Saviour; and turn his thoughts inward to Himself; when heretofore, amidst all sufferings of the outward man, they had rested exclusively upon the sins or the wants of others? Jesus speaks, as the representative of sinners; and under a sense of the divine wrath against the transgressions of men, all collected, as all were collected, at that dreadful moment, in their weight, their atrocity, and their bitterness, mediatorially in Himself. The second Adam stood for mankind, upon this tree of the cross, as the first Adam stood and fell for mankind, under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which, by his sin, became the tree of offence. One great part of the punishment of sin -that part indeed which shall cause its final and intolerable anguish, to the unbelieving and impenitent, consists in the separation which it makes between the soul, and God, the author of all the soul's happiness and hope. Now Jesus Christ standing, at this moment, in the legal stead

of sinners, as their Surety and Mediator, his soul felt the withdrawing of the Father's presence, and was filled, like the book of Ezekiel, with mourning, and lamentation, and woe. He was so deserted for a little moment, as they, whom He saved deserved to be deserted for ever; and as they who would not come unto Him, that they might have life, will be finally and hopelessly forsaken. God forbid, that any who profess the faith of Christ amongst us, should experience this tremendous consummation of wrath and misery!

The soul of Christ could subsist in the body, even when filled with a sense of the wrath of the Most High; because it was upheld by his Godhead; even as it could subsist when filled with glory at his transfiguration. The altar of Christ's body was effectually covered with that divinity, and so was preserved, under the sense of its temporary desertion; as the altar in the Levitical law was covered with brass, and so preserved from the fire. But the rest,

the happiness, the peace, the hope, and the possibility of hope, to the guilty creature, if left of God, would be burnt up, like altars of straw, beneath that consuming flame; if their souls should be made the sacrifice. O, look to this, ye who are forsaking Christ, lest you be left of God, and die, and perish beyond the reach of other hope and remedy ! When Jacob feared that Joseph would detain his son Benjamin, Judah offered to take the sin and evil upon himself, "If I bring him not, and set him before thee, let me bear the blame for ever:" and thus was it with our dear and dying Lord. Although his own acts could not make Him guilty of one speck, or flaw, in the obedience due to God; for He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, yet, as his own covenant and consent made Him a surety, they obliged Him to endure the penalty justly due by the transgressors, in whose lost and ruined behalf He agreed to stand. As Paul, therefore, speaks to his

believing brethren of Corinth, so is it a ministerial privilege, in this view of the Lord's sufferings, to say, God made him to be sin for you, who knew no sin, that ye might be made the righteousness of God in him."

Although therefore the immaculate Saviour could not be conscious of sin, immediately, as transgressors may be, when the convictions of the Spirit charge home their guilt upon them, yet might He be conscious of his own covenant, to take the sins of the world upon Himself, as his own. No accusation could possibly arise from within; but it might arise from without, as sin was imputed to Him; and thus we may próbably understand the force of those expressions, which He uttered by the Spirit in the 40th Psalm. "Mine iniquities have taken hold on me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me." And, if we have peace of con

science, from Christ's righteousness imputed to us by faith-and apprehend it to be thus imputed to us, by a covenant, and so rejoice in God, as our own God, -then, why might not Christ have fears and terrors, and impressions of wrath, from the sense of sin, which He apprehended, only indeed as made his, by a covenant between the Father and Himself, yet really and justly, as man's Surety charged upon Him? The glorious fact seems to be simply this, that God exercised love and wrath towards Christ Jesus, at the same moment. And the reason appears evident : for if Christ might sustain two such relations, as the Son of God, and the surety of sinners, then He must perfectly abide the penalties of the one, while He enjoyed the blessings of the other. God, in like manner, according to the scriptural record of this mysterious subject, seems to stand towards Christ, in a double relation, that of a Father towards a Son, and of a Judge