merited destruction, on any principles connected with law and justice, absolutely impossible. For where could an adequate substitute be found? Where, among the descendants of Adam, partakers of flesh and blood, could one be selected of such preeminent dignity and worth, that his oblation of himself should be deemed a fit and proper equivalent to the whole race of man? to say nothing of the impossibility of finding there a spotless victim (and no other could be accepted). Who is there that ever possessed that prodigious superiority in all the qualities which aggrandize their possessor to every other member of the human family, which shall entitle him to be the representative, either in action or in suffering, of the whole human race? In order to be capable of becoming a victim, he must be invested with a frail and mortal nature; but the possession of such a nature reduces him to that equality with his brethren, that joint participation of meanness and infirmity, which totally disqualifies him for becoming a substitute. Here a dilemma presents itself, from which there seems no possibility of escape. If man is left to encounter the judicial effects of his sentence, his ruin is sealed and certain. If he is to be redeemed by a substitute, that substitute must possess contradictory attributes, a combination of qualities not to be found within the compass of human nature. He must be frail and mortal, or he cannot die a sacrifice; he must possess ineffable dignity, or he cannot merit as a substitute.

Such were the apparently insurmountable difficulties which obstructed the salvation of man by any methods worthy of the divine character; such the darkness and perplexity which involved his prospects, that it is more than probable the highest created intelligence would not have been equal to the solution of the question, How shall man be just with God?

The mystery hid from ages and generations, the mystery of Christ crucified, dispels the obscurity, and presents, in the person of the Redeemer, all the qualifications which human conception can embody as contributing to the perfect character of a substitute. By his participation of flesh and blood, he becomes susceptible of suffering, and possesses within himself the materials of a sacrifice. By its personal union with the eternal Word, the sufferings sustained in a nature thus assumed, acquired an infinite value, so as to be justly deemed more than equivalent to the penalty originally denounced.

His assumption of the human nature made his oblation of himself possible; his possession of the divine rendered it efficient; and thus weakness and power, the imperfections incident to a frail and mortal creature, and the exemption from these, the attributes of time and those of eternity, the elements of being the most opposite, and deduced from opposite worlds, equally combined to give efficacy to his character as the Redeemer, and validity to his sacrifice. They constitute a person

who has no counterpart in heaven or on earth, who may be most justly denominated" Wonderful;" composed of parts and features of which, (however they may subsist elsewhere in a state of separation,) the combination and union, nothing short of infinite wisdom could have conceived, or infinite power effected. The mysterious constitution of the person of Christ, the stupendous link which unites God and man, and heaven and earth; that mystic ladder, on which the angels of God ascended and descended, whose foot is on a level with the dust, and whose summit penetrates the inmost recesses of an unapproachable splendour, will be, we have reason to believe, through eternity, the object of profound contemplation and adoring wonder.

In ascribing the sufficiency and efficacy of the atonement made by our Saviour to the preeminent dignity of his person as the Son of God, we are justified by the direct testimony of scripture, which is wont to unite these together in such juxta-position, as plainly implies their intimate and inseparable relation to each other.

We have already seen that the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews founds the insufficiency of the victims under the law to take away sin, on their inherent meanness, with which he contrasts the validity of the atonement made by Christ: a mode of reasoning, the force of which entirely depends on his superior dignity and worth. After asserting that the blood of bulls and of goats could

not take away sin, he adds, Then said I, Lo I come to do thy will, O God. Above when he said, Sacrifice and offering, and burnt-offerings for sin thou wouldest not, neither hadst pleasure therein; which are offered by the law; then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second. Adverting to the acknowledged fact that the blood of bulls and of goats availed to the purifying of the flesh, in other words, to the removal of ceremonial pollutions, he adds, How much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, purge your consciences from dead works to serve the living and true God.

All must acknowledge that the purification of the conscience from dead works, that is, the pardon of sin and peace with God, is an infinitely greater benefit than the removal of legal disabilities under the ceremonial law; but the apostle teaches us to expect from the sacrifice of Christ this incomparably greater benefit, with a much firmer assurance than that with which the pious Jew anticipated the less. The blood of Jesus Christ his Son, St. John assures us, cleanseth us from all sin. If St. Peter has occasion to enforce the obligation of shunning the pollutions of the world, the argument he makes use of for that purpose is derived from the value of that blood which was shed for their redemption, in comparison to which all the treasures of earth are consigned to contempt. Forasmuch as ye know, is his language, ye were not redeemed with corruptible

things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

As the whole provision of a Saviour originated in the gracious purpose of God, it is with the utmost propriety that he is denominated his gift; the transcendent greatness of which is frequently brought forward as a demonstration of the ineffable extent of his love. God so loved the world as to give his only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him might not perish, but have everlasting life. In this was manifested the love of God towards us, because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we might live through him. Herein is love; not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. But since he was given to be a propitiatory sacrifice, the same intrinsic dignity and excellence which heightened the value of the gift, must have contributed in an equal degree to ensure the validity and sufficiency of the sacrifice.

Though many have presumed to call in question, and even to deny the divinity of our Saviour, I am not aware that there are any who embrace that fundamental doctrine, who hesitate for a moment respecting the intrinsic validity of his sacrifice, or who entertain a doubt of the sufficiency of such a provision to satisfy the claims of justice and vindicate the honours of a broken law. There is something so stupendous in the voluntary humiliation