible and invisible , whether they be thrones or 
 dominions , or principalities or powers , all things were 
 created by him and for him. If this world fell, lie could 
 spare it. If its inhabitants revolted, he could spare them. 
 He had made other worlds and other races of beings, and 
 he could do it again. If he had chosen to annihilate the 
 world and all that was in it, or had chosen to leave a 
 guilty race to tread their dark way down to their deserved 
 doom, the world, the race, would scarcely have been missed 
 from the immensity of his works. Thrones , and princi- 
 
 palities , and powers would still have stood in heaven, and 
 myriads of voices would still have swelled the eternal 
 halleluiahs in the temple of God. This world gone, Christ, 
 who made it, could easily have made another in its place, 
 and the spot where we now stand might have been filled 
 with beings more excellent, exalted, and happy, sinless, 
 and praising and enjoying their Creator. Jesus Christ 
 could make another world easier than he could redeem 
 this. For that purpose he would need no manger-cradle, 
 no form of a servant , no gibes and sneers of sinners, no 
 cross, no grave. But had he done so, there would have 
 been no hope for you. He preferred to save you. He pre- 
 ferred to leave the throne, out of disinterested love to 
 miserable sinners, and to endure the depths of humilia- 
 tion and pain, to pluck them out of the jaws of destruc- 
 tion. It was his love that moved him to it. It was his de- 
 light to be the friend of the friendless, the helper of the 
 feeble and lost. He rejoiced, and he rejoices still, he 
 makes it his glory and delight, to pardon the guilty, to 
 accept and sanctify the sinful, to hold up the faltering 
 and the weak, to encourage the contrite and fearful, to 
 speak heaven’s peace to the heart of penitence' to throw 
 
286 
 
 HE LO VED THEM TO THE END . 
 
 heaven’s light over the track in which sinners travel to 
 eternity. It is because Jesus Christ delights to bless the 
 wretched that he loved his own unto the end. His love is 
 disinterested and spontaneous. 
 
 4. Jesus Christ’s love is unlimited by anything in the 
 condition and character of those who need it. It has ex- 
 tended to man in all ages since the hill. It has extended 
 its consolations to the dying beggar on his bed of straw, 
 and the dying prince, who needs them just as much, upon 
 the softness that pillows royalty. Kings are not above it, 
 and beggars not below it. It reaches expiring infancy and 
 expiring age. It is offered with perfect freeness to the 
 sinner at the first moment when felt truth, and the Holy 
 Spirit accompanying it, causes him to realize that he needs 
 it; and it is offered with the same freeness to him when 
 years have blanched his locks, and, the Holy Ghost not 
 yet having forsaken him, he sometimes painfully feels that 
 such an old man ought to get ready to die. Rebellion and 
 hardihood, even that sin of awfulness which many of you 
 here commit when you grieve the Spirit of God, when, 
 troubled and convicted, you will not pray, and will not 
 repent, and will not turn to the love of Christ, even that 
 sin does not limit its application and offer. That sin, in- 
 deed, is fast preparing many of your hearts to be proof 
 against it, hard as the nether mill-stone; but even now*, 
 after so many sins, after so many slighted invitations and 
 warnings, after so many resisted divine influences, the 
 love of Christ is not denied to you. No sinner here goes 
 down to hell but he goes there spurning the Prince of Life, 
 and breaking loose from all the cords of love that infinite 
 benevolence could entwine around him. 
 
 5. The love of Christ lasts to its objects through all their 
 vicissitudes. If it is once accepted by a sinner, in sin- 
 cerity and truth, it will never forsake him. Two causes 
 
HE LOVED THEM TO THE END. 
 
 287 
 
 forbid it. One is, that such an acceptance of Christ by 
 faith has wrought an experience in his heart which he can 
 never forget. If he has ever known what it was to rest 
 his immortal soul on tbe Eock of Ages, to be reconciled to 
 God by the death of his Son , to love God and be forgiven, 
 to stand out on the borders of this perishable world, and 
 know that Jesus and his love are what he wants, and all 
 he wants, as the ashes of the universe are under his feet 
 — such an experience of faith and love and hope will leave 
 influences in his heart that can never be utterly destroyed. 
 You might as soon think to convince a man by putting out 
 his eyes that it is not good for him to see, and make him 
 willing to abide in his dreadful midnight. A soul that 
 has once known the love of Christ , just as long as it re- 
 tains the consciousness of its own identity, and just as 
 surely, will retain the deep-seated consciousness that 
 Christ is what it needs, and the spontaneous and supreme 
 desire to choose him for its portion. The other cause is, 
 that the faithfulness of a covenant God shall stand. 
 Grace originated with the Saviour. Ye have not chosen me, 
 but I have chosen you . Christ did not find in the sinner any 
 holiness to induce his love for him; and he will not find 
 in him, after he has chosen him, any unworthiness and 
 sin sufficient to induce him to withdraw it. He enters 
 into covenant with the soul. He promises the sure 
 mercies of David. His love lasts through all the sinner’s 
 vicissitudes. 
 
 6. Jesus Christ’s love is great beyond all conception. 
 When St. Paul undertook to express the idea of its mag- 
 nitude, he coined a new phrase in human language — to 
 know the love of Christ which ytasseth knowledge. It was 
 this love which caused the most wonderful thing winch 
 the Deity ever performed. It brought the Son of God to 
 that end which you arc to memorialize to-day. And 
 
288 
 
 HE LOVED THEM TO THE END . 
 
 Christ’s love was not exhausted when he had died on the 
 cross. If it brought him into the world, it took him out 
 of it. If it brought him down from the throne to the 
 tomb, it took him from Mount Olivet to glory. I go to 
 prepare a place for you . The business of Jesus Christ 
 now is to execute the office of his priesthood. He com- 
 menced his intercession in that sacramental prayer recorded 
 by St. John, and he continues it now within the veil. I 
 ivill not leave you comfortless; I will come to you . He 
 does come. Ascended up above all heavens as he is, lie 
 bends from that height of greatness to this miserable 
 world. He condescends to sinners and worms of the dust. 
 He is touched with a feeling of our infirmities. He comes 
 here to pity and save the polluted and immortal spirit, to 
 pour the balm of comfort over its woes, to secure it from' 
 the perils of its enemies, and conduct it through the gates 
 of death up to the regions of immortality. And in that 
 prepared heaven the love of Jesus will still be amazingly 
 great. His people will be owned before the Father and 
 the holy angels. They will walk with Christ in white, 
 amid the unutterable bliss and glories of the city of God. 
 
 7. This love of Jesus is unchangeable. To the end , says 
 our text. Jesus Christ , the same yesterday , to-day , and 
 for ever , says St. Paul. The promise stands good to every 
 one of his people. Not a soul is forgotten. Never a 
 sinner took up his journey of pilgrimage after Christ to- 
 ward the new Jerusalem; but, amid all his dangers, dis- 
 tresses, and fears, the unchangeable love of Jeslis adminis- 
 tered consolations to him, neither few nor small. If you 
 are persuaded of his love when you behold him taking the 
 cup of wrath out of the Father’s hand, standing, to silence 
 the thunders of heaven with his blood, you may know that 
 the same love which brought him to this is just as intense 
 now as it was then. He loves sinners now when lie is in 
 
JTE LOVED THEM TO THE END. 
 
 289 
 
 glory just as tenderly as lie loved tlicm when on earth his 
 lips were vocal with the promises, or, on the cross, his 
 soul was made an offering for sin. 
 
 8. Christ’s love to his people will be eternal, and more 
 and more unfold its excellences. Notwithstanding all the 
 benefits he confers on them in this life, and all the 
 blessedness their hearts here experience in his love, they 
 have no adequate measure for what he is going to do. 
 They never died. They never came back from the putre- 
 faction and darkness of the cold, damp vaults of death, 
 amid the glories of the resurrection. They never took 
 flight on the wings of immortality to meet the Lord in the 
 air. They never cleaved their way up to the throne of 
 heaven, and stood before God in robes washed and made 
 white in the blood of the Lamb. But they will. Christ’s 
 love has all this in store for them. It is eternal. He 
 does not forsake them in death. Love, the love of 
 Christ, puts underneath them the everlasting arms. It 
 forms a part of almost every believer’s experience, to find 
 the love of Jesus more and more wonderful as it goes 
 along with him, and soothes and sustains him as new 
 trials and hardships are encountered. He finds this love 
 of Jesus does for him more than he ever expected. And 
 so it is going to be for ever. If the penitent sinner found 
 the love of Christ different from what lie expected when 
 he first fell at his feet; if the tried believer has found it 
 an unexpected sufficiency as one comfort after another 
 failed, and as he has passed through trials which he never 
 expected to bear, death, the grave, eternity, are not going 
 to change this economy. The love of Christ has new 
 wonders in store for us. We shall meet them at every 
 step. Christ will not forsake his people in death. If, 
 at this end of the dark valley, their fainting heart and 
 quivering lips cannot utter it, they shall utter it on the 
 19 
 
290 
 
 JTE LOVED TEEM TO THE END. 
 
 ears of angels, at the other end, Thanhs be to God wko 
 givetli us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ ! as 
 they take their flight towards glory on the breath of this 
 exultation. 
 
 Christ’s love will not leave his people in the grave. 
 The morn of the resurrection shall shine on them. It 
 shall disclose them as they return from the sepulchre, 
 spiritual bodies raised in incorruption , and made like unto 
 Christ's own glorious body. 
 
 Christ’s love will not leave his people when the heavens 
 are on fire. Their bodies, already gathered out of their 
 graves and re-entered by their happy souls, come from the 
 bosom of God to claim them, in that dreadful day of the 
 perdition of ungodly men, they will rise above the ashes of 
 a burnt world, on wings of love and immortality, to meet 
 Christ in the air. 
 
 Christ’s love will not fail his people at the tribunal of the 
 final judgment. He will confess them, and claim them 
 before the Father and the holy angels ; and if the idea of 
 a cup of cold water that he mentions astonishes us now, 
 what infinite rapture will it pour over the redeemed spirit 
 then, to look away to an eternal heaven of infinite per- 
 fection and glory, as the gracious reward of the poor ser- 
 vice which he strove to render Christ here, while, in tears 
 and sorrow, he aimed to sow to the Spii'it. Then the 
 people of Christ shall cleave their way up to the final 
 city of God. They shall enter upon their inheritance. 
 They shall see God and be like him. They shall love God, 
 and God will love them. Standing on the hills of the 
 heavenly Jerusalem, the trophies of the love of Jesus, 
 clothed in the splendours of immortality, they shall know, 
 
 - — it shall be their high privilege to sing that anthem of 
 redemption, Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our 
 sins in his own blood, while the ages of eternity roll on. 
 
IIE LOVED THEM TO THE END. 
 
 291 
 
 Such is the love of Christ. It is a wonderful love, and 
 ought most sensibly to affect us. You are to memorialize 
 it to-day. I know not what to say to you. I feel pained 
 and ashamed and unfit to stand here, I confess, when I can 
 affect you no more with such an infinite theme. My 
 dear friends, take up this matter for your own souls. I 
 know some of you can find ideas to affect you. Some of 
 you have other friends in heaven beside Jesus. They love 
 him; they are infinitely affected by his dying compassion. 
 If they could return to you to-day, if our departed 
 brethren and sisters and elders could come down to us, our 
 sainted fathers and mothers, what words they would utter 
 about heaven and the love which took them there ! Try 
 to speak to yourselves as they would speak to you. Try 
 to love Jesus as they love him. And come, to-day, to be 
 duly sensible of that love of Christ which you memorialize, 
 and which you expect will soon make you companions of 
 your friends in heaven. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 Me lobe pint, ficatusc '%)t first lofiefi Es. 
 
 “ We love him, because be first loved us.” — 1 John iv. 19. 
 
 I F any man on this side the valley of death ever needs 
 to know God rightly and himself rightly, surely a be- 
 liever needs to do so on a day like this. This is the day 
 of the Lord’s covenant. It is the day of the believer’s 
 solemn ratification of it for Ins own soul. The bread is 
 going to be broken. The wine is going to be poured out. 
 The lips that have been opened in prayer are going to be 
 opened to receive the sacred emblems ; and hearts, hearts 
 called off from the world and sin ta act in these high 
 solemnities, are going* to open to meet God, and transact 
 business with him for the world to come. Who is sufficient 
 for these things ? May the Holy Ghost aid us ! We need 
 to know justly the God with whom we are covenanting, 
 — and the hearts on whose covenant emotions God will 
 assuredly either smile or frown. Solemn, awful ideas ! 
 You will go from his table this afternoon under the smiles 
 of the eternal God, who has bowed the heavens and come 
 down to your communion seat, who has entered your com- 
 munion heart, who has heard your communion prayers, 
 and will remember till the day of judgment your com- 
 munion love ; or you will go from it (whether you are 
 sensible of it or not) under the indignant frown of the 
 Holy One — Who hath required this at your hands ? — be- 
 
WE LO VE HIM , EEC A USE HE FIRST LO VED US. 293 
 
 cause your heart in this solemn ordinance hath been so 
 far from its due frame that its emotions have virtually de- 
 clared, The table of the Lord is contemptible! To that 
 smile or that frown you look forward this morning. You 
 cannot avoid it. 
 
 Sometimes when hope trembles, when faith is weak, 
 when doubts and fears and darkness trouble the bosom of 
 the contemplating communicant, and his trembling lips 
 whisper, lie that eateth and drinketli unworthily — then he 
 feels a disposition creeping over his heart to abstain from 
 the ordinance, lest he fall under the frown he fears. But 
 if lie yield to that disposition, his yielding will do him 
 no good. Certainly will God frown upon him if he turn 
 away. lie requires him to commune. Abstaining cannot 
 relieve him from his perplexity. God will not be his God 
 if he will not trust in him and obey him. Jesus Christ 
 will not come in and sup with him , if he closes the door 
 of his heart against him. All he can do is to flee to the 
 divine mercy, and hide himself in the divine covenant. 
 He needs to know God and know himself. 
 
 To aid him in this necessity the words of the text are 
 most appropriate : We love him , because he first loved us. 
 The believer ought to be able to speak thus. 
 
 The text proclaims a fact respecting God. He first 
 loved us. 
 
 It proclaims a fact respecting believers, We love him. 
 
 It affirms that this fact respecting believers grows out 
 of this fact respecting God. We love him , because he 
 first loved us. 
 
 These are the three ideas of the text. Our considera- 
 tion of them will first take them apart ; and then, accord- 
 ing to the mode of the text, put them together. 
 
 We need to know God rightly. He first loved us. 
 
 The expressions which precede the text show what was 
 
294 
 
 WE LOVE HIM , 
 
 in tlie mind of tlie divine writer when he uttered these 
 words. Pie was thinking of Jesus Christ. He had been 
 trained among the disciples. He had been with his Mas- 
 ter on the mountain, on the lake of storms, amid the sick, 
 among comforted hearts that leaped for joy as Christ 
 raised their loved ones to life, on the mount of glory when 
 Moses and Elias came down, and Christ talked to them 
 of the decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem; 
 and from the garden of Gethsemane he had gone to the 
 closing scene of the crucifixion. And now, when his 
 faith was confirmed by more light, and his love mellowed 
 by a thousand experiences, and he looks back through the 
 mist of years, he remembers the crucifixion as well as 
 ever. He knows what it means. He knows it is the 
 bright lesson of the love of God. In this (says he, in the 
 ninth verse) was manifested the lore of God toward us, 
 because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world 
 that we might live through him. And he knows the grand 
 purpose for which Christ came. He knows that that pur- 
 pose, and the bloody mode of its accomplishment, are the 
 height of all possible demonstration of the love of God. 
 Consequently (in the tenth verse) he says, Herein is love, 
 not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son 
 to be the propitiation for our sins. He knows that Jesus 
 Christ came for no mere purposes of instruction; a pro- 
 phet or an apostle could have given that. He knows that 
 he came for no mere example; a holy man could have 
 given that. He knows that Jesus Christ came to do what 
 no mere creature could do, — to grapple with the justice of 
 God, to bear the penalty of the law, and by his life-blood 
 to rescue the guilty (who loved him not) from the deserved 
 and coming doom of the eternal anger of God. Between 
 that anger and the sinner he stood. He bore its strokes. 
 He bared his head, and the blow prepared for the sinner 
 
BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US. 
 
 295 
 
 fell on him. Much as God loved him, so he treated him. 
 So he treated him, for us. St. John remembers it, and 
 hence he says again, We have seen and do testify that the 
 Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. 
 
 This is what St. John was thinking of when he uttered 
 the text. This is the manifestation of the love of God. 
 We need not now say a single word more to unfold to you 
 the love of God, by any idea of the nature of the gift. 
 He gave his Son ; and your meditations have been where 
 your heart will be this afternoon, on this wonderful 
 bestowment. 
 
 But it may serve to aid your correct appreciation of 
 this love of God if we explain it in respect to its objects. 
 God had no complacency in them. He could not have. 
 They were sinners. They had broken his law, and all the 
 evil of their subsequent experiences in sin had only 
 wedded them more and more to its perpetration. You 
 will search the Bible in vain for the idea, or any resem- 
 blance to the idea, that God loved us because of any excel- 
 lence in our character. No such idea is there. Bible 
 theology constantly maintains that human nature is fallen 
 and vile. With equal clearness does it affirm man’s guilt 
 as he deserves punishment, and man’s sinfulness as he 
 loves the very sin which renders him guilty. In his 
 natural heart there is not a single quality to commend 
 him to the love of God. It would be very different with 
 him if he had perpetrated his offence only in some moment 
 of weakness, or by some sudden surprise, and after find- 
 ing out his evil, mourned over it and turned from its con- 
 tinued perpetration. It would be very different with him 
 if he had only fallen into sin, and were thus liable to 
 punishment justly, and, after experience in it, were un- 
 willing to continue in it any longer. But it is not so 
 with him. He has the double evil of bad deservings and 
 
296 WE LOVE HIM , 
 
 bad disposition. He has first flung away his felicity, and 
 then hated it. 
 
 Such is man’s natural condition, and such his character. 
 He is depraved — an alien and an enemy of God. The 
 love, therefore, which God bore to him was not the love 
 of complacency, but of good-will ; it was not the love of 
 delight and approval, but the love of kindness. There 
 was nothing in man, in all his moral aspects and deserv- 
 ings which God could delight in. He was a guilty and 
 vile sinner. He had departed from God, and did not wish 
 to return. All his emotions were unholy, and therefore 
 there was nothing in him to draw forth the complacency 
 of the divine mind, or constitute any consideration to 
 prompt to God’s redeeming achievements. 
 
 The doctrine of human depravity has been called gloomy 
 and dreadful. Aside from the gospel, so it is. And un- 
 believers under the gospel (simply because they were 
 unbelievers) have recoiled from its conviction, from com- 
 ing down to the humble place it assigns to them. But 
 with the gospel, if our hearts will only believe it, this truth 
 about our entire depravity has a most glorious bearing. 
 It helps to explain to us the love of God. He did not 
 love ns because we deserved it. He did not love us be- 
 cause he saw among the defilements of our character some 
 lingering traces of holiness, some spots of light and pro- 
 mise, which won him to our relief. If he had, and under 
 that observation had moved towards us on the high-road 
 of an opened reconciliation, and had offered us pardon, 
 and had called out into reclaiming exercise the traces of 
 good he had discovered in our hearts, we will not say such 
 a movement would not have been admirable, but we will say 
 that it would have been imeasurably beneath the majesty 
 and the adorable wonders of the movement v 7 e contemplate. 
 
 God loved us in our depravity, in our entire depravity. 
 
BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US. 
 
 297 
 
 When we see this, the glorious truth brings us up to a 
 vast elevation above the grovelling of such sentiments as 
 attribute the love of the Deity for us, to his discernment 
 of some excellences in us which deserved his love. He 
 made no such discovery. He loved us without it. He 
 loved like a God. It is a very different thing to overlook 
 imperfections there may be in character, and, notwith- 
 standing all the repulsiveness there may be in them, to 
 love still, on account of some discovered excellences, some 
 lingering traits which may be nursed into excellences, 
 from what it is to love in the very face of deformity, pol- 
 lution, and vileness ! In this latter way, God loved us 
 — not from the lingering attractions of our character, but 
 from the adorable grace of his own kindness. We, be- 
 lieving in the entire depravity of man, have this high 
 idea of God. We carry out his love, to a different thing, 
 to an altogether different sphere of action. We make his 
 love itself a different thing — heaven-higli above all the 
 conceptions of it which a man can ever entertain who 
 believes that God loved us because he saw something in 
 us to be loved. 
 
 It is on the foundation of this love of God, on this 
 fixed and settled conviction of its unequalled nature, that 
 believers love him. And this is what is intended in those 
 numerous passages of Scripture which link together a 
 Christian love and a Christian faith. Faith worketh by 
 love . The meaning is, that faith in the heart originates 
 love in the heart; that when a sinner has become fully 
 sensible of his undone condition and depraved character, 
 and has been led to believe in God as exercising still a 
 strength and sincerity of love to him on the mere prin- 
 ciple of his own inexpressible and formerly unappreliended 
 and unbelieved goodness, then this faith, this new state 
 of heart (a state impossible to an unbeliever in man’s 
 
298 
 
 WE LOVE HIM, 
 
 depravity) worlceth out in the heart those affections of 
 gratitude, of admiration, of delight and confidence, which, 
 blending in mysterious union, constitute what we call 
 love . It is not easy to analyze and explain the passion. 
 The heart understands it better than the intellect. Re- 
 mark, only, love has admiration in it; and admiration 
 rises to an adoring emotion when God is seen working 
 out his way of relief down to our miserable abode, over 
 all the obstacles of a combined guiltiness and enmity to 
 him. Love has gratitude in it, — if no other, at least the 
 gratitude of some generous emotion for a believed kindly 
 regard; — and gratitude rises to a new height when faith 
 sees God doing the most wonderful of all his works in the 
 facts of Bethlehem and Calvary and Arimathea, to save 
 sinners from hell and lift them to heaven. Love has 
 something of delight in it, delight in its object; and over 
 the whole character of God there gathers a new and 
 glorious aspect of loveliness and majesty and beauty, 
 when faith beholds him giving exaltation to his dignity 
 by pitying the poorest sinner that ever groaned and died. 
 Love has confidence in it; and confidence, after finding 
 no spot of repose, after being driven and tossed about, 
 driven from one tract of sinful humanity to another, from 
 one work of humanity to another, driven from attribute 
 to attribute of God, finds a glorious spot of repose when 
 faith sees God himself holding out signals of relief, and 
 approaching the sinner on the very confines of hell. The 
 signals wave over the plains of Bethlehem, are planted on 
 the hill of the crucifixion, and are seen from Mount Olivet 
 in that bright track by which the Saviour ascended to his 
 God, now our God, and his Father, now T our Father. 
 
 And so we might go on. If there are (and we could 
 ascertain and understand them) any other elements of 
 love, we should perceive faith to be the very principle to 
 
BECAUSE IIE FIRST LOVED US. 299 
 
 call them into existence. You must believe in God if you 
 would love him. You must believe in him as he reveals 
 himself in the way of propitiation for our sins. We 
 address to you the exhortation of St. Jude, But ye, beloved , 
 building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying 
 in the Holy Ghost , keep yourselves in the love of God. 
 You will be sure to love him if you believe in him rightly. 
 Try to believe as a communicant ought to do ; believe in a 
 love and a grace which you never deserved, but which the in- 
 finite God has demonstrated to you in the blood of his Son. 
 
 We feel entirely assured that the love of a Christian 
 toward God does and must originate in his faith in Jesus 
 Christ. We have not a particle of doubt that the com- 
 bining of these two things which we have been putting 
 together, in the believing mind of the Christian, originates 
 and cultures his affection of love to God. One of the 
 things is, God’s gracious, undeserved love toward him, 
 manifested (according to the chapter before us) in the gift 
 of his Son ; the other is, his own entire guiltiness and 
 enmity toward God. 
 
 This guiltiness and enmity he discovers in the pro- 
 cesses of his conviction, when, more and more, he finds 
 out the true state of his heart. This love of God toward 
 him he finds, ^and is constrained to resort to, when the 
 Holy Spirit has enlightened his darkened understanding, 
 convinced him of his sin and misery, has renewed his 
 will unto righteousness, and persuaded and enabled him 
 to embrace Jesus Christ, offered by God in grace and love, 
 to save him. 
 
 These are the two things most difficult to persuade 
 sinners fully and firmly to believe. They resist and reject 
 them both. There is a pride about their character, or an 
 ignorance in their understanding, or an obstinacy, or a 
 spirit of self-righteousness, or some such thing, or all of 
 
300 
 
 WE LOVE HIM, 
 
 these, which will not admit the conviction that they are 
 really the enemies of God, and under the condemnation of 
 his law. And connected with this, and sustained by 
 this, is an unbelief in the love and kindness and pity 
 which God actually bears- toward them. God has a love ; 
 he has it, and positively exercises it towards them, and 
 has demonstrated it as he has demonstrated nothing else 
 in the universe ; he has a positive love for them, which 
 they will not believe, which they hinder themselves from 
 believing, and shut away from their heart by the mere 
 processes of a self-justifying disposition. They will not 
 believe that man is dead in trespasses and sins , wholly 
 lost to righteousness in the sight of God, and under the 
 curse; and therefore it is utterly impossible that they 
 should have any just conception of that love of God which 
 offers to save, or should render the respect and homage 
 which belong to it. God is better, infinitely better than 
 they think him to be, or ever can or will think him to be, 
 till they fully believe in man’s depraved guiltiness and 
 enmity, and see the footsteps of God bending towards him 
 with the demonstrations of an infinite good-will. 
 
 And if the processes of sanctifying grace are prosper- 
 ously carried on in believers’ hearts, they will owe that 
 prosperity, under the Holy Spirit, to the influence of their 
 low ideas of themselves on the one hand, and their high 
 ideas of the redeeming love of God on the other. As 
 sanctification progresses, these two classes of ideas will 
 become more and more clear. They will aid one another ; 
 they will be blended into one another. Humility and 
 repentance will become more deep, not only from dis- 
 coveries of indwelling sin, but also from discoveries of 
 that abounding grace of God which can freely pardon an 
 unworthy creature, and sanctify a wayward and obstinate 
 one. Conscience will become more tender, both when the 
 
EEC A USE IIE FIRST LOVED US. 
 
 301 
 
 discovery is made liow easily sin besets , and that other 
 discovery, how offensive and opposed it is to the tender 
 regard of God for his people. The service of God will 
 become more pure, more willing and delightful, because 
 the believer will begin to see, on the one hand, more and 
 more of the sin there is in serving himself and the world, 
 arid, on the other, the infinite condescension of that love 
 of God which accepts and honours and prizes even his 
 little services sincerely rendered. In all the more per- 
 sonal and experimental religion of the believer his thoughts 
 will be passing and repassing from his own unworthiness 
 to God’s grace — from God’s grace back to his own un- 
 worthiness : sin in him, and love in God ; guilt in him, 
 and grace that saves him, will be ideas constantly blended. 
 Thus, from all that he learns of himself, and all that he 
 learns of God, he will say from the heart, We love him , 
 because he first loved us. 
 
 But there is one kind of argumentation (and it is espe- 
 cially apt to come into exercise on a day like this) — an 
 argumentation sometimes of a tender conscience, some- 
 times of a fearful heart, and sometimes too of an unbeliev- 
 ing one — which tends to put entirely away all the influ- 
 ences which we have tried to find in this verse. Let us 
 explain. When the love of God toward us is pleaded as 
 a ground of confidence in him, and employed for the pur- 
 pose of calling forth our love to him, there is a state of 
 heart which recoils from such a requiting affection, ?„nd 
 thinks it must recoil. One says, If I love God solely 
 because he loved me, I fear there is no sincerity of holi- 
 ness in my love to him, but merely the modification of a 
 sinful and selfish affection. The pride of an unbelieving 
 heart, as we said, the fear of a tremulous one, and a tender 
 conscience also, may give rise to this notion. We speak 
 more especially to the trouble of conscience and fear. My 
 
302 
 
 WE LOVE IIIM , 
 
 brethren, did yon ever remark that Satan strives to keep 
 Christians from comfort by precisely the same suggestions 
 which he employs to keep unbelievers from conversion ? 
 The idea before us is an example. The proud unbeliever, 
 too proud to depend on grace, and too haughty to be 
 affected by its winning offers, pretends, and perhaps be- 
 lieves, that he, if he ever loves God, will love him on some 
 higher principle than because God has loved him and 
 provided salvation for him. The tremulous believer, 
 fearful of defilement in a conscience which has so often 
 tormented him, checks his rising emotions of love to God, 
 because he is afraid they are unspiritual and unacceptable 
 • — loving God, because he first loved him. Note the lesson 
 we laid down to you: that Satan endeavours to hinder 
 the exercises of faith in precisely the same mode in which 
 he endeavours to hinder its origin. Here is a believer 
 hunting his heart to find something to commend its exer- 
 cises to God. There is an unbeliever employed in the 
 same sad manner. Neither of them (now when the be- 
 liever’s speculation has ice-bound his heart) consents to 
 be drawn to God by the cords of love which God’s own 
 fingers have woven. Both have now an imperfect notion 
 of human insufficiency on the one hand, and divine love 
 on the other. Our love is not our Saviour. God will 
 not accept it as such. Sad food for the Christian when 
 he strives to comfort and nourish himself on his own 
 exercises, instead of feeding gratefully on the bread of life 
 which came down from heaven . 
 
 But beyond this. The argumentation is a falsehood. 
 It is like all the suggestions of the devil. Bemember the 
 four following ideas : — 
 
 1. The redeeming love of God towards sinners is a 
 bright and blessed unfolding of God himself. It discloses 
 his character. It opens up an avenue to the knowledge 
 
BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US. 
 
 303 
 
 of that perfect Being, rendered to whom the best love is 
 the highest holiness. What if he is loved because he first 
 loved us? He is loved, after all, for what he is — for the 
 glorious excellence his redeeming work has unfolded. He 
 is loved as faith loves him, a faith which does not see 
 God like unbelief, a cold abstraction, a soulless system ; 
 but sees him in his true nature, and loves him on the just 
 principle, that is, because God is love. 
 
 2. Discriminate further. If we do love God because he 
 first loved us , our affection is not to be greatly distrusted 
 as partaking of the taint of an unholy selfishness. Selfish- 
 ness — what does it do ? It agrees with man’s natural 
 inclinations. It fosters them. It is not apt to restrain 
 them, if it can avoid it. If it does so, it does it from an 
 unworthy principle. It has few crosses. There are no 
 self-denials among its lessons. But this love to God 
 because he first loved us — I appeal to the whole earthly 
 history of holiness whether it hath not been the efficient 
 principle to make man able and willing to take up the 
 heaviest crosses that human nature ever lifted. It hath 
 made man an exile, and clothed him in sheep-skins and 
 goat-skins. It hath made men houseless, and given them 
 a willing and joyful residence in dens and caves of the 
 earth. It hath made man friendless ; and his heart sank 
 not when, cut off from the society of men, he found 
 society in God. And I appeal to all the loving hearts 
 before me, whether, when they love God most for his 
 redeeming love to them, that is not the very time when 
 they are most ready to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts , 
 and live soberly , righteously , and godly in this present evil 
 world. This love, therefore, in all its influences, is heaven- 
 wide apart from all the influences of a mere selfishness. 
 
 3. Selfishness looks on earth as its harvest field. It 
 seldom glances beyond it. Here it lives, and here it 
 
304 
 
 WE LOVE IIIM , 
 
 would live always. Here it clings. Here it ‘studies. It 
 navigates oceans, explores mines, invents pleasures for the 
 present time. It practises its treachery everywhere, for 
 no other purpose than to throw over the world a charm 
 of loveliness, and charm God and eternity away from the 
 heart. Exactly the converse of all this are the actings of 
 this love to God because he first loved us. This love is the 
 only efficient sentiment which ever makes a man work 
 well for eternity. Treasured there, in that house not made 
 with hands , are its objects. It hopes to see God face to 
 face, and love him better, and be loved by him, when fire 
 hath kindled upon all that selfishness delights in. They 
 are vastly unlike. 
 
 4. Selfishness has a name that indicates its nature with 
 as much accuracy as godliness indicates the nature of the 
 virtue it designates. Selfishness would make a man happy 
 in self, if it could. It aims at this, at this only. It has 
 pride. It has ambition. Often it has avarice and dis- 
 honesty. Envy and revenge are its frequent attendants. 
 Itself is the centre, and all else revolves around it in sub- 
 ordination to this one law. 
 
 But when we love God because he first loved us, where 
 is the heart ? It is on God. Not on self, but on God. 
 God then becomes the heart’s portion ; and if this love 
 is exercised, under all circumstances you may mark the 
 fact. You may hear the believer in his want exclaiming, 
 As the heart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth 
 my soul after thee, 0 God. My sold tliirsteth for God, for 
 the living God. You may hear the believer in his aban- 
 donment exclaiming, 0 that I knew where I might find 
 him, that I might come even to his seat : I would order my 
 cause before him, and fill my mouth ivith arguments. I 
 would knoiv the words which he would answer me, and 
 understand what he would say unto me. Will he plead 
 
BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US. 305 
 
 against me with his great power ? iVo, but he would put 
 
 strength in me I go forward , but he is not there; and 
 
 backward , but I cannot perceive him; on the left hand where 
 he doth work , but I cannot behold him; he liideth himself 
 on my right hand that I cannot see him. But he Jcnoweth 
 the way I take , and when he hath tried me I shall come 
 forth as gold. Not a sentence of this can be uttered by 
 selfishness. You may hear the believer, when he hatli 
 looked over all the world, and heard the inquiries of the 
 selfish worldlings that throng it, retiring to his closet and 
 his God, exclaiming, There be many that say , Who will 
 show us any good ? and then, falling on his knees, Lord , 
 lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me. And 
 finally, you may hear him, in those moments of enlarge- 
 ment when his mind sweeps over all worlds, and com- 
 prehends all the necessities of his existence, and faith, 
 and hope, and love move out beyond the resurrection of 
 the dead, I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. 
 
 The argument is done. We need have no fear of the 
 affection when we love God because he first loved us. Sel- 
 fishness never operates on these principles ; and therefore 
 unbelievers, this afternoon, will not enter into the covenant 
 of love, of God, and of eternity. 
 
 But though unbelievers behold it not, the matter before 
 us is full of preciousness. The communion we celebrate 
 is the communion of the love of God to sinners. God 
 loved us. 
 
 We hope, communicants, you will come to his table 
 under the full weight of the idea that you owe all your 
 hopes to the free love of God. There was nothing in you 
 to commend you to him. You were guilty and vile. The 
 moral government under which you were placed had been 
 outraged, and you can remember well what unholiness 
 you have found in your heart — what worldliness, what 
 20 
 
306 
 
 WE LOVE HIM 
 
 vanity, what pride, what evil thoughts ! These remem- 
 brances may well humble you. They ought to do so. 
 But they ought not to drive you to despair. You ought 
 to take the matter we have tried to unfold to your faith. 
 Be not afraid of it. Say to yourself, “ I see how it is. 
 I see God loved me when there was nothing in me to 
 be loved. Me — miserable victim of sin — God loved ! I 
 deserved nothing, but grace saved me. I will cleave to 
 this God. I will love him , because he first loved me .” 
 
 You will have moments when the justice and holiness 
 of God will perhaps terrify you. You will conceive him 
 as awful in his majesty, your final judge, on a tribunal 
 before whose thunders you must soon stand. Quickened 
 recollection will bring enormities of sin to your mind, and 
 that coming judgment according to the deeds done in the 
 body will be an idea which will seem to make hell open 
 under your feet, and devils wait to receive a guilty victim 
 to their torments. Remember our subject. Remember 
 that the majesty of God’s love for sinners does not fall 
 beneath the majesty of God’s love of justice; and if he 
 does love his government, law, and honour, just as truly 
 he loves your soul. And no matter what guilt there may 
 be in you, no matter what terrors come from a broken 
 law, no matter what flames kindle, or what devils wait, if 
 you will but believe in God’s good-will to you, and trust 
 in the Christ he offers you, and love him because he first 
 loved you , you shall stand safe before the coming tribunal, 
 and its thunders will fall disarmed and harmless at your feet. 
 
 You may have moments when the service of God to 
 which you are called will seem intolerable. You must 
 bear insult, and not resent it in anger — you must suffer 
 pain, and not be impatient — you must bear crosses. And 
 you, a frail mortal, a sinner constantly going astray, a 
 broken reed, a worm,— what are you that you should 
 
EEC A USE HE FIRST LO VED US. 
 
 307 
 
 stand in tliis service, to the required glorifying of your 
 God in body and spirit : Fear not , thou worm J acob ! 
 The love that redeemed tliec will not forget thee. It will 
 strengthen thee to fight thy battles, and crown thee when 
 the victory is won ! 
 
 Thus in every respect the love of God toward you 
 should be the ready and blessed argument to kindle yours 
 toward him. Thou sinner, thou miserable victim of sin, 
 and death, and hell, the love of God has abounded toward 
 thee. It has reached thy sin — it has prepared thy victory 
 for thee over death — it has covered up thy hell ! To do all 
 this it hath taken the Son of God out of heaven ; it hath 
 brought him down to the miseries and ignominy of earth. 
 It hath nailed him to the tree. It hath locked him in the 
 icy arms of death, and given his mangled body to the tomb! 
 
 With what sentiments will you memorialize all this 
 this afternoon h In the name of the love of God, in the 
 name of the blood of scourging and of the spear, in the 
 name of the tomb of Jesus, I conjure you, lift the cup, 
 saying, I love him , because he first loved me. 
 
 We trust you will say this, and not drink it in vain. 
 We hope the windows of heaven will be opened, and a 
 benediction be poured out on the communing assembly ! 
 We trust your faith will enter into the fulness of God’s 
 love to you, and your hearts render back to him love for 
 love, and tenderness for tenderness. So commune, a 
 redeemed, forgiven, and happy child; and, communing 
 thus in love, may you remember this covenant occasion 
 with pleasure on the bed of death, — and with bliss and 
 gratitude beyond it, when your voice shall join the 
 alleluiah, Unto him that loved us and iv ashed us from our 
 sins in his own blood , and hath made us kings and priests 
 unto God and his Father, to him be glory and dominion 
 for ever and ever. Amen. 
 
XIX. 
 
 fpassLtir of the Sufferings of Cjrast 
 
 “ In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren 
 that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things 
 pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. ” 
 — Heb. ii. 17. 
 
 mUE great and leading idea to which we desire to eon- 
 JL fine your attention in this sermon is taken from the 
 first clause of this verse. It is here affirmed that there was 
 a kind of necessity that Jesus Christ should take the course 
 he did. It behoved him to be made like unto his brethren . 
 
 Fitly to introduce the force of this idea, three things 
 seem to be desirable : 1. The connection of the text. 
 2. An explanation of its classes. 3. A general statement 
 of the doctrines of redemption; to which subject the idea 
 we propose to elucidate belongs. 
 
 Let us attend to these, and then penetrate the heart of 
 the subject. 
 
 1. The connection of the text. 
 
 In the preceding chapter the inspired writer demonstrates 
 in his own way (and no man could choose a better way), 
 he demonstrates the deity of Jesus Christ. In this 
 chapter he commences a personal application of the doc- 
 trine ; that is, the greater and more solemn obligation of 
 accepting him as a Saviour, since he is God , whose throne 
 is for ever and ever . And he goes on to enforce faith in 
 Jesus Christ by three remarkable considerations. 
 
NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 309 
 
 First , That the strict justice of God, which, under the 
 ancient dispensation, inflicted just recompense, of reward 
 upon disobedience, cannot be expected, surely, when Jesus 
 Christ himself has come into the world, to be less strict 
 upon those who neglect so great salvation. 
 
 The second consideration to enforce faith is the testi- 
 mony given of God — signs , and wonder s, and miracles, , and 
 gifts of the Holy Ghost. 
 
 The third consideration is, that this coming and cruci- 
 fixion of Jesus Christ is the positive realization of that 
 which God had foretold and promised; and the light of 
 which was really the only light that beamed anywhere on 
 the fields of the ancient dispensation. With this view, 
 the inspired apostle quotes from the eighth Psalm, Thou 
 madest him a little lower than the angels , or, as it might 
 be translated, for a little while inferior to the angels. 
 Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. 
 And he goes op to apply this to Jesus Christ, especially 
 to Jesus Christ as a sufferer; and, by a common-sense 
 argument, shows that it can have no other application. 
 He appeals to facts ; he wants us to use our eyes ; for, 
 says he, we see not yet all things put under him, that is, 
 man. The eighth Psalm has had no such verification. 
 1 low, then, has it been verified h What do we see h We 
 see Jesus, who, in fact, ivas made for a little while inferior 
 to the angels, for the suffering of death, crowned with 
 glory and honour. Christ’s sufferings and death, with 
 the apostle, appear to be everything; all else revolves 
 around this centre; and then to connect this exaltation 
 of Christ with the humiliation of his crucifixion, where 
 it belongs, the divine writer links the parts of his argu- 
 ment together. 
 
 He has said that for the suffering of death — death tasted 
 for every man — J esus Christ is crowned with glory and 
 
310 NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 
 
 honour . He takes up this idea and carries it back into 
 the now illuminated wilderness of the ancient promises. 
 It became him for whom are all things , and by whom are 
 all things , in bringing many sons to glory , to make the 
 captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. His 
 death fits him to be a perfect Redeemer. He came down 
 to the nature and the place of men. He is not ashamed 
 to call them his brethren. 
 
 This is one link in the chain of argument; and the 
 apostle makes it draw after it the whole burden of the 
 ancient economy, and all the grace of the ancient pro- 
 phecies and promises; for he immediately quotes from 
 the twenty-second Psalm, which commences with the 
 Saviour’s exclamation on the cross, My God! my God! 
 why hast thou forsaken me ! in which psalm Christ calls 
 his redeemed ones his brethren; and then the eighth of 
 Isaiah is quoted by the apostle, Behold ! I and the chil- 
 dren which God hath given me! Fit exclamation for 
 Jesus Christ to make over the communion-table! Thus, 
 by carrying back the light of the Christian dispensation 
 amid all the dimness and darkness of the ancient dispen- 
 sation, and finding in the facts of the crucifixion an entire 
 realization of what God had promised from the beginning, 
 and what patriarchs, and seers, and prophets had rejoiced 
 in, the author enforces faith in Christ crucified by induc- 
 ing the necessity of abandoning the Old Testament, or 
 else taking in the Hew. One is thus shut up unto the 
 faith. He is argumentatively bound to be a Christian or 
 be an infidel; to be a Christian, or not be a Jew. 
 
 These three considerations — the danger of neglecting 
 so great salvation , the testimony which enforces its ac- 
 ceptance, and the fact that in a crucified Christ is found 
 the realization of all that God foretold and promised — 
 constitute the groundwork of the author to persuade 
 
NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 31 ] 
 
 sinners to take Jesus Christ in his deity and in his 
 atonement. The apostle links these two things together. 
 And so do human hearts ; and no creed that we have ever 
 yet seen or heard of, written by the pen of mortal, ever took 
 in the one and put out the other. The deity and the 
 atonement of Christ must and do stand or fall together. 
 
 This is the connection of the text. It comes in just 
 where the author was enforcing faith in the sacrifice of 
 the Son of God. 
 
 2. We explain its clauses. 
 
 In all things it behoved him to be made like unto his 
 brethren. Men, redeemed sinners, are his brethren. He 
 became like them in every essential thing, so far as there 
 was any possibility of it without sin. This w T as needful 
 for his redeeming work. He became a man. He became 
 a man of sorrows. He was subject to every human infir- 
 mity and want and grief, so far as these can exist in a 
 sinless being. He took man’s place under the law, and 
 obeyed it. He took man’s place before the penalty, and 
 satisfied it. He was tempted of the devil. He feared, 
 and prayed, and hungered, and v T ept, and died, and was 
 buried. And friends mourned for him, and enemies 
 exulted over his fate, when his mangled body went down 
 to the only earthly spot where it ever rested in peace, — 
 the borrowed sepulchre of Joseph of Arimatliea. 
 
 All this was needful to his redeeming mission. That 
 he might be a merciful and faithfid high-priest in things 
 pertaining to God; to become such was the reason for 
 his being made like unto his brethren. There are no 
 priests under the Christian dispensation. Jesus Christ 
 is the only priest in the universe. And even he is not 
 now a priest to offer a sacrifice, but only to plead in 
 heaven the one sacrifice offered up on his cross, once for 
 all , as the Scriptures affirm. Made as he was, and suffering 
 
312 NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST . 
 
 as lie did, he is prepared to be merciful. He was tempted, 
 and lie knows how to succour the tempted. He was 
 tried, and he can sympathize with those in the furnace. 
 The Father was faithful unto Km, and he was faithful 
 unto death; and having been so, eyery follower has his 
 life-blood testimony to look upon, and know that he will 
 be faithful to him. whenever he buffets the billows, whether 
 billows of life or death. 
 
 His suffering was needful to his mediatorial work, In 
 all things pertaining to God. To be a mediator and 
 make peace between God and sinners — to satisfy for 
 their sins — to answer the law — to be the Lord our righte- 
 ousness — and, as the end of all priesthood, to present us 
 before the throne of God the Father, the price and pur- 
 chase of his own blood, — Jesus Christ was fully prepared 
 by his incarnation and crucifixion. To make reconcilia- 
 tion for the sins of the people. Jesus Christ needed a 
 body, and he had it; he needed a “reasonable soul,” and 
 he had it, and it was often wrung with bitterness and 
 anguish ; he needed to stand under the law, and he stood 
 there, and it spent its thunders upon his bared head; 
 he needed to die, and the sacrifice was ready; he went 
 willingly up to Jerusalem, and the prayer of the garden 
 nerved his holy soul for the wrath of the cross. On 
 that bloody tree it was finished ; he made reconciliation 
 for the sins of the people , and guilt, and God, and law, and 
 hell, and heaven can ask no more ! 
 
 This is the explanation of the clauses of the text. 
 They all agree with the connection, to invite sinners to 
 faith in the sacrifice of the Son of God. 
 
 3. The last preliminary to the idea we propose more 
 especially to elucidate, is a general statement of the doc- 
 trines of redemption, to which subject that idea belongs. 
 We state them thus : — 
 
NECESSITY OF TIIE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 313 
 
 Man is a fallen sinner. By transgression of tlie holy 
 law of God, lie lias incurred its penalty, everlasting pun- 
 ishment; he has departed from God his Maker; is justly 
 liable to his final anger ; and is utterly unable to do any- 
 thing or suffer anything which can avail to expiate his 
 sin, and reconcile his offended God. 
 
 To make such an expiation for man’s sin, and reconcile 
 God towards sinners, God the Father did, out of his own 
 free love, give up his own Son to humiliation and death, 
 consenting to take his sufferings and death in the place 
 of the punishment of sinners, and to free them for ever 
 from deserved condemnation, and receive them for ever 
 into his covenant love and favour, on account of what 
 Jesus Christ should do. 
 
 Jesus Christ did take willingly the law-place of sinners, 
 and became their surety, and stood in their stead under 
 the penal sanction of God’s holy moral law, and did give 
 his life a ransom for sinners’ souls. 
 
 The ransom has been accepted, and the open testimony 
 of its acceptance is registered in the resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ from the dead, and his ascension into heaven ; and 
 therefore we know now that God can be just, and yet 
 forgive, and love, and save sinners. 
 
 God, then, does forgive and save sinners on precisely 
 this ground, justifying them freely by his grace, through 
 the redemption of his Son — the humiliation, and espe- 
 cially the atoning death of Christ, and not the sinner’s 
 own deserving or worth, being the meritorious ground on 
 which salvation for sinners all proceeds. 
 
 These facts, this way of salvation, have been laid down 
 in the gospel, and this gospel-message constitutes the 
 sure and only warrant for a sinner’s expecting salvation 
 unto eternal life. 
 
 To attain this salvation, it is indispensably necessary 
 
314 NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 
 
 that he should believe in it, and close with it, taking God 
 at his own word, and trusting the mediation of Jesus Christ 
 to remove the obstacles to his salvation which sin has 
 flung across his pathway into heaven. 
 
 This faith in Jesus Christ, and its kindred actions, is 
 at once the sinner’s duty and his gracious privilege the 
 very moment he hears the gospel ; and there is no other 
 way of salvation known, and never can be ; so that if he 
 rejects and refuses this, he must die in his sins, and perish 
 for ever. 
 
 But however guilty he may be, it now must be not his 
 guilt, but his unbelief, which can ruin him; and if he 
 will believe in Christ, repenting of his sins and coming 
 unto God as he invites him, he shall be forgiven, ac- 
 cepted of God, and finally made like him, and happy 
 with him for ever in heaven, for the mouth of the Lord 
 hath spoken it. 
 
 This is a general statement of the doctrines among which 
 the idea of the text lies. 
 
 And we would remark, that the sufferings and atone- 
 ment of Jesus Christ are necessary to this system in general, 
 and to every item contained in it. Count the sufferings 
 . of Christ as only incidental, and not the essential thing in 
 his work, and this whole system is utterly broken into 
 pieces, and every item of it becomes marred, and as un- 
 meaning as an idiot’s dream. 
 
 And this introduces us to the idea which we propose to 
 elucidate. Leaving the exemplification and doctrines of 
 the Bible, we turn to the properties of human nature. 
 
 Our idea is, that for the purposes of man’s salvation, 
 there was a necessity that Jesus Christ should do as he 
 did. It behoved him to be made as he was made, and to 
 die as he did die, to make reconciliation for sinners. 
 
 We do not mean by this that he was under any obliga- 
 
NECESSITY OF TIIE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST . 315 
 
 tion to this guilty and lost world, so that any sinner could 
 ever utter a word of complaining if Bethlehem and Cal- 
 vary had never been heard of, or anything that lies between 
 the cradle and the cross of the suffering Son of God. But 
 we do mean that precisely this course which Jesus 
 Christ took, especially when he died to make this recon- 
 ciliation for sins, was, in the very nature of the case, neces- 
 sary ; if he would, in love and grace, redeem man and 
 reconcile him to God, it behoved him to die. 
 
 We have four different articles on this point : — 
 
 I. This, or something like this, is indispensably re- 
 quisite to the common-sense ideas of the human mind. 
 
 In this atonement and bloody redemption of the Son of 
 God, we have a new work of the Deity. We allow it is 
 something new and strange — something beyond nature, 
 and beyond all possible inventions of human reason. It 
 is God himself operating in a new way, — stepping forth 
 upon that theatre where sin had commenced its mischiefs, 
 where death and devils were Jet loose to do their work, and 
 where the sufferers, their victims, employed their own 
 powers willingly in a way to ruin themselves ; and upon 
 this same theatre of mischief, it is God, with new wisdom 
 (to us), with new power, and with a new exhibition of 
 divine supremacy and sovereignty, grappling with the 
 enemies of man and of himself, and opening a highway for 
 the lost and guilty to return into their felicity and his 
 favour. There was, in this redeeming transaction, all the 
 singularity which infidels and scoffers have ever attributed 
 to it. They are right — perfectly right — when they affirm 
 that this atoning transaction has no parallel in nature — no 
 analogy in God’s creation, or his government of the uni- 
 verse. It has none. It stands alone — a new exhibition of 
 God. And this singularity of the procedure, which they 
 
316 NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 
 
 make a ground of its rejection, we make the very ground 
 of its acceptance. On this point we join issue with them, 
 and we maintain that this, or something like this, if a 
 sinner is to be forgiven, is fndispensable to the human 
 mind ; that, aside from this, no reasonable mind can have 
 any ground to rest upon in the expectancy of pardon. 
 
 And the truth which we maintain is, it seems to us, 
 level to everybody’s comprehension. It lies just here: 
 there is a moral law; moral and accountable creatures are 
 under the judicial government of God. They are bound 
 to obedience, which men have not rendered. And if the 
 law has no penalty, then it is law no longer; it is only 
 advice; and a moral being may break it or keep it, just 
 as he pleases. And in doing the one or the other, there 
 is neither virtue nor vice. Virtue ! what does it mean h 
 Let common sense answer. It means disposition or con- 
 duct conformed to some good rule — a rule which is good 
 because it emanates from just authority, and because good 
 is to grow out of its observance. Vice ! what does it 
 mean ? Common sense answers : It means disposition or 
 conduct contrary to some good rule — a rule which is good 
 because it emanates from just authority, and because evil 
 will result from its violation. Remove the penalty, and 
 the law is gone — virtue is virtue, and vice is vice, no more. 
 No matter whether I love God or hate him, if he has no 
 will in the matter, and if the results of love and hate are 
 the same. No matter whether I love my neighbour or 
 hate him, if* God has no authoritative will in the matter, 
 and if the results of my benevolence or malignity are the 
 same. Moral right is conformity to the will of God ; and 
 moral wrong is opposition to it. But it is not pretended 
 that God has no moral government. Even infidels (all 
 except atheists) maintain that he has ; and in their self- 
 formed theories they have many proud speculations about 
 
NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST . 31 7 
 
 the administration of government over accountable crea- 
 tures. Even they will admit that the moral law is sup- 
 ported by sanctions, and that the truth, and dignity, and 
 justice of God are involved in the maintenance of liis 
 authority through the law’s sanctions. 
 
 Now, let us take one idea more. That idea simply is, 
 the law of God has been broken by man. Nothing more. 
 We want no more for our argument. The law has been 
 violated. Man is a sinner. No matter for the extent of 
 his sin ; he is a sinner. 
 
 Now, what shall he do] Whither shall he turn him- 
 self] If he marches up to the law of God for safety, he 
 is hurled back by its gathering thunders ; it knows no 
 mercy. Ilis mind, his common sense, cannot let him rest 
 there. If he looks to his character, Sinner, sinner, sinner ! 
 is the terrific voice uttered from the mind, the conscience, 
 the heart within him. He is driven off from the field of 
 his character, to find anything for his mind to rest upon 
 and be satisfied with. Again he ventures up and examines 
 law, government, and God; and again he is hurled off, 
 because he has not obeyed them. 
 
 What shall he do ] Where can his mind, his common 
 sense rest ] Tell us, ye proud reasoners, tell us where ye 
 can fix on anything to satisfy reason ! What can you 
 see to demonstrate to you that pardon and salvation can 
 be expected by sinners ] I do not wish to rush into 
 eternity like a fool. I want to understand something 
 about a moral matter, connected with which my few years 
 of experience — experience of this mind, this heart, this 
 conscience — tell me so much of my felicity lies. Tell me 
 where I can find anything to show me, to convince my 
 mind , that sin is pardonable, and my soul salvable ! 
 
 The heavens of God are above us ; his earth is around 
 us. But you cannot find, in the one or the other, one 
 
318 NECESSITY OF TIIE SUFFERINGS OF CHRTST. 
 
 single ground of assurance. Such a ground exists no- 
 where in all the hand-writing of nature. You may say, 
 evil flows from sin, and the evil the sinner himself experi- 
 ences is the penalty of God’s law, and the sinner’s whole 
 punishment. But what law of nature, what tree, what 
 rock or star, tells you this is all ? How are you certified h 
 Show me the mountain on whose granite the declaration 
 is graven ; or lead me to the ocean in whose mighty roar 
 it is echoed that man suffers here all the penalty of sin. 
 How do you know it 1 ? You do not know it. You can- 
 not know it. To say nothing of sin’s extent or malignity, 
 to admit simply its existence is enough to show that the 
 mind of a reasonable being, in order to have hope as a 
 sinner, must see God himself doing a new work, and laying 
 a new foundation for hope. Man is an accountable being. 
 He has sinned. He is liable to God’s law. And cer- 
 tainly, in order to live reasonably in peace, or die reason- 
 ably in hope, he does need to see, somewhere, a proof of 
 salvation for sinners. He does need to see God under- 
 taking for him. In the sufferings and death of Jesus 
 Christ he sees this. And this new and perfectly singular 
 manifestation of God in the work of atonement is the 
 thing, the very thing, which a reasonable mind needs to 
 rest upon. It is singular enough. It stands alone. It 
 is a new exhibition of God, and has no analogy in the uni- 
 verse. And because it is such, without parallel and with- 
 out analogy, strange and peculiar, it is perceived to be 
 sufficient to meet that evil, sin, which is without parallel 
 and without analogy also — a strange and peculiar mis- 
 chief. 
 
 The same conclusion will come upon us with additional 
 force if we consider the human conscience . 
 
 The moral sense, it is true, is ever connected with a 
 reasonable understanding, but it has its own peculiarities. 
 
NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 319 
 
 And as connected also with a class of very vivid sensibili- 
 ties, it needs some ground to rest upon which shall soothe 
 and satisfy them all. And it often goes beyond mind, in 
 its fearfulness and foreboding about sin, feeling that it has 
 good reason to anticipate ills, the dimensions of which no 
 mind can measure. Something is requisite to satisfy a 
 sinner’s conscience. He is sensible of moral obligation. 
 He cannot easily convince himself, or others, that his con- 
 science is a mistake, a fancy, a hobgoblin, a dream. He 
 will carry moral judgment with him in all his paths and 
 all his worlds. At times, here, it will slumber, especially 
 when he resists the influences of the Holy Spirit; but 
 some of its “ compunctious visitings ” will be occasionally 
 experienced, and alarm, if not from the heart’s tenderness, 
 at least from the heart’s cowardice (and we care not which, 
 for argument’s sake), will be a serious trouble to him. 
 Even in sinning, man is often made unhappy by this 
 voice from within. And this conscience will not cease 
 its troublesome visitations to a sinner, till he reaches in 
 his sins the spot where the fumes of the very pit stupify 
 him, and in strong delusion lie believes a lie. If, among 
 very stupid and hardened unbelievers, some instances can 
 be pointed out where there was little or no concern of 
 conscience — like Hume, laughing and joking about death 
 and the judgment — it no more proves that conscience does 
 not belong to human nature, than the fiend-like hardihood 
 of a pirate proves that man has not kindly affections. 
 These are alike exceptions ; that is, they are instances in 
 which habit has overcome nature; in which sin has 
 wrought its evil, in the one case, to the extent of darken- 
 ing the understanding and stupifying it towards God, and, 
 in the other, of hardening the heart utterly towards men. 
 
 Extinguished sensibility is no proof it never existed ; 
 and there is nothing in the unconcern of any infidel to 
 
320 NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST, 
 
 furnish anything but proof of an extinguished conscience 
 towards God. Its owner will find it again in another 
 world. 
 
 In all the ordinary moods of man his conscience is 
 accessible to a little of the truth. He knows that in the 
 inner man there is estrangement from God. He knows 
 that he cannot stand a comparison with God’s spiritual 
 law. He knows that selfishness has too much power 
 over him. He knows that he loves the world too well. 
 Every time he climbs the mount of contemplation (as 
 sometimes he must) and looks off towards the unseen 
 world before him, he knows well that in his spirit and 
 aims he has come short of eternity and the God who 
 inhabits it. And if he will pause in his career of passion 
 and worldliness for a single moment, and recollect his 
 history, he will find in that history many a long space 
 when God has not been cared for, or even thought of ; 
 when he lived according to his own will simply, utterly 
 regardless of the arm that held up, and of the high moral 
 destiny to which the finger of God pointed him. 
 
 How, what shall satisfy this conscience, which belongs 
 to human nature ? The trial has been made, and is still 
 making. Toilsome rounds of supposed duty have been 
 run. Fearful mortifications have been practised. Costly 
 sacrifices have been offered. The fruit of the body has 
 been given for the sin of the soul. Hone of these things 
 reach the spot. They form no good ground to hope on, 
 or die on. They are all human. They are not divine. 
 They come from the compunctions of man, but they do 
 not reach the spirituality of God. They do not reach his 
 majesty. They are very anxious and very agonizing 
 struggles of souls convicted of sin, trying to get hold of 
 something which God will accept and conscience rest 
 upon, when a sinner has offended God. But they fail. 
 
NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 321 
 
 And what shall be done ] Where shall the soul turn ? What 
 shall open before it a door of hope into another world ? 
 
 There is no place to flee to, except in this new and 
 strange work of an atoning God. God himself must do 
 something which shall wear the signet of his own high 
 authority. He must step forth from behind the curtains 
 of eternity, and in this world of sin must write somewhere 
 the demonstration of a satisfied law and a satisfied God. 
 If it is only the act and agency of a creature that under- 
 takes for a sinner, how shall the conscience of the sinner 
 be assured it is enough, and that liis sins are therefore 
 pardonable % There can be no such assurance. But 
 when the sinner sees Christ Jesus undertaking for him, 
 standing in the sinner’s own nature and the sinner's own 
 place, arraigned as his surety, held as his surety, dying as 
 his surety; never giving back till he has met the very 
 last item, and going down into the grave to sanctify and 
 sweeten that last trial-spot of the believer; and when, in 
 the opened portals of the tomb, and in the ascension-track 
 of the Bedeemer from Bethany to glory, he sees the evi- 
 dence of God’s pacification; when he hears from God’s 
 
 OAvn mouth the declaration, The law is magnified lie 
 
 that believeth shall be saved , in this new and strange work 
 of God he finds some foothold for conscience to stand 
 upon. It is just this : Christ has become accountable for 
 him; Christ has met the blow prepared for his head; 
 Christ has died for him; Deity has grappled with death 
 and the devil ; the tomb has owned a conqueror, and 
 away up by the throne of God bursts the exclamation, 
 Lift up your heads , 0 ye gates : even lift them up , ye ever- 
 lasting doors , and the King of Glory shall come in. 
 
 Conscience can rest here. It cannot accuse beyond 
 Christ ; it cannot bring up anything in sin’s dreadful evil 
 which lies beyond the reach of this Saviour, travelling in 
 21 
 
322 NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 
 
 the greatness of his strength , coming up with dyed garments 
 
 from Bozrah It behoved him to be made like unto 
 
 his brethren. 
 
 III. The necessity of Christ’s sufferings will still further 
 appear, if we consider the evil of sin. We know part of 
 its evil, but not all. That it is a violation of God’s just 
 government is bad enough, but it is not one act simply. 
 Its worst evil is not to be ascertained by its dimensions, 
 but by its existence. Its nature is the only measure of 
 its own malignity. It has no parallel, no analogy. It 
 opens a fountain of evil. It does its worst mischief in 
 forming a character to perpetuate its perpetration. If 
 there is any truth in the gospel, or rectitude in enlightened 
 reason and conscience, no man can estimate sin’s evil till 
 he can use the arithmetic of eternity, and gauge the 
 dimensions of God’s final anger. This evil, sin, stands 
 between the sinner and life everlasting. This evil, which 
 has flung the soul off from God — which has filled earth 
 with misery, and built hell — this evil rises up between 
 the sinner’s soul and his longed-for eternal felicity. 
 
 Now, on what ground can he hope ? Where is that 
 joyous demonstration to be found among the miseries of 
 sin, that these miseries are working out their own cure : 
 and that the period is posting on when the term of suffer- 
 ing shall have expired like the term of the convict; and, 
 like him, the statute and the sentence shall let him go 
 free ? The convict, under an earthly justice, has hope on 
 some visible ground, if he is not a convict for life. He 
 marks the sun’s motion, the years’ roll. He keeps a care- 
 ful calendar of his imprisonment. Each hour wears away 
 something from the length of his sentence. As years end, 
 as months pass, when the clock strikes, hope sees the 
 end coming nearer. 
 
NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 323 
 
 And it becomes every sinner on earth, who rejects the 
 strange work of God’s redemption through the blood of 
 Christ, and rests as a mere natural religionist, to show a 
 parallel. He cannot. He can show nothing like it. He 
 cannot produce anything like an argument that his days 
 of misery wear, in a single item, upon the period of his 
 liability. 
 
 But look further. If the convict in prison offends there, 
 in the time and place of the penalty that is come upon 
 him, the discipline and duty of the spot bring him under 
 another law and another penalty, and he must bear the 
 twofold burden. So this suffering sinner, deep as his 
 woes may be, and bitter as his tears may be, if he offends 
 still, instead of nearing the end of the penalty, if it had 
 any, would be pushing it further off. And can any man 
 produce the demonstration of a sinner’s innocence during 
 his sufferings'? Can it be shown that this man, now suf- 
 fering as a sinner, sins less than before nature or God’s 
 punitive justice arraigned him, and commenced his punish- 
 ment ? Where is the proof ? Does he now love God or man 
 more? He is poor. Well, does that make him pious? He 
 is sick. Well, does that make him virtuous or godly? 
 He is starving. But can you starve him into the love of 
 God? Do you find the most punished the most perfect, and 
 the most ragged drunkard now the most innocent man ? 
 
 There is nothing in sin to work its own cure. It only 
 works its perpetuity. And if there are remedial operations 
 in God’s world of nature, and if thunders purify the atmo- 
 sphere and widely extended breathings of the pestilence 
 exhaust its malignity, you can find nothing like it in God’s 
 world of moral spirits ; and you can employ no arithmetic 
 of centuries to tell how long a sinner must keep on in his 
 woes before he reaches the end of the sentence, and shall 
 have exhausted the penalty. You do not know when the 
 
324 NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 
 
 end is. Nature does not tell you; reason does not tell 
 you; nor does anything else. And you cannot gauge the 
 dimensions of the anger of God. That anger must be 
 great. He is infinitely benevolent. He infinitely loves 
 souls. Still, he lets them blast all their felicity for both 
 worlds, if they will not turn unto him, and go down into 
 that everlasting jive prepared for the devil and liis angels. 
 
 We ask, then, in view of such an evil as this, what can 
 a reasonable mind trust to atone i Where did God ever 
 work, what did God ever do, to furnish a single argument 
 for expecting the pardon and cure of such an evil ] The 
 evil is unparalleled — it has no analogy in the universe. 
 Sin is an exception in the universe ; it is a violence ; it 
 springs from no law of economy, contrivance, or discipline. 
 And how can we hope, how dare we hope, if God himself 
 does not make an exception, and, overstepping all other 
 works, come out in that work of bloody atonement where 
 the sinless suffers, and the eternal Son travels in the 
 greatness of his strength. So he has come. He has 
 done a God’s work to undo the evil of sin. He has 
 grappled, at once, with its power and its penalty. He 
 has reached the deepest spot of its offence in the angered 
 heart of a just and holy God. He has provided — 
 
 “That sinners may live since the sinless hath died.” 
 
 He has, therefore, precisely met our necessity. And we 
 see now that God can do that strange work which he is 
 doing for believers ; can pardon them, even while they are 
 still sinning ; and by their confidence of faith in liis par- 
 doning, gradually draw them off to his love and service. 
 This strange work of atonement meets the strange evils 
 of sin. There was a necessity that Jesus Christ should 
 suffer. Just his sufferings — the sufferings of a sinless one, 
 of an infinite one — just this prepares him, as an infinite 
 
NECESSITY OF TIIE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 325 
 
 exception in the universe, to tread in recovering power 
 along the dark track of that awful exception, sin, ransom- 
 ing and redeeming by his blood. Such a Saviour can be 
 trusted. 
 
 IY. After all, law and penalty are not their own. 
 Something lies back of them, from which they originated. 
 They are only indications of an unseen disposition and 
 will. If man could find, as he cannot among the common 
 works and visible governing of God, any argument to 
 show that a sinner may escape the announced penalty of 
 law, or exhaust it, that would not be enough to answer a 
 sinner’s purpose. A worldly mind may not feel it, but a 
 spiritual mind certainly will, when we affirm that a 
 creature like man wants something more than reconcilia- 
 tion to law, and a hushing up of his quarrel with it ; he 
 needs reconciliation to God , and the establishment of a 
 filial and affectionate intercourse with him. 
 
 Human sentiments follow the unworthy beyond the 
 spot where the penalties of human law leave them. Men 
 are not accustomed to welcome dismissed convicts into 
 their families, and make them their bosom-companions, 
 just as if no stain were on them, and would not attach to 
 themselves if found in the heart-intimacy of their fellow- 
 ship. In the exercise of Christian virtue you may forgive 
 an enemy, and love him; but it must be the height of 
 that virtue indeed, and nothing but copying Christ will 
 bring you to it, if you receive him into your intimacy, 
 and treat him the same as if he had never done you an 
 injustice. 
 
 A sinner does not want mere freedom ; he wants friend- 
 ship. He does not merely want God to let him go not 
 visited in vengeance; he wants God to take him back, 
 and spread around him the arms of an everlasting love. 
 
326 NECESSITY OF THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 
 
 As a creature of tastes, sentiments, and sensibilities; as a 
 frail child whose wants and fears are numberless, and 
 many of which words can never explain, nor economies 
 provide for, — he wants a Father to flee to when the storm 
 is rising, and the death-bed spread, and the opening por- 
 tals of eternity disclose to him the great white throne , 
 and the destinies beyond it. 
 
 Even here much of our felicity depends on our fellow- 
 ship. The best of it does. In the other world we shall 
 meet God. We are sinners, unworthy and vile. Will he 
 meet us as a friend and a father, and introduce us into the 
 fellowship of his heart and his heaven ? What tells us so h 
 Where is the trustful demonstration of it 1 Nowhere , ex • 
 cept in Calvary’s cross and Calvary’s Victim. There is a 
 new and peculiar work of God. There I see something 
 beyond nature, beyond law, beyond reason : the heart- work 
 of the Infinite One, who has now demonstrated to me the 
 thing I wanted, — that God infinitely loves sinners. Oh ! 
 I see ! he is infinitely in earnest to save them ! I see ! 
 he is a Father still ! His Son dead, ’the devil baffled, the 
 tomb opened, the heavens pouring down the Spirit of holi- 
 ness and love, — these new works, all of them works of an 
 infinite compassion and love, demonstrate to me that in 
 the heart of God most high there is still a place for the 
 love of his unworthy child. I could not do without this 
 demonstration. My heart needs it. My fears, my weak- 
 nesses, my sensibilities to needed friendship and fellowship 
 with my God, need it. It behoved him to be made like 
 unto his brethren. 
 
 Those of you who stand aloof from this new work of God 
 and from its covenant to-day, would do well to consider 
 that you have nothing to stand upon. Nature gives you 
 nothing, reason nothing, law nothing. Why will ye die ? 
 God has been in earnest to save you. Christ was in earnest 
 
NECESSITY OF TIIE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST. 227 
 
 when he came from heaven to the crucifixion. Turn ye 
 to the strongholds , ye prisoners of hope. 
 
 My brethren, as ye come to-day to the Lord’s covenant, 
 ye come to meet him, not on the ground of nature, but on 
 that of grace. You need faith. You need a heart to be- 
 lieve in the love of God for sinners, — such a love as all his 
 works, save one, could never demonstrate. Have you got 
 it h As you lift the cup, can you say, Here I give my heart 
 to the God of an infinite mercy and an infinite redemption, 
 and meet the demonstration of his love with the humble 
 requital of my own ? May God enable you to do it. 
 Aj\ien. 
 
XX. 
 
 Cntcifoicw icr fire Morlir im % Cross. 
 
 “God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus 
 Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the 
 world.”— Gal. vi. 14. 
 
 I T constitues one of tlie masterly strokes in the rhetoric 
 of St. Paul, that he exchanges, at the right point, ex- 
 pressions that are didactic or historical merely, for expres- 
 sions of personal experience. He does this frequently. 
 And he always does it on such subjects, and in such a way 
 as to make the most happy presentation of the truths he 
 would utter. Sometimes these truths would appear to pos- 
 sess a character of severity if they were uttered in the ab- 
 stract ; and the character of severity is kept out of sight, 
 and one of tenderness imparted to them by expressing them 
 as matters of personal experience. Take that passage, 0 
 wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the bod t/ 
 of this death ? and couch the truth it conveys in any other 
 form, and you will have one of the most cold and discourag- 
 ing propositions that words could express. But in St. 
 Paul’s form you have the animation of his example, of his 
 resolution and courage. You have his experience, his 
 heart; and no room is left for doubt that he intended to 
 represent the repentance of religion, its humility and de- 
 pendence as deep-seated and strong among the experiences 
 of the heart. Just where you would expect an actor to 
 fail, and just where you would expect a man of real expe~ 
 
CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS . 329 
 
 rience — a man of conviction, of faitli, of fear, of love, to ex- 
 pose his own heart to view, just there St. Paul lays down 
 the truths he would teach by taking them from the depths 
 of his own soul. 
 
 We have an example of this in the text. It is not ex- 
 planation. It is not argument. It is heart. His expe- 
 rience comes out. He tells us how he felt, and leaves the 
 announcement to have what effect it may on the hearts of 
 his hearers. God forbid that I should glory save in the 
 cross of Jesus Christ , by whom the world is crucified unto 
 me , and I unto the world . 
 
 Some explanation of this verse maybe desirable : God for- 
 bid that I should glory. St. Paul had enemies and oppo- 
 nents. Some of them were in the Church. They formed 
 parties against him, and gloried in their successes in per- 
 suading a greater number to side with them than took sides 
 with him. One point of difference was circumcision. St. 
 Paul rejected it. Others adhered to it. They had the ad- 
 vantage of him in attaching numbers to their opinion, and 
 gloried in that advantage. Two causes conspired to give 
 them an advantage. One was that the Jews were all edu- 
 cated in the practice he rejected, and pride of family, of an- 
 cestry, pride of name and nation, and all the earlier impres- 
 sions of their religion — impressions connected with the 
 ancient names of Abraham and Moses, and other prophets 
 and patriarchs — attached them very powerfully to the cus- 
 toms of their fathers. Hence, even though Christians, they 
 were inclined to adhere to the ancient ritual, and glory in it. 
 The other cause was, that three of the Roman emperors had 
 enacted laws in favour of the Jews dispersed over the Roman 
 empire, allowing them to practise without persecution the 
 ceremonies handed down from their fathers. Hence Chris- 
 tians who retained the old Jewish ceremonies were not the 
 subjects of either Jewish or pagan persecution. The pagans 
 
330 CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS. 
 
 reckoned them as Jews, and the enactments of Cams Caesar, 
 Augustus, and Tiberius, shielded them from persecution on 
 account of their religion. The J ews partially owned them 
 as Jews, and ceased to persecute them. Consequently the. 
 party opposed to St. Paul were the most numerous, only 
 lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. 
 They gloried in their security and their number. 
 
 St. Paul’s answer to all this is drawn from his heart. 
 He falls back on the grand principle of Christianity, the 
 high prerogatives of a believer, God forbid that I should 
 glory save in the cross. He would accept contempt. He 
 would suffer persecution. To shun it, he would not creep 
 beneath the imperial laws of Caesar, or Augustus, or Tibe- 
 rius. Jesus Christ was a man of persecutions and the 
 cross. St. Paul felt that it was enough for the disciple to 
 be as his Lord. 
 
 Probably this is the whole meaning of the clause. It 
 may be, however, that St. Paul meant to express his sense 
 of the honour that was put upon him. - Certainly he never 
 was ashamed of the cross. He bore it willingly. He ex- 
 ulted in it, and perhaps here he intended to express the 
 exultation and glorying of his soul that he was counted 
 worthy to suffer shame for the name of Christ. Some have 
 attempted a distinction between the exercises of pride and 
 those of glorying, and have called the one class of exercises 
 quite unfit, and the other quite proper, for a Christian. 
 The justice of their distinction depends entirely upon their 
 definitions ; but it is very probable, after all, that a little 
 ungodly pride may sometimes creep in among what they 
 imagine to be godly glorying. In our opinion, St. Paul 
 takes the word to himself simply because he had just ap- 
 plied it to those with whom he disagreed. They gloried 
 (in an error), as he said. I suppose they were proud. He 
 would glory, if they chose to call it so, in the cross of 
 
CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS. 33 1 
 
 Christ, but not with pride. It is not probable that he 
 changes the meaning of the word when he applies it to him- 
 self in the very next sentence after he applies it to them. 
 And it is not probable that he employs it in a good sense 
 when he applies it to those whose course he condemns. 
 
 Save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. One of two 
 meanings belong to this phrase. It may mean the cross 
 which St. Paul bore on account of Jesus Christ, and his 
 faith in him. In this sense it would include all his crosses, 
 his self-denial, sufferings, and shame, his stripes, shipwrecks, 
 bonds, and imprisonments. It may mean, literally, the 
 cross of the Saviour himself ; that what was there shown 
 or done, as it secured the redemption of sinners, was all 
 that St. Paul cared for ; that every other offer, and every 
 other argument and motive were as nothing to him. In 
 this sense we understand the expression. 
 
 By whom the world is crucified unto me. This is a figure 
 designed to express the little influence which St. Paul 
 felt from the world. To him it had lost its power. It 
 was as a dead thing. His attachment to Christ might 
 expose him to the loss of its favours, and bring upon him 
 contempt and persecutions. But he counted all things but 
 loss , and nothing, that he might win Christ. 
 
 And 1 am crucified unto the ivorld. In the sense of the 
 Scriptures, to be dead to any object is to have no more 
 recourse to it, or reliance upon it — not to be swayed and 
 governed by it. Thus St. Paul speaks of being dead to 
 sin, and exhorts the Romans to reckon themselves dead 
 indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ. 
 To the Galatians he says, I, through the law, am dead to 
 the laiv. He could not think of being justified by it. He 
 renounced it entirely, as much as if he w r ere a dead man, 
 in order that, by the plan of the gospel, he might live 
 unto God, as he expresses it. In the phrase before us, 
 
332 CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS. 
 
 St. Paul refines upon this idea. He makes a Christian’s 
 deadness to the world a crucifixion unto the world. It is 
 a death of violence. St. Paul remembers how the natural 
 heart clings to the world, and how all the affections and 
 energies of the living man are devoted to it. He remem- 
 bers what a violence it is when the truths of religion and 
 the power of the Holy Spirit compel the carnal heart to 
 give up its darling world. He calls it a crucifixion , and 
 would no more go back to its embraces than he would 
 desire to be crucified over again. They that are Chrises 
 have crucified the flesh with its affections and lusts. I am 
 crucified with Christ. 
 
 This is the sense of the different expressions of the 
 text. 
 
 For the more full understanding of it we propose — 
 
 I. To explain more particularly the mutual crucifixion 
 of the world to the believer, and the believer to the world. 
 And — 
 
 II. To explain how such a result flows from the cross 
 of Christ. 
 
 I. Wherein consists this reciprocal crucifixion ? 
 
 We shall explain this by announcing a general prin- 
 ciple, and by mentioning some particular experiences. 
 
 1. The general principle. We need not know much of 
 the influences of sin in order to understand what are its 
 offers, and where the proposed field of its operation. Its 
 offers are all beneath the moon. Hot one of them lies so 
 far off from this little limited planet. The world is the 
 chief object of temptation, and the effect of human sinful- 
 ness is to attach men to its enjoyments, gains, and 
 honours. The carnal heart loves this world, and makes 
 it the sole field of its operations. Sin offers it, sin gilds 
 
CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS . 333 
 
 it with deceitful colourings, sin confines thought, affection, 
 and hope to that little circle of objects which lie on this 
 planet, and which can come within the vanishing life- 
 time of a being who has little prospect of trembling 
 under the weight of threescore years and ten. Another 
 world is out of sight. It is treated by the unbeliever as 
 if it were a fiction. He neither sees it nor feels it. In 
 his action, while his heart beats warm, and his mind 
 musters all its powers, he still seeks the world only. If 
 there is any exception it must be in the things of pride, 
 ambition, honour, in the gains of intellect, or in some of 
 those affections which we may be supposed to carry with 
 us when we depart from the world. But is it a fact, that 
 among the whole army of unbelievers you can find a 
 single man who cherishes a passion, or forms a character, 
 or seeks an acquisition, with any idea of figuring in 
 another world 1 Does the man of science plod over his 
 books, and expand his mind, and lay in stores of know- 
 ledge, for the high and wise purpose of fitting himself to 
 enter upon the scenes of another life h Does the man 
 thirsting for honour fix his mind on the estimation in 
 which immortal beings shall hold him when the world 
 shall be no more, or does he not confine his honourable 
 aspirations to the estimation of mortals and the world, 
 and, in his very highest mood of mind, only think of the 
 name which he shall leave behind him to be remembered 
 on earth when he is gone ] Does the man of taste culti- 
 vate that judgment, and that sense of beauty on which 
 taste is founded, and by which it has its delights, for any 
 purpose which can be supposed to belong to any future 
 existence h Does the poet train his fancy, wing his 
 thought, and call on the quickened sensibilities within 
 him, for the sake of song to be sung in another world ? 
 Hone of these things. They do not expect to step out 
 
334 CRUCIFIXION TO TIIE WORLD BY THE CROSS. 
 
 on another field, and, among the scenes and society cf 
 immortality, to find the full wish of the heart. Not a 
 man of them ! On this side of the opening entrance- 
 gate of eternity lie all their hopes, and aims, and trea- 
 sures. 
 
 Now, holiness and Christ have their chief offers else- 
 where. They lie in futurity — in heaven. And the 
 general sentiment of the believer is, that that world is 
 all in all to him ; to this world he is crucified , and tlie 
 ivorld is crucified unto him. There can be no faith in 
 that heart which does not feel the force of this general 
 principle. 
 
 2. We mention some particular experiences. It is im- 
 possible to break off all connection with worldly things. 
 They are necessary to us. We must and ought to feel 
 some interest in them. The world, its government and 
 its goodness, teach lessons about Cod, and piety is often 
 stimulated by contemplations of the heavens which de- 
 clare the glory of God , and the firmament which showeth his 
 handy-work , and the earth which is full of the goodness of 
 the Lord. Moreover, we can scarcely find any example 
 of a believer who has ever attained such a victory of 
 faith over the world, as not to exhibit some proofs of too 
 eager a worldly cupidity. The crucifixion to the ivorld , 
 in point of fact, therefore, is not perfect. It has its per- 
 fection only in principle. But, in principle and in the 
 commenced experiences of the regenerated soul, this cruci- 
 fixion is a reality. Look at the particulars. 
 
 (1.) A believer is crucified unto the worlds and the world 
 unto him in regard to the hopes he entertains of its friend- 
 ship. He has another friend. He turns to him when his 
 friends in this world forsake him. He unbosoms his 
 sorrows to his God. He enjoys his delights and prosperi- 
 ties as coming from God. On this principle St. John 
 
CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY TIIE CROSS. 335 
 
 speaks, when he affirms, If any man love the world , the love 
 of the Father is not in him. On this principle St. James 
 says, The friendship of the world is enmity with God ; 
 whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the 
 enemy of God. Christians have experienced this. They 
 have been led to see that there is a fundamental opposi- 
 tion between these two friendships; and that if they 
 would have the one, they must renounce the other. They 
 have renounced it. The renunciation is one of their fixed 
 principles. And whenever the friendship of the world 
 slides into their hearts, as sometimes it will, they soon 
 feel condemned, and ashamed, and injured. 
 
 (2.) A believer is crucified unto the world , and the world 
 unto him, in the matter of his designs. However he may 
 come short in the execution, it is his sincere disposition 
 to walk according to the will of God. Hence, he can 
 affirm like St. Paul, Though we walk in the flesh , we do 
 not war after the flesh . He has designs and principles that 
 are not taken from the world. And hence, like St. Paul, 
 he can say, The weapons of our warfare are not carnal , 
 but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, 
 casting down imaginations, and every high thing that ex - 
 alteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing 
 into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 
 
 It is to the ground of this design, these sincere intents 
 to be ruled by God, and to live for immortality, that we 
 are to refer those strong professions that saints have some- 
 times made. St. Peter made one of them : Lord, thou, 
 knowest that 1 love thee ! David made more than one : 
 0 Lord , thou hast searched me and known me. My heart 
 is fixed; 0 God, my heart is fixed ! Job made such pro- 
 testations : I made a covenant with mine eyes, Let me be 
 weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integ- 
 rity. If my step hath turned out of the way, and mins 
 
336 CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS . 
 
 heart walked after mine eyes , and if any blot hath cleaved 
 to my hands , then let me soiv and let another eat , yea, let 
 my offspring be rooted out. If I have made gold my hope , 
 or have said to fine gold , Thou art my confidence , i/* / re- 
 joiced because my wealth was great, this were an iniquity ; 
 I should have denied the God that is above. On the ground 
 of their hearts’ intent, saints protest their innocence. By 
 experience in consciousness they do know that they are 
 crucified to the world, so far as designs and dispositions 
 of heart are concerned. Hence they can pray on this 
 ground, Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous 
 things out of thy law. They want their hearts crucified to 
 the ivorld, want a holy correspondence with heaven. Teach 
 me to do thy will, for thou art my God. Thy Spirit is 
 good; lead me into the land of uprightness. On this 
 ground believers utter their most bitter lamentations : 0 
 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from the 
 body of this death ? 
 
 (3.) A believer is crucified to the vjorld in respect to the 
 matters of hope. He finds the body hindering him. He 
 finds temporal things shutting out God. He finds the 
 hopes he once indulged of arriving at peace in this life, 
 and living without any intermissions in the light of 
 God’s countenance, frustrated; and in the midst of such 
 blighted hopes, and experiencing the fetters with which 
 this world burdens his heart, he longs to be gone to 
 another. We that are in this tabernacle do groan, being 
 burdened . . . whilst we are at home in the body, we are 
 absent from the Lord ... we are . . . willing rather to 
 be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. 
 
 Such asseverations exhibit a part of a Christian’s ex- 
 perience, and that Christian has need to examine him- 
 self who has never had a heart to make them. It becomes 
 a solemn question whether he is crucified to the world. 
 
CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS. 337 
 
 The crucifixion of earthly, sinful hopes is no gentle thing. 
 The heart clings to its earthly, sinful delights with the 
 grasp of desperation. And when such hopes perish, one 
 after another, and die out of the smitten heart — 0 I 1 ! it is 
 like the vinegar and gall and nails of the crucifixion ! 
 
 (4.) A believer is crucified to the world in respect to his 
 object of love. He once had nothing but the world to love. 
 His heart moved warmly to its offers. It sunk within 
 him when the world frowned. Sensuous delights seemed 
 precious to him. So did intellectual delights, perhaps, 
 and intellectual honours. The reciprocity of affection be- 
 tween him and his beloved fellows, appeared all that he 
 could desire or have. It never occurred to him that he 
 wanted to love God, or that communion with God was 
 the very thing he needed at the times when the world 
 seemed a dreary blank, and his vacant heart wanted some- 
 thing, he knew not what. If he could relish the decencies 
 and tastefulness of a moral life, he could go no further 
 than those. He could not enjoy spiritual things ; they 
 were foolishness unto him. He could not enjoy God in 
 prayer, in meditation. He could not enjoy him in the 
 covenant, or in his promises. The cause of all this was 
 that he loved the world, and the things that are in the 
 world , with an absorbing affection. In respect to such an 
 affection, the believer has experienced a crucifixion. 
 Hence you may hear him exclaiming, My meditation of 
 God shall be sweet. My heart panteth for God. My chief 
 good is to draio nigh to thee. 
 
 (5.) The believer is crucified unto the world in respect to 
 his efforts . His efforts are now directed towards some- 
 thing else, and he can say, I L>ress toward the marie for the 
 prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. He is 
 far from thinking he may be idle, or has attained perfec- 
 tion ; he never indulges such idiot dreams. Not as though 
 22 
 
338 CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS. 
 
 I had already attained or were made perfect, but I folloiv 
 after . I keep wider my body and bring it into subjection , 
 lest, after preaching to others, I myself should be a cast- 
 away. 
 
 These are some of the particular experiences of cruci- 
 fixion to the world. We cannot now enter into the pain 
 of them. We leave that to your remembrance. But just 
 as certainly as you are believers, you have experiences of 
 precisely this nature. Your prized friendships, your 
 designs, your fondest hopes, your love, your efforts — all 
 these have been crucified to the world. You have seen 
 its unfitness, its emptiness as a portion for your soul, 
 and persuaded of God that there is something better 
 for you, you are aiming to reach after it and prepare 
 for it. 
 
 II. We proposed to explain how this crucifixion to the 
 world results from the cross of Christ. It is impossible 
 to unfold the whole matter. Take a few items. 
 
 1. It is impossible to have any just ideas of the cross 
 of Christ, without being affected with the idea of the sac- 
 rifice there made to divine justice. It was the operative 
 power of this justice that bound Christ to the tree, and 
 took his blood. Jesus Christ was holy himself, but he 
 took our place. Holy though he was, justice demanded 
 of him all that was endured amid the railings and bitter- 
 ness of men, in the courts of tyrants, in the bloody garden, 
 and on the cross. The Father forsook him ; and he died 
 in ignominy, and amid such spiritual pains and conflicts 
 as divinity alone enabled him to endure. He died for 
 sinners ; and in his death God gives sinners a warning of 
 what they may expect if they continue in sin. It is the 
 utmost possible warning. This is the point. It is the 
 utmost possible warning. We may contemplate misery 
 
CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY TnE CROSS. 339 
 
 and death stalking over this world from generation to 
 generation ; we may look away to the vacated seats whence 
 sinning angels fell in heaven ; we may consider anything, 
 and we shall find no such awful determination of divine 
 justice as in the sufferings of the Son of God. But he 
 died for us. He died that we might die unto the world 
 and live to God. If we will not, if we will reject Christ 
 and love the world, what shall the end be of our worldly 
 life 1 ? We shall fall under the justice of God. The vials 
 of wrath poured on Jesus Christ’s head shall be poured 
 on ours. We shall be bound to suffer for interminable 
 ages, for we perceive, in the death of Christ, the inflexible 
 determination of infinite justice. Here then it is : we must 
 be crucified to the world with Christ, and forsake the sin 
 which binds us to it, and on account of which he died for 
 us; or we must fall back under the wrath of God for ever. 
 For this worldly life, this vanity, this sin, these trifles that 
 occupy us, these bubbles that burst as we touch them, 
 Jesus Christ endured the strokes of divine justice ; and 
 surely this consideration ought to be effective to crucify 
 us unto the world and the world unto us. 
 
 2. The example of Christ tends to excite the same dis- 
 position. On the cross, in darkness, and groans, and 
 blood, he finishes a life spent in poverty and toil, in hunger 
 and weariness, in doing the will of the Father. And since 
 all this was for us, and since we are his servants, and 
 since, probably, we have no such death to die, but expect 
 to die in our beds, surrounded by all the soothings that 
 affection can give, and since he only asks of us to be 
 crucified to the world — never, no, not in a single instance, 
 for the purpose of diminishing our felicity even here — 
 what a disgrace to us if we only love the world, and pant 
 after its ease, its pleasures, its sinful and deceptive indul- 
 gences ! Is such conduct worthy of us ] Is the servant 
 
340 CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS . 
 
 greater than his Lord ? Shall the disciple complain of 
 his hard couch, or value greatly the down he sleeps on, 
 when the Lord his Redeemer could say, The foxes have 
 holes , and the birds of the air have nests , but the Son of 
 man hath not where to lay his head ? Shall the dis- 
 ciple refuse to give up the world, when his Master could, 
 on his account, set his face to go up to Jerusalem, and 
 suffer many things and be hilled ? 
 
 This idea is wonderfully efficacious for a worldly cruci- 
 fixion. We meet it often. When w r e visit the sick, one 
 says, “ Yes, I suffer much pain, but Jesus endured much 
 more for me.” Another says, “ What are my sufferings com- 
 pared with those of my Saviour!” Another exclaims, 
 “ These pangs, these darts of anguish, all these agonies are 
 not like Christ’s! If he was patient, can I murmur]” 
 Thus the world is given up, and felicity in it, without a 
 murmur, and holy patience created by contemplations of 
 the cross. So of other things. 
 
 3. The certainty of the benefits proposed to us in the 
 cross of Christ tends to crucify us to the world . We can 
 have these benefits in no other way. If any man will be 
 my disciple let him deny himself and take up his cross and 
 follow me. If a man will do this, he cannot be lost. 
 Aside from the promises, there is that in the Saviour’s 
 crucifixion which shows God to be infinitely in earnest to 
 save sinners. The person of Christ is one thing, and the 
 death of Christ is still more. Two infinite wonders. If 
 these do not fix a certainty of God’s sincere earnestness to 
 save us, what could] From this sinful world not a sinner 
 under the visitations of the gospel would go down to hell, 
 if he were half as earnest and sincere in seeking salvation 
 as God has been in procuring it for him, and this moment 
 is in urging it upon him. The true Christian feels this. 
 Tie is disposed to be crucified to the world , and animated 
 
CRUCIFIXION TO TIIE WORLD BY THE CROSS. 341 
 
 with a desire to give up its sin, because the cross of Christ 
 assures him that God will not refuse him any benefit, 
 since he spared not his own Son. 
 
 4. The cross of Christ is the measure of the love of God 
 for sinners. Nothing else can gauge its adorable dimen- 
 sions. This infinite person, and such a person in death, 
 under the burden of our iniquities and the pleasure of the 
 Father to bruise him ! surely if there is one spot in the 
 heart not death-struck with the insensibility of devils, this 
 ought to affect it. It does affect it. It affected St. Paul’s. 
 It was the very idea which crucified him to the world. I 
 am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live ; yet not I, 
 but Christ liveth in me ; and the life ivhich I now live in 
 the flesh , I live by the faith of the Son of God , who loved 
 me and gave himself for me. 
 
 The disposition of an unbeliever is one of suspicion. 
 It does an injustice to God, an amazing injustice. Because 
 sin has darkened his mind, and because God stands be- 
 tween him and his chosen delights, and forbids him, under 
 pain of his everlasting displeasure, to do wrong, the sinner 
 entertains dark suspicions of God, and it is one of the 
 hardest of all difficult things to persuade him that God 
 loves him. Hence, he has no faith in God. He will not 
 let go of the world at his bidding. He will not take the 
 course that God points out, nor accept the offers that God 
 makes him. He will not reckon himself dead indeed unto 
 sin , but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. 
 The disposition of a believer is different. He trusts God 
 because he is persuaded that God loves him, and this per- 
 suasion, while it comes from the cross, is the very thing 
 which crucifies him to the world ; and he exclaims, I am 
 persuaded that neither death , nor life , nor angels , nor prin- 
 cipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come , nor height , nor depth , nor any other creature , shall 
 
342 CRUCIFIXION TO THE WORLD BY THE CROSS. 
 
 be able to separate me from the love of God , which is in 
 Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 
 But we must stop. There is no end to this enumera- 
 tion. The cross of Christ is a fountain flowing with 
 motives for crucifixion to the world, and the regenerated 
 feel those motives. The divine justice, the example of 
 Christ, the certainty of his benefits, the dimensions of the 
 love of God, gauged by the cross, and a thousand other 
 ideas which cluster around it, make the cross of Christ the 
 very thing to crucify the believer to the world. 
 
 One conclusion from all this is irresistibly forced upon 
 us, — a conclusion which ought to strike terror into the 
 hearts of many in this assembly. Here, under the gospel, 
 — here, where Christ is to be set forth crucified among 
 you to-day,- — here, where the Spirit and the Bride say , 
 Come , — even here there are not a few who will turn their 
 backs upon the table of the Lord. To them there is no 
 beauty in Christ that they should desire him. That 
 matter, — that grand matter, which God designs to break 
 the charm of the world, — is lost upon them. That grand 
 matter which does most to affect Christian hearts, does 
 least to affect theirs. If we were to paint the world in 
 its true colours, — showing its few joys, many sorrows, 
 weaving shrouds, and opening graves under the busy 
 spade of the grave-digger, — we could throw a moment’s 
 purpose into their hearts to live for something else than 
 the world. But to speak of the cross of Christ does them 
 no good. God and they think differently. What shall 
 the end be ? They that despised Moses ’ law died with- 
 out mercy. . . . Of how much sorer punishment shall he 
 be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot the Son 
 of God , and counted the blood of the covenant an unholy 
 thing ? 
 
 Here, then, sinner, see thy hardness, and read thy 
 
CRUCIFIXION TO TIIE WORLD BY THE CROSS . 343 
 
 doom ! God lias tried to win tliee. God has loved thee. 
 God has offered thee Christ, and in him all things . God 
 will soon call thee to give an account of the blood of his 
 Son. All your other guilt, all the crimes which some- 
 times harrow up your conscience, sink into nothing in 
 comparison with your guilt in denying the Holy One and 
 the just, in despising his offers, for the contemptible world 
 out of which you will soon pass to the final' tribunal ! 
 
 Another conclusion is very different. The people of 
 God will learn their high privilege. From the cross they 
 will take motives to vanquish the world. They will see 
 there how much God has loved them, what it cost to re- 
 deem them, and what an immortal world is open to their 
 entrance. From the communion table they will direct their 
 hopes to the heaven prepared for them. That house not 
 made with hands , that reconciled God and Father, that 
 Saviour coming again to receive them to himself, that 
 glory and honour and immortality , will pour contempt 
 upon the world, and fit them for all its buffetings. 
 The Holy Spirit will come down. He will shed abroad 
 the love of God in the heart. The believer will say, Draw 
 me, and I will run after thee. Teach my hands to ivar, 
 and my fingers to fight ! Grace has saved me. God has 
 loved me. Christ waits for me, and I am crucified to a 
 world from whose troubles I shall soon soar away to the 
 mansions of immortality. Praise him, my soul! praise 
 him ! I shall see God face to face. I shall sin no more. 
 God will love me, and I will love God, and sing the high 
 anthems of redeeming grace for ever and ever ! 
 
XXI. 
 
 Jmtlj foitbmit Sigljt. 
 
 “ Jesus saitli unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast 
 believed : blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have be- 
 lieved. — John xx. 29. 
 
 TVHIS is the answer of Jesus Christ our Lord to Thomas, 
 A after the latter had become perfectly convinced of his 
 Lord’s resurrection from the dead. By some unexplained 
 circumstance or influence, this disciple had not been with 
 the rest at the time when the risen Saviour had previously 
 appeared to them. Perhaps it was by no fault of his that 
 he was not there ; his enemies may have prevented him. 
 The civil authority of the city was now in the hands of the 
 enemies of Christ, by whose consent, at least, he had been 
 put to death; and the doctrines which he had preached, 
 and especially his claim to Messiahship, were very un- 
 popular at Jerusalem. Thomas may have been kept from 
 the previous meeting of the disciples, therefore, by official 
 or by popular violence. Perhaps (and this is the more 
 probable) he was absent from that meeting on account of 
 the weakness of his faith. Having seen Jesus Christ in 
 the hands of his foes, and disposed of according to the 
 bitterness of their bloodthirsty malice, Thomas may have 
 been tempted to renounce his hope in Christ, to regard 
 him as an impostor, and take sides (at least tacitly) with 
 those who had put him to death. A true faith is some- 
 times terribly shaken. The disappointments it meets 
 
FAITII WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 345 
 
 makes its feebleness tremble, and for a time its possessor 
 seems to acquiesce in the opposition of its enemies. Such 
 may have been the case with this disciple, and therefore 
 having almost decided that Jesus was the impostor which 
 his enemies affirmed, and which his crucifixion seemed to 
 prove, he may have abandoned the company of the 
 apostles, and so not been present at the moment in which 
 Jesus Christ first showed himself to them after his passion. 
 It is no uncommon thing to fail of benefits by forsaking 
 good company. Christians, especially weak ones, suffer 
 such a failure often. They leave the companionship of 
 the pious, and are therefore absent, Tliomas-like, at those 
 very periods when Christ comes, and when they, above all 
 persons, ought to be present to receive confirmation of faith 
 and comfort growing out of it. 
 
 But however it may have been with Thomas, he was 
 not there. Christ came, and he was not there ! The rest 
 were assembled, they saw Christ, heard him, were glad, 
 and received from him the gift of the Holy Spirit (a gift 
 which it would seem that Thomas, above all, could not 
 afford to dispense with). The disciples told the story of 
 the resurrection to him when they found him, but he 
 would not believe. He was utterly incredulous — obsti- 
 nately so. He declared he would not believe , except lie 
 should see in his hands the print of the nails , and put his 
 finger into the print of the nails , and thrust his hand into 
 his side. All this Jesus Christ granted him when he 
 appeared to his assembled disciples a second time, when 
 Thomas was there. The incredulity of Thomas vanished ; 
 he was overwhelmed with the proof, and with mingled 
 joy and shame he could only exclaim, in adoration and 
 wonder, My Lord and my God! He meant by this to 
 adore God as the promised Immanuel, as God manifest in 
 the flesh, as entitled to all confidence, and love, and adora- 
 
346 
 
 FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 tion. The significance of his believing expression, when 
 he cried out, My Lord and my God ! is the more confirmed 
 to us by the “frivolous evasion” to which some resort. 
 Instead of finding in this exclamation a proof of the Deity 
 of Christ, they only find in it a little profane swearing ! 
 Such is their interpretation. Rather than acknowledge 
 the deity of Christ, they will convict Thomas of profane 
 swearing ! By their interpretation he is certainly guilty 
 of it. They say he meant nothing by it ; he only uttered 
 a sudden exclamation of astonishment. If so, then he 
 took God’s name in vain. 
 
 My brethren, it is a very difficult task to unite a false 
 theology with a just morality. You would not fear, I 
 suppose, to copy the morality of Thomas — certainly not 
 that portion of it which appeared in this conversation. 
 If, then, you adopt the interpretation we combat, you will 
 not hesitate to make the exclamation, My Lord and my 
 God , whenever anything greatly and suddenly astonishes 
 you. If you do make such exclamations, you take God’s 
 name in vain. It is a hard thing to reject true doctrines 
 and yet retain good principle. Thomas acknowledged the 
 deity of Christ — he adored him as God. He did not fall 
 into the crime of profanity on this very solemn occa- 
 sion. 
 
 The response of Jesus Christ to this adoring confes- 
 sion of the apostle is our text, Jesus saith unto him , 
 Thomas , because thou hast seen me , thou hast believed; 
 blessed are they that have not seen , and yet have believed . 
 
 Lest the treatment which Thomas experienced at the 
 hands of Jesus should lead some of you to think too 
 lightly of your unbelief, and to imagine you may justly 
 withhold your faith in Christ till you have more evidences 
 to found it upon, we wish to call your attention to the 
 incredulity of Thomas. We ought not too much to blame 
 
FAITII WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 347 
 
 him. I am persuaded that his unbelief is susceptible of 
 apologies which yours cannot plead. 
 
 1. He had had no such clear explanation of the gospel 
 procedure as we have had. He did not know in what 
 manner the kingdom of Christ was to be set up m the 
 world. The whole apostolic college did not know. They 
 knew the fact. They knew the promises commenced in 
 Eden to the fallen pair, and continued through ages to 
 such men as Noah, and Abraham, and Jacob, and Moses, 
 and Samuel, and David, and Isaiah, and Daniel, and Joel; 
 they knew that these promises would be fulfilled, but they 
 knew not when or how. It has ever been a defect in the 
 religion of men that they are so reluctantly constrained by 
 it to make its benefits spiritual and eternal to any just 
 degree. They let go of the world very slowly. Their 
 faith, their minds, and hearts move towards God with a 
 very manifest reluctance, as if in that path of movement 
 they were burdened with a heavy load to bear along. It 
 was so with the disciples. They look for an earthly king- 
 dom. St. Peter would not assent to Christ’s own predic- 
 tion of his death. He said, This shall never be unto thee , 
 Lord ; and even at the last hour he was found armed 
 with a material weapon, ready to strike with courage and 
 energy for his Master, and Christ had to say to him, Put 
 up thy sword into the sheath. A pious mother, with just 
 that maternal affection which always sinks self-interest in 
 the interest of her children, had prayed Jesus that her two 
 sons might sit, one on his right hand , the other on his left , in 
 that earthly kingdom which she expected him to establish. 
 After all the plainness and reiteration of Christ’s pro- 
 phecies about himself, his death and resurrection, it is said 
 of Ms followers, As yet they knew not the Scriptures , that he 
 should rise from the dead. After he had risen, even some 
 of them could give a mournful account of the crucifixion 
 
348 
 
 FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT . 
 
 and tlieir hopelessness : We thought it had been he who 
 should have redeemed Israel. Evidently their hearts were 
 too much upon an earthly kingdom. Evidently this fact 
 misled their understandings, and left their ideas too worldly, 
 and too little spiritual and eternal. 
 
 Now, while they were expecting a temporal kingdom to 
 be set up — while they looked for the son and heir of 
 David to ascend his throne, and knew he could ascend it 
 by means of those miraculous powers whose effects they 
 had so often witnessed, suddenly the scene is changed. 
 The light which shone in the miracles, and which seemed 
 to be the dawn of Israel’s glory, goes out. Jesus is arrested, 
 tried, mocked. His enemies triumph over him. He is 
 taken from the cross, and hurried away to the tomb. And 
 now that the faith of Thomas should have been staggered 
 is nothing wonderful. The promises seemed to have 
 been falsified. The power of miracles seemed to have 
 failed, or to have fallen out of Christ’s hands. The 
 Father seemed to have utterly abandoned him, and faith 
 and hope seemed to be wrapped round with that pall of 
 darkness which envelops the tomb ! The apostle, after 
 all this disappointment, this chain of circumstances which 
 seemed to contradict faith, wanted something more than 
 the testimony of a few women and a few disciples, before 
 he would believe that his Lord and his God had arisen 
 from the dead. He wanted to see him. His own eyes 
 had beheld him in his calamity, and now he wanted the 
 same kind of evidence of his resurrection. Any of us 
 might have wanted the same thing. This seems almost 
 to be a demand of nature. To satisfy a stricken heart 
 that it need not bleed, seems almost to require the same 
 kind of evidence that it had in its felicity. 
 
 2. Yes, this incredulity of Thomas may have arisen 
 mainly from an affectionate disposition, a prizing of the 
 
FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 349 
 
 very tiling which it could not believe. You must be veiy 
 ignorant of human nature if you do not know that there 
 are hearts which require more proof for good things than 
 for bad ones. If this is not general, there are such. 
 Most of our hearts are such in their seasons of sadness. 
 A deep grief once felt, harshly wearing out a channel for 
 itself in the soul, seems to incline us to disbelieve any- 
 thing that is good, and prepare us to believe anything 
 that is sorrowful. We know this very well, if you do not. 
 As clergymen, we come in contact with afflictions which 
 feel bound to refuse to be comforted. And we have learned 
 that often, very often, the heart is so far gone from the 
 temper of hope, that we can comfort it best by the very 
 ideas which seem to confirm its despondency; we drive 
 the probe of affliction to the bottom of the wound for the 
 very purposes of the salve of consolation. Affectionate 
 dispositions, once saddened, are the most difficult to be 
 comforted. They are the most slow to believe in anything 
 that is comforting. Love and tenderness are timid things. 
 Before we give ourselves up to the joy, we want sure 
 grounds ; we want to know that our sacredness of sorrow 
 is not to be trifled with; that we are not to be flung 
 back into a grief made more cutting by a momentary 
 hope. 
 
 Now, this may have been just the case with Thomas 
 in his unbelief. He loved Christ, perhaps, with more 
 than an ordinary affection. Perhaps that affection kept 
 him away from the first meeting of the disciples, when 
 Jesus met them after his resurrection. There is a sacred- 
 ness in the grief of an affectionate heart which disinclines 
 one to all kinds of communion but two — communion with 
 his own spirit and with God. Thomas may have been 
 indulging this sacredness of grief; and afterwards, when 
 the disciples told him that Christ had arisen, the tidings 
 
350 
 
 FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 may have been so contrary to the whole impression which 
 sadness had made upon his affectionate heart, that he 
 could not believe their testimony. He wanted evidence 
 of his own eyes — the Saviour before him — the nail-prints 
 and the spear-gash. He had it; and in adoring joy he 
 says to Jesus, My Lord and my God! 
 
 These are some of the considerations which plead an 
 apology for the incredulity of Thomas, and forbid us to 
 excuse our unbelief by the plea of his example. 
 
 But certainly his unbelief was not innocent. While 
 Christ gratified him, he reproved him. He had believed 
 by seeing, but our Lord pronounces them blessed who had 
 believed without seeing. He intimates that if others 
 should be as unbelieving as Thomas, very few would in- 
 herit the blessing ; that believers who had never seen him 
 would suffer by that reason no loss. Such unbelief as 
 that of Thomas would be fatal to Christianity. Jesus 
 Christ was about to depart out of the world, to be hidden 
 from the eyes of its inhabitants until the last day; and 
 after that, every man who should say as Thomas did, 
 must perish in unbelief. After his ascension there must 
 be some way of believing without seeing, or gospel faith 
 and gospel salvation must cease ; Blessed are they that have 
 not seen , and yet have believed. 
 
 We are going to explain this blessedness. Belief, faith, 
 is an assent of the mind to truth, caused by the evidences 
 which substantiate it. So far it is intellectual. But 
 Christian faith goes beyond this, and besides assenting in 
 conviction to the truth in the abstract, embraces positively 
 and personally the great object of faith, Jesus Christ as 
 he is freely offered in the gospel to save. 
 
 What we have now particularly to consider consists in 
 the evidences of the truth on which faith is founded. There 
 are different sorts of evidence, and therefore different way 
 
FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 351 
 
 in which evidence may be reached. There are consequently 
 different original principles in man by which faith operates, 
 and which we denominate the original principles of faith. 
 Let us see what they are. We blend the two together, 
 that is, the evidence and the principles. 
 
 1. There is the evidence of the senses. This needs 
 little explanation. It is an original principle of believing. 
 Man is so made that he is compelled to believe when he 
 has the evidence of his senses. This kind of evidence is 
 what Thomas wanted, and J esus Christ finally granted it 
 to him. But this is what we cannot have ; we must be- 
 lieve though we have not seen. 
 
 But our lack of this kind of evidence is not necessarily 
 an unhappiness. As the text implies, if we believe on 
 other kinds of evidence, our faith has a superiority attached 
 to it, and we do not fall under the rebuke which came 
 upon the incredulity of Thomas. 
 
 2. There is therefore an evidence of testimony. In man 
 there is another original principle of believing, by which 
 he is convinced of that which is sufficiently proved to him 
 by competent witnesses. No other account can be given 
 of this. You cannot explain it. An overlooking of this 
 principle, or an ignorance of it, was what led Hume into 
 his argument against Christianity. His metaphysics were 
 as foggy as his religion was false. He was as distant 
 from true philosophy as from the Bible. 
 
 On this ground most of my convictions, of my know- 
 ledge, rests. There is more which lies beyond the reach 
 of my senses than comes within the compass of them. 
 On this ground I believe the common details of history, 
 and make the map of the past my guide for the future. 
 On this ground the bench and the jury-box found their deci- 
 sions, so that the property, liberty, life, and death of every 
 man among us are under the control of this principle. 
 
352 
 
 FA1TII WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 Blessed are they that have not seen , and yet have believed. 
 Thomas had this sufficiency of testimony to Christ’s re- 
 surrection, and it was a fault in him that he would not 
 receive it. His demand to see was assuming a ground of 
 faith which, would cut him off from all ordinary inter- 
 course with men, and ordinary pursuits in the world. 
 
 A demand of the evidence of the senses goes to material- 
 ize everything. It puts out of the pale of faith immaterial 
 and spiritual objects. No man hath seen God at any time. 
 It therefore dishonours God himself. It disdains all 
 evidence of spirituality, and would bring him down to the 
 grossness of matter before it would own him at all. It 
 dishonours man’s own soul. It assumes the position 
 that that immaterial spirit has nothing in it whereby it 
 can have knowledge , only as it comes in contact with the 
 grossness of matter. Indeed, this demand of the evidence 
 of the senses is an insult to the Deity. You consider 
 yourself insulted if your neighbour will not believe your 
 word, although you belong to a race, some of whom have 
 been known to lie. And God , who cannot lie , will much 
 more consider himself insulted if one will not believe the 
 testimony which he hath given of his Son. Such a one 
 makes even God a liar ! Blessed are they that have not 
 seen and yet have believed. They stand on higher ground 
 — more above the brute. They employ their own souls 
 better. They honour God more. They can meet him as 
 he is, and take him at his word. His word ! 0 rock, 
 rock! eternal rock! Let me live upon it; let me die 
 upon it ! Let me plant my footstep upon it when I step 
 off from this material scene to become an inhabitant of 
 eternity! Blessed are they that have not seen and yet 
 have believed. 
 
 3. There is an evidence of reason. This is also a very 
 extensive ground of faith. It implies a process of the 
 
FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 353 
 
 understanding. Its proceeding is to commence with some 
 known truths as premises, and on them to found conclu- 
 sions, which conclusions are other truths that may be 
 employed in the like manner. For example : my eyes 
 have convinced me that sunshine is needful to the produc- 
 tipn of the fields, to the coloured beauty of the blossom, 
 and the ripened grain. It is unreasonable to conclude 
 that harvest would come in well without it, though I can 
 see no reason why it should not. Because it never did, 
 as I clearly see to some extent, — and as I know to greater 
 extent, by credible testimony, — therefore, by reason, I 
 conclude it never will. This conclusion is faith. To rest 
 on such conclusions of a just reasoning is one of the 
 original principles of believing. No other account of it 
 can be given. You cannot explain it — not a word, not a 
 syllable. You can only say, So God has made the human 
 mind. Men employ this principle of reasoning in a very 
 large portion of the duties and operations of life. Their 
 faith, their belief, and consequently their actions, are 
 founded on its conclusions. It aids to enjoin honesty, 
 industry, temperance, benevolence, and other virtues. It 
 aids also to enforce the spiritual graces, and those high 
 aims which reach forth towards the felicity of another 
 country , even an heavenly. 
 
 Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed. 
 Here I am to stay but a little while. Possibly I may reach 
 threescore years and ten, though I do not expect it. And 
 here my happiness is very imperfect. The flowers that 
 delight me die as I gaze on them ! my tears have streamed 
 upon the tomb of my father ! within my heart are wants 
 the world cannot meet ! I feel that I am capable of a 
 felicity that the world cannot give, and cannot take away ! 
 But this is God’s world, and I am God’s creature, and 
 God is good. Can I, then, — can I possibly conclude, 
 23 
 
354 
 
 FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 with any show of reason, that this brief life, these fading 
 delights, these tears, and these tombs, are all that a good 
 God has to give me ? It would be an unreasonable con- 
 clusion, and as unblessed as unreasonable. Such a faith 
 would dishonour God. It would distress my soul. It 
 would hang the pall of an eternal midnight over the whole 
 world, and make me live in it and die out of it in despair ! 
 My reason, then, — the whole force of my reason, enjoins 
 upon me to believe , although I have not seen it, that there 
 is another world ; that God has a good in store for those 
 that please him, better than all he gives them here ; that 
 there will be a final adjudication made in righteousness ; 
 and that to love God and serve him, and lay up treasures 
 in heaven , are the most reasonable things in the universe. 
 Blessed are they that believe it. They rise above the 
 grossness of the senses. Their immaterial soul anticipates 
 a new heaven and a new earth. They look forward to that 
 spiritual body which shall be greeted by the light of the 
 resurrection morn, and shall greet Christ coming in the 
 clouds of heaven to claim his own ! Here, then, sinner 
 though I am, — frail mortal, dashed about in the world, 
 and not knowing when I shall be dashed to pieces, — 
 here, come affliction ! I bare my bosom to thine arrows ! 
 Death, I dare thee ! Grave, do thy worst ! My reason 
 — the whole power of my reason — sustains me when 
 I believe the promise, Because I live , ye shall live also ! 
 
 4. There is an evidence of the heart. The argument 
 and the illustration we have just uttered are applicable to 
 it. You will excuse us from any other. We only state 
 the principle. It is this : Human nature lias its affections 
 as well as its eyes, and through the medium of its affec- 
 tions as really as through the medium of its eyes, it 
 ought to have faith. Man ought to believe as well by 
 the working of his heart as by the opening of his eyelids. 
 
FA1TII WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 355 
 
 Why not ? When he opens his eyes he believes the light 
 is sweet , and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold 
 the sun. He not only believes that light exists, but he 
 believes, also, that there is something in it which meets 
 the wants of his nature, which gives him pleasure. On 
 the same principle, why shall he not believe his heart 'l 
 It has capacities, has wants, is capable of pleasure as well 
 as his eyes, and why, then, shall he not give it the like 
 credit 1 He does credit it to some extent, necessarily. 
 He does believe to some extent by the medium of it. This 
 is an original principle of belief. You can give no other 
 account of it. You cannot explain it; not a word, not a 
 syllable. You only know that it is so. On this principle, 
 you believe that in all ordinary circumstances society is 
 good for you ; that you cannot be happy in eternal soli- 
 tude, cut off from all intercourse with your fellows. You 
 believe it because you find it so ; you believe your heart, 
 just as you believe your eyes. On the same principle you 
 believe that you need some one to love, and some one to 
 love you — something to hope in; your heart demands 
 some covenant of promise to spread its securities over the 
 future. 
 
 And oh, how blessed for the heart, if it will only con- 
 sent to be such a heart as to give up its world, and let 
 heaven and God satisfy it ! Blessed are they that have 
 not seen and yet have believed . They have done an honour 
 to God which is due to him. They have opened to him 
 their hearts, as he stood at the door and knocked; and 
 when he came in and supped with them, and they with 
 him , they said, This is all my salvation and all my desire. 
 Their heart has found that to love God and meet him 
 in Christ, to take his offered pardon, to commune with 
 him and hope in him, while graves are digging and the 
 soul is rushing towards another world, — their heart has 
 
356 
 
 FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 found that this is portion enough. Blessed are they that 
 have believed thus. We do not profess to exhaust this 
 subject, but — 
 
 5. There is an evidence of conscience. The explanation 
 about it is much the same as that just given. By the 
 means of conscience, a man believes that there is such a 
 thing as right, and such another thing as wrong ; that he 
 himself is a sinner, and needs pardon to avoid the strokes 
 of a just God, and be able to die without fear. Thus, by 
 the testimony of conscience, as well as by the testimony 
 of seeing, man believes many things. Conscience has its 
 demands, and they are known not to be fictitious ones, as 
 well as visible things are known to exist, and have beauty 
 or deformity in them. This is an original principle of 
 faith. You cannot explain it; not a word, not a syllable. 
 You can only know that it is so. Conscience has its 
 demands. It has remorse and fear about it, and needs 
 pacification. How can a man be happy when stung to 
 the quick by stings of self-condemnation, and when, as 
 he looks off to another world and an offended God, it is 
 just a fearful looking for of fiery indignation ! Our God 
 is a consuming fire . He will call us to an account. His 
 wrath will burn up his enemies. 
 
 And oh, how blessed for us all, if we will only consent 
 to believe on the testimony and through the medium of 
 the conscience within us, and know our sin, and be con- 
 strained to betake ourselves to the blood of atonement ! 
 Then we should be sheltered from fear; we should behold 
 one standing between us and the anger of God, a bloody 
 offering of God’s infinite love, and know that divine justice 
 can ask no more. He has met it. He has met it for us. 
 He has responded to its last demand. Its sword drank 
 his blood, poured out like water, so much he loved us ; 
 and now, having risen from the dead, he has gone to appear 
 
FAITH WITUOVT SIGHT. 357 
 
 in the presence of God for us , tlie mangled body of the 
 cross now the body of his glory. 
 
 Taking shelter in his atonement, if you will only do so 
 freely, and appropriate all his offering to yourself, you 
 may have joy and peace in believing. You will thus put 
 an honour on God’s love which justly belongs to it. You 
 will exalt it to its own high place. O believer ! God 
 did not merely love you enough to provide for you when 
 you wanted much — he loved you enough to provide for 
 you when you wanted everything ! You were a lost 
 sinner, cut off from God. Justice condemned you ! Hell 
 yawned to swallow you up ! You were just on its 
 brink ! Love, unequalled love, adorable love of an ador- 
 able God, found a ransom, and therefore you are here, 
 and not in hell ! therefore you are here to-day to exercise 
 your love and profess your faith in Christ, though you see 
 him not ! 
 
 And now, I ’ask you, — I ask you, as having not merely 
 eyes, but as confiding in fit testimony, as having reason, 
 having a heart, having a conscience, — I ask you if any- 
 thing short of this love of God would meet your wants — 
 your wants as a sinner, as a creature soon to die and 
 stand before the great white tlirone , — I ask you, do not 
 the original principles of your nature, your wants, your 
 sin, your death, and your destination, urge you to full 
 faith in Jesus Christ ? He can meet all your wants. He 
 owns your world; he owns your grave; he has gone 
 before you through its dark portals into eternity. If you 
 will only believe, on the fit grounds of believing, you will 
 honour God more than if you saw him with your own 
 eyes; you will believe his word, just as you believe one 
 whom you love and confide in ; you will trust your heart 
 to him, your conscience to him, your soul to him, your 
 time and your eternity to him. Then, also, you will be 
 
358 
 
 FAITH WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 ready to obey him, to make sacrifices for him, to cut off a 
 right hand or pluck out a right eye , or sacrifice, like 
 Abraham, a home and country, or an only son, at his 
 bidding. And doing so, you will find God present with 
 you, and your experience of his love and grace will 
 raise you above the need of sight. Be not faithless , but 
 believing . 
 
 If you are in darkness now, you will not be in darkness 
 always. Indeed, you will gain light at every step, if you 
 employ the original principles of faith beyond the mere 
 senses. If you will believe in testimony , you will dive 
 into God’s word; and the more you study it, the more will 
 the divinity of its light beam upon your soul. You will 
 pray also, and the opened heavens and the realized answer 
 will comfort your soul. If you will believe by the heart , 
 will only let the heart say what it wants, a God to love 
 and lean upon, and let it try God in Christ, you will soon 
 say, Give me God’s love and I ask no more. If you will 
 believe by an exercised conscience , you will serve God in 
 sincerity, and doing the works you will know of the doctrine 
 whether it be of God. And on all these grounds you will 
 be just acting as a probationer ought, who is here to be 
 tried and to be trained for the world to come. And when 
 you find yourself acting thus, you will find that your 
 course accords with the demands of your nature, with 
 the love of God, with the call of Christ, with the require- 
 ments of your spending life, your sepulchre, and your 
 eternity. 
 
 You cannot here see Christ, and the fact that you 
 cannot is a proof in itself that God has put you on your 
 probation, and is trying you whether you will serve him 
 without sight — whether you love him well enough to 
 trust him for a little while — whether you prize truth well 
 enough to encounter difficulties in finding it — in one word, 
 
FA IT II WITHOUT SIGHT. 
 
 359 
 
 whether you will be wise enough to give up the love of 
 the world for the love of Christ and the Father. 
 
 Your probation will soon end. If you have spent it 
 rightly, in the faith of Jesus, you shall soon see him as he 
 is. You shall see him in his glory. You shall see him, 
 the nail-prints in his hands, and the spear-gash in his 
 side, and adore him with ineffable gratitude, love, and 
 wonder, My Lord and my God ! He will say to you, 
 Come , thou blessed of my Father ! thou hast been faithful 
 over a few things , I will make thee rider over many things : 
 enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. Tis done ? Salvation 
 is gained by grace, through faith in J esus Christ ! The 
 song goes up around the throne of redemption, Alleluiah 
 unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in 
 his own blood! to him be glory and dominion for ever 
 and ever. Amen. 
 
XXII. 
 
 Iftustejj of llcbcmptrott fit for Jfaitlj. 
 
 f< Being justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in 
 Christ Jesus, whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through 
 faith in his blood.” — Rom. iii. 24, 25. 
 
 T HE ideas contained in this passage are very clear, and 
 very logically connected. There are five of them. 
 The first is that of justification by free grace. A 
 sinner can be justified in no other way, for the reason 
 that God has made no other provision for him, and he 
 can make none for himself. He is under law — under a 
 law that his sin has violated (or he would not be a sinner), 
 and the law steadfastly holds him to its requirements on 
 the pain of its penalty. That law knows nothing about 
 devices or compensation. Its language is, Do this , and 
 live; or, The soul that sinneth, it shall die. Therefore if 
 a man is a sinner he cannot be justified by law. Justifi- 
 cation includes an acquittal on trial, a declaration of free- 
 dom from all penalty and blame, so that the individual 
 will stand clear and accepted as righteous under the 
 authority and dominion which are exercised over him. 
 A sinner, therefore, if justified at all, must be justified 
 freely by grace, that is, by mere favour, by mercy, which 
 is the first idea of the text. 
 
 The second is the mode by which this free justification 
 comes. It operates through the redemption that is in Christ 
 Jesus. The grace of justification comes in no other way. 
 
MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 361 
 
 Christ has redeemed sinners, and therefore they can be par- 
 doned and accepted as righteous in God’s sight. This jus- 
 tification of them is not at all grounded on anything which 
 they themselves shall do or suffer, shall promise, or purpose, 
 or feel. Condemned in themselves, the redemption of Jesus 
 Christ alone can deliver them from the curse of the law. 
 
 The third idea is that of the authority on wliich Jesus 
 Christ acted in this great work of a momentous redemp- 
 tion. He was no deliverer sprung from earth, no procured 
 aid called forth by the cries of the miserable, no un- 
 authorized power intervening between law and its victims. 
 He was authoritatively appointed to this office ( whom God 
 hath set forth), and bore along with him the credentials of 
 the court of heaven. His official testimonials had a three- 
 fold commendation. 
 
 First, All nature, all creation obeyed him — sickness, 
 blindness, deafness, human bones and blood, winds and 
 storms, the grave, and death, and devils. 
 
 Second, He was the fulfilment of the prophecies and 
 promises of the Old Testament — the burden of the whole 
 series of divine revelations, reaching from paradise and 
 the first day of sin, through wasting centuries, down to 
 the inquiries of the wise men who saw his star in the east 
 and came to worship him. The blindness or rebellious- 
 ness, therefore, which rejects him, must at the same time 
 carry its incredulity back through the sweep of ages, and 
 deny Abraliam : and blot out the names of Moses and the 
 prophets, and contradict Egypt, and the Red Sea, and 
 Jordan, and Shiloh, and Jerusalem. 
 
 Third, His whole revelation, character, promises, and 
 the work he came to accomplish, were perfectly adapted to 
 man — to all man’s character, condition, and prospects, to 
 his hopes and fears, his heart and conscience, his tomb 
 and eternity. 
 
362 MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 
 
 These were the Saviour’s credentials. These three 
 things, if anything could, demonstrated that he acted on 
 the authority of the infinite God : whom God hath set forth, 
 says the text. 
 
 The fourth idea of the text is that of atonement, the 
 great centre and substance of the work of Jesus Christ in 
 achieving the sinner’s redemption. He came to be a pro- 
 pitiation. He did not redeem by mere power, by mere 
 wisdom, or mere authority. That would not do. That 
 would neither answer God’s purpose nor the sinner’s. 
 The law stood in the way, and God stood by it, and he 
 was impelled to stand there by the double influence of the 
 regard he had for his own authority and honour, and the 
 regard he had for that moral government under the shelter 
 of which lives all the felicity which exists in the universe. 
 Something more than power and wisdom and authority 
 was needed, therefore. There must be a propitiation, an 
 expiation by blood — and the victim was ready. The 
 Father gave his Son. The Son gave himself. He had 
 power to lay down his life , and power to talce it again. He 
 satisfied law by an all-sufficient atonement. He made an 
 expiation for sin. He became a curse in the sinner’s 
 room. And therefore the Scriptures speak of the flock of 
 God , which he hath purchased with his own blood. 
 
 The fifth idea of the text is that of the manner whereby 
 sinners become interested in this propitiatory redemption. 
 It is by faith — through faith in his blood. It is not the 
 economy of redemption to save sinners by a mere work of 
 sovereignty and grace without them, by a stupendous 
 transaction for them to look at without assenting to it, or 
 to admire without trusting in it. It is the economy of re- 
 demption to save sinners through faith, through faith 
 within them ; through a faith whereby they meet God on 
 the spot where God proposes to meet them ; a faith where- 
 
MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 363 
 
 by they trust their souls just on that foundation whereon 
 God hath intrusted his own dignity and honour; a faith 
 which, believing in the kindness and love of God our 
 Saviour , flees to his blood for the remission of sins, and 
 knows that God can be just and the justifier of him that 
 believeth in Jesus. Aside from this faith, the redemption 
 of Christ will do him no good. He must believe in order 
 to be saved. 
 
 These are the simple and connected ideas of the text. 
 But we do not propose to discuss them separately. We 
 blend them, making the last rather a leading idea. The 
 rest pertain to the redeeming love of God, and this pertains 
 to the duty of sinners. Sinners ought to have faith. 
 Some of you think you have, and over the august emblems 
 of its infinite object you will to-day profess it. 
 
 It may aid you to do so comfortably, perhaps, and may, 
 perhaps, remove some difficulties out of the way of unbe- 
 lievers, if we consider this matter of faith, and the high 
 and strange ground upon which it acts. We propose this. 
 
 There is something in this matter set forth in the text 
 (as we have explained it) which, we confess, is very apt 
 to stagger the human mind. This is a strange plan. 
 Creatures, sinners, are to be dealt with not according to 
 their deservings. A just God is to deal with them dif- 
 ferently. If they believe in Christ he will save them, 
 while not meriting anything but punishment. He will 
 indeed do unbelievers no injustice ; but the justification, 
 the adoption, the everlasting salvation of believers, — all this 
 is an infinite, unmerited gratuity. And all this is done under 
 the government of a just God, who holds sin in infinite 
 abhorrence, and who must maintain his authority both for 
 his own sake and for the sake of the best good of his 
 universe. This strikes many minds as so strange, so 
 apparently incompatible with equity and the maintenance 
 
364 MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 
 
 of authority, tliat unbelief seems to them more natural, if 
 not more reasonable, than faith. Indeed, the powers and 
 principles of a moral and accountable existence seem 
 almost to wage conflict with this economy. The proposal, 
 it is said, will come up, Let us do evil that good may come ; 
 and this argument is employed to overturn this doctrine 
 of gratuitous justification, by the idea that the doctrine 
 subverts conscience and introduces all licence to sin. 
 
 . Further; this economy is apt to appear counter to law, 
 and this makes God contradictory to himself, and his 
 government an inconsistency. Many a doubter queries, 
 What has this man whom you call a believer done , that 
 he should be saved, while an unbeliever by the side of 
 him — no greater sinner than he is — is going to be lost 1 
 And his doubtful mind is n(^ better satisfied when we 
 answer, He has done nothing but believe. 
 
 Further still : this matter of such a strange redemption 
 sometimes appears inconsistent with the independence and 
 magnificence of the Deity. One surmises, that God cannot 
 possibly care so much for such an insignificant creature 
 as man. He is a being of yesterday, a child and worm of 
 the dust. He is an unworthy creature if the doctrine of 
 redemption is true ; and the doubting unbeliever (and per- 
 haps the tempted believer also) finds it difficult to think 
 that such a redemption as this comports with the magni- 
 ficence and independence of God. 
 
 And still further ; this Redeemer, this propitiating Christ 
 who shed his blood, was the eternal Son of God — God 
 equal with the Father. He himself, before his incarna- 
 tion (another deep and dark mystery!) made the very 
 sinner he came to redeem. He made law, and yet came 
 under the law in the infinite Personage, God manifest in 
 the flesh. He fixed the penalty, and yet faced all its 
 dreadfulness himself. He took the sinner’s nature, the 
 
MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 305 
 
 sinner’s place, bore bis curse, endured wrath, contradiction 
 of sinners against himself, temptation of devils, and even 
 death itself, and was hurried away a mangled corse to the 
 tomb. And then, on that account, sinners became pardon- 
 able, God placable, and heaven attainable. 
 
 These and other things like these are matters included 
 in this redemption by the blood of Christ, which things 
 appear so wonderful and strange that they constitute no 
 small difficulty in the way of faith. 
 
 Let us attempt to surmount them. We own their mag- 
 nitude, but they are not insuperable. 
 
 To meet all such difficulties, and to conduct us to full 
 and saving faith in just this Christ and his redemption, 
 we bring the following argument : — 
 
 I. Sin. This economy of redemption is just for sinners. 
 We confess it is a deep, strange, and mysterious economy 
 — one, certainly, of the most mysterious things that God 
 ever did — beyond expectation, beyond reason, beyond even 
 all the stretch of the imagination. But is this any reason 
 for discrediting it] On the contrary, is not this one of 
 the very strongest reasons for believing it] Sin itself 
 (which this mysterious redemption specifically regards) is a 
 wonderful mystery. It is an exception and disorder in the 
 universe. The only original disorder, that is, the cause of 
 all others. God hates it. He infinitely and unchangeably 
 hates it. How could he permit it ] Prevent it he cer- 
 tainly could if he is God. He does now prevent it in 
 heaven, and, when he pleases, on earth ; he begins its pre- 
 vention in every sinner he regenerates, and if he cannot pre- 
 vent it when and where he will, how can we pray him to 
 make us holy, and how can we trust him to keep us for ever 
 in heaven, and secure us from all sin and all loss for ever ] 
 Able to prevent it, then, and hating it — hating it more 
 
366 Mrs TEH Y OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 
 
 than he hates anything else — how could he suffer it to 
 come into existence ? This is a strange mystery. We 
 cannot explain it. Yet sin is here. The fact is unques- 
 tionable. It stains every human heart ; it works mischief 
 in every community. It lets loose pestilences, it wakes 
 enmity, and avarice, and envy, makes wars, weaves shrouds 
 and digs graves, and beyond all this, in another world it 
 has built hell, — and if that hell were not to be eternal, I 
 could not believe that Jesus Christ had come down from 
 heaven and died on the cross to redeem sinners from it. 
 The eternity of hell and the wonders of Christ’s redemp- 
 tion correspond. If one is true, the other is true. If one 
 is false, the other must be false. The marvel of Christ’s 
 propitiation corresponds with the marvel of sin’s existence. 
 And because, just because there is something wonderful, 
 deep, and mysterious in the facts that the Ancient of 
 days should become an infant a span long, that the sinless 
 should suffer, that blood should atone, and that God 
 should be reconciled to sinners in that way — just precisely 
 because of this dark wonder I can believe and trust in it. 
 The mystery of redemption perfectly corresponds with 
 what redemption aims after ; God saving sinners is as 
 much above me and beyond me as God permitting sin ; 
 and I am constrained to faith in his blood . The strange- 
 ness of redemption corresponds with the strangeness of 
 sin ; the mystery of the one assorts with the mystery of 
 the other; God is as much above me in Christ as he is 
 above me in Adam, and in both — the wonders of sin and 
 the wonders of redemption, — he is precisely like himself, 
 infinite, amazing, and for ever incomprehensible. 
 
 II. This redemption of Christ, so clear in the fact and 
 so deep in the philosophy. 
 
 “ Dark through brightness all along,” this redemption 
 
MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 367 
 
 has respect to immortality, to eternity. Christ died to 
 procure immortal life and glory for his people. 
 
 Familiarity with these things (as often happens with 
 such beings as we are) may prevent us from thinking 
 much about them ; but it is true that the dying of a 
 human creature, and his passing into that dark world 
 that is out of sight, are very strange and dreadful matters. 
 More strange still is the dying of a Christian. Child and 
 beloved child of God though he is, he must encounter 
 what is to him the most awful thing he can ever think of, 
 save one. He must die ! His spirit must forsake its 
 clay, and step off into that other world his eyes cannot 
 reach, and from which no messenger comes back to tell 
 him what shall betide him there. Save the anger of God 
 itself, this is the most terrible of all things which human 
 nature can think of. It is a dark and strange matter. 
 It is a dreadful wonder. What is it to die ] We cannot 
 tell. We can name the visibilities about it, the ceasing 
 breath, the cooled blood, the stiffened frame, and the pale, 
 pale cheek, — but is that all ] Oh ! no, no ! There is a 
 dark valley , — the spirit path into eternity I We cannot 
 describe it. It is not for us to tell how the spirit that 
 walks there shall think or feel, or hold intercourse with 
 other beings, since it has left behind the body, the 
 machinery for thought and feeling and intercourse. Yet 
 it is to have life. It is to see without eyes, and hear 
 without ears, and feel, while all its deep emotions shall 
 not make one pulsation in the cold heart it has left be- 
 hind. It is still alive. But what is that life % Can it be 
 life ? 
 
 Amid such ideas as these we come across things very 
 dark and wonderful to us. We cannot explain them. 
 We can only believe, and wonder, and tremble. Human 
 nature and all philosophy can do no more. 
 
368 MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 
 
 The case is just the same about immortality. Why is 
 that dark and impenetrable curtain hung over eternity '( 
 I want to see into the other world. If I am to go there, 
 and there to abide for ever, I want to have at least a 
 glimpse of my future home. Especially since here I am 
 to prepare for it, and my destiny there is linked with my 
 demeanour here, why does that dark pall wave over the 
 very entrance gate into eternity ? This dying, and this 
 living beyond death, are certainly very wonderful matters 
 to us. We cannot explain them. In reference to them, 
 philosophy and human nature may search where they will 
 and they find nothing to do us any good ; the pall will 
 still hang over eternity, and the trembling will still shudder 
 in human hearts. 
 
 But Jesus Christ died to bring life and immortality to 
 light. He died to destroy him that had the power of death , 
 that is, the devil . Whatever marvel or mystery there may 
 be about the strange redemption of Jesus Christ, we could 
 not do without it. Our very reason and hearts demand 
 it. We want God to be as wonderful to us in life and 
 immortality, as he is in death and an undiscoverable 
 eternity. If death is to be vanquished for us, we want 
 some arm revealed to us which is able to shiver his dart 
 into pieces at the very moment it strikes us, and enable 
 us to shout victory as we fall ! If we are to live again 
 when we are dead, are to live for ever in that strange life 
 which is such a mystery to us, are to be led along a dark 
 valley, every step in midnight, till we see out at the fur- 
 ther end of it, and are to be introduced unto eternal holi- 
 ness and accepted of God, sinners though we are, — cer- 
 tainly we want the magnitude and the mystery of this 
 redemption to accord with the magnitude and mystery of 
 dying and being immortal and blissful for ever. The 
 strangeness of a blood -bought redemption corresponds 
 
MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 369 
 
 with that which redemption seeks after ; God, giving the 
 victory over death, and an unseen immortality beyond it, 
 is as much above my comprehension as he is in hiding my 
 eternity from me at the very time when he commands me 
 to prepare for it, and in calling me to grapple with the 
 king of terrors, though he loves me with an unequalled 
 tenderness and strength. The great mystery of godliness, 
 God manifest in the flesh and received up into glory, assorts 
 with the mystery of immortality. God is as much above 
 me in Christ as he is above me in the coffin ; as mysterious 
 in the cross as he is in conducting me to immortality by 
 that dark valley that leads to it ; and in both he is pre- 
 cisely like himself, infinite, amazing, and incomprehensible 
 for ever. And because — just precisely because there is 
 something amazing in this free and procured redemption, 
 I can trust to it. God stands before me in the same 
 majesty and incomprehensibility, clothed with the same 
 cloud of wonders, when he preaches Christ to me, as when 
 he loves me and kills me — as when he tells me to prepare 
 for eternity, and keeps it out of my sight. Life and im- 
 mortality are brought to light just as they should be. 
 The mode assorts with the facts. 
 
 III. Both on account of our littleness and our sin, it is 
 not easy for us to have just ideas about God’s actual de- 
 signs toward us. We are very little creatures in his sight. 
 Annihilate us, and it could make very little difference to 
 him. We are as unworthy as we are insignificant before 
 him. Yet we have wants, we have amazing wants. There 
 is an indescribable depth in the agonies which sometimes 
 make our hearts bleed even here ; and when our thought 
 takes its journey to the world to come, along a pathway 
 of thorns and thistles, down into the valley of death, and 
 away beyond the resurrection of the dead into the abysses 
 24 
 
370 MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 
 
 of eternity, still as much beyond thought as ever — the 
 idea of our destiny, our eternal want, presses upon the 
 spirit within us, as if it would crush us into nothing ! 
 What friend shall help us ? Human sympathy can do 
 much for us, we admit ; it is precious to us, very precious. 
 But we require something more. Human sympathy can- 
 not reach our deepest want of spirit even now, and cannot 
 reach our spirits at all after our breath stops. We need 
 God’s sympathy. We need God to love us, and be kind 
 to us, and let us lean on him now, when our footsteps 
 stagger upon the dark mountains of death, and when we 
 take the spirit journey of an awful eternity. Nothing 
 but God will do for us. We want the friend who knows 
 the secret chambers of our heart, and who owns eternity. 
 But how shall we get him ? how shall we be assured of 
 him h It will be an amazing stoop of his infinity if he 
 cares much for me. I am a worm of the dust, a vile 
 worm, a sinner. It must be an eternal marvel if the in- 
 finite and eternal Monarch, holy and august as he is, will 
 extend his actual and everlasting kindness toward me ! 
 And I will not believe it unless he approaches me in some 
 mode as wonderful as l§ my wonderful need — in some 
 amazing mode to correspond with such an amazing and 
 wonderful condescension to his guilty and dying worm. 
 He has done so, in this amazing redemption — he has pre- 
 cisely done so. The magnitude of his grace corresponds 
 with the magnitude of my needs. Christ’s worthiness 
 becomes my worthiness. The necessities of my immortal 
 spirit, which I am called on to wonder at more than to 
 explain, perfectly accord with the economy of redemption, 
 which amazes me — comforts me because it amazes me. 
 The kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man 
 hath appeared. Christ is the mysterious demonstration. 
 Begone, my fears ! Lie still, my throbbing heart ! Hope, 
 
MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH . 371 
 
 hope, my immortal spirit ! God does love me ! God 
 does care for me ! The wonders of his mode of showing 
 it correspond with the wonder that he should care for me 
 at all — that the Infinite One should stoop to his worm, 
 that eternal holiness should be pacified towards guilt. 
 Here, then, I can trust. Here I can live — here I can die 
 — here I can cast my mysterious and mysteriously wanting 
 soul into the arms of God, and whatever it may want on 
 eartli or in the spirit land, the majesty of Christ accords 
 with the magnitude of its distressful necessities. He that 
 spared not his own Son but freely delivered him up for us 
 all would not be the premises of an argument broad 
 enough for the conclusion, Hoio shall he not with him 
 freely give us all things , were there not in the gift such a 
 majesty as must be a mystery to us. But there is. 
 Blessed be God, there is ! Beyond Christ I cannot w T ant 
 anything. The mode of the gospel assorts with my 
 creature littleness and guilt, and with the wonder of God’s 
 needed care for me. Return unto thy rest , 0 my soul l 
 
 IV. The redemption of Christ has respect to God’s 
 spiritual dominion over sinners in loving, pitying, and 
 saving them. God has different kingdoms over which he 
 presides, and wherein he exercises his holy attributes and 
 displays his adorable majesty. But they are not all alike, 
 nor alike marvellous, nor alike glorious to himself. For 
 example : — 
 
 1. He presides over nature, matter ; the heavens declare 
 the glory of God ; the drops of the dew proclaim him their 
 Father ; the lilies of the field , — Solomon in all his glory 
 was not arrayed like one of these. 
 
 2. He presides over mind. He maTceth his angels spirits. 
 As for man, when his body returns to dust as it ivas , his 
 spirit shall return to God who gave it. 
 
372 MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 
 
 3. He presides over — (I care nothing about the logic of 
 this enumeration. I only wish you to understand the 
 great idea) — he presides over sensibility. There is some- 
 thing beyond the mere intellect to perceive truth. There 
 are hearts to feel it, and these hearts have arrived at their 
 highest species of good when the love of God is shed abroad 
 in them by the Holy Ghost. 
 
 In all these domains of nature, matter, mind, and 
 sensibility, there is something to disclose God and exalt 
 him. But there is something beyond all these, and not 
 only something beyond, but something to which they are 
 only subordinate and auxiliary. 
 
 There is a fourth kingdom — of virtue, of conscience, of 
 right and wrong. Therein is God’s glory more especially 
 manifested. He cares more about holiness than about all 
 the matter that ever took form and motion from his hand, 
 and all the intellect which ever laboured in science to 
 understand it. 
 
 But there is another step to this ladder before we 
 reach the top. God presides over sinners to make them 
 holy — to redeem and recover them. This is his highest 
 glory. And for the sake of this, all other things exist — 
 matter and mind, even angels, ministering spirits sent forth 
 to minister for those who shall be heirs of salvation. A 
 redeemed sinner in heaven is more glorious to God than an 
 angel who never fell from heaven. That redeemed sinner 
 discloses a new class of God’s infinite perfections — a higher 
 class— a more glorious class. He gives us a new view, and 
 a most amazing view, of the infinite and adorable attributes 
 of the Godhead, — God’s mercy, God’s kindness and love 
 for poor, unworthy sinners, his enemies. God’s own 
 heart, his highest glory, becomes manifest in the redemp- 
 tion of sinners. This is his highest kingdom. He cares 
 more about this than he cares about anything else. 
 
MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR, FAITH. 373 
 
 Have patience. Hold this idea in your mind, and link 
 it with another before you apply it. What do you mean 
 by God ? what is the one idea you have when you think of 
 God, and which, if you dismiss from your mind, your idea 
 is an idea about God no longer'? It is just the idea of 
 infinity, of incomprehensibility, of something amazing, 
 utterly above you, beyond the grasp of your understanding. 
 But we have just seen that God is most of all glorious and 
 amazing in his redeeming dominion over sinners. There 
 his glory and his heart come out to the view of an adoring 
 universe. And if, in the mode of this redemption, in this 
 justification by grace through faith in this slain Christ, the 
 eternal Son of God, there is something amazingly mysteri- 
 ous, is that any reason for discrediting it, or for being 
 staggered at it ? God, everywhere, is incomprehensible ; 
 wdioever believes in a God at all, believes in an infinite 
 mystery. And in the field wdiere God’s highest glory 
 gleams, where he is most amazing, most — language fails ; 
 what shall I say h — most infinite — on that field shall we 
 not expect something peculiar, something most of all 
 wonderful, utterly above and beyond us ? Whatever 
 mystery there may be in this redemption of sinners by 
 Christ’s blood, the wonders of the mode correspond with 
 the wonders of God’s supreme glory. God is as much 
 above me in Christ as he is above me in infinity ; as 
 infinitely beyond me in his condescension as he is beyond 
 me in the essence of his glory, and in both he is precisely 
 like himself — infinite, amazing, and incomprehensible for 
 ever. The mystery of the mode corresponds with the 
 majesty of God, and therefore I can believe it. I have a 
 question to ask you. Where, on what point, do you w T ant 
 God to be most like himself, most amazing, most above 
 your reason and beyond it? to do the most wonderful 
 tiling for you ? Just where you are a sinner — there, just 
 
374 MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH . 
 
 there, you need God to come forth to you as you need him 
 nowhere else. Very well, lie has come ; and God manifest 
 in the flesh demands your faith in his blood, and defies 
 your despair as a sinner. God’s glory in redemption 
 accords with your necessities as a sinner, and we marvel 
 that every sinner in this assembly is not constrained to 
 approach God’s table to-day, exclaiming, None but Christ, 
 none but Christ for me ! 
 
 Allow me to say a word to you who neglect this Christ 
 and this ordinance which honours him. I am astonished 
 at you ! I am painfully astonished ! What do you mean] 
 This Christ, this redemption, perfectly accord with sin, 
 with death, with life and immortality, with God’s grandeur, 
 your graves, and your journey beyond them in the land of 
 spirits. How can you reject such a Christ ] how can you 
 hesitate to believe in him ] He is just what you need as 
 you go to meet God and inhabit the world of spirits. He 
 is just what the infinite God offers you ; and the grace of 
 the offer is linked with the very essence of his glory. 
 Remember, then, I beseech you — remember what precious 
 and needed grace you reject, and how greatly you offend 
 God by the rejection. You dishonour his very heart 
 — not only his authority, but the tenderness of his 
 love, which is more dear to him ! You will have to 
 answer for this neglect and offence; you will not indeed be 
 punished for violation of a covenant you never entered 
 into, but you will be punished as ungrateful beings, not 
 moved by the tenderest love of God tow r ards you ; you 
 will be punished as hardened beings, madmen, who, sink- 
 ing into the pit of perdition, knock away God’s hand of 
 mercy reached down to draw you out of it. 
 
 The more amazing the love, the more matchless and 
 precious the grace of this redemption, the more affronting 
 
MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITH. 375 
 
 to God will be your rejection of them. The higher Christ 
 would raise you, the deeper you will fall without him. 
 Oh, remember, remember it well ! He who is declared to 
 be the Son of God with power , by the resurrection from the 
 dead, holds in his hand an iron sceptre to break his 
 enemies, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel ! — 
 Why unit ye die ? How can you bear to go up and stand 
 at the judgment the rejecters of God’s love, and your feet 
 red with the blood of expiation you are trampling under 
 foot ? 
 
 Communicants, I have not time, nor you patience, for 
 going back on this subject, and gathering up its substance 
 to aid your hearts in the solemnities of this day. But 
 suffer me a moment to congratulate you. I rejoice over 
 you, if you are Christ’s, more than if* you had all the gold 
 and splendour of a thousand worlds. You are rich. You 
 are heirs of a kingdom that cannot be moved. The faith in 
 the eternal Redeemer of sinners which you exercise is fixed 
 on an immutable foundation. It is a faith which accords 
 with all there is in you, in God, in sin, in death, in eter- 
 nity and heaven ! 
 
 You are sinners, unworthy, little in God’s sight, worms 
 of the dust. But Christ is yours ; therefore everything is 
 yours. All things are yours ; for ye are Christ's, and 
 Ctirist is God's. 
 
 There is nothing equal to the language you may take on 
 your lips to-day as your approach God’s waiting table. 1 
 know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is 
 able to keep that which I have committed unto him against 
 that day. ... I know that my Redeemer liveth , and that he 
 will stand at the latter day upon the earth ; and though 
 after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh 
 shall I see God. . . . Though I ivalk through the valley of 
 
376 MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION FIT FOR FAITII. 
 
 the shadow of death , I will fear no evil . ... 7 am my be- 
 loved's and my beloved is mine. ... I enter his banqueting - 
 house , and his banner over me is love. . . . My soul shall be 
 satisfied; I will rejoice in the Lord , and joy in the God 
 of my salvation. 
 
 “ The Lord’s my shepherd, I’ll not want; 
 
 He makes me down to lie 
 In pastures green, he leadeth me 
 The quiet waters by.” 
 
 He loved me , and gave himself a ransom for me. 
 
 And while these whispers of gratitude and faith and 
 love are on your covenanting tongue, as you lift to your 
 lips the cup of blessing, your faithful God, who loved you, 
 who redeemed you, who will keep you and love you for 
 ever — that God, meeting you in the majesty of an infinite 
 condescension, will say to you : The mountains shall depart 
 and the hills be removed , but my kindness shall not depart 
 from thee , neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed. 
 Lift up your eyes to the heavens , and look upon the earth 
 beneath ; for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke , and 
 the earth shall wax old like a garment , and they that dwell 
 therein shall die in like manner , but my salvation shall be 
 for ever , and my righteousness shall not be abolished. O 
 God ! so meet thy people, and so aid them to meet thee 1 
 
XXIII. 
 
 Cjnist mabc perfect tbroiigb Sufferings. 
 
 “ 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.” — Heb. ii. 10. 
 
 mHIS text is uttered on the principle of an existing pro - 
 1 priety in the production of consequences through 
 means employed to produce them. Human intellect 
 always acknowledges such a propriety. The human mind 
 is so formed as to perceive, by a kind of intuition, that 
 there is a fitness, a propriety, a reasonableness in having 
 means adapted to the ends they aim after, — in employing 
 instrumentalities, and choosing methods of procedure, ap- 
 propriate to the designed effect. 
 
 We need not now inquire whether this is one of the 
 original biases of mind, as certainly it seems to be, or 
 whether it is a result of uniform experience. Such an ex- 
 perience belongs to every human being. From the play- 
 things of infancy, through all the serious business of man- 
 hood, and down to the last glimmerings of intellect in old 
 age, or the hour of death, there is a steady regard for the 
 connection between causes and effects, and an unvarying 
 conviction of the appropriateness of the one to the other. 
 And whether the matters to be accomplished, and the 
 means for their accomplishment, be things wdiich come 
 within the choice of himself or of another, wherever man 
 looks at results his mind will not regard them as mere 
 
378 
 
 CHRIST MADE PERFECT 
 
 accidents, causeless, and insusceptible of being reduced to 
 any order. In contemplating bis own work, bis fellow’s, 
 or bis God’s, bis mind will feel an approval or disapproval 
 of tbe mind wbicb planned it, in proportion as it beholds 
 an adaptedness or a want of adaptedness in tbe cbosen 
 means for accomplishing it. 
 
 Man cannot, indeed, know everything. His intellect 
 is too little ; bis observation is too limited ; his experience 
 * — just come, as be is, into this infancy of bis existence — 
 is too small. But when, so far as be can see, be beholds 
 tbe demanded fitness between means and ends in any- 
 thing be contemplates, tbe perception of this tends to 
 awaken bis faith in the mind of him who planned tbe 
 system before him, as that system dives into depths be 
 cannot fathom, or stretches away into distances where be 
 cannot follow. Perceiving tbe excellences of it as far as 
 be can go, prepares him to believe in tbe excellences of 
 it where be can not go ; and just as surely as be is wise 
 and has not abused and perverted his mind, be will not 
 reject tbe system simply because it goes beyond him; but 
 bis knowledge of the justness of a part of it seen will 
 tend to give him confidence in tbe justness of a part un- 
 seen. And when he has come up to a barrier wbicb his 
 mind cannot surmount, be will not so readily affirm that 
 tbe system is false, as be will humbly confess that be is 
 ignorant. 
 
 This insurmountable barrier will be found drawn across 
 tbe intellectual pathway of every man who attempts to 
 explore the depths of religion. There is a spot where be 
 will be obliged to stop. God will go beyond him. God 
 will be to him unfathomable, simply because he is God. 
 But when it pleases God to teach him, and call his atten- 
 tion to tbe fact that God himself, in the system of re- 
 demption, has acted upon the very same principle of fitness, 
 
THROUGH SUFFERINGS. 
 
 370 
 
 propriety, or adaptedness which the man’s own under- 
 standing looks for, surely it becomes the man to examine 
 the system as far as he is able ; and if his reason approves 
 it thus far, it becomes him to bow in humble faith before 
 it when it stretches above and beyond his infant mind. 
 That mind will not always be in its infancy, nor will it 
 always be trammelled by the shackles and confined in the 
 prison-house which here impede it. And when we shall have 
 “ shuffled off this mortal coir’ — when this prison of eartli 
 is exchanged for the freedom of eternity, and this infant 
 mind has ripened into the manhood of a spirit’s existence 
 • — God will have lessons for that manhood, that immor- 
 tality, and that spirit’s intellectual and eternal progress. 
 We may well be satisfied to have something for that other 
 world to unfold to us. 
 
 But we must begin here. Let us carry these ideas 
 along with us to the text. 
 
 The text affirms a definite propriety to exist in the 
 great foundation of the Christian religion, that is, in one 
 special and vital part of it. It says, It became him (that 
 is, God) to make the Captain of salvation perfect through 
 sufferings . We understand it to mean that there was, in 
 the nature of the case, a propriety in this. And we 
 understand that propriety to lie just here : that there 
 should be a fit correspondence between the means of sal- 
 vation and the end — between the mode of redemption for 
 sinners and the redemption to be accomplished for them ; 
 and that this was found in the sufferings of Christ. 
 
 On this idea we are going to address you, after we have 
 briefly explained the clauses of the text— a matter which 
 seems needful, in order to show that we are making a just 
 use of it. 
 
 It became him in bringing many sons unto glory . Who 
 are these sons 1 Men, believers. If any of the expres- 
 
380 
 
 CHRIST MADE PERFECT 
 
 sions of the New Testament startle you, seeming to imply 
 that Christ did nothing except for believers, and has left 
 the redemption of all but a few unpiovided for, your fear 
 may cease with the idea that the language which startles 
 you is employed on the principle that none but believers 
 will be saved by his work, and not on the principle that 
 his work is insufficient to save all. The fourteenth verse 
 of the chapter may aid your fear, and help to explain the 
 text at the same moment : Forasmuch , then , as the chil- 
 dren are partakers of flesh and blood , he also himself like- 
 wise took part of the same ; that through death he might 
 destroy him that had the power of death , that is , the devil. 
 Flesh and blood means human nature. Made like unto 
 his brethren means the same. The meaning is, that lie 
 took on himself a human body ; in all respects, except 
 sin, he became a man. 
 
 The text then asserts the reason for this incarnation ; 
 that is, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect 
 through suffering. Christ became incarnate in order to 
 suffer ; not for the sake of living, but for the sake of 
 dying. It was not his life, but his laying it down, that 
 made him perfect — perfectly qualified to be the Captain of 
 salvation , and bring many sons unto glory. The sufferings 
 and death of Christ are not mentioned here in any pecu- 
 liar manner. They are named in just the ordinary style 
 of the New Testament. Not to go beyond the chapter 
 before us, look again at the fourteenth verse. That 
 affirms that Christ took part of flesh and blood , that through 
 death — not by living, but by dying — he might destroy him 
 that had the power of death. Look at the seventeenth 
 verse. After making a significant discrimination in the 
 sixteenth verse — he took not on him the nature of angels , 
 but he took on him the seed of A braham — the apostle care- 
 fully states the reason for Christ’s incarnation : In all 
 
THROUGH SUFFERINGS. 
 
 381 
 
 things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren ; 
 that he might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in 
 things pertaining to God. He became a man, not for the 
 life of his humanity, but for its death. And in order that 
 we might definitely understand what is the substance, the 
 very life-matter of his priesthood, the apostle explains it 
 — to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. 
 
 There can, therefore, be no item of doubt that the suf- 
 ferings and death of Jesus Christ constituted the main 
 matter of his work ; and that these were undergone by 
 him for sinners, to make reconciliation for sins, to make a 
 sufficient expiation ; and that his making this atonement 
 by his sufferings and death was at once the purpose of 
 his incarnation and the perfection of his qualification in 
 the mediatorial office. 
 
 We now call your attention to the propriety of these 
 sufferings and this death. It became him , says the text ; 
 It behoved him , affirms the seventeenth verse ; and the 
 fourteenth implies the same. Hence we lay down this 
 proposition : that — 
 
 There is an appropriateness in the death of Jesus Christ 
 to the purposes of that death, that is, an atonement for 
 sinners, and their reconciliation to God and their salva- 
 tion through his blood. Christ is fit for the faith of sin- 
 ners. It became him , in bringing many sons unto glory , 
 to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through suf- 
 ferings. 
 
 The propriety of this transaction may not all be dis- 
 coverable by us here, and yet we here may learn the alpha- 
 bet of a science whose depths eternity may be insufficient 
 to explore. The expiation of sin and the salvation of 
 sinners by the Son of God is a matter which has in it 
 much that is beyond us ; still we see enough to under- 
 stand the emphatic It became him , in the text. 
 
382 
 
 CHRIST MADE PERFECT 
 
 We name to you several distinct considerations taken 
 from — 
 
 I. The mysteriousness of the sacrifice. 
 
 II. The divine justice. 
 
 III. The creature to be ransomed. 
 
 IY. The manifestations of the divine character. 
 
 Y. The nature and connections of guilt. 
 
 VI. The human conscience. 
 
 VII. The condition of sinners. 
 
 These are our topics. We enter upon them. 
 
 I. The first consideration is taken from that very mys- 
 teriousness which hangs around this whole matter. We 
 could not spare that mysteriousness. Our religion would 
 be unworthy of credit without it. When our reason 
 staggers at it, it staggers unreasonably — it staggers where 
 it ought to stand firm. Examine it. This matter of re- 
 demption has respect to an unseen eternity. The harvest 
 of bliss to be gathered there must have its seeds planted 
 here. Our present relations are to be broken up. Friends 
 are to be separated — families dissolved. Our bodies must 
 crumble ; and after our departure from this material world 
 and the dissolution of this material organism, we shall 
 carry along with us only those more spiritual qualities 
 which are adapted to our new abode. Affection, conscience, 
 pure intellect, will survive the shock of death and the 
 putrefaction of the tomb ; but we shall have left behind 
 us the materials and the capacities for much of our earthly 
 felicity. In that coming world, if grace saves us, we are 
 to stand in the presence of God. Angels are to be our 
 companions, spirits our fellows, holiness our eternal bliss. 
 This is a new and strange matter to us. 
 
 Now, since even in all that here meets us we find a 
 
THROUGH SUFFERINGS. 
 
 333 
 
 mysteriousness which we cannot fathom — our bodies a 
 mystery — our blood and bones mysteries to us — our at- 
 mosphere, our life, our sleep, our everything, having some- 
 thing about it which no human reason can explain — what ! 
 shall we stop, and start back from the announcement of 
 God about the satisfaction of the atonement, because it 
 contains something beyond our reason ? We want it to 
 contain something. When God provides for even an 
 earthly felicity, he employs the intervention of a thousand 
 instrumentalities which we cannot understand. The wind 
 that fans us is a mystery. The flowers that blush on our 
 eye are a mystery. Our life itself is a mystery ; no man 
 can tell what it is. And when God is providing for our 
 felicity in worlds and ages yet to be unfolded in that 
 higher field of a spirit’s bliss, shall we demand of him to 
 abandon his rule of procedure, and, about that which is 
 most great, invisible, and amazing, become more per- 
 spicuous and plain than he is in the little matters of our 
 present life and present world h Shall God contradict 
 himself h Shall he abandon his own analogies ] Every- 
 where else beyond us and above us, in his means of pro- 
 viding for us, the moment he steps off from this little and 
 temporary theatre, and forms a plan and chooses means 
 to provide for the high and interminable felicities of a 
 coming eternity, does it not become him to be at least 
 equally above us and beyond us ^ And if we find him 
 more so, and find in the sufferings of Christ a marvel of 
 love and wisdom which we cannot explore, let us remem- 
 ber that the plan there aims at two of the grandest ends 
 in the universe — God’s boundless glory and man’s bound- 
 less bliss. 
 
 We do not apply this argument to the sufferings of 
 Christ specifically, and considered by themselves ; we only 
 design it to apply to the mysteriousness that exists in the 
 
384 
 
 CHRIST MADE PERFECT. 
 
 matter of placing punishment upon an innocent being, 
 and on account of his expiation pardoning the guilty. 
 That economy is a hindrance to many minds. It ought 
 to be a help. God ought to be consistent. It becomes 
 him to be as marvellous and adorable in providing for our 
 eternity as he is in providing for us here. 
 
 But let us advance a step further. 
 
 II. The second consideration is taken from the divine 
 justice. 
 
 The Bible everywhere represents the sufferings of Christ 
 as having respect to divine justice, — a justice provoked by 
 the sins of men. Christ died to redeem those that were 
 under the curse — an infinite sacrifice for the infinite evil 
 of sin. Divine justice accepts the substitute, and lets the 
 guilty go free. 
 
 Now, our first consideration admonishes us that we can- 
 not be reasonably staggered at the mystery of this transac- 
 tion, and suggests the idea that it is not for us to tell what 
 divine justice will permit, or not permit. And beyond 
 this, we now affirm that there is a propriety in having 
 divine justice honoured in the salvation of sinners, and 
 therefore a propriety that somewhere the retributiveness of 
 its nature should be seen — the stroke of its offence should 
 fall. It did fall upon a head willingly made bare to the 
 blow ! When the terrific voice of offended Deity burst 
 forth from the throne, Awake , 0 sword, against my shep- 
 herd, and against the man that is my fellow ! and all 
 heaven stood aghast at the sound, from the lowly earth 
 and out of the lips of the Man of Sorrows went up the 
 voice, Lo, I come to do thy will ; in the volume of the book 
 it is written of me. Divine justice was satisfied, and man 
 redeemed. There is an analogy between the divinity of 
 the justice and the divinity of the victim. It became him 
 
THROUGH SUFFERINGS. 
 
 385 
 
 to be 'perfect through suffering. But let us advance a step 
 further. 
 
 III. Our third consideration is taken from the creature 
 to be ransomed. lie was a man — a sinner. God could 
 not suffer. He is the ever-blessed God ; from his very 
 nature as essentially, unchangeably happy, as he is self- 
 existent and eternal. Christ became a man, not a sinner, 
 for then no offering he could have made would have been 
 worthy of God, — but he became a man. He became so, 
 that he might be capable of suffering. There is an 
 analogy between the humanity of the sinner and the 
 humanity of the substitute. It became him to be not 
 merely the happy Son of God, but the suffering man of 
 sorroivs ; — man , the sinner, was to be ransomed. 
 
 Now, we do not affirm that this arrangement involves 
 nothing beyond human reason. On the contrary, we be- 
 lieve it to be one of those things which are eternally un- 
 fathomable to us, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard, 
 neither have entered into the heart of man . But we dare 
 affirm that this arrangement involves nothing that contra- 
 dicts reason or implies any inconsistency. The items are 
 these : Jesus Christ suffered as a man * and, doing so, was 
 a substitute for sinners, who deserved to suffer, and 
 made satisfaction to God, as God would maintain the 
 honour and justice of the Deity. In the person of Jesus 
 Christ the human nature was united to the divine nature, 
 somewhat — if, indeed, we may venture upon a similitude 
 — as the human body is united to the human soul in the 
 person of an ordinary man. Christ was one person. His 
 deity was not his person ; his humanity was not his per- 
 son. Your soul is not your person ; your body is not 
 your person. It takes both to make up that being which 
 you call yourself And it took both deity and humanity 
 25 
 
386 
 
 CHRIST MADE PERFECT. 
 
 to make that one person Jesus Christ, who died upon the 
 cross. The deity gave value to the sufferings of the 
 humanity, somewhat — if we may venture another simili- 
 tude — as we put value upon the body of a man, not as 
 dust of the earth, from which it came and to which it will 
 soon return, but as united to an intelligent and imperish- 
 able spirit. 
 
 In all this there is nothing to shock reason. God did 
 not suffer. The suffering belonged to the human nature. 
 Two natures were not confounded. They were distinct in 
 one person. They were united ; and from the dignity of 
 the one resulted the fit offering to atone for sinners by the 
 sufferings of the other. So far, then, as human reason 
 can penetrate the depths of this matter, we perceive that 
 when man, a sinner, was to be redeemed, it became the 
 Redeemer to be made 'perfect through the sufferings of the 
 nature he assumed. But we advance another step. 
 
 IV. The fourth consideration is taken from manifesta- 
 tions of the divine character. None but a novice in re- 
 ligious study can be ignorant that the glory of God is to 
 be secured by manifestations of himself to an intelligent 
 universe, and that the felicity of sinful, intelligent beings 
 must greatly depend on knowing God as he is, and being 
 changed into the same image from glory to glory. The 
 manifestation of one divine perfection is not enough. The 
 others must appear. Not one must be eclipsed. We 
 shall not fear God rightly, nor love him rightly, nor adore 
 him rightly, if half his character is hidden behind a cloud. 
 
 Now, there is no eclipse of any one of his perfections, 
 no cloud to hide him in the matter of Christ’s atonement. 
 Look at it. The innocent Jesus indeed suffered ; but he 
 did not suffer as innocent ; he suffered as loaded with the 
 iniquity of us all. He was sinless in himself, and deserved 
 
TIIIl 0 UQII S UFFERINGS. 
 
 387 
 
 no suffering; but lie took our law-place, and bore our 
 law-penalty willingly, and drew not back when avenging 
 justice held him to his pledge. His redeemed ones go 
 free on account of his sacrifice ; but his sacrifice and their 
 free pardon do not encourage sin ; their faith that justifies 
 is a faith that sanctifies. Jesus Christ indeed sank into 
 the arms of death as a substitute for sinners, but Jesus 
 Christ came off victorious over death and the grave ; and 
 when he ascended up on high, the acclamations of heaven 
 welcomed him : Lift up your heads , 0 ye gates ; and be 
 ye lift up , ye everlasting doors ; and the King of glory 
 shall come in. Here are manifestations of the divine 
 character. Love, reigning love and mercy, to begin with ! 
 Justice, but no injustice ! A substitute, but a willing 
 substitute ! Blood poured out like water ! but poured in 
 love, and gaining by the sacrifice, thousands and tens of 
 thousands of ransomed sinners, who shall meet you, and 
 sing with you the glories of the Lamb that was slain , 
 when your feet shall stand on Mount Zion above. 
 
 We do not now affirm that God could not pardon sin- 
 ners, aside from any suffering to expiate their guilt, and, 
 at the same time, make no just and happy manifestations 
 of his character. But we confess we do not see how he 
 could. And we confidently maintain that the sufferings 
 of a dying Christ made such manifestations of his char- 
 acter as tend, most of all, to his glory, and our bliss in the 
 admiration and love of him. We fearlessly maintain that 
 it became him to honour his justice in connection with his 
 goodness ; to act in a mode to keep offenders in awe, 
 while he acted to save the offending ; to furnish an in- 
 dubitable proof of his abhorrence of sin, in the very act of 
 pardoning a sinner. All this he has done. Lt became him , 
 in bringing many sons unto glory , to make the Captain of 
 their salvation perfect through sufferings. 
 
388 
 
 CHRIST MALE PERFECT 
 
 We advance another step. 
 
 V. The fifth consideration is taken from the nature and 
 connections of guilt. The creature to be redeemed by 
 Christ’s sufferings was a guilty sinner. He deserved 
 punishment — deserved to suffer. He must have suffered 
 for ever if Christ had not suffered for him. Christ’s 
 death was the means for bringing him to glory. 
 
 Now, we lay down this principle : that there is a fitness 
 of means to ends to be regarded everywhere, and which is 
 regarded everywhere else by God, and by man as far as 
 his wisdom reaches. What, then, shall be the means to 
 bring help to the catastrophe of sin ? If there is before 
 you a catastrophe of sin or folly, you bring to it, if you 
 can, the resources of wisdom. By an applied wisdom in 
 the case, you aim to retrieve the calamities of folly. If 
 there is before you a catastrophe of weakness, you bring 
 to it the resources of strength. To a calamity of darkness, 
 you apply light ; to a calamity of poverty, you bring the 
 resources of wealth ; to a calamity of hunger you give 
 bread. You never think of crossing the track of this 
 principle, nor of interchanging these means. The means 
 must meet the case. You would not give a moral lecture 
 to a man fallen into a gulf in order to help him out ; nor 
 apply any of the mechanical powers to comfort the heart 
 of a mourner. There must be a correspondence between 
 the end aimed after and the means to compass it. 
 
 What, then, is the resource which must be brought to 
 guilt ? to the catastrophe or calamity of a sinner 1 What 
 is there that assorts with guilt ? What does guilt 
 deserve ? what shall meet its want ? what recover from 
 its calamity? Just suffering — nothing but suffering. 
 That is the necessary, appropriate, and demanded resource, 
 as much as strength for weakness, or wisdom for folly, or 
 
THROUGH SUFFERINGS. 
 
 383 
 
 bread for hunger. The sinner’s case is just a case of 
 guilt ; and suffering alone can help him. If Christ does 
 not suffer for him, be must suffer himself, for ever. His 
 guilt connects him with this. It binds him over to the 
 wrath of God and the pit of hell ! The nature of guilt, 
 and its connections, demand the resource of a suffering 
 deliverance. It became Christ to be perfect through suffer- 
 ings. And, — 
 
 YI. The conscience. Conscience within a sinner makes 
 him feel that he deserves to suffer. Sometimes it makes 
 him suffer, and his wounded spirit writhes under the idea 
 of guilt, as if he felt within him the incipient gnawings of 
 the worm that dieth not , and the scorcliings of the fire 
 that is never quenched. And see the whole history of 
 conscience ! see how it has acted and what it has done in 
 every land that sin ever visited ! It has just resorted to 
 suffering for some hoped-for pacification. It has poured 
 out blood from its ten thousands of victims. It has 
 struggled, and struggled, to find a victim costly and 
 precious enough. It has gone from the death of 
 the beast to the death of the child, and stopped at 
 nothing which by suffering could seem to meet the want 
 of the sin of the sold. And never, no, never was con- 
 science pacified till it had reached a victim beyond which 
 guilt could not reach. It became him, in bringing many 
 sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation 
 perfect through sufferings. 
 
 Human conscience has been misled, indeed, amid the 
 ignorance of heathenism ; but it has been conscience still. 
 It has worked like conscience ; and, doing so, it has in- 
 variably looked to suffering as the only hope for guilt. 
 Punishment, penalty somewhere, is the only thing which 
 assorts with the guilt and want of a sinner. A suffering 
 
390 
 
 CHRIST MADE PERFECT 
 
 Christ is fitting to us, to our conscience, condition, and 
 prospects. Sin is an infinite evil. It stains the soul. It 
 taints earth. Armies of human beings are its visible 
 trophies, as death follows in its train. It makes the world 
 a grave-yard. It cuts us off from God. It uncovers the 
 pit. And shall there be no correspondence between the 
 thing and its remedy h If we can trust our Bible, our 
 eyes, our hearts, our conscience, sin is a most terrifying 
 evil. Shall God pass it over lightly, or only with these 
 earthly frowns 1 Ah ! these earthly frowns are only 
 tokens ; — more, they reach the most virtuous as surely as 
 the most vicious. 
 
 No ! no ! there must be a correspondence between guilt 
 and its relief ; and that correspondence, too, ought to be 
 of such a nature that we can see the magnitude of the one 
 standing over against the magnitude of the other — the 
 wonder of the means assorting with the wonder of the 
 end. When God would give us light, he kindles the 
 eternal ball that burns in our skies ; when he would purify 
 the air we breathe, thunders bellow and lightnings leap 
 in their dreadful play. That we may understand him, 
 mind, an unseen mystery within us, must come into being. 
 So of all else. And to redeem us, we have lifted up be- 
 fore our eyes, in the person of Emmanuel, a being able to 
 cope with all the difficulties of our redemption — with all 
 the evils of sin, as its dreadful tokens are scattered around 
 us — with all the evil there can be against us in the offended 
 mind of an infinite God, or in the kindling flames of un- 
 quenchable fire. He has just met our case — our desert of 
 suffering, He cometh with dyed garments from Bozrah . . . 
 travelling in the greatness of his stremgth. It became him 
 to be made perfect through sufferings. 
 
 VII. The final consideration is taken from the condition 
 
THROUGH SUFFERINGS. 
 
 391 
 
 of those whom he came to relieve. It is a condition of 
 suffering. This earthly suffering is only a token. If 
 Christ had not suffered, I do not see how we could well 
 have trusted in him. If he had come in splendour, and 
 lived here in bliss, what would have persuaded us that he 
 really loved and pitied us h Ah ! our Friend 1 shall he 
 laugh while we sinners weep ? shall he live while we sin- 
 ners die h Shall he go along a little way with us in our 
 pathway of tears, and stop short as the darkness thickens, 
 and the glooms of death begin to gather around our sight- 
 less eye-balls % Oh ! does not our heart look for him, 
 and our soul want him to go the whole way with us, and, 
 as far as any of our own evils must extend, desire to have 
 his own footprints in the path we must tread ] He has 
 done it — he has done it ! He took the last step when he 
 plunged into the horrors of death. He grappled with our 
 last enemy. He overthrew him in the conflict. And now, 
 as our friends, one after another, die in our arms, they 
 exclaim, Tlianlcs be to God , which giveth us the victory 
 through our Lord Jesus Christ , and are away, on the 
 wings of angels, to the bosom of God. 
 
 This is what we want. We want Christ to traverse the 
 whole field of our sufferings, which had their origin in 
 sin, nor leave a spot unsprinkled with his tears and blood. 
 His humiliation stopped, and his tears began, just where 
 they should have done. He came to redeem sinners from 
 earth, and in this lifetime of God’s merciful forbearance. 
 And if it had been so that after this lifetime, or out of 
 this world, sinners w T ere to be redeemed by him, or if any 
 part of their redemption were to be in some purgatory 
 or intermediate state, his humiliation would not have 
 stopped at the tomb. He would have gone beyond it, and 
 on the domains of eternity, and in his dark prison-house, 
 would have grappled with the prince of hell ! But such 
 
392 
 
 CHRIST MARE PERFECT 
 
 was not his mission. His field was earth ; his path the 
 patli of sinners. His work extended to the very last spot 
 where any human woes need extend ; and when death 
 was finishing his work upon him, he was finishing his 
 own, and exclaimed, in the majesty of dying innocence, 
 It is finished ! and gave up the ghost 
 
 And while evils are here, and are constantly thronging 
 in upon us, and the last, if not the worst of them, is soon 
 to come, do we not need here, and shall we not need in 
 the hour of the last conflict, to know, and know it well, 
 that our friend has traversed the whole journey, and set 
 up his signals of compassion and mercy all along down to 
 the mouth of the tomb % He has planted them there . 
 He is risen. His tomb is empty. He has gone to appear 
 in the presence of God for us. The Captain of our sal- 
 vation is made perfect through sufferings. 
 
 Here human reason must stop. She can' only see that 
 it became Christ to suffer , and find that no complaining 
 can be uttered against God’s declarations that he was 
 made a curse for us — that he died to make reconciliation 
 for the sins of the people. But beyond this there' may be 
 much that we cannot fathom. Our faith must follow 
 where our eyes cannot reach. Our Redeemer is our God ; 
 and we can well afford to have him adorably infinite and 
 adorably incomprehensible. 
 
 As you memorialize the sufferings which made your 
 Redeemer a perfect Redeemer, aim to-day to feel the full 
 appropriateness of his death. He died for you. For you 
 he trod the wine press of the wrath of God ! you a 
 diminutive creature, a guilty being, a breath, a worm of 
 the dust, a sinner on the highway to hell ! You were 
 exposed to infinite horrors ; but he loved you ; and though 
 lie could not save you but by fighting his way to your 
 recovery through the flames of wrath that kindled upon 
 
THROUGH SUFFERINGS . 393 
 
 lrim, yet he did not hesitate. With a soul exceeding sor- 
 rowful 9 even unto death , and with the blood-sweat stream- 
 ing from his body in the agony of the garden, he gave not 
 back. He met the last item, and satisfied the Father for you . 
 
 And after all this, can you distrust him h Is there 
 anything, or can there be anything, in the depths of ycur 
 guilt to make you afraid ] You see how it is. God is 
 an affectionate being. His character is goodness and 
 mercy ; and his promise is pledged to you, in that blood 
 in whose memorial cup you are to-day invited, as Chris- 
 tians, to pledge yourselves to him. Come to it, then, 
 freely, in an humble and adoring confidence, and, as Christ 
 has given you his life, give him your heart, your soul. 
 
 And if Christ has triumphed over the guilt of the past, 
 so is he prepared to triumph, in you , over the terrors of 
 the future. The future has terrors. We do not attempt 
 to hide them. The time is coming when the dart of death 
 shall be lifted against you. You must grapple with the 
 king of terrors. But Christ died that he might destroy 
 him that had the power of death — that is, the devil. If 
 you believe, you shall see the salvation of God. Death 
 cannot hurt you. The grave cannot hold you. Hell 
 cannot claim you. As your breath stops, heaven shall 
 open upon your sight. Jesus Christ shall appear. He 
 will come again, and claim his ransomed child ; and, 
 mounting with your immortal spirit to the skies, you 
 will hear him saying, Father , I ivill that they also whom 
 thou hast given me be with me where I am; that they may 
 behold my glory. Fear not then for the future. Your 
 Captain of salvation is perfect. He has traversed the 
 whole field of evil for you, and is prepared to transform 
 the bed of death into a field of victory. He will take you 
 home to his house of many mansions. In that sweet hope, 
 memorialize his death. Amen ! 
 
XXIY. 
 
 Cljrist nrab-e xmb.er fbc iTahr to |!cbecw. 
 
 “ When we were children we were in bondage under the elements of 
 the world ; but when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth 
 his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them 
 that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of 
 sons.” — Gal. iv. 3-5. 
 
 T O be a believer is one thing, and to be an unbeliever is 
 quite another. To state this, and to explain the 
 difference betwixt the two, is the ordinary and impressive 
 mode in which religion is taught in the New Testament. 
 The statement and explanation bear alike upon believers 
 and unbelievers. They tend to the conviction and alarm 
 of unbelievers, and to the holiness of believers, by instruct- 
 ing them in truth and confirming their faith. 
 
 And it is remarkable how tenaciously the divine w T riters 
 have adhered, through all their pages, to such arguments, 
 facts, and explanations as have an immediate connection 
 with some matter of faith; and how seldom they have 
 drawn a caution or a comfort from any other quarter. 
 Evidently they design to have us something more than 
 naturalists, and something more than philosophers; they 
 design to have us believers, and to have faith in us take 
 the place of the principles which captivate and control 
 other men, They would have each one of us say, simply, 
 “ I believe, because God has said it ; I act, because God 
 bids me; I am comforted, because God smiles on me.” 
 
CHRIST MALE UNDER THE LA W. 
 
 395 
 
 The verses which we have read to you, and all their 
 context, constitute an example of this adherence to matters 
 of mere faith. Turn to the twenty-second verse of the 
 previous chapter, and read to the twenty-sixth, and you 
 will understand the great truth which the apostle was 
 here setting forth. The Scripture hath concluded all under 
 sin , that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be 
 given to them that believe. But before faith came , we were 
 kept under the law , shut up unto the faith which should 
 afterwards be revealed. This implies a difference between 
 the state of an unbeliever under the law and its condem- 
 natory sentence upon him, and the state of the believer 
 under the fearful penalty of the law no longer. Where- 
 fore the law (not the light of nature, not unaided reason) — 
 the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ , that 
 we might be justified by faith. But after faith is come , we 
 are no longer under a schoolmaster : for ye are all the chil- 
 dren of God by faith in Christ Jesus. This clearly ex- 
 presses a difference betwixt a believer and an unbeliever, 
 and just as clearly states the way of a believer’s benefit; 
 he is justified by faith — he is a child of God by faith in 
 Christ Jesus. 
 
 This same matter the apostle speaks of in our text; 
 and he speaks of it in the same manner, that is, urging us 
 to receive it by simple faith, and not on any ground of 
 ordinary science. He explains these matters of faith a 
 little further, stating some particulars of the mode in 
 which this adorable redemption for sinners was brought 
 about, and what it had conferred upon them. We were in 
 bondage once, under the elements of the world: that is one 
 side of the contrast, and an apt description of an un- 
 believer — under the elements of the world. The world 
 rules him, and cannot purify or comfort him. But when 
 the fulness of time was come , God sent forth his Son, made 
 
396 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LA IF. 
 
 of a woman , made under the laiv , to redeem them that were 
 under the law , that we might receive the adoption of sons . 
 This is the other side of the contrast, and it leads on fitly 
 to the mention of a believer’s spirit: And because ye are 
 sons , God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your 
 hearts , crying , A bba , Father. 
 
 Every one of the particular ideas of these verses is just 
 an idea addressed to faith, not to any independent 
 principles of judgment; and you .cannot be benefited by 
 any one of them in any other mode than by a believing 
 reception of it. 
 
 We shall have little time to do anything more than 
 explain them. We cannot expatiate or enforce. We omit 
 all ardour and declamation in order simply to teach. 
 
 I. When the fulness of time teas come. This expression 
 is employed to denote the fitness of the period at which 
 Jesus Christ appeared on earth. It was at the fulness of 
 time. 
 
 He did not appear as soon as there were sinners to be 
 redeemed. Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, 
 their flowers withered, their sweet paradise was blighted 
 and blasted, and the breezes of its health became loaded 
 with the poison of death, and the sinning exiles from it 
 trod among thorns, and thistles sprung up in their path 
 from the cursed earth; they lived and died; and four 
 thousand years wore tediously away, and took all their 
 generations down to the grave, before Jesus Christ came 
 to do his w T ork of redemption. 
 
 We cannot tell why he waited so long. God has not 
 taught us. If man were left to fix on the fit time for 
 Christ’s coming, probably he would think he ought to 
 have come at the first pang of sin; or, at any rate, as 
 soon as the first death-bed was prepared for sin’s victim. 
 
CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LAW. 
 
 397 
 
 He would very likely have a strong idea that it did not 
 become Christ, his character, or his work, to linger for 
 four thousand years in heaven, a mere spectator of so 
 much sorrow and so many death-beds, before he descended 
 to his work. But so it was. Centuries went down to night, 
 and still he lingered. His people, indeed, could lay their 
 dying heads on the pillow of the promises, but they could 
 not be soothed and comforted by the known fulfilment. 
 
 But whatever may have been the inscrutably wise 
 reasons for this lapse of ages betwixt the fall and the 
 crucifixion, the time was now come when all these hidden 
 reasons had been answered. 
 
 It was the fulness of time , because it was the period 
 foretold by the prophets (whatever may have been Gods 
 motives for the delay, and the making such prophecies 
 needful). 
 
 Imperfect as may have been the understanding of these 
 prophecies, there was, at least, a general expectation of 
 the appearance of the Messiah on earth, about the time of 
 his birth. The Jews were looking for his advent. They 
 expected some important personage, — a great Deliverer. 
 As the time drew near, the expectation grew more anxious 
 and animating. It had become so general and exciting 
 that base men took advantage of it, and for political 
 reasons some impostors, like Theudas, claimed to be the 
 promised Messiah. At the time of J ohn the Baptist, the 
 question was put to him, Art thou he that should come , or 
 must we look for another 1 
 
 The prophecies which created this expectation were 
 many and various, and given under various circumstances, 
 but I believe they were in every case given for the com- 
 forting of God’s people. 
 
 When the second temple was built, some old men still 
 survived who had seen the glitter and the golden splen- 
 
398 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LAW. 
 
 dour of the former temple, reared in the prosperous times 
 of Solomon, and the recollection made them sad. This 
 second temple was mean in comparison. It seemed to 
 the old men that God’s favour was not restored to them 
 after all. A prophet was sent to instruct and comfort 
 them. Dry your tears, said Haggai ; ye do err in your 
 estimation of this temple.' Thus saith the Lord of hosts: 
 Yet once , it is a little while , and I will shake the heavens , 
 and the earth , and the sea , and the dry land , and I will 
 shake all nations , and the Desire of all nations shall 
 come ; and I will fill this house with glory , saith the Lord 
 of hosts. Jesus Christ was to preach in it. The silver is 
 mine and the gold is mine , saith the Lord of hosts. The 
 glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the 
 former , saith the Lord of hosts: and in this place will I 
 give peace , saith the Lord of hosts. 
 
 God could have given to it his silver and his gold, but 
 he would have the old men know that he would give it 
 something more valuable. The Desire of all nations 
 should come to it : In this place will I give peace. He 
 did come. There, in that place, Jesus Christ preached 
 peace to sinners, and the prophecy was fulfilled. He was 
 promised as one to come to that temple, and be the glory 
 of it, before, in any conflict of nations, it should be de- 
 stroyed. He came there : he preached there : the prophecy 
 was fulfilled. 
 
 When old Jacob approached his end, he comforted his 
 children by a similar promise. The sceptre shall not 
 depart from Judah , nor a lavjgiver from between his feet , 
 till Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of 
 the people be. The kingdom of Judah was now shaken. 
 The sceptre was about to fall from the feeble grasp of its 
 monarch. Christ came at the exact period to fulfil this 
 promise; and it was, therefore, the fulness of time. 
 
CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LA IF. 
 
 399 
 
 Precisely the same tiling may be said of any prophecy 
 respecting Christ, which contains any intimation in refer- 
 ence to the period of his advent. His advent agreed with 
 the seventy weeks of Daniel. 
 
 The history of mankind plainly shows that there is, 
 under certain limitations, an advance in the human mind 
 as one generation succeeds another. The tendency is 
 onwards, whatever particular and dark exceptions there 
 may be, coming from the disasters of wars or the prevalence 
 of vices. In the infancy of the race little progress had 
 been made in civilization and refinement. Christ did not 
 come till that period had arrived when men were qualified 
 to test the claims of his religion. They were advanced in 
 philosophy and the arts, in law and other sciences, and 
 accustomed to the severest exercises of the reasoning 
 powers. The most profound and splendid geniuses that 
 have ever lived had already graced the annals of our race, 
 and accomplished such wonders as the world cannot now 
 equal. All human kind have not now, by their embodied 
 science and skill, the ability to build such a temple as 
 that of J erusalem, or to set up such obelisks as those of 
 Egypt : nor have we had in our subsequent centuries any 
 man who could rival Homer in song, or Aristotle in 
 reasoning, or cast ancient oratory into the shade, or give 
 an additional trait of sublimity or beauty to architecture. 
 So true is this, that by the common consent of civilized 
 mankind, the nearer any of our works come to those of 
 these ancient masters, the more they are entitled to be 
 deemed excellent. 
 
 Christ was not to remain on earth always. If he had 
 come in the infant, or in an ignorant age of the world, 
 had set up his religion and departed from among men, 
 future generations might have supposed that the age in 
 which he lived had received it by an ignorant and super- 
 
400 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LAW. 
 
 stitious credulity, alike unable and indisposed to test it. 
 This cannot now be pretended. He came amidst a blaze 
 of genius tliat shone the world over. The reasoning 
 powers of man were then cultivated to an extent yet un- 
 rivalled. 
 
 And, what is particularly to be remarked, he did not 
 set up his religion among men in a manner to conciliate 
 human reason, so much as to shame and confound it. 
 His mother was a poor virgin. His reputed father was 
 a poor man. He chose his aids from among poor fisher- 
 men. He was not indebted to power or science. And 
 it was just one of the natural questions of human reason, 
 when it was asked, Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees 
 believed on him ? The question also show T s the temper of 
 the age to examine and prove everything. It was not a 
 credulous, but, on the contrary, a peculiarly incredulous 
 age. Men were disposed, by habit as well as by inclina- 
 tion, to disbelieve anything that claimed to l>e religious, 
 unless it allowed everything licentious. They would dis- 
 believe their own eyes when they saw Christ’s miracles, 
 rather than admit his divine mission. To establish a 
 false religion in such an age would have been an impossi- 
 bility. 
 
 Such an age was the best qualified of any age the 
 world has ever seen, to put to the test a true religion. It 
 was tested by reason, by authority, by infidelity, by 
 power, by prejudice, by passion, by pride, by stripes, bonds, 
 imprisonment, and death. In all these tests it stood. 
 Through all these disadvantages it made its way. 
 
 The all-wise God chose such an age of the world for 
 the mission and crucifixion of Christ. All future genera- 
 tions, down to the end of time, may now know that 
 Christianity was not born in credulity, that it did not come 
 stealthily upon the world in a night of ignorance, that 
 
CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LA W. 
 
 401 
 
 there never lias been, and never could be an age since the 
 sun shone, wherein it could have been introduced with 
 more to test its character, and by that test commend it to 
 all future generations. The fulness of time had come. 
 
 II. God sent forth his Son. His Son had existed be- 
 fore. He was eternal. He was no great personage, raised 
 up for the occasion, and therefore to be considered as 
 coming within those ordinary acts of Providence by which 
 God manages his world. Here was something more — 
 something peculiar — something unparalleled, and having 
 no shadow of analogy among all the other works of God. 
 The Father sent him. No sinner’s supplication had made 
 the request. No power of reason, no energy of hope or 
 despair, had contrived the mode of redemption. He came 
 by the overflowings of God’s love toward the guilty, to 
 realize to a waiting world all that had been wrappe :1 up for 
 so many ages in the dark significance of the mystic pro- 
 mises. 
 
 He had been on earth before. He talked with Adam. 
 He talked with Moses on the mount. He talked with 
 the ancient prophets as they rose in their successive gene- 
 rations. But all that would not do. He then gave pro- 
 mises and covenants and comforts ; and now he must pay 
 the ransom on which all his former promises and cove- 
 nants and comforts were founded, lienee, the next clause 
 of this text. 
 
 III. He was made of a ivoman . Before this, he was 
 the eternal Son of God; but before this, he bore no pecu- 
 liar relation to the human race. He was not one of them. 
 He was divine only. But he became one of them. His 
 conception was a miracle. The angel who saluted the 
 virgin declared unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon 
 
 26 
 
402 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LAW. 
 
 thee , and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee ; 
 therefore also that holy thing ivhich shall be born of thee 
 shall be called the Son of God. 
 
 The manner and frequency with which this matter is 
 referred to in the sacred writings, appears to indicate, 
 very clearly, that an amazing amount of importance is at- 
 tached to it in the accomplishment of redemption for 
 sinners. He was made of a woman , but he was no com- 
 mon man. His birth was a miracle. He humbled him- 
 self to be the son of Mary — the babe of Bethlehem. This, 
 his incorporation into the human family, is most solemnly 
 mentioned, or indicated in some manner, throughout the 
 whole inspired history of our redemption. It formed the 
 point w T hich sweetened the first promise made to the 
 sinning woman. Satan had deceived her. She fell. 
 God said to her deceiver, I ivill put enmity between thee 
 and the woman , (a declaration verified from that day to 
 this ; woman being the most uncompromising enemy of 
 Satan, more ready to come to Christ than her husband or 
 her brother, and more frequently and believingly found at 
 the communion-table than the other sex) and between thy 
 seed and her seed : it shall bruise thy head. It was the 
 seed of the woman (which is Christ), not the seed of the 
 man, which should bruise the head of the serpent. 
 
 The same peculiar idea was given to the prophets. 
 Behold , a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son , and shall 
 call his name Emntanuel. 
 
 St. Paul has the same idea in a passage so often mis- 
 understood, wherein he compares Adam and Eve to the 
 disadvantage of the woman at first, and then throws in 
 the compensating idea that Christ was made of a ivoman. 
 Adam was not deceived ; but the woman , being deceived , 
 was in the transgression. Notivithstanding , she shall be 
 
 saved by child-bearing , — through the human birth of a 
 
CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LA IF. 
 
 403 
 
 divine Saviour — because a Saviour has been born of a 
 woman, — saved, not by or from any pains peculiar to her 
 sex, — saved, if they continue in faith , and charity , and 
 holiness, with sobriety. Such faith and love do not exempt 
 her from pains incident to her sex, but they do unite her 
 to that divine Redeemer who was made of a woman. And 
 this puts the sense of the expression beyond all question. 
 The condition of the named salvation is faith and charity, 
 and holiness, and these do save, through a Saviour born ; 
 they save from punishment of sin, if not from pain. 
 Woman had been first in the transgression ; God would 
 make her the honoured instrument of a glorious recovery. 
 The apostle was not adverting to any mere temporal 
 affair. He had just contrasted Adam and Eve in their 
 fall, much to the woman’s disadvantage, and the mention 
 of any temporal affair peculiar to her would be forced and 
 unnatural in such a case, and would by no means form 
 any balancing to the introduction of sin into the world. 
 It would not carry out, therefore, what the apostle evi- 
 dently designed. He intended to throw in a compensat- 
 ing and comforting idea in respect to the woman. If 
 she had been first in the transgression, she had been 
 the means of uniting with human nature that glorious 
 Messiah through whom recovery from the fall is accom- 
 plished. 
 
 The miraculous birth of Jesus Christ showed him to be 
 in his human nature an immediate production of God, and 
 put an inconceivable difference and distance betwixt him 
 and all other human beings. He came into existence 
 here as no other being ever did. He was born without 
 sin. His being born of a woman made him one of the 
 race he came to redeem, and it qualified him to endure 
 such agonies as otherwise could not have been endured — 
 to be made perfect through sufferings , as the Captain of 
 
404 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LA IF. 
 
 our salvation. He took human nature, sinless, and, in the 
 conflict, sustained by all the majesty of the Godhead 
 within him, — the Son of God, — he could make his way 
 through all the obstacles, and over all the barriers inter- 
 posed between man and heaven by that strange monster 
 sin. Made of a woman , he could sympathize with all the 
 sorrows of human nature, and in that nature which had 
 sinned he could bear the dread penalty of sin, and thus 
 work out a way for our lost race back into the favour of 
 God. 
 
 He was made under the law. This was as much an ex- 
 ception and a miracle as his birth. By his divine nature 
 he was above the law. By his incarnation he put himself 
 under it. All other human beings, yea, all other moral 
 beings in the wide universe of God, are under the law by 
 their nature; he was made under it by his condescension. 
 He observed it. And his spotless innocence is an unas- 
 sailable demonstration that the pains of death he endured 
 could not be appropriate to himself, but must have been 
 for those he came to redeem. Death was the penalty of 
 sin, and there is something abhorrent to all our ideas of 
 propriety that a sinless being should be condemned to it, 
 and suffer it on his own account. But he was made under 
 it. He was made under it for us. He stood in our law- 
 place and took our law-exposures and endured our law- 
 penalties. He came into the world for the purpose of 
 dying. He was made , not for joy, but for sorrow ; not for 
 power, but for poverty ; not for delight, but for death. 
 
 All along he kept his death in view, and lie never viewed 
 it but with such amazement and horror, as certainly are 
 inappropriate for a sinless being, steadily conscious of the 
 favour of God. Ah, he was slain for us. He wept that 
 we might rejoice. He died that we might live. Hence, 
 the text adds,— 
 
CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LA W. 
 
 405 
 
 V. To redeem them that were under the law. 
 
 With man, ever since the fall, there is no difference be- 
 twixt being under the law and being under the curse. 
 The law has been broken by every human being capable 
 of knowing good from evil, and he stands solemnly and 
 awfully accountable to it, unless redemption has released 
 him. And whatever may be his fears, or his compunc- 
 tions and resolutions, every descendant of Adam carries 
 with him the awful power of a corrupt nature, which will 
 still urge him forward to renewed acts of rebellion against 
 God and more dreadful stages of sin, unless he attains a 
 redemption from its power along with a redemption from 
 its penalty. But Christ hath redeemed us from the curse 
 of the laic, being made a curse for us. 
 
 Just on this ground, I cannot wonder any longer at the 
 peace and joy of believers, and cannot but wonder at the 
 unbelief of so many who reject Christ. The case stands 
 thus : Man was under the heavy curse of law. Infinite 
 love interposed for him (as it need not have done) by its 
 own sovereign will, and by its own promptings. By a 
 sovereign act, it sent forth God’s eternal Son, and in the 
 exercise of the same arbitrary sovereignty, it made him of 
 a ivoman y and made him under the law , whose claim he 
 met and whose curse he bore. It was for us he lived a 
 human being; for us ho obeyed the law; for us he suf- 
 fered and died. And since he was such a being, and did 
 such things, and on such authority, I marvel that every 
 sinner cannot see that the character and government of 
 God have been completely vindicated; that the law has 
 received all it can claim ; that nothing less could possibly 
 be the effect of Christ’s work than the full procurement of 
 justification and eternal salvation for all sincere believers. 
 
 And I do not marvel that on this ground, and just by 
 faith in it, a sinner, a believing sinner, can rejoice with jog 
 
406 
 
 CHRIST MALE UNDER THE LA W. 
 
 unspeakable and full of glory , while lie surveys tlie plat- 
 form on which he expects blessings that he cannot com- 
 prehend, but which must be commensurate with the in- 
 finite dignity of the dying achievement of that Son of 
 God who has procured them. And on the other hand, 
 and for the same reasons, I cannot but marvel with 
 an inexpressible amazement, that any reasonable creature 
 should not see that here, just in this work of Christ’s re- 
 ceived redemption, there is, and must be, precisely the 
 aid which his sinful and perilled soul needs. God him- 
 self hath done his work on purpose for him — uncon- 
 strained, except by his sovereign and adorable love. He 
 hath done it by putting his own Son into the sinner’s very 
 nature — flesh and blood, and tears and death — to show 
 that God’s love will pursue him anywhere this side of 
 hell ; and hath done it, too, by putting this his Son under 
 the law , and letting the law loose upon him, to demand 
 and obtain at his hands and his heart’s blood all it could 
 ever demand of the wickedest sinner that ever breathed 
 on this side of the burning lake ! Strange, inconceivably 
 strange, that the sinner does not see that this purchased 
 redemption meets his condition and his curse at once' 
 a'nd that he must be welcome to it, for God has done it 
 on purpose for him ; to redeem them that are under the law. 
 
 Suffer me, my unconverted friends, to beseech you to 
 remember that if you are under the law, you are there- 
 fore under the curse. In respect to your immortal souls 
 you cannot separate law and curse in any way except by 
 this redeeming Christ. All nature, all reason, all research 
 and philosophy, cannot give you, as accountable and im- 
 mortal creatures, one whisper of peace. To you, my dear 
 friends, the grave will continue dark as midnight, the 
 throne of God’s eternal judgment will be clothed in terrors 
 inconceivable, and the cloud of the curse will hang, black 
 
CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LAW. 
 
 407 
 
 and dread, over all eternity, unless you accept deliverance 
 as God lias provided it. There is no medium between 
 being in a state of law-curse and condemnation, and being 
 in a state of justification unto eternal life by Jesus Christ. 
 You are now, at this instant, in one of these states or the 
 other. 
 
 If you are an unbeliever, let me beseech you to remember 
 that, being under law, the wrath of God abides upon you 
 as long as you are under it; it hangs over you, at home 
 and abroad, in joy and in sorrow, in solitude and in 
 society, in life and in death, in every possible condition of 
 your existence. Oh, you must meet the coming storm ! 
 It is already gathered, full of all the elements and materials 
 of misery and despair ; and sooner or later it will burst 
 upon you. It is coming nearer and nearer ; and though 
 you may now be happy in life and hope, in a single hour 
 you may be dead, for aught you know ; and then fare- 
 well for you, an eternal farewell, to all happiness and 
 all hope ! 
 
 And remember, too, I beseech you, that you are in this 
 dreadful condition, under the curse of the law, not neces- 
 sarily, not unavoidably, not because God wills it, not 
 because he is severe ; but simply because you have not 
 accepted his Son by faith, but have heard this love- 
 message of Gods redemption, and seen this love-death of 
 Jesus Christ, unbelieving and unmoved. And I do thank 
 my God that these lips may testify to you once more, that 
 you may, if you will, escape from all the horrors that the 
 law-curse can hang over you. You may, if you will, have 
 pardon, and comfort, and bright and sure prospect of in- 
 estimable treasures of blessedness, and a glorious immor- 
 tality beyond death. And all you have to do to put away 
 that midnight of horrors I have mentioned, and to come 
 out into the clear noonday of peace and happiness and 
 
408 
 
 CHRIST MADE UNDER THE LA IF. 
 
 hope immortal, is just to forsake sin in reasonable penitence, 
 and believe in that Son of God, and trust him who was 
 made of a woman , made under the law , to redeem them that 
 were under the laiv , that they might receive the adoption of 
 sons. 
 
 You need not perish. In the name of the God of grace, 
 who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ , 
 I offer you that sonship and all its eternal blessings. 
 Welcome, welcome to it, every sinner here that wants it ! 
 
 YI. Some of you, my hearers, have received this adop- 
 tion of soul. You come to-day to the children’s place. 
 You will take the bread, and with ineffable humility and 
 happiness you will say, Grace reigns ! Christ’s righteous- 
 ness is my righteousness. He hath redeemed me from 
 the curse of the law. You will lift the cup, and you will 
 exclaim, — 
 
 “ His blood redeemed my guilty soul; 
 
 On him I all my burdens roll.” 
 
 I was an alien and an enemy ; Christ hath made me a son 
 and a friend. 
 
 Cultivate this disposition. It is an explanation of the 
 text — the adoption of sons. By Christ’s work, believers 
 have not only entire justification from the curse of the 
 law, but also the privileges of adoption ; and a higher and 
 more blissful inheritance, and a more intimate and endear- 
 ing relation to God than if they had never been sinners. 
 Come, take the children’s portion, ye sons and daughters 
 of Almighty God ! Call God your Father. Take him as 
 such, through Jesus Christ, and then hope everything and 
 fear nothing. All things are yours. 
 
 “ Oh, fear not for death, but triumph the rather, 
 
 To think of the promise, the prayer of the Lamb; 
 
 Your joy shall be full— and, I will, 0 my Father, 
 
 That those whom thou giv’st me may be where I am. 
 
CHRIST MALE UNDER THE LA W. 
 
 409 
 
 His own sacred lips the assurance have given — 
 Believe on your God, on your Saviour believe; 
 ] go to prepare you a mansion in heaven, 
 
 And quickly returning my own will receive. 
 
 In rapture unsated, in glory unclouded, 
 
 Ye shall rest before God with the angels of light, 
 
 Till this form of corruption, from darkness unshrouded, 
 Shall rise at the trumpet, with the soul to unite.” 
 
 Because, when the fulness of time was come , God sent 
 forth his Son , made of a woman , made under the law, to 
 redeem them that were under the laic , that we might receive 
 the adoption of sons. 
 
XXV. 
 
 Jntmtsdr Confidence bn §didrmg. 
 
 “ And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in 
 wickedness. And we know that the Son of God is come, and hath 
 given us an understanding, that we may know him that is true ; 
 and we are in him that is true, even in his Son Jesus Christ. 
 This is the true God and eternal life.” — 1 John v. 19, 20. 
 
 T HE mode in which we propose to deal with this text 
 is that mode with which you are the most familiar. 
 You have become familiar with it because we have 
 deemed it most profitable and safe. The language of the 
 sacred Scriptures deserves a special explanation ; and be- 
 yond this, the great thoughts and themes announced in 
 them demand, for our improvement, extensive discussion. 
 Therefore we propose, first, to examine the clauses of this 
 text; and, having thus attained some conception of its 
 particulars, we shall then attempt to unfold more fully the 
 great thoughts it contains. 
 
 I. We enter upon the explanations. 
 
 And we know that we are of God , and the whole world 
 lieth in wickedness . The idea here is that of comparison, 
 or rather, contrast, between Christian people and the rest 
 of the world. We are of God . The apostle means be- 
 lievers, Christians. They are of God because they are of 
 the truth ; and not only so, but because they have been 
 chosen of God and called by an “ effectual calling ” into 
 
TiVCREA SEE C ONFIDENCE B Y BELIE VING. 41 1 
 
 God’s holy family. They are the sons and daughters of 
 God Almighty. I have thought, a great many times (and 
 thought it painfully, and with shame and tears), what a 
 difference there is between us and the early Christians 
 in respect to the spirit of adoption. They felt that they 
 were God’s children. We scarcely dare call ourselves 
 such. With the temper of his own family, they approached 
 without a doubt, without a misgiving or a fear. Where 
 we linger, and hesitate, and reluctate, and examine, they 
 went straight forward into their Father’s house, with a 
 child’s confidence and a child’s felicity. They felt that 
 they were redeemed, adopted, — we are of God. Happier 
 for us if we could feel so. It would gild many a dark 
 day, and dry up many a bitter tear. Nothing hinders 
 it bub a feeble faith and the dampened love of a distant 
 heart. 
 
 In contrast with a Christian’s condition is that of the 
 rest of mankind, — the whole world lieth in wickedness. 
 Christianity leads to holiness, and holiness is the family- 
 mark of God’s children, whereby they are distinguished 
 from unconverted sinners. Though this holiness is im- 
 perfect, it is real; and though the wickedness of the 
 wicked may become worse than it is now, yet they have no 
 trait of holiness, and never will till they are born again. 
 They live in wickedness. They are not of God. There is 
 a vast difference between them and God’s people, and a 
 vast difference between the tendencies of the tw T o ; the one 
 tending to deeper degrees of sin, and the other to an 
 increasing resemblance to God. 
 
 W e know that the Son of God is come. The expectancy 
 of the Church from the time when God made his first pro- 
 mise to sinning man, all through the centuries of patri- 
 archs and prophets, and down to the birth of Christ, had 
 been on the look-out for the Messiah. M en saw as through 
 
412 INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING . 
 
 a glass darkly. They did not know as we know. The 
 prophecies that pointed to Christ and promised him were 
 obscure. But still they expected the Messiah, whoever ho 
 might be, or in whatever wonderful form he should appear. 
 They longed for his appearing. And there was to them 
 something lacking as the source of full joy and peace, 
 until the time when the aged Simeon took the Child in 
 his arms, the last doubt gone, and the last want met, — 
 Lord , now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace ; for 
 mine eyes have seen thy salvation. The text (as was most 
 natural in that age) has respect to ancient expectancy. 
 We know that the Son of God is come. The world might 
 not know it — might not believe it — might have their un- 
 believing thoughts directed to some other quarter for the 
 correction of the world’s wickedness, and for the redemp- 
 tion of sinners ; but believers had their thoughts directed 
 only to Christ as founding a religion which should secure 
 the redemption of the soul, and which should finally re- 
 cover the world from the wickedness in which it lay in its 
 pollution and shame. I do not recollect a single passage 
 in the Bible wherein the least hope for individual sinners, 
 or the least hope for the improvement of a wicked world, 
 is founded upon any progress in art, or science, or refine- 
 ment, or taste, or human government, or anything aside 
 from the Son of God. On this side of the river of death 
 as well as on the other, human expectancy of good must 
 turn only to the Son of God who is come, or it must be 
 disappointed. Philosophy cannot reform this wicked 
 world. Philosophy cannot regenerate a sinner. 
 
 And hath given us an understanding that we may know 
 him that is true. The Son of God hath done this. He 
 is said to have given to believers an understanding. Un- 
 believers arc not here spoken of. Believers have an un- 
 derstanding given to them which is peculiar to themselves. 
 
INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 413 
 
 They are enlightened. Christ hath enlightened them by 
 his word and by his Spirit. Every man on earth, who 
 woidd have anything like a just understanding of salva- 
 tion, its plan, or its appropriateness, lies under the indis- 
 pensable necessity of two things, — a reception of God’s 
 word to teach him, and dependence on God’s Spirit, to 
 enable him to be taught. By these he may have such an 
 understanding , the gift of the Son of God to those who 
 deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Jesus 
 Christ. A right understanding is Christ’s gift to his 
 people. A misguided understanding is one of the dis- 
 asters of sin — an awful disaster! Unconverted sinners 
 do not know ivhen good cometh — where it lieth — what it 
 shall profit them — nor how to reach it. Their hearts, 
 their corrupt hearts, have darkened their understanding ; 
 and again and again, in the deep and dreadful sincerity 
 of a darling error, they compass themselves about 'with 
 sparks of their own kindling , and walk in the light of their 
 own fire , only to stumble in darkness ! 
 
 The understanding which the Son of God hath given 
 to his people hath one particular good in itself exclusive 
 of all others, — that we may know him that is true. This 
 means knowing Christ. Of course it includes knowing 
 the Father through him. There is no way of knowing 
 God correctly but by knowing Christ believingly, trust- 
 ingly, lovingly. To an unconverted man you may de- 
 scant upon God till doomsday, and you cannot make him 
 understand him. You may cause all God’s attributes to 
 pass before him in the full blaze of their infinity; you 
 may unfold to him God’s excellences, his works, his pro- 
 mises, all his goodness, and all his grace, — but, though you 
 have made him see something of God, and see it correctly, 
 still he does not understand God ; still there is an ob * 
 scurity, and gloom, and mistiness, and uncertainty hang- 
 
414 INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIE VINO, 
 
 ing around him ; still there is a glory and a goodness in 
 God which he knows nothing about. Why does he not 
 anoint his eyes with eye-salve that he may see ] why does 
 he not come to tbe light ] The reason, the sole reason 
 why you cannot make an unconverted sinner know God 
 correctly is, that he studies God as a mere spectator or 
 scholar, — as an observer would study him who should 
 stand afar off, and look on merely to speculate and won- 
 der. God cannot be known thus. A stranger cannot 
 know him. You must go home to his house, and see him 
 amid his family, and become one of his children in Christ 
 Jesus, before you can Jcnow him. God does not exist 
 merely to be looked at. He cannot be known thus. He is 
 to be known by being obeyed and trusted in and loved ; 
 by abandoning wickedness, and letting the heart learn God 
 by reposing on him. 
 
 Let it not be overlooked, nor ever forgotten, that it is 
 Jesus Christ who hath given us an understanding that ive 
 may know him that is true . Hone can know the Father 
 rightly but by the Son . The light of the knowledge of the 
 glory of God shines in the face of Jesus Christ. Distant, 
 cold, inaccessible, wrapped in uncertainty if not in severity 
 and terror, will God appear to man, if man will not view 
 him and approach him in the way of the great atonement. 
 Jesus Christ makes us know God. 
 
 And we are in him that is true , even in his Son , Jesus 
 Christ. There is a primary sense in which we are said 
 to be in Christ, and there are several subordinate senses 
 which result from it. The primary sense is that of jus- 
 tification through faith in him. St. Paul alludes to this 
 when lie says, That I may be found in him , not having 
 mine own righteousness , which is of the law , but that which 
 is through the faith of Christ. God accepted Jesus Christ 
 in his redeeming work, and by that acceptance he ac- 
 
INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 415 
 
 cepted all Christ’s redeemed ones. They were in him i. 
 Because he lives , they shall live also. Faith in Christ 
 makes a believer righteous because Christ is righteous, 
 and the law can no more touch him than it can touch his 
 Master. The subordinate senses are those of adoption, 
 growth, joy, dependence, and so on. We are in him, if 
 we are Christians, as the branch is united to the vine — 
 to live by his life, and receive from his fulness. 
 
 This is the true God and eternal life . Whether this 
 expression proves what is proved in so many other pas- 
 sages of Scripture, the deity of Christ, I do not now pro- 
 pose to inquire. It surely seems like it. This is the true 
 God , is a precise expression. And I suppose the idea of 
 St. John is, that believers have the privilege of carrying 
 their confidence forward into eternity, and being assured 
 of eternal life , just as well as they are assured of the other 
 facts of religion. 
 
 To convince you of this, I call your attention to two 
 things which I passed over as I gave you these explana- 
 tions. The one is, the repeated expressions of confidence 
 which the text contains. The idea runs all through it. 
 We know that we are of God ; we know that the Son of 
 God is come , and hath given us an understanding . ... we 
 are in him .... this is the true God. Probably you could 
 coin no phrases which would express a more perfect as- 
 surance. 
 
 The other thing is the writer’s reference to truth. He 
 makes it repeatedly : That we may know him that is true , 
 — we are in him that is true , — this is the true God. These 
 affirmations express St. John’s perfect confidence in the 
 truth of Christianity. He had a double confidence : one 
 part of it was personal, whereby he had the full assurance 
 of hope; the other was operative upon the system of 
 Christianity, whereby he had a full assurance of its truth. 
 
416 INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 
 
 But these two were blended together. They mutually 
 aided each other. Especially the persuasion which arose 
 from personal religion (I wish you to notice this idea, 
 because I am going to carry it through all the rest of this 
 sermon) became very powerful, and, as a Christian, he 
 was enabled to say, We know that ive are of God; we 
 know that the Son of God is come , and hath given us an 
 understanding , that ive may know him that is true , and ive 
 are in him that is true . This is the true God. and eternal life . 
 
 This introduces us to the — 
 
 II. Object of this sermon : to unfold one main idea 
 which the text expresses, — that a believer has, or may 
 have, an increased and fixed confidence in the truth of his 
 religion resulting from the fact that he is a believer ; and 
 that, though there are proofs enough to convince any cam 
 did mind that the whole system of Christianity is true, 
 yet a believing reception of it will furnish such degrees of 
 confidence as an unbeliever can never attain : we knoiv him 
 that is true — ive are in him that is true — this is the true God 
 and eternal life. 
 
 For illustration and proof we call your attention, — 
 
 1. To the sobrieties of Christianity. There is a differ- 
 ence between that state of mind which distinguishes 
 worldly men in all their ordinary moods, and that which 
 distinguishes believers. To say the least, believers are 
 not so much actuated, and agitated, and driven about by 
 worldly passions. The passions war against the soul. 
 It is not possible that any human being should become a 
 believer — should make his heart let go of the world — 
 should deny himself and take up his cross to follow Jesus 
 Christ, without coming into a different mental condition, 
 into a state of mind more favourable for the investigation 
 of truth. 
 
INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 417 
 
 There are two disadvantages under which an unbeliever 
 labours in respect to the discovery of truth and confidence 
 in it (I speak of religious truth), over which a believer 
 hath obtained at least a partial victory. 
 
 The first disadvantage is, that the emotions of mind 
 that distinguish an unbeliever are unfavourable to the 
 operations of mind itself. He is agitated. Sinful pas- 
 sions are ordinarily very agitating. Pride is agitating ; 
 it flings the mind into confusion. Ambition is agitating ; 
 it flings the mind off its balance. Pleasure is agitating. 
 Anger, envy, covetousness, loose desires, are agitating. 
 Propose the subject of religion to a man who is under 
 such influences, and he cannot fitly attend to its truth. 
 His mind is disqualified for it, — under the influence of 
 passion too much and of reason too little. Passion will 
 warp his judgment, and the biases his judgment receives 
 will be unfavourable to the cool processes of examination 
 and the solidity of conviction. 
 
 The second disadvantage is, that an unbeliever, under 
 the influences of these worldly passions, is in no situation 
 to give his mind to the proofs of the truth. Even when 
 he would examine them, his attention is called off, his 
 thoughts are distracted. The world he has pursued so 
 fondly and so long, now pursues him. Even in his most 
 sober hours, when he would weigh the reasons which, w T e 
 maintain, ought to determine him in favour of religion, he 
 finds it an extremely difficult thing to keep the subject 
 before his mind long enough to know what is true. His 
 thoughts are easily distracted. Tliisds a disadvantage. 
 
 Now, a believer has gained some triumph over both of 
 these disadvantages. A believer is a man who hath sub- 
 jected passion to reason. A believer is a man who hath 
 learned to put a high and sacred value upon truth'. A 
 believer is a man who hath become aware of the deceitful- 
 27 
 
418 INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 
 
 ness of the heart, and hath seen the necessity of guarding 
 himself against the subtle insinuations of the world. The 
 sobrieties of religion have put him in a more fit frame for 
 discovering the truth, and discerning clearly the evidences 
 which establish it. With him the whole matter is a very 
 serious matter, calculated at once to hush the clamour and 
 commotion of the passions, and to confine his thoughts to 
 itself alone. With him it is a serious thing to live ; it is 
 a serious thing to die ; it is a serious thing to be a sinner, 
 spared in this space for repentance for a little while, and 
 not knowing at what moment his Lord shall say unto 
 him, Give an account of thy stewardship. It is no wonder, 
 therefore, that his mind gains a more fixed confidence in 
 the truth, a more full, calm, stable, and comfortable con- 
 fidence, so that he can begin to say, We know that we are 
 of God . . We know that the Son of God hath given us an 
 
 understanding that we may knoiu him that is true, and 
 toe are in him that is true — this is the true God. 
 
 We could wish that this consideration were maturely 
 contemplated by unconverted men. It explains why they 
 remain irreligious. In their hearts the love of the world 
 has never been suspended long enough to leave them to 
 the power of the sobrieties of religion. Religious truth 
 has been excluded from their mind, or at least has been 
 contemplated only in half-distracted thoughts, and amid 
 the agitation of passion. Such men are very prone to 
 overlook an important thing. They forget that truth, re- 
 ligious truth, when it assails their mind, has not a fair 
 chance. It is not a mere contest of truth against error, 
 proof against proof. It is not merely that evidence is 
 opposed to evidence, argument to argument, considerations 
 in favour of religion opposed to considerations against it. 
 If this were the whole case, the victory of religious truth 
 would be easy. But it is that these opposing influences 
 
INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 419 
 
 assail a mind that is occupied and distracted, and a heart 
 that is biased. The heart is all in favour of one side, the 
 side of indulgence and irreligion; and therefore it is no 
 wonder that the power of truth gives way in such a soul 
 before the feebleness of falsehood and error. Had these 
 men the sobrieties which belong to the subject, they 
 would soon know him that is true , and seek to be in him 
 that is true. The sobrieties of religion secure a kind and 
 degree of knowledge of truth such as an irreligious man 
 cannot have. This is one reason for the increased and 
 strong confidence expressed in the text. 
 
 2. The confidence expressed in the text so emphatically 
 arises also somewhat from the fact that believers have 
 brought different faculties to the ascertainment of truth. 
 You know some truths may be known in different ways. 
 We are not always confined to the same method. I may 
 know something about England, for example, by the testi- 
 mony of those who have been there, by reading credible 
 history, and by conversation with intelligent and truthful 
 men. This* is one way in which I may know (and the 
 idea of the cavilling sceptic, who tells me that I can know 
 nothing with certainty and security, because I have not 
 been there to see with my own eyes, is too contemptible 
 to deserve any answer) ; I may know also by going into 
 the country myself, and examining whatever comes before 
 the eyes of a traveller. It is the same with much of reli- 
 gious truth. It may be known in different ways. And 
 since it may be, it certainly is no strange thing that some 
 men should have their confidence increased, because they 
 have taken more than one way to learn what the truth is ; 
 because they have a double evidence — two ways to demon- 
 strate the same thing. 
 
 Now, a believer is a man who has applied different 
 faculties to the matter of religion, and he knows what is 
 
420 INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 
 
 true by such sort of evidence as an unbeliever little uses. 
 For example, I mention conscience. Conscience is that 
 faculty of judgment by which we form an opinion on 
 matters of right and wrong, connected with a sense of 
 pain and self-condemnation when we have done wrong, 
 and with a happiness, coming from self-approval, when we 
 have done right. This is a faculty — one of the powers 
 of the human soul. A believer employs it. He uses his 
 conscience; and it is just as conceivable that thereby he 
 may know truth better, as it is that he may know it better 
 by using his eyes — by going into England after he has 
 read about it, and looking around for himself. A believer 
 uses his conscience — the internal eyes of his soul. He 
 brings the truths of Christ inward upon his conscience, 
 where the Holy Ghost would carry them. At every step 
 conscience confirms to him the proclaimed truths of Chris- 
 tianity. While he uses his conscience, and the Bible gives 
 him lessons about himself, he asks, Am I such a sinner as 
 this Bible tells me? Conscience answers, You are just 
 such a sinner. He asks again, Am I so estranged from my 
 God] Conscience answers, You are just so estranged. 
 Again he inquires, Am I such a weak creature that my 
 solemn purposes easily give way before the force of tempta- 
 tion, so that I cannot do the good that I would] Conscience 
 answers, You are just that weak creature. He inquires 
 again, Am I so guilty, so helpless too, that no righteous- 
 ness of my own can ever fit me to meet my God in the 
 disclosures of a coming judgment ] Conscience replies, 
 You are just that guilty, helpless creature. Half in 
 despair, but with a little faith, the sinner turns to the 
 offered blood of atonement, and asks himself, Am I safe 
 here] is this sufficient to save my guilty soul from the 
 damnation of hell] Conscience replies, It is enough — 
 you need no more — you have peace ivith God, through our 
 
INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING . 421 
 
 Lord Jesus Christ : who is he that condemnetli ? 
 
 it is Christ that died . Thus, as a believer employs liis 
 faculty of conscience, he learns to know him that is true. 
 His confidence is increased at every step. By his own 
 internal powers, as if by his own eyes, he is enabled to 
 say, I know him that is true — this is the true God . Other 
 faculties also lead to the same thing. 
 
 3. This confidence in the truth is still further increased 
 by the general application of it, whereby a believer is 
 convinced of the truth by the evidence of its universal 
 appropriateness. 
 
 The Christian religion is practical. Its field is all life, 
 and its demand is all the heart. As a Christian employs 
 the guidance of his religion, more and more its excellen- 
 ces are disclosed to him, more and more he knows it tells 
 him the truth. It tells him indeed some strange things, 
 some things which he is slow to learn. It tells him to 
 forgive his enemies ; if they are hungry , to feed them ; if 
 they are naked , to clothe them. It tells him to be con- 
 tent, humble, peaceful, kind, gentle, generous, not only to 
 the good but to the evil, because God sendeth the rain 
 upon the just and upon the unjust. A man, any common 
 man, with the ordinary views and feelings of our simple 
 humanity, is exceedingly prone to call into question, at 
 first, the appropriateness of many of these directions. He 
 does not think they are suitable to his life in such a cross- 
 grained world as this, nor suitable for his heart among so 
 many things which oppose the happiness lie longs for. 
 But when he tries them in faith, when he first gives his own 
 self unto the Lord and then attempts in full sincerity to 
 obey him, he learns to know that the divine directions are 
 faithful and true; because, in every instance, to the heart 
 within him and the world without him they are fully and 
 without any exception appropriate. He never forgave an 
 
422 INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 
 
 enemy but lie was glad of it ; be never extinguished a 
 resentment, nor pocketed an insult, nor submitted to a 
 reverse in fortune, nor exercised patience on the bed of 
 pain, but he was glad of it afterwards, if not at the time. 
 As far as he has found grace to try this Christianity, he 
 has found it true. He knows it is true, — he knows it is 
 true, because he knows it is appropriate. 
 
 I here abandon the plan of this sermon: I cannot 
 condense my materials within the time your patience 
 allows me. For the rest, I group many items together 
 under — 
 
 4. A whole chapter of Christian experiences. These 
 experiences increase and confirm a believer’s confidence in 
 Christianity, so that he can begin to express himself as 
 St. John does in the text. 
 
 The recalling of such experiences appears appropriate to 
 a day of communion. Why are you a communicant! 
 
 The heart of one of you will answer, “ I remember the 
 time when I was not a communicant. I was a wild, 
 worldly young man. The smiles of the world attracted 
 me, entranced me ; I forgot God, forgot duty, forgot the 
 grave. I was hurrying on in my worldliness, exposed to 
 dissipation, pleasure, sinful passions, and sinful companions. 
 And though I had run a long career in my prayerless life, 
 yet an adorable grace arrested me. I was convinced of 
 my sin. I saw my feet were standing on slippery places ! 
 I knew I was a stranger to God, a far-off wanderer, an 
 unworthy prodigal ! It is a thousand wonders that God 
 did not let me go, but he did not ; he sent to me his 
 Spirit, he humbled me, reformed me, accepted me in his 
 Son. And now I am a communicant, because I know him 
 that is true. I know that nothing in my heart, nothing 
 save the Holy Spirit, would have inclined me to seek God; 
 no other power could have snatched me from the jaws of 
 
INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 423 
 
 destruction. I am in him that is true , and the ivhole 
 ivorld lieth in wickedness .” 
 
 Why are you a communicant'? Another of you will 
 answer, “ A while ago I was a wild, giddy girl. I loved 
 pleasure, and pleasure entranced me. Ostentation, pride, 
 vanity, led me on in a strange course. I did not love my 
 God — I did not love prayer — I seldom thought of Christ 
 - -and my wdiole heart led me to think of the world as 
 pleasant, and of religion as gloom. But I have learned 
 better. By an infinite and adorable grace I have been 
 led to see the vanity of the w r orld. I have given it up. 
 I have chosen a better 'portion; and now I know that 
 Christianity is true , because I feel within me that it links 
 me to my God, and lifts me toward my true felicity in his 
 love and likeness. I would not go back to the world and 
 its deceits and snares, for ten thousand such worlds.” 
 
 Some of you will remember your days of deliverance. 
 You w T ere in trials. You were bound in affliction and 
 iron. Wave after w r ave swept over you. Satan tempted 
 you. Your own heart turned against you. Friends for- 
 sook you, or failed you. Despair got hold upon you ; and 
 you saw yourself approaching a fathomless abyss, dark 
 and dreadful as your ow 7 n soul. “ Oh ! if infinite powder 
 from on high had not aided me, and hemmed in Satan, 
 and helped me out of his snares, and assisted my poor 
 endeavours, I should have gone down hopeless under the 
 burden of trials. God aided me ; I know he aided me. 
 It was he who first put strength into my poor heart, and 
 taught me to bear, and taught me to hope, and baffled 
 Satan, and helped me to keep my resolutions. I know 
 that Christianity is true , for I have proved it — proved it 
 in the boldest and best recollected experiences my nature 
 ever had. God has positively been to me, since I turned 
 to him in Christ, all that he ever promised me. I have 
 
424 INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING. 
 
 tried him in dark days, — on the bed of pain, — over the 
 coffins of my kindred, — amid the fiery darts that Satan 
 hurled at me ; and shall I not remember him at his table, 
 and sum up my account of gratitude while I hold the cup 
 of blessing to unworthy lips t ” 
 
 Another communicant will remember his supports and 
 deliverances, as answers to prayer. "No matter of what 
 sort they were. Perhaps he was tempted, and he cried 
 mightily unto God, and God heard him and sent him 
 relief. Perhaps he was called to a duty to which he was 
 unequal. He knew that he was unequal to it, just as in 
 this ministry we have uttered the expression a thousand 
 times with bitter tears, Who is sufficient for these things ? 
 But when he called on God, and would not give back 
 from duty, but would sooner meet death, God helped 
 him — in every instance he helped him. The morning was 
 dark, the noonday was dark and dreadful with storms, but 
 it came to pass that at evening-time it ivas light. Prayer 
 was answered, and he knows it was answered, and he 
 knows God is true , and he is in him that is true. 
 
 You may fill out the chapter for yourselves ; only re- 
 collect the principle, that a Christian’s experiences consti- 
 tute a demonstration of the truth of religion, and give 
 him the more confidence the further they extend. Beli- 
 gion deals with his heart, his habits, his whole soul, his 
 ways on earth, and his hopes as they reach beyond it. 
 Consequently, by the capabilities and faculties of his own 
 nature, his wants, his fears, the demands of his conscience, 
 and the darkness of his grace, he knows that religion is 
 true. Nothing else can meet his necessities. This does ; 
 he feels it does ; he knows it does. He has tried it, and 
 found it true. Jesus Christ has met all his wants hitherto 
 - — his wants as a sinner, his wants under the law, the 
 wants of his conscience, his weakness, his fears, his heart 
 
INCREASED CONFIDENCE BY BELIEVING . 4 25 
 
 —and lie can, therefore, trust him for the rest — for his 
 bed of death, his grave, and his heaven. On this prin- 
 ciple it is that St. John adds the final clause of the text, 
 This is the true God , and eternal life . Jesus Christ, true 
 to him so long, tried and found true , will be true to him 
 for ever. He has promised him eternal life, , and he will 
 give it. 
 
 With this confidence, this glorious confidence in Christ, 
 unshaken and consoling, aim, O communicant ! to approach 
 his covenant table. You enter into a covenant which 
 shall never be broken. You give yourself to a Lord who 
 will never abandon you. You become his, bought with 
 his blood, and none shall be able to pluck you out of his 
 hands . Receive him ! — as a lost sinner, rescued from 
 
 going down to hell, by his mediatorial work, receive him ! 
 — and he will be unto you all that your soul can want. 
 He will hush your fears. He will be your strength. He 
 will show you his own grace, which shall sanctify yours. 
 He will remind you of his death, which shall make your 
 own precious in the sight of God. He will show your be- 
 lieving soul that house of many mansions , your own, because 
 his. He will enable you, with equal happiness and humi- 
 lity, as you lift the solemn sacramental cup, to exclaim, 
 We know that we are of God. We knoiv that the Son of 
 God is come, and hath given us an understanding, that ive 
 may know him that is true; and ive are in him that is 
 true, even in his Son Jesus Christ . This is the true God, 
 and eternal life. You will drink it. May you be able to 
 do so with this text upon your lips ! May the heavens 
 be opened, and the Spirit descend upon you, waking in 
 your happy soul the song — 
 
 “Perish every fond ambition, 
 
 All I’ve sought, or loved, or known ; 
 
 Yet how blest is my condition — 
 
 Christ and heaven are still my own.” 
 
XXVI. 
 
 JMttS Christ's parting ^frbrcss. 
 
 “ Peace I leave with you, ray peace I give unto you : not as the world 
 giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart he troubled, neither 
 let it be afraid.”— John xiv. 27. 
 
 I N tlie biography of Jesus Christ, nothing is more mani- 
 fest than his tender compassion. He came into our 
 world on an errand of mercy, and all his ministry here 
 was in consistency with the object of his high mission. 
 At the time he uttered the words of our text he had just 
 risen from the sacramental table, where he had made pro- 
 phetic distribution of the emblems of his body and blood. 
 What a time for pronouncing a farewell address ! What 
 an occasion for preaching a sacramental sermon ! Around 
 him is the little band of disciples who have waited on his 
 ministry, who have followed his steps, who have been 
 partakers in his joys and his sorrows, have trusted in his 
 guidance, and hoped he would lead them to heaven ! But 
 he is going to leave them. He has risen from the last 
 Supper, and never again will their eyes behold him at the 
 social table or the sacramental board. Henceforth his 
 seat must be vacant ! His loved disciples shall indeed 
 meet, but Jesus Christ will not be there ! He will be 
 beyond death, and in heaven ! 
 
 He looks back upon the years of his ministry, and now, 
 when they have come to a close, what a small number he 
 beholds gathered in pious affection at this his farewell, his 
 
JESUS CHRISTS PARTING ADDRESS . 
 
 427 
 
 funeral feast ! How his soul must have centred upon 
 that loved, that little band ! He looks forward to the 
 future, and pain, ignominy, agony, the desertion of earth 
 and the abandonment of heaven, await him. To-morrow 
 he must die. All that is dreadful in dying, enhanced by 
 all that is terrible in bearing the wrath of God for sinners, 
 is before him. 
 
 But even here Jesus Christ loses none of his tender 
 regard for his followers ; and while entering upon the 
 horrors of the last conflict, he forgets himself, and fills up 
 the hour of parting with ideas consolatory to those who 
 will soon mourn his death. Let not your heart be troubled , 
 neither let it be afraid. Peace I leave with you , my peace 
 I give unto you ; not as the world giveth , give I unto you. 
 
 Two general ideas are suggested by these words, and 
 the circumstances in which they were uttered, and we will 
 not ask you to wander beyond them while we attempt to 
 lead your devotions in the solemnities of this hour. 
 
 I. The first is, that the disciples of Jesus Christ were 
 going to be placed in circumstances calculated to make 
 their hearts troubled and fearful . 
 
 II. The second is, that Jesus Christ speaks tenderly to 
 them, and would cheer and assure their hearts before he 
 leaves them. 
 
 Assembled this morning, believers in Christ, to com- 
 memorate the death of your Master, open your hearts to 
 the sentiments of his dying discourse ! We are going to 
 set before you some of the things which have made pious 
 hearts fearful, and may again do so. But we are not 
 going to leave you comfortless. Though you must be- 
 hold hope disarmed, faith staggered, fear triumphing over 
 courage, the infant Church in mourning, and the heart- 
 
428 
 
 JESUS CHRIST'S PARTING ADDRESS. 
 
 stricken believer just ready to despair and die, still we are 
 going to lead you to climb Mount Calvary, and mingle 
 your tears with the blood of the blessed Jesus. 
 
 I. Let not your heart be troubled , neither let it be afraid. 
 The disciples of Jesus Christ were about to be placed in 
 circumstances calculated to trouble and terrify them. 
 
 1. Their friend was going to leave them. Imperfect 
 as may have been their understanding of the prophecies 
 concerning his death, still they must have already known 
 enough of their significance to know that he was about to 
 leave them. He had said, Little children , yet a little while 
 I am ivith you : ye shall seek me and .... whither I go , 
 ye cannot come. I go to prepare a place for you. The 
 sadness of their anticipated bereavement was settling down 
 upon their hearts. They were listening to their beloved 
 friend for the last time, and he adapts his words to the 
 fearful forebodings of their bosoms. 
 
 Jesus Christ was a man. He was God; but human 
 nature being united with the divine nature, he possessed 
 all the feelings essential to humanity. As a man, he was 
 the friend and companion of his associates, and their 
 hearts learned to lean upon and requite his love. His 
 affection is spoken of as the affection of friend and brother. 
 The disciple whom Jesus loved is the description of one of 
 his followers. Noiv, Jesus loved Martha , and her sister , 
 and Lazarus. In the loss of Jesus Christ, therefore, his 
 disciples experienced the rupture of those tender ties which 
 bind heart to heart — the loss of that friendly society and 
 sympathy which contribute so much to alleviate life’s 
 sorrows and lighten its burdens. 
 
 Let us retain those loved ones round whom our affec- 
 tions gather, and we can bear many a trial. The reverses 
 and disappointments we meet with will find their solace 
 
JESUS CHRISTS PARTING ADDRESS. 
 
 429 
 
 in the society of those we love. Who has not felt, when 
 pressed down with care, afflicted, agitated, that there was 
 a sustaining, renewing spirit diffused around that little 
 spot called home ? Whose heart has not felt its despond- 
 ency melt away when, driven by the unfeeling selfishness 
 of a cold world, he takes refuge in his home , — that little 
 emblem of heaven ? The soothing of those we love sus- 
 tains us under misfortune. Spare me those I love, that 
 little circle round which my heart clings, and I can bear 
 trial ; distresses will not overwhelm me, and outward 
 disappointment will only serve to brighten the felicities of 
 domestic affection. 
 
 But the disciples were about to lose their best friend. 
 Jesus Christ was going to die. They must encounter 
 trials, endure afflictions, be overwhelmed with labour and 
 disappointment, and no friendly, fraternal Jesus to soothe 
 them in their sorrows ! 
 
 They were about to lose more than this ; they must 
 part with their spiritual teacher and guide. Jesus Christ 
 was a faithful minister ; he preached repentance and faith, 
 and pointed the contrite sinner to a forgiving God. But 
 his ministry is now closed ; The Shepherd must be smitten , 
 and the sheep shall be scattered . 
 
 This world, my hearers, is a very little thing ; and when 
 only its afflictions press upon us, they may be endured. 
 Outward affliction which is but for a moment may be for- 
 gotten, may be triumphed over, when we have some one 
 to point us upward and lead us onward to a far more ex- 
 ceeding and eternal weight of glory. The presence of a 
 faithful minister does much to lighten misfortune. There 
 is something dear in sighing our sorrows and distresses 
 into the bosom of a man of God. To be guided by coun- 
 sels that take hold on eternity, to have our affections 
 tempered with the advice of piety and lifted away to those 
 
430 JESUS CHRIST’S PARTING ADDRESS. 
 
 I 
 
 things which are above , to have the Friend of another 
 world stand by us when this world’s friends have fled, 
 gives us a kind of victory over affliction, and enables us 
 even to triumph when we fall. 
 
 But the disciples were going to lose their minister. 
 The infant Church must be clothed in sackcloth. When 
 prejudice and malignity are arrayed against it, when the 
 rod of persecution is lifted and its members are scattered 
 and peeled , no living counsellor shall unite its energies 
 and console the sinking spirits of its members. The 
 storm shall thicken around them, it shall burst upon 
 them, — wave after wave in wild commotion shall roll 
 over them, — and no steady helmsman enable them to ride 
 out the storm, faithfully guiding them to a haven of rest. 
 The individual disciple must be tried, tempted, per- 
 plexed; doubt, discouragement, despondency must come 
 over him ; and, amid all this, no compassionate Jesus 
 shall be with him. The contrite sinner shall weep; but 
 no Saviour shall reply, Be of good cheer ! thy sins are for- 
 given thee. 
 
 3. The expectations of the disciples were to be disap- 
 pointed. The mysteries of redemption were but imperfectly 
 understood by the family of Christ. His disciples evi- 
 dently expected something different from what they 
 realized. When he told them how he must go up to Jeru- 
 salem, and suffer many things , and be hilled , Peter could 
 not bear the anticipation; Be it far from thee , Lord ; this 
 shall not be unto thee. Perhaps before this period the dis- 
 ciples had learned to expect his death. But we find that, 
 even after his resurrection, they looked for the establish- 
 ment of some temporal dominion. When he showed him- 
 self alive after his passion , they asked him , Lord, wilt thou 
 at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ? 
 
 It is sad to have our cherished expectations blasted. 
 
JUS US CHRIST’S PART I HO ADDRESS. 431 
 
 We can better bear our misfortunes and trials if they 
 have been expected and prepared for. But when wo 
 have looked forward to some expected good, disappoint- 
 ment sinks us lower than if no expectation had been 
 cherished. 
 
 So it was with the disciples. Expectation was looking 
 to see the Messiah swaying the sceptre, wearing an earthly 
 diadem, and robed in purple. But his followers are forced 
 to see him arrested as a culprit ; it is mockery that arrays 
 him in purple, and cruelty crowns him with thorns. 
 The buoyancy of expectation gives place to the sadness 
 of despair, and well may their hearts be troubled and 
 fearful. 
 
 4. And finally (to embrace all things in one), the faith 
 of the disciples in Jesus Christ as the Messiah was to be 
 greatly shaken. 
 
 Our ideas of the crucifixion are very different from 
 those of the primitive disciples. We have grown up with 
 sentiments of veneration for the cross. From our cradle 
 we have been accustomed to associate a high and holy 
 dignity with the crucifixion of Christ. But with the dis- 
 ciples it was not so. Crucifixion was the most disgrace- 
 ful of all deaths. Only the vilest culprits and slaves were 
 thus executed. What, then, must have been the distrust 
 of his followers when they saw Jesus Christ, that man 
 on whom their hearts rested, on whom their hopes fastened, 
 in whose counsels they trusted, and whom they had re- 
 garded as worthy of all adoration,-— when they saw him 
 arrested as a vile felon, tried, condemned, and hung upon 
 a tree. Would not their faith be shaken % Could they 
 still confide in his promises when they saw him, bleeding 
 and dying, in the hands of his executioners. Their faith 
 was shaken. We trusted that it had been he which should 
 have redeemed Israel ; and beside all this , to-day is the 
 
432 
 
 JESUS CHRISTS PARTING ADDRESS. 
 
 third day since these things were done . Thus they 
 
 spake after his crucifixion. We trusted it had been he : 
 they once had faith, but now their heart was troubled and 
 fearful. 
 
 It may be questioned whether there is a Christian on 
 earth whose faith would not have been staggered, had he 
 been placed in the situation of the disciples immediately 
 after the crucifixion. The prophecies of the Messiah were 
 but imperfectly understood. The method in which the 
 Christian dispensation was to be introduced seems to have 
 been utterly misapprehended. Jesus Christ dies in igno- 
 miny, hung up between heaven and earth, as if unworthy 
 of either. How naturally the mind of the disciple would 
 inquire, Had this been the Messiah, whose dominion is to 
 extend from sea to sea , and from the river unto the ends of 
 the earth , would he have come to such an end as this ] 
 Where was his rod of iron, to break the nations and dash 
 them in 'pieces, when he was dragged from one court to 
 another, insulted, scourged, and hung upon the cross ? 
 Had he been the great hope of Israel, would he have left 
 such darkness to come on Israel’s prospects % If he had 
 loved us, would he have left us in such troublous cir- 
 cumstances as these, if he had been the mighty Messiah ? 
 Alas ! we hoped that, by authority, he had forgiven our 
 sins; that he w’ould never leave us nor forsake us; that 
 we had found the Lord’s Anointed, who would guide us 
 through life, give us the victory over death and hell, and 
 bring us to heaven ! But he has left us, and we are troubled 
 and distressed. 
 
 There is nothing which so clouds the soul of the Chris- 
 tian as this shaken, staggered faith. It is like drying up 
 the streams of mercy that roll from beneath the throne of 
 God. It is like shutting up the heavens, covering them 
 with blackness and gloom. For though mercy still flows 
 
JESUS CHRISTS PARTING ADDRESS. 
 
 43l 
 
 as freely, faith , the channel of its communication to the 
 sinner’s soul, is gone ; and though the heavens are still 
 all luminous with the beams of salvation, faith , the eye 
 that sees it, is extinguished h Give me unshaken faith in 
 my Saviour, let me be assured he loves me, and then let 
 afflictions thicken, I can endure , seeing him who is invisible; 
 let this body crumble, there is a house not made with 
 hands , eternal in the heavens ; let friends forsake me, let 
 foes accuse, let this earth be burned up , and these heavens 
 be rolled together as a scroll , let creation sink — still, Jesus 
 Christ is the same yesterday and for ever. Let not your 
 heart be troubled , neither let it be afraid. But the sus- 
 taining power of faith was about to be wanting to the 
 disciples — their hearts would be troubled and afraid. 
 
 II. But Jesus speaks comfortably to them, and would 
 assure their hearts. Peace I leave with you , my peace I 
 give unto you ; not as the world givetli give I unto you. 
 Let not your heart be troubled , neither let it be afraid . 
 The object of his farewell address vras to furnish his dis- 
 ciples wdtli resources under trial and affliction. 
 
 Let us look into this address, therefore, and see w r hat 
 sources of consolation and support he opens to them. 1 
 cannot name to you all. 
 
 1. In the thirty-fourth verse of the thirteenth chapter 
 we find the first source of consolation opening to them : 
 A new commandment I give unto you , That ye love one 
 another ; as I have loved you , that ye also love one another. 
 It is very remarkable that never, until this hour of Jesus 
 Christ’s parting with his disciples, had such a command 
 been given. All men were indeed previously com- 
 manded to love one another, but never till now were 
 Christians ordered to love one another because they w r ere 
 Christians. This is a new commandment , and it drops 
 28 
 
434 
 
 JESUS CHRIST’S PARTING ADDRESS. 
 
 from the lips of Jesus Christ just as he takes leave of his 
 beloved. 
 
 A pastor must sometimes part from the flock he has 
 fed. Death will surely call him away. He must leave 
 those over whom his heart yearns, with whose tears he 
 has mingled his own, and whose joys have always served 
 to heighten his. They can no longer sigh their griefs into 
 his bosom, nor be permitted to tell them of a good, for- 
 giving God ! On such an occasion all the dangers to which 
 they will be exposed rush upon his mind. Some of them 
 are young and feeble, — some of them are exposed and 
 tempted, — some weak, some wavering, some agitated and 
 distressed. And what, on such an occasion, shall he say 
 to them ] what source of consolation and security shall he 
 open to them more important than this first article in the 
 counsel of Christ ? A new commandment give 1 unto you , 
 That ye love one another ; as I have loved you , that ye also 
 love one another. 
 
 There is no little security in this reciprocal affection. 
 It defends against dangers, guards from temptation, dis- 
 arms affliction and disappointment, secures the weak, and 
 increases the strength of the strong. How earnestly you 
 would desire that those in whom you feel interested should 
 love one another if you were about to leave them ! Tell 
 me, ye fathers, ye mothers, whose hearts fondly hang 
 around your children, if you were stretched upon the bed 
 of death, what would ye say to them ? As the thoughts 
 of their orphanage pressed upon you — as you gave them, 
 with cold hand, the last parting grasp — would you not say, 
 When I am dead, love one another ? If you would ha v a peace, 
 the peace which J esus Christ gives — if you would not have 
 your heart troubled and af raid , love one another. No matter 
 what your dangers or distresses, this is the refuge, this is 
 the first source of peace that Jesus Christ opens to you. 
 
JESUS CHRIST'S PARTING ADDRESS. 435 
 
 2. You may find the second in the second verse of the 
 fourteenth chapter : I go to prepare a place for you . 
 Though Jesus Christ was about to leave his followers, he 
 was not about to forget them. His departure hence was 
 necessary in the economy of redemption ; and his business 
 in the other world, where he ever liveth to malce intercession, 
 is to prepare for the admission of the redeemed into 
 heaven. Kemember, then, in your trials, that Jesus 
 Christ never forgets the interest of the believer. He went 
 away, but he went in love. It is sometimes necessary 
 that friends should part. Duty will often do violence to 
 spontaneous emotions, but separation of persons need not 
 be disunion of hearts. Believe, then, in the constancy of 
 Christ’s love. If you are his disciple, he is still mindful 
 of you, and is preparing for your reception into heaven. 
 
 3. There is a third source of consolation, and you may 
 find it in the third verse of this chapter : If I go to pre- 
 pare a place for you , I will come again , and receive you 
 unto myself ; that where I am, there ye may be also. It 
 was not for his own sake that Jesus Christ departed out 
 of the world by a death of agony and shame. All his 
 trials and sufferings were for us. He ivas delivered for 
 our offences, he ivas raised again for our justification. And 
 he will not fail to perfect what he has begun. In my 
 father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I 
 would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. . . . 
 I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I 
 am, there ye may be also. 
 
 Mourning pilgrim ! your sorrows are but for a moment. 
 Lift your eyes to heaven. Jesus Christ has satisfied 
 for you the holy justice of God, and he will come and re- 
 ceive you to himself In this life you shall have tribnla- 
 tion, but with Jesus Christ you shall have rest in heaven. 
 If you would not have your heart troubled and fearful, let 
 
436 
 
 JESUS CHRISTS PA RTING ADDRESS. 
 
 its affections fasten upon those things which are above , 
 where Christ sittetli on the right hand of God. What is 
 there in the afflictions of this world that need trouble you, 
 if your faith can anticipate heaven ] A little time shall 
 end every earthly trial. Are you ready to enter heaven ? 
 Do you feel, believer in Christ, that you would be freed 
 from sin — would be like God — that you could hail the 
 coming of Jesus Christ to receive you to himself ? I fear 
 that many of us have little con-solation from looking to 
 our Saviour’s coming. I do fear that many of us who eat 
 and drink in Christ’s presence have so little love, so little 
 faith, so little conformity to Christ, that we are unable to 
 gain anything of joy from the thought of our translation 
 to another world. I v)ill come and receive you to myself 
 is an expression that I do fear rather terrifies than cheers 
 the heart of many a communicant. 
 
 What shall be done ] This fountain of consolation, by 
 reason of our sins, is in vain. 
 
 4. Blessed be God, there is another. You may find it 
 opened in the thirteenth and fourteenth verses of this 
 chapter, and again in the twenty-fourth verse of the six- 
 teenth chapter. Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name , that 
 will 1 do. ... If ye shall ask anything in my name, I toil 1 
 do it. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name : ask, 
 and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. Prayer, 
 then, is the resource. In all your distresses, call upon 
 God. Are you deprived of friends, of ministers — are you 
 afflicted, desponding, doubting — is your faith shaken, 
 your soul dark, your sins numerous, your conscience 
 troubled, your death coming, and your Saviour hidden 
 from your view — prostrate yourself before the Eternal, 
 and pour your entreaties into the bosom of your compas- 
 sionate God. Desponding sinners ! be not distressed. 
 Look up into heaven. Jesus Christ is there, all scarred 
 
JESUS CHRISTS PARTING ADDRESS. 
 
 437 
 
 and wounded, and you may ask forgiveness in liis name. 
 Only repent of sin and believe in Christ, and your prayers 
 will be heard. Ask, and ye shall receive , that your joy 
 may be full. 
 
 Then, mourning penitent, be of good cheer . Your sor- 
 rows shall be turned into joy. lie that goetli forth and 
 weepeth , , bearing precious seed , shall doubtless return again 
 with rejoicing , bringing his sheaves ivith him. 
 
 Never forget this resource. Prayer unlocks heaven. 
 It is the voice of childhood lifted up to an eternal Father. 
 Your earthly parents and friends may fail, may die. But 
 God lives. Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may 
 be full. Heaven shall open to your supplications. The 
 
 petition made in the name of Christ will never be unavail- 
 ing. Because, — 
 
 5. Your Saviour will unite his prayers with yours, and 
 the Holy Ghost shall be given unto you. In the sixteenth 
 verse of this fourteenth chapter, he opens this source of 
 assurance. I will pray the Father, and he will give you 
 another Comforter , that he may abide with you for ever. 
 Never imagine that you can do anything in religion with- 
 out the Holy Ghost. As well might the corpse arise from 
 its coldness, tear olf its shroud, and go onward, unaided, 
 in the vigour of life, as any sinner prosper in salvation 
 without the aids of the Eternal Spirit. But the interces- 
 sion of Christ, and prayer offered in the name of Christ, 
 shall bring down the Eternal Spirit, the Holy Comforter, 
 upon your hearts. You need not, then, despair of getting 
 ready for heaven. Though buffeted with temptation, 
 tried, finding sins which easily beset you, and a law in 
 your members warring against the law of your mind, still 
 there is a Holy Comforter, and he will abide with the 
 penitent for ever. 
 
 6. Finally, you may have communion with Christ. 
 
438 
 
 JESUS CHRIST'S PARTING ADDRESS. 
 
 This is the last method of gaining peace which time allows 
 us to mention. It is spoken of in the eighteenth verse. 
 I ivill not leave you comfortless : I will come to you . The 
 deity of Jesus Christ, and that alone, enables him to 
 fulfil this promise. He does fulfil it. He consoles the 
 penitent heart. He comes to cheer and sustain the 
 sorrowing believer. Behold , I stand at the door , and 
 knock : if any man hear my voice , and open the door , 1 
 ivill come in to him , and sup with him , and he with me. 
 
 These are some of the fountains of peace and consola- 
 tion that Jesus Christ sets before you. If you have not 
 peace with God, surely it is not for want of appropriate 
 direction from Christ. 
 
 And all these promises he seals with his blood. From 
 this farewell meeting he goes forth to be betrayed, to be 
 insulted, to bleed and die. Had it not been for his death, 
 we could have spoken no peace to you. You might have 
 sighed and wept away the years of a miserable existence, 
 and ended the wretchedness of this life only in sinking 
 beneath the eternal wrath of God. 
 
 But in the blood of Jesus Christ you have the pledge 
 of all you need. He that spared not his own Son, but 
 delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also 
 freely give us all things ! Go, then, for your consolation, 
 to your precious, dying Saviour. Sinful, sorrowing, 
 anxious, go, climb Mount Calvary, fasten your eyes upon 
 its bleeding victim, and dry your tears by his cross. 
 
 As you handle these emblems, call to mind the sins, 
 and afflictions, and trials, and everything that tends to 
 render you fearful and troubled; see what you are, — a 
 poor helpless sinner, having no claim to comfort on earth 
 or salvation in heaven. And then call to mind the coun- 
 sels and atoning sacrifice of your Saviour ! If you come 
 to this ordinance, sorrowing for sin and trusting in the 
 
JESUS CHRIST'S PARTING ADDRESS. 
 
 439 
 
 blood of Jesus, then let not your heart be troubled , neither 
 let it be afraid . True, affliction will come, but Jesus 
 Christ will console you ; true, trials will assail, but his 
 grace is sufficient for you ; true, you may lose your friends, 
 but hear Jesus Christ ! Lazarus sleepeth .... only believe, 
 and you shall see the glory of God ; true, you are soon to 
 lie down and die, but, because he lives , ye shall live also. . . . 
 Life or death, all things are yours, for ye are Christ's , and 
 Christ is God's. 
 
 Annihilate yourself, therefore, as you come to this 
 ordinance ; be nothing, and let Jesus Christ be all. 
 Pause, pray, surrender your whole selves to Christ, for 
 time and eternity, or approach not the table of the Lord. 
 Give yourselves to Christ ; and whatever your unworthiness, 
 or sins, or fears, let not your heart be troubled , neither let 
 it be afraid. Christ will meet you, he will love you, he 
 will save you. 
 
 Come, Lord Jesus ! enter our hearts, and make us 
 thine,- and to thy name be the glory ! Amen. 
 

 

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