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guage of heaven. A few only of the fainteit outlines I can attempt to trace.

In order to convey even a feeble image of the truth we fhould be able to compare the glory which he had with his father before the world was, with the degraded and fuffering condition to which he submitted for our fakes. "He, who thought it no robbery to be equal with God, made himfelf of no reputation, and, being found in fafhion as a man, he humbled himfelf unto death, even the death of the crofs."* Infinite condefcenfion! Adorable grace! None but God would have dared to conceive the thought-nothing but omnipotent love could have executed the plans of celeftial mercy-the eternal fon of the higheft became an infant of days! The object of the worship of Heaven herded in a flall with beafts! He who held the throne of the universe had not where to lay his head! The king of angels and of men expired like a flave! And, for whom were all these aftonifhing facrifices? For worms of the duft, placed, by nature, at an infinite diflance

*Phil. ii. 6-8.

from the throne of his glory, who might have been blotted out of the univerfe without notice! For finners who had turned into rebellion against their maker the powers which he had given them. "God com.

mendeth his love to us in that, while we were yet finners, Christ died for us."* Oh! "the heighth, and the depth, the length, and the breadth of the love of Chrift that paffeth knowledge!" Of this great and interesting subject, a fincere penitent will en tertain the most affecting views who is profoundly penetrated with the fentiment of his own unworthinefs. Humility exalts the redeemer's grace-turn, then, your meditations, in the fame moment, on your own. fins, and on the riches of redeeming mercy. Let the waters of repentance and of love flow together. United they form the moft precious fiream-they fill the foul of the believing communicant with the most tender and fincere joys.

This feftival was defigned principally to commemorate his fufferings in that last act

* Rom. v. 8.

† Eph. iii. 18.

of his love upon earth when he poured out his foul an offering for fin. While he is inftituting this ordinance, and, with his belov ed difciples, celebrating it for the fift time, he prefents to our view an alfecting spectacle. Placed at the head of his own table as a victim ready to be offered up-calling his view forward to that dreadful scene through which he was about to pafs-embracing with ardent affection his afflicted followers whom he was just going to leave-and extending, at that awful moment, his cares to all the future periods of his church, he delivered thofe fymbols as a perpetual memorial of his love, and faid, do this in remembrance of

Bleffed Jefus! who can forget thee? Remember thee!-Yes, while memory retains her powers-while the heart can beat with fenfibility or gratitude-or we have understanding left to diftinguifh our chief good.

Follow him with a believing eye through all the different fcenes of his affliction-fee him in the bigotted and difdainful hall of the high-prieft loaded with contumely! See him at the unrighteous tribunal of Pilate expofed to the fcoffs and indignities of

a furious populace, and, at last, delivered to the barbarity of a cruel executioner !—See him labouring up the hill of Calvary, and fainting under the weight of that cross on which he was just about to be extended! -See his death aggravated by inhumanity and torture, and by all the fhame that attends the last moments of the most abandoned malefactor! Admire that wonderful and divine patience which, throughout the whole series of thefe awful transactions, he manifefted under the hands of his betrayers and murderers, at the fame time that his power could have crufhed them to pieces. When he was reviled, he reviled not again-As a lamb he was led to the flaughter, and as a Sheep before her fhearers is dumb fo he opened not his mouth.

Then was it their hour, and the power of darknefs. His beloved difciples, dismayed by the terrors of his fate, forfook him and fled. Infulted and beaten, derided and fcoffed, his head was torn by thorns that crowned him in crucl mockery, and his body by the direful fcourge that lacerated all his flesh. When indignity was cxhausted on his facred perfon, they drag him like a

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nails, and pierced with the impious and vengeful spear, he hung an agonizing victim on that dreadful altar. Liften to the fpirit of prophecy that in vifion describes his fufferings" I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midft my bowels."* Many were aftonished at thee. His viffage was fo marred more than any man, and his form more than the fons of men."+ "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our forrows; yet" fo dreadful and uncommon was his fate, that we could not regard it as the effect merely of the injuflice and cruelty of man, "we did efteem him ftricken, fmitten of God, and afflicted."t

What was visible in his fufferings was infinitely the smalleft part. The anguish of dying in him arose, not from mangled limbs and tortured nerves, but from the fenfe of the holy indignation of God against fin. Although fin was only imputed to him,

*Pfalm xxii. 14. + Ifaiah lii. 14. Ifaiah liii. 5.

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