Pain had seized every member of his body, and every member of it had, as though it were a mouth to thirst, and to feel the misery of its want. No part of the Sa

viour was free from torture. His head was wounded with thorns, his back with the scourgings of the Jews, his face with buffetings, his hands and feet with the nails of the cross; and all that body which the Father had prepared Him, in which to be made like unto his brethren, and to become their surety, was stretched and racked by hanging on the cross. My dear friends, who have been standing with the Virgin Mary and the beloved disciple, by the cross of Christ, (as I have endeavoured to bring you thither in the preceding discourses,) and whose love to Him who bore your sins, in his own body, upon that tree of torture and shame, hath been brought into any dearer exercise, take comfort and causes of joy from such proofs, that your very nature suffered upon Mount Calvary: and that when it behoved Him, by whom are

all things, and for whom are all things, in bringing many sons and daughters unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings, He gave you the most ample assurance, that those sufferings were real, and as they were penal, that they were borne for you, and would entirely, and most certainly, remove all penal demands of God's justice from you, because that justice was satisfied, when they were laid upon Christ your representative. He hath undergone the stroke of justice for you, and it never will appear against you. "Who shall lay any thing to your charge?" It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth; it is Christ that died. The flesh and blood, which He assumed, were as truly human, as your own, and of the self-same nature. In his divine existence, "He was God, of the substance of his Father, begotten before the worlds. In his human character, He was man, of the substance of his mother, born in the world." His divinity was the altar, his

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human nature the victim. Thus did He make the full atonement in the nature that had offended; and that must therefore pay the infinite penalty of its infinite transgression.

Not merely however, did our Lord's bodily pain occasion that thirst which parched his lips, and made his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth. It was increased by the sorrows of his mind, under a sense of the dreadful circumstances, in which He was placed, as bearing the guilt of sin in his own body, and making that mighty atonement, which by putting, as it were, souls so numberless into his soul, and obliging Him to bear their iniquities, might well occasion that anguish which dries up the bones, and that violence of mental agony, which drinks up the spirits. Draw nearer still, I pray you, to the cross. Let faith awaken, and love burn within you, while you see the fire consuming Him, who, as Mediator between you—sinners, under a sentence of justice, which you

could neither avoid, nor oppose, nor endure—and the living God, who must, (if Jesus had not taken your place, and put you, who believe, for safety into Himself) have avenged your iniquities upon you, and consumed your happiness, your hope, and every thing which your souls possess, except their capacity to suffer his wrath, without being annihilated. Thus did the thirst of Christ, as one of the parts of hist propitiation, save you from being fuel to that fire, which never shall be quenched, and food for that worm which shall never die; and from the despairing cry for a drop of water to cool your tongue in the torment of that flame. Rejoice then in the Lord Jesus Christ always; and again, I say, Rejoice.

II. THIS CRY OF OUR DEAR LORD

TESTIFIED TO THE FULL ACCOMPLISHMENT OF THE PROPHECIES MADE IN THE ANCIENT WORD CONCERNING HIM.

It was not permitted his worst adversa

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ries to say, that the most minute prediction concerning his grievous sufferings, recorded by the Holy Ghost, in the pages of prophecy, remained without its due and absolute accomplishment. The honour of God's word was dear to the heart of God's Son, when, amidst all the agonies, by which He was encircled, He looked beyond them, and was supremely careful that its prophecies might be fulfilled. He saw moreover, that his sufferings were approaching their termination. eagerly as fainting nature desired to enter into the Sabbath of the grave, which would pass away, like the legal Sabbath, to usher in the glorious rest of that new Lord's day, which is now the joy of the Christian Church, as it is a type of its service and sabbatism, through all eternity; yet would He not utter the complaint, that must be made, until the time appointed was fully come. So inviolably sacred in his eye, was the order, which had been settled from eternity, and recorded for the