deemer was deserted by his Father, mocked by men, and hanged upon the cross, as the most ignominious of malefactors. This Jewish criminal seems to have entertained a more rational and exalted notion of the Messiah's kingdom than even the disciples themselves; they expected nothing but a secular empire: he gave strong intimations of his having an idea of CHRIST'S spiritual dominion; for at the very time when JESUS was dying on the cross, he begged to be remembered by him when he came into his kingdom: Lord, said he, remember me, when thou comest into thy kingdom. Nor did he make his request in vain: the great Redeemer of mankind answered him, Verily, I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise: Thereby evidencing the immediate happiness of the righteous after death.

Let us now attentively consider the history of our blessed Saviour's passion, as it offers to our view events absolutely astonishing, for when we remember the perfect innocence of our great Redeemer, the uncommon love he bore to the children of men, and the many kind and benevolent offices he did for the sons and daughters of affliction; when we reflect on the esteem in which he was held all along by the common people, how cheerfully they followed him to the remotest corners of the country, nay, even into the desolate retreats of the wilderness, and with what pleasure they listened to his discourses; when we consider these particulars, I say, we cannot help being astonished to find them at the conclusion, rushing all of a sudden into the opposite extremes, and every individual as it were, combined to treat him with the most barbarous cruelty and insult.

Pilate having asked the people, if they desired to have JESUS released, his disciples, though they were very numerous and might have made a great appearance in his behalf, remained absolutely silent, as if they had been speechless or infatuated. The Roman sol

diers, notwithstanding their general had declared him innocent, insulted him in the most inhuman manner; the Scribes and Pharisees ridiculed him; the common people, who had received him with Hosannas a few days before, wagged their heads at him as they passed by, and railed on him as a deceiver: nay, the very thief on the cross reviled him, in the midst of his sufferings.

Though this sudden revolution in the minds of the whole nation may seem unaccountable; yet if we could assign a proper reason for the silence of the disciples, the principle, which influenced the rest might be discovered in their several speeches. The followers of the blessed JESUS had attached themselves to him, in expectation of being raised to great wealth and power in his kingdom, which they expected would have been established long before this time: but -seeing no appearance at all of what they had so long hoped for, they permitted him to be condemned, perhaps because they thought it would have obliged him to break the Roman yoke by some miraculous act of divine power.

The soldiers were angry that any one should pretend to royalty in Judea, where Cæsar had established his authority: hence they insulted our blessed Saviour with the title of King, and paid him, in mockery, the honours of a sovereign; and as for the common people, they seemed to have lost their opinion of him, probably, because he had neither convinced the council, nor rescued himself when they condemned him. They began, therefore, to consider the story of his pretending to destroy the temple, and build it in three days, as a kind of blasphemy, because it required divine power to perform such a work.

The most implacable and diabolical malice irritated the priests and Scribes against him; because he had rn off their masks of hypocrisy, and shewed them to

the people in their true colours. It is therefore, no wonder that they ridiculed his miracles, from whence he derived his reputation. In short, the thief also fancied that he would have delivered both himself and them, if he had been the Messiah; but as no such deliverance appeared, he upbraided him for making pretensions to the high character he assumed.

Now, my soul, take a view of thy dying Saviour, breathing out his soul upon the cross! Behold his unspotted flesh lacerated with stripes, by which thou art healed! See his hands extended and nailed to the cross; those beneficent hands, which were incessantly stretched out to unloose the heavy burdens, and to impart blessings of every kind! Behold his feet rivetted to the accursed tree with nails: those feet which always went about doing good, and travelled far and near to spread the glad tidings of everlasting salvation! View his tender temples encircled with a wreath of thorns, which shoot their keen afflictive points into his blessed head; that head which was ever meditating peace to poor lost and undone sinners, and spent many a wakeful night in ardent prayers for their happiness! See him labouring in the agonies of death, breathing out his soul into the hands of his Almighty Father, and praying for his cruel enemies! Was ever love like this! Was ever benevolence so finely displayed? O, my soul! put thou thy trust in that bleeding, that dying Saviour; then, though the pestilence walketh in darkness, and the sickness destroyeth at noon-day: though thousands fall be. side thee, and ten thousand at thy right hand, thou needest not fear the approach of any evil! Either the destroying angel shall pass over thee, or dispense the corrections of a friend, not the scourges of an enemy, which instead of hurting, will work for thy good: then, though profaneness and infidelity, far more malignant evils, breathe their contagion, and taint the morals of multitudes around thee, thou shalt be safely hid in the hollow of his hand, and freed from every danger, in time, and for ever.

Then, O my soul, take sanctuary under that tree of life, the ignominious cross of thy bleeding Saviour; let us fly for safety to that city of refuge opened in his bleeding wounds: these will prove a sacred hidingplace, not to be pierced by the flames of divine wrath, or the fiery darts of temptation: his dying merits, his perfect obedience, will be as rivers of water in a dry place, or as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. But particularly in that last tremendous day, when the heavens shall be rent asunder, and wrapped up like a scroll; when his Almighty arm should arrest the sun in his career, and dash the structure of the universe to pieces; when the dead, both small and great, shall be gathered before the throne of his glory, and the fates of all mankind hang on the very point of a final irreversible decision: then, if thou hast faithfully trusted in him, and made his precepts thy constant directors, thou shall be owned and defended by him. O reader! may both thou that perusest, and he who hath written this for thy soul's advantage, be covered at that unutterably important juncture, by the wings of his redeeming love; then shall we behold all the horrible convulsions of expiring nature with composure, with comfort! we shall even welcome the consummation of all things, as the times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, and be eternally happy with him.

Behold the sun, conscious of the sufferings of his Maker, and as it were to hide his face from this detestable action of mortals, is wrapped in the pitchy mantle of chaotic darkness! This preternatural eclipse of the sun continued for three hours, to the great terror and astonishment of the people present at the execution of our dear Redeemer. And surely nothing could be more proper than this extraordinary alteration in the lace of nature, while the Sun of Righteousness was withdrawing his beams, not only from the promised land, but from the whole world; for it was at once a miraculous. testimony given by the Almighty himself to the innocence of his Son, and a proper emblem of the depar

ture of him who was the Light of the world, at least till his luminous rays, like the beams of the morning, shone out anew with additional splendour, in the ministry of his apostles, after his ascension.

The darkness which now covered Judea and the neighbouring countries, beginning about noon, and continuing till JESUS expired, could not be the effect of an ordinary eclipse of the sun. It is well known that these phænomena, can only happen at the change of the moon, whereas the Jewish passover at which our dear Redeemer suffered, was always celebrated at the full; besides, the total darkness of an eclipse of the sun, never exceeds twelve or fifteen minutes, whereas this continued full three hours. Nothing, therefore, but the immediate hand of that Almighty Being which placed the sun in the planetary system, could have produced this astonishing darkness: nothing but Omnipotence who first lighted this glorious luminary of heaven, could have deprived it of it's cheering rays. Now ye scoffers of Israel, whose blood ye have so earnestly desired, and wished it might fall upon you and your children! behold all nature is drest in the sable veil of sorrow, and in a language that cannot be mistaken, mourns the departure of its Lord and Master; weeps for our crimes, and deprecates the vengeance of heaven upon our guilty heads! Happy for you that this suffering JESUS is compassion itself, and even in the agonies of death, prays to his heavenly Father to avert from you the stroke of his justice, thereby opening the gate of mercy even to you his murderers!

The Heathens themselves considered this preternat ural eclipse of the sun as a miracle, and one of them cried out, Either the world is at an end, or the God of nature suffers!' And well might he use the expression; for never since this planetary system was called from its primitive chaos, was known such a deprivation of light in the glorious luminary of day. Indeed, when the Almighty punished Pharaoah for refusing to let the