of these we fhall difcover a convincing proof of the love of God, a certain pledge of every necessary bleffing.

First, Let us confider the dignity of the sufferer. God, saith the Apostle, spared not his Son;—his own,-his proper Son;—“ the "brightness of his glory, and the express "image of his perfon;" not a fon by creation, adoption, or grace, but his "begotten

Son," of the fame effence with himself, and equal to him in power and in glory. Angels are called the fons of God; " but unto “which of the angels faid he at any time, "Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten "thee?" Nay, Chrift is styled the "only be

gotten Son" of God; a title of peculiar fignificancy, importing, that he is not only infinitely great in himself, but likewife infinitely dear to the Father. Yet this is the person whom God sent to fave us; and furely, if the love of the giver is to be measured by the worth and value of the gift, we may justly fay of God's love to us, that “it pas"feth knowledge." How loth was Jacob, a fond and indulgent parent to all his children, how loth was he to fend Benjamin down

down to Egypt, even when his own life,

and the preservation of his feemed to depend upon it?

whole family,

yet

yet Benjamin was not his only fon; Jacob had many other children befides: but, behold! the great, the independent JEHOVAH, who would not fuffer Abraham to offer up his Ifaac, but provided and accepted a ram in his place, gives his own, his only Son, to be a facrifice for us. Here the object is fo high, that contemplation cannot reach it; fo bright and dazzling, that it overpowers the fight:-we can only fay, with David, "This is not "the manner of men, O Lord God;" and must with reverence adore, what we fhall never be able fully to comprehend.

Secondly, From the dignity of the sufferer, let us proceed to confider the fufferings he endured.Two words are employed by the Apostle to convey to our minds a fuitable apprehenfion both of their greatness and variety. God fpared him not, but delivered him up.- -He fpared him not; that is, he neither excufed him from fuffering, nor fpared him while he suffered; he not only put the bitter cup into his hand, but kept it there till

he

he had drunk up the dregs of it. With what awful feverity did he stir up his justice! "Awake, O fword, against my shepherd, "and against the man that is my fellow."

* ?

"It pleafed the Lord to bruife him," faith the evangelical Prophet, " and to put " him to grief." He would not abate one tear, one groan, one drop of blood, any circumftance either of ignominy or pain, that was neceffary to demonftrate the evil of fin, and to expiate that guilt which Chrift, as our Surety, had appropriated to himself. Thus God spared not bis own Son; nay, instead of sparing him, the Apostle adds, He delivered him up. But he doth not fay to whom, or to what; because Chrift was delivered into fo many hands, abandoned or given up to such a variety of sufferings, that a minute detail of them would have obliged him to recite the whole history of his life; for in every period of it," he was " oppressed and afflicted;" from his birth to his death," he was a man of forrows, and acquainted with griefs."-He was delivered ft into the virgin's womb'; for even then, Chriftians! did his paffion begin; there

was

was that temple framed, which afterwards, by wicked hands, was pulled down on mount Calvary; there that body was prepared, which was fcourged, and bruifed, and nailed to an ignominious and accurfed tree. And being thus made flesh, and brought forth into the world, what was his after life but a repeated delivery of him to poverty, to reproach, to temptation, to perfecution:-Such was the pomp, these were the harbingers which introduced him to the cross, and accompanied him to the grave. "Deliver me not," faid David, "into the hands of mine enemies ;" and his prayer was heard: But what David obtained, was with - held from David's Son and Lord; for Chrift was delivered into the hands of his enemies: He was delivered to Judas, who betrayed him; to the chief priests and rulers, who infulted and reviled him; to Herod and his men of war, who fet him at nought; to Pilate, who condemned him; to the Roman foldiers, who crucified him-Nay, more, he was delivered to fuch a sense of divine wrath, that wrath which was due to the fins of men, as, in the proVOL. I. phetic

T

phetic language of David," withered his "heart like grafs, and burnt up his bones "like a hearth."Sin is the fting of death, but the wrath of God is the fting of fin: when that feizes upon an awakened confcience, Oh! what a dark and difconfolate night doth it draw over the finner's - mind! or, rather, what a hell doth it kindle in his bofom! Yet it doth not, it cannot, appear in its full horror to us; as we fee not all the malignity of fin, fo neither can we fee all the wrath that is due to it: but Christ had a full view of both in their utmost extent; and though he could not defpair, for that indeed was impoffible, yet the agony he felt was greater by far than any defpairing finner is capable of feeling, who bears only his own burden; whereas he lay preffed under the guilt of a whole world. It were impious to fay, that the holy martyrs were more patient than their Lord; yet which of all that noble army ever uttered fuch difconfolate language as he did? Their torture was their triumph, their fufferings a recreation :-Whereas the Son of God cries out in agony, "Now is