heart and conduct is incalculableindeed so great that many regard only these sides of it and neglect the Divine aspect altogether, and refer to this as a result and outcome of the former.

The elevation of our Lord's nature, especially as it comes out in the midst of His sufferings, would of itself have been a mighty force for the amelioration of all who contemplated it. All greatness ennobles, and when it is the greatness of the good and the gentle, the heroism of love and the power of self-sacrifice, the soul of man not only admires, but is inspired, emulates the example and joins in a holy fellowship. But Christ's death was the death of one who loved men, and whose love is revealed to us by that wisdom which alone could fathom it, as being personal and individual. Christ was not a mere philanthropist, but before His infinite intelligence every man stood separate and alone; in His infinite heart every man had a place. Hence His sufferings were sufferings for me, for you; His death was in my place, in yours (P. D. 456).

We find that in Him there gathers not only goodness, patience, all the virtues of which man is capable, there exhibited through hostility and even unto death, but there is love-a personal, direct, and individual love such as would have been equal to all the claim made upon it, to all the burden which it had to bear even if there were only one soul in the world to be redeemed, and that mine or yours. Let this be realised by each man, and see how his spirit will be affected by that love of Christ. What a price for righteousness! What a hindrance to sin! What a discipline, a culture, is here! How life will be inspired, action directed, victory assured for him who lives with the ever-present thought of the love of Christ! Thus will the sinful character be changed, the wounds be healed, a new heart given, and by the grace of the Holy Spirit who applies these "things of Christ," the soul is regenerated, sanctified, and at last glorified in the perfect blessedness and holiness of heaven.

This is what we need within ourselves -this healing grace; and this is what the prophet declares Messiah will bestow, for "with His stripes we are healed."

With these thoughts, let us surround the holy table of the Lord. Here is the broken body and the shed blood. Here are we reminded of the sufferings which yet glorified law and obtained forgiveness, and are evermore the power of the love which heals and strengthens and at last completely saves.-L. D. Bevan, D.D.

These sufferings constituted the price which the incarnate Son of God had voluntarily engaged to pay for human redemption: they were the atonement due for the accumulated sins of a guilty world, and were required by "the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God."

I. THEIR NATURE.

To form an adequate conception of our Redeemer's sufferings, we must contemplate Him as forsaken and unsupported, save only by the consciousness of perfect innocence; surrounded by a whole nation of implacable enemies; betrayed by His own treacherous companion; insulted and beaten by a ferocious multitude; dragged, on a perjured accusation, before the judg ment-seat; affixed to the accursed tree, where, for six tedious hours of mortal agony, He hangs suspended from His own quivering flesh. Bitter, however, as were the physical sufferings of our Lord, the peculiar agony of His passion did not result solely from that cause. It was the mental anguish that He endured during that awful period; the overwhelming consciousness of God's anger; the total absence of all aid or consolation from above; the feeling of utter desertion both by God and man, when He approached the tremendous conflict with all the powers of darkness;—it was the pressure of that enormous mass of transferred sin which, as the representative of mankind, He had undertaken to bear. Physically, His sufferings did

not differ materially from those of that noble army of Christian heroes who followed His steps to martyrdom and glory; but they had no desertion of the Divine grace and favour to lament -no load of imputed corruption to weigh them down. The Prince of Martyrs felt the unnatural load of His polluted burden; He tottered under its enormous weight, but no assisting hand stretched out to help; alone He had to undergo the tremendous ordeal, without support from His Father, without the comfort and companionship of the Holy Spirit.

Thus was the "Messiah cut off, but not for Himself." He owed no submission to death, having never fallen under the dominion of sin. The punishment which He underwent was due to us; they were our iniquities for which He was wounded and slain; for our sakes He became as it were the paschal lamb, "sprinkling His blood" for our salvation; for us He consented to be treated like the scapegoat in the wilderness, and to bear in His own person the iniquities of us all. How bitter the ingredients of the cup of which He drank ! The annals of mankind can furnish no parallel to the immensity of His sufferings.

II. THEIR OBJECT.

Mankind had been created perfect, but had fallen from their original uprightness into a state of degradation most offensive to the holiness of God. He could not behold His creation, once so happy and sinless, thus corrupted and depraved, without just indignation. Yet in the midst of His wrath He remembered mercy; and, because mankind were too widely alienated from Himself ever to be rescued from the lamentable consequences of the Fall by any exertions of their own, He devised the wonderful expedient of vicarious atonement, by which, through the personal intervention of some friendly mediator, full and perfect satisfaction might be offered, in man's behalf, to the offended holiness and plighted truth of Heaven. No one could be found sufficient for

this purpose but His only Son, who assumed the nature and liabilities of those whom He desired to rescue from destruction. The object for which He came into the world was to redeem mankind-by undergoing the full amount of punishment that had been incurred; by rescuing all that might believe on Him from the dominion of sin and Satan; and by opening a fountain for sin and uncleanness, capable of removing pollution from the entire human race.

These merciful purposes had long been intimated by Divine revelation, and the expectation kept alive by a series of prophecies. The necessity of a real expiation was prefigured by the early institution of blood offerings, in which an innocent victim became an atonement for the sins of the sacrificer, and was supposed to draw down the divine wrath upon itself, and to avert it from the offender. Corresponding intimations were made in all the other types and ordinances of the law, especially in the driving forth of the sin-laden scapegoat into the wilderness, and in the entrance into the holy of holies of the priestly intercessor bearing the blood of sacrifice (Heb. ix. 7, 11, 12).

III. THEIR SUFFICIENCY.

The entire value of our Redeemer's mediation, the whole efficacy of His atonement, depended on His total freedom from sin. The smallest deviation from the perfection of righteousness would have entirely disqualified Him for the office of a Saviour, by degrading Him to the very condition of those whom He purposed to save. He would have become in His own person a debtor to Divine justice, and thus would have required a surety for Himself, instead of becoming a surety for others. But the spotless holiness of the expiation was secured by His inseparable relation to the Deity; and, for the same reason, a redundancy of merit accrued to Him which rendered the atonement He made abundantly efficacious for the redemption of the world (1 Pet. ii. 22-24; H. E. I. 377-381).

The surest proof of the entire sufficiency of our Lord's sufferings and death as an offering for sin consists in His resurrection from the dead. This was the sign to which He had previously referred the Jews as an evidence of His divine power (John ii. 19-21); and it was, doubtless, essential that He who claimed a victory over death should exhibit in His own instancǝ the first fruits of that victory by raising Himself from the dead. Had He failed in rescuing Himself, His ability to save others might reasonably have been questioned; but having exercised that power in His own case, much more is He able to raise others from the death of sin to the new life of righteousness and glory. The sufficiency of our Lord's atonement is still further evident in His public and triumphant ascension into heaven, and in His subsequent fulfilment of the promise that after His departure He would send the Holy Spirit unto them. -George Pellew, D.D.: Sermons, vol. i. pp. 107-124.

Consider I. THE NATURE OF THE REDEEMER'S SUFFERINGS. Physical, but not chiefly so. The physical sufferings of many of the martyrs were greater than His. Mental, and these are harder to endure than physical sufferings. Minds differ in their capacity for suffering; the more capacious and sensitive they are, the greater that capacity (H. E. I. 915). II. THEIR SOURCE: our sins, which He had taken upon Himself. III. THEIR ENDS. That a way of salvation might be opened for all who believe. 2. That a complete triumph over the powers of darkness might be achieved, by the setting up of a kingdom that will never be destroyed (see outlines on vers. 10-12).-C. B. Woodman: The British Pulpit, vol. iv. pp. 384-393.

1.

I. In His body and in His soul. Heartache is worse than headache. "The sufferings of His soul were the

soul of His sufferings." II. In His earlier and in His later years. Of the babe-boy-man. III. In personal endurance and by sympathy. Sympathy with all the ills of humanity, and with the woes of individual sufferers. IV. From all orders of being. Men-friends, foes, neutrals; devils; GOD-withdrawal, infliction of penalty.

CONCLUSION.-Can the sufferings of Christ be explained apart from the doctrine of the atonement? Ought not the sufferings of Christ for us to draw forth our faith and love? Should not the sufferings of Christ lead us as believers to confide in His sympathy? -G. Brooks: Outlines, p. 79.

(Sacramental Sermon.)

There is nothing else which ought so to affect our hearts as the ordinance of the Lord's Supper. It 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 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 we attend to the two great ideas of the text

I. It is proper to enter fully into the consideration of our sins, for unless we come to this sacrament as sinners-penitent, emptied of self

-we shall fail of entering into the meaning of our ordinance, or holding communion with our Saviour.

1. The number of our sins. 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. As we look back on our life, recollection fails us, and well may we say with the Psalmist, "Who can understand his errors?" 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

thoughts successively rise, as by enchantment, is the purchase of the wearisome vigilance, and sustained and often painful effort of the author's mind. (2.) The repasts upon which many a Christian congregation are Sabbath after Sabbath delighted, are the sweat of the preacher's brain. (3.) The civilisation we inherit with our birth, is the result of an incalculable amount of anxious, laborious, and distressing thought on the part of millions now sleeping in the dust. (4.) What privations do parents voluntarily suffer in order to secure the education of their children!

3. The vicarious principle is a law of moral being. (1.) It is the very soul of sympathy. Without sympathy society would lose its charm-a community of stoics. (2.) The philanthropist facing the horrors of disease and wretchedness, &c. The missionary! (3.) It is virtue. which gives value to sacrifice.

A principle thus universally obtaining cannot but harmonize with the justice of the Universal Ruler. The vicarious sacrifice of Christ is the most marvellous and stupendous exemplification of a law every where exemplified.

II. A vicarious sacrifice of infinite merit is indispensable to human salvation.

1. Man is found in the attitude of rebellion against God.

2. Divine justice cannot be sacrificed to mercy (H. E. I. 376).

3. Man has no means by which to commend himself to the mercy of God. (1.) Repentance of no value without an atonement (H. E. I. 4225-4228).

(2.) Man is too depraved of himself to repent (H. E. I. 4250).

4. The only remaining source is in the vicarious principle. (1.) The vicarious person must be able to suffer the penalty of human sin. (2.) He must have sufficient merit to procure the enlightening and sanctifying agency of a Divine worker.

III. The requirements of the vicarious principle are met in the sacrifice of Christ.

1. His merits fully realize the Divine ideal. (1.) He was pure through the miracle of His birth. (2.) He was righteous in the fulfilment of every requirement of law. (3.) In His official capacity He was approved by celestial voices, at His baptism and transfiguration, and with reference to His sufferings at Gethsemane and Calvary. (4.) Hence His exaltation (John xvii. 1-5; Phil. ii. 9-11).

2. Those merits were devoted to our redemption and salvation. (1.) This is the great doctrine of the text. (2.) The marrow of the Gospel. (3.) They have made provision for the renewal of our nature-God cannot change, and therefore we must be changed. The Holy Spirit helps us to repent and believe the Gospel, &c.

CONCLUSION.-1. Learn the absurdity of seeking salvation by works 2. Learn the obligation to aim at Christian perfection. (3.) Learn the necessity of the vicarious principle to the Christian life (Matt. xvi. 24-26; 1 John iii. 16-17).-James Alex. Macdonald: Pulpit Analyst, vol. i. pp. 702-705.

The two great things which the Spirit of Christ in the ancient prophets testified beforehand, were the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow (1 Pet. i. 11, 12). And when Jesus, after His resurrection, expounded to His disciples, in all the Scriptures, the things concerning Himself, He showed the scope and pur

VOL. II.

port of them all to be that "Christ ought to have suffered, and then to enter into His glory." But in no part of the Old Testament are these two things so fully exhibited as in this chapter, from which many passages are quoted and applied to Christ in the New Testament.

I. THE SUFFERINGS OF THE MESSIAH, 493