and His Apostles pourtray it, while it is the crown and glory and rejoicing of His redeemed, is also the symbol of their self-denial and suffering; by no mere idle recumbency is this Cross ours-but by energetic will and patient well-doing: easy, indeed, and pleasant is its burden to those in whom CHRIST's love is perfected; but sharp and painful whenever there is a fleshly will, and sinful obstacles to be overcome. He bears CHRIST's Cross who ameifics his affectiona

tae muren, fis spouse and Body, are

are all framed and fitted to conduct us through the sole grace He has merited, without which human efforts and human deserts are all unavailing. Thus may the body of sin within be crucified that the life also of JESUS may be manifested, in ourselves; thus through the death-like grave of renunciation and penitence may we pass to our Easter of renewed life -of invigorated obedience and a brightened hope of immortality.

W. H. M.

SERMON XXXIX.

HUMAN INIQUITY LAID ON CHRIST.

Good Friday.

ISAIAH LIII. 6.

THE LORD HATH LAID ON HIM THE INIQUITY OF US ALL.

THE Conflict from which GOD the REDEEMER rested in the tomb on the seventh day of the present most holy week, was on this day, the preparation of that high Paschal Sabbath, brought to its last adorable consummation. The Cross of CHRIST is the object now before us that Cross which is the symbol of all Christianity-the badge which distinguishes it from any other system, whether belonging to previous imperfect dispensations of truth, or to the devices of opposing falsehood: the Cross which was to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness,to men abandoned to carnal principles of judgment an object destitute alike of conviction or of desirableness, but to all who are divinely enlightened, CHRIST the Power of GOD and the Wisdom of GOD'.

This hidden Wisdom of GOD, as it is termed by the Apostle-the Wisdom which none of the princes of 1 1 Cor. i. 22, 23; ii. 7, 8.

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and His Apostles pourtray it, while it is the crown and glory and rejoicing of His redeemed, is also the symbol of their self-denial and suffering; by no mere idle recumbency is this Cross ours-but by energetic will and patient well-doing: easy, indeed, and pleasant is its burden to those in whom CHRIST's love is perfected; but sharp and painful whenever there is a fleshly will, and sinful obstacles to be overcome. He bears CHRIST's Cross who amoifion his affantin.

A

ne muren, is spouse and Body, are are all framed and fitted to conduct us through the sole grace He has merited, without which human efforts and human deserts are all unavailing. Thus may the body of sin within be crucified that the life also of JESUS may be manifested, in ourselves; thus through the death-like grave of renunciation and penitence may we pass to our Easter of renewed life -of invigorated obedience—and a brightened hope of immortality.

W. H. M.

SERMON XXXIX.

HUMAN INIQUITY LAID ON CHRIST.

Good Friday.

ISAIAH LIII. 6.

THE LORD HATH LAID ON HIM THE INIQUITY OF US ALL.

THE Conflict from which GOD the REDEEMER rested in the tomb on the seventh day of the present most holy week, was on this day, the preparation of that high Paschal Sabbath, brought to its last adorable consummation. The Cross of CHRIST is the object now before us that Cross which is the symbol of all Christianity-the badge which distinguishes it from any other system, whether belonging to previous imperfect dispensations of truth, or to the devices of opposing falsehood: the Cross which was to the Jews a stumbling block, and to the Greeks foolishness,to men abandoned to carnal principles of judgment ⚫ an object destitute alike of conviction or of desirableness, but to all who are divinely enlightened, CHRIST the Power of GOD and the Wisdom of God'.

This hidden Wisdom of GOD, as it is termed by the Apostle-the Wisdom which none of the princes of 1 1 Cor. i. 22, 23; ii. 7, 8.

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this world knew, or they would not have crucified the LORD of Glory'-is what this day's mystery sets expressly before us. In the beginning GoD created the heavens and the earth; and having called their various occupants successively into being,-on this day of the week, the sixth and last of Creation, He formed the noblest of His terrestrial works: "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness. Such was the first Good Friday of creation. But when that image of GOD was marred and defaced, and Adam with his posterity was involved in the fearful penalties of sin, it was a more arduous work than that of the first creation, to reform the high nature that had been corrupted. For this purpose God hath visited us, as the Psalmist expresses it2; but in a stranger manner than at first. His allcreating Word, the co-essential image of His substance, has taken our humanity into union with His own eternal GODHEAD-and in the flesh and nature of man has endured the worst form of that death which is the penalty of sin. This is that "wisdom of GOD in the mystery," which has extracted from what is most abhorrent to nature the means of its recovery and peace; educing strength from weakness and blessing from the curse-from ignominy, glory-and from death, immortality.

This was the object presented by the Prophetic SPIRIT to the mind of Isaiah, when seven centuries before the event, he wrote the wonderful chapter to which my text belongs; a chapter which to us Christians, familiar as we are with the history in which its strongest circumstances are made plain, appears almost like a retrospection of the past rather than an anticipation of the then distant future. At the close of the 2 Psalm viii. 4, 5, 6; Heb. 6-14.

1 1 Cor. ii. 8.