sider all that he did in his capacity and offices as a Saviour, to have a character of worth and excellency, proportioned to the COMPLETE dignity of his person. Though only the pure and perfect human nature of the Messiah could suffer, it is obvious that all the acts and sufferings of that human nature, by reason of its union with the divine, come under a relative consideration very different from that which similar acts and sufferings could have in any mere man. Analogies and illustrations from human dignities and affairs might easily be devised. But all such suppositions must, of necessity, be deeply defective. The transcendent case before us is absolutely sui generis; and all our reflections upon it should be conducted with the most cautious reverence, and with an anxious adherence to the light of revelation.

These observations lead to a further view of the subject.

III. The CIRCUMSTANCE which confers its proper value upon the sacrifice of Christ.

The value of this expiatory sacrifice is not to be estimated from the divine appointment alone; nor merely from the kind or intensity of sufferings which our blessed Saviour endured; but from HIS TRUE AND ESSENTIAL DEITY. This is that relative consideration, just mentioned, which confers ITS OWN dignity upon the constituted person of the Messiah, and upon his whole mediatorial work. It is the opinion of some eminent critics, and appears to me supported by probable evidence, that to this grand circumstance our

text refers, in saying that Christ ETERNAL SPIRIT, offered himself.” *

On this holy ground I advance with trembling and anxiety, lest I should darken counsel by words without knowledge. Presumption, curiosity, and the affectation of knowledge beyond what revelation permits, I solemnly disown. Most sincerely do I reverence, and desire ever to obey, the injunction of our unrivalled poet :

Heaven is, for thee, too high
To know what passes there: be lowly wise;
Contented that thus far hath been revealed,
Not of earth only, but of highest heaven.

PAR. LOST, viii. 173.

My aim only is to guard the truth from the assaults of its adversaries, and to show the solidity of its base, and the symmetry of its parts. That difficulties exist, I well know. They arise in all our attempts to gain accurate knowledge. The philosophy of nature teaches us to expect mysteries in the sublimer wisdom which cometh from above. A mystery, however, is not an absurdity. It is truth seen in disunited portions: but though the intermediate parts be hid in a wise or necessary darkness, their continuity, in the perfection of divine harmony, is not the less certain. The gospel is "the wisdom of God in a mystery" and can we be, with reason, surprised that this capital part of the gospel, which we are humbly exploring, should be, in some of its bearings, to us unsearchable or dimly seen?

* Supplementary Note XIX.

In my most serious estimation, and may I presume to say, after no careless or precipitate inquiry,-"the pillar and ground of truth, and confessedly great, is the mystery of godliness ;"-it is "the LIVING GODwho was manifested in the flesh,"* and stamped his own glory upon the propitiation for our sins. How this effect was produced; how the Saviour's divine nature conveyed its own infinite value to the obedience and sufferings of "the flesh," the human nature; -it is no objection or difficulty with me, to believe that mortals cannot know. I should rather think it a presumption against any sentiment which respected the mode of the Deity's existence and agency, that it contained nothing but what was perfectly plain to our mental perception. But we may shew the reasonableness of a doctrine, and rebut the charges which rashness or profaneness may throw out against it, without overstepping the boundary prescribed to our feeble and fallen faculties. With deference, therefore, I submit to serious and candid minds some considerations, not, I trust, unauthorized by scripture and reason.

i. The assumption of human nature by the Eternal Word, who is God, was the act of an Infinite Mind, knowing, intending, and contemplating all the results of that act of assumption, through the period of the designed humiliation and for ever. To the Divine Mind, nearness and remoteness of time or space are equal. Consequently, as the actual assumption of human nature was the first result of the omnipotent * Supplementary Note XX.

will, so the same act, or volition, must equally have carried forwards and communicated its original divine value to all the subsequent moral and mediatorial acts of the incarnate Saviour.

ii. The union of the divine and human natures, in his person, was constant and invariable. The scriptures afford us no reason to think that the Messiah's human nature, though retaining always its essential properties, had ever a separate subsistence. To the mother of Jesus it was announced, "The Holy Being which is born of thee, shall be called the Son of God:" and according to the prophetic declaration, as soon as men could say, "Unto us a child is born," so soon was it the fact that his name was called "the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God." It was the Mediator, in his whole person, that acted for the salvation of man; though it was impossible that the Divine Nature could be subject to suffering.

From these two positions I infer a third, which I venture to propose, as an unexceptionable mode of stating this important, though profound and difficult subject:

iii. All the acts of our Lord Jesus Christ that were physical, or merely intellectual, were acts of his human nature alone, being necessary to the subsistence of a human nature: but all his moral acts, and all the moral qualities of complex acts, or, in other terms, all that he did in and for the execution of his mediatorial office and work ;-were impressed with the essential dignity and moral value of his Divine Perfection.

These reasons appear to me sufficient to authorize our attributing to this holy sacrifice, a value properly INFINITE, on account of the Divine Nature of him who offered it. A most important conclusion! Rich in blessing to the contrite sinner: full of joy to the obedient believer.

I cannot decline, also, to observe here, how close and important is the connexion between the two leading doctrines of the Christian system, the Deity and the Atonement of Christ. They yield mutual illustration and support; and neither can be consist ently held without the other.*

PART III.

On the EFFICACY of the Sacrifice of Christ. FROM the principles which have been stated, and, I trust, established by evidence, it is now easy to infer, that the Redeemer's sacrifice of HIMSELF possesses an efficacy truly divine, glorious to its All-wise and Gracious Author, and replete with boundless blessings to mankind.

I. Every obstruction is removed to the exercise of pardoning and saving mercy, for every purpose, and in every way, that Infinite Wisdom and Goodness may see fit.

We have seen that there is evidence, from the word of inspiration and the reason of things, that sin

* Supplementary Note XXI.