Lord Jesus Christ was contented to be betrayed into the hands of wicked men, and to suffer death upon the cross." Earnestly desiring, and humbly hoping, as God the Spirit may vouchsafe his blessing, to improve this solemn season, I have chosen as the subjects of our meditation the seven memorable sayings uttered by our Lord, while He hung between heaven and earth, a spectacle to men and angels-a spectacle of scorn to men who crucified Him;a spectacle of transporting wonder to the blessed angels, who stand around the throne, that the fellow of the Lord of Hosts should thus become not only a man, but a sacrifice that He should testify his love to sinners, by becoming incarnate, and dying, their substitute and ransom! The eye of our souls, as the Spirit may give us faith, will thus be fixed upon the cross, without the distractions, almost necessarily produced by a frequent change of scene. And O, that our hearts may be so opened by the grace

of a simple, childlike faith to receive and apply the words of our dying Lord, that they may become to us the power of God to our salvation!

The text in which the Lord Jesus Christ prayed for those who crucified Him, records the first words uttered by Him, when, with his arms extended on the cross, He acted like His type the High Priest, who stretched forth his arms in the temple, to bless the people, and cried " Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do." May we not say, that He thus entered upon His high-priestly office, as His representative under the law acted in the great day of atonement? If we are believers in Him, whatever be the feebleness of our faith, it is our blessed privilege to go with Him into that most holy place, and there to have our full, our present, and our everlasting portion, in the rich and boundless mercies which His intercession calls down

from the Father, upon "all who come unto God by Him." May that Holy

Spirit who takes of the things of Christ, and shews them to His inquiring disciples, commend His priestly work, in its extent and comfort of love, to the hearts of all among you; and enable you to feel the happiness of being able individually to say, He loved me, and gave Himself for me."

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

From this prayer of our dying Saviour we may learn, as His Spirit applies it,

I. THAT IGNORANCE OF THE PERSON AND WORK OF JESUS CHRIST, ARISING FROM THAT CARNAL MIND, WHICH IS ENMITY AGAINST GOD, FORms the chief REASON WHY MEN SIN AGAINST HIM, EVEN TO CRUCIFYING HIM AFRESH, AND PUTTING HIM TO AN OPEN SHAME.

The Jews had possessed the means of knowing Him, as the promised Messiah, when the fulness of time should come, wherein to discharge that obligation, into which He had entered by covenant engage

ment with the Father, from eternity, to die for sinners, "the Just for the unjust, that He might bring them unto God." But so carnally had they understood the Scriptures, that when Jesus came, and when they might have "beheld his glory, the glory as of the only-begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth," they "saw no beauty in Him that they should desire Him." Had they understood the mind of Almighty God, in the revelation of the ancient Scriptures touching His Son, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. And therefore, while St. Peter declares, that Jesus, being "by the determinate counsel and fore-knowledge of God delivered, the Jews by wicked hands had crucified and slain Him," he tenderly aims to lead them to the abundant mercy of God, in the full assurance of its exercise towards them, now that the sin-convincing Spirit was charging their guilt home upon them, by ascribing their rejection and murder of Christ, to the dark veil that was upon

their hearts concerning Him. Their sin was rather that of a most inconsiderate zeal, as the chief-priests, and rulers, and Scribes, and Pharisees, incited them, than a deliberate act of impious enmity against Him, as the Son of God, become incarnate for the world's salvation. Under the awfully darkening influence of this ignorance, Paul verily thought within himself, "that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth: " under its delusion he persecuted the Church of God, and Christ himself, in his suffering members. O how dreadful the consequences of man's lapse into sin, which made the deepest counsels of God, for a fallen creature's happiness in grace and glory, foolishness unto him leaving him in absolute darkness, until the Eternal Spirit, entering his soul in the fulness of mercy, shall say, "Let there be light;" and then there is light, to understand unto eternal salvation the things that are freely given unto sinners of God. If the natural mind were not in spiritual