the punishment was real'; for "the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all."* He felt not, indeed, thofe remorseful horrors that agitate and convulfe the conscience of perifhing guilt; but the fires of divine juftice, entering into his holy foul like a facrificing flame, confumed it as a whole burnt offering for our tranfgreffions. The fury of his infulting enemies, the cruelty and ingenuity of torture he could have borne with ferene and unfhaken conflancy. But abandoned, at the period of his greatest distress, by the confolations of his Father's love, and made to drink the fearful cup of our iniquities, he was overwhelmed, he was utterly exhausted, and feeming, for one terrible inftant, to be finking in defpair, he cried out My God! My God! why haft thou forfaken me!" This dreadful cry was the confummation of his fufferings-the facrifice was now offered-juftice had exacted its claims-the purchase of our falvation was completed-he "bowed his head” and faid "it is finifhed." Aftonishing, and almost incredible efforts of divine love! In

*Ifaiah liii. 6.

+ Matthew xxvii. 46. John xix. 20.

the moment in which he was about to engage in its tremendous conflicts he inftituted this holy feftival to call to the recollection of his faithful difciples, to the most diftant ages, his fufferings, his facrifices, and the zeal for their falvation that confumed him. Believers! can you review this scene, at once fo awful, and fo tender, without a thousand folemn and interefting recollections? Do you not feel your bosoms agitated with all the holy tumults of piety while call to remembrance the afflicyou tion of these laft moments-the tender compaffion with which he looked upon his little and affectionate family whom he was about to leave-the fearful array of death with which he was encompaffed-the agonies of the cross-and, what the Son of God alone could endure, the fuspension of his Father's prefence, and the pofitive fires of his wrath against fin, which drank up the foul of this divine victim! Do this in remembrance of me!

These memorials of our bleffed Lord ferve to call to our remembrance not only his glorious character as the Meffiah, the Sa

viour of the world-and the ineftimable teftimonies of his love to mankind-but

III. In the third place, the important relations which he fuftains to us, and the holy ties that confequently connect us with him.

It would be impoffible, in the fhort time that remains to us, even flightly to notice all the relations of Chrift to his people which this ordinance may ferve either directly, or remotely to bring to view. I fhall dwell for a moment only on two-that of our teacher, and that of our Saviour. He was just closing a fublime miniftry by which he had established a new difpenfation of grace, and a more perfect law of holiness among men-and he was now about to offer that glorious facrifice that confummated the falvation of the world.

To form a just estimate of the high relation of Chrift to his church as its teacher, the divine fountain of light and truth, we fhould confider the profound darkness that covered the earth before his appearance.What groveling and fantastical idolatry

what fenfelefs fuperftition-what ignorance of the true God, and of all the duties which man owes to his creator-what fenfuality, what prostitutions difgraced even their religious worship-what multiplied crimes polluted the nations! The traditions of the primitive religion had been loft in the errors of ages--the lights of nature were extinguifhed in the general corruption of mankind-the hope of a future existence was well nigh obliterated from the human mind -the philofophers rejected it as a pious vifion, and, in the popular religion, the doctrine was so disguised by fiction that it wore the appearance of idle legend and romance. The difciples, who had paffed the early part of their life during that dark period before the fun of righteoufnefs arose upon the world, muft have liftened with uncommon admiration and delight to a teacher fent from God, who brought life and immortality to light, and taught them a fyftem of duty unknown to the rest of the world, and at once fo rational, and fo fublime. The most fervent fentiments of duty muft have attached them to this great mafter in Ifrael who difpelled the fhades of error and ignorance that had covered them, and fhed the celeftial light of

truth into their hearts. When they faw this heavenly fun about to fet, and, in their apprehenfions, going to be quenched in perpetual night, a profound grief fettled upon their minds. From fuch a teacher, and fuch a friend they could not part without the deepest, and the tendereft regrets. And whenever they renewed the memorials of fo dear a master, they would recall, with gratitude, and delight, the charms of his divine leffons to which they had fo often liftened with admiration.

But further, in eftimating this relation of Chrift as our teacher, let us confider not only the errors of paganifm which he chafed from the world, but the effential weakness and blindness of the human mind with re gard to thofe do&rines, infinitely more important and interefting than all others to mankind, that contain the knowledge of God, of a Saviour, of an immortal exiflence, and of the eternal deflinics of the righteous, and the wicked. On thefe fubjects feble and blind indeed is the reafon of man when not enlightened from above. All his wif dom is folly; and he can only lofe himself in wild conjecture, and anxious uncertain