when all else has perished, who is the same and his years shall not fail. While, in another part of the book, the blood of Christ is represented as deriving its superiority over the ceremonial sacrifices, from its being offered 'THROUGH THE ETERNAL SPIRIT'-a phrase understood by some of our most eminent critics and divines to refer to the divine dignity of his person. How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the Eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God.' It is because Jesus Christ is God's Son that his blood possesses intrinsic validity to cleanse from all sin. The value of the gift and the sufficiency of the propitiatory sacrifice arise from the same circumstance. 'God sent his SON to be the propitiation for our sins.""

II. But this is not all. Relationship Relationship of nature to · those for whom the atonement was made, is an essential element in its validity.

Christ required to be real and proper man, as much as the true God. To qualify him for making atonement he must possess opposite attributes, a frail and mortal nature combined with ineffable dignity of person. We allude not now to the necessity of the incarnation to fit the Messiah for suffering, to render him susceptible of pain and death, to make the offering of himself as a sacrifice a thing possible. We refer rather to the possession of hu

man nature as imparting a character of worth or validity to what he did. This was requisite, not more to enable him to suffer, than to impart to his sufferings an essential value in the estimation of the divine law. Had the work of our redemption been a mere mercantile transaction, it mattered not by whom the price might have been paid. But being a moral satisfaction to the law of God for the sins of men, there existed a moral fitness or necessity that the satisfaction should be made by one in the nature of those who had sinned and were to be redeemed. The Redeemer behoved, as of old, to be a kinsman, a brother. Without this, neither could the moral government of God be vindicated, nor the glory of the divine Lawgiver maintained, nor the principles of the law upheld. The law in its precept was suited to man, and in its curse it had a claim upon man. Its requirements were such as man only could fulfill; its penalty such as one possessing the nature of man only could bear. The penalty was suffering even unto death; and no angel, no one who had not a body as well as a soul, could die. The death only of a man could possess a moral and legal congruity to the curse of a law given to man and broken by man. It was not, then, merely to qualify him for suffering that the Messiah took upon him the nature of man, but to qualify him for such suffering as should possess validity in the eye of the divine law. Both he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified must be ALL OF one. Wherefore in

8

8 i. e. all of one nature.

all things it behoved him to be made LIKE UNTO HIS BRETHREN, that he might make reconciliation for the sins of the people. Since by MAN came death, by MAN came also the resurrection of the dead. The serpent's head could be bruised, only by the SEED OF THE

WOMAN.

III. Freedom himself from all personal obligation to suffer, is another essential ingredient in the value of Christ's atonement.

He who makes atonement for others must himself be entirely free from that which renders the atonement necessary. What renders atonement necessary is sin. But Jesus was altogether holy. It would seem to be a dictate of reason and common sense, that vicarious punishment cannot be borne by one who is himself a sharer in the guilt which calls for it. The law, in this case, has a previous claim upon him. His own state renders an atonement necessary. He cannot remove his own guilt by his sufferings, and how can it be possible that he should remove the guilt of others? A substitutionary victim must itself be perfectly spotless and pure.

This was plainly enough pointed out in the Levitical law. The high priest was required to possess a high degree of ceremonial purity. Perfect moral purity was impossible; but the necessity of this in the antitype, was sufficiently taught, by this legal functionary being required to be free from all bodily defect or deformity, to be the son of one who was a

virgin and not a widow when married to his father, and by his being exempted from certain methods of contracting ceremonial defilement. The sacrificial victim, also, was to be a lamb without blemish and without spot. To the same purpose was it enacted that the red heifer should not only be one without spot wherein was no blemish but one upon which never came yoke. All this, doubtless, was designed to shadow forth the immaculate purity of the great High Priest of our profession, who put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.

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In virtue of his spotless innocence, Jesus was completely free from all manner of legal obligation to suffer, arising from himself. Legal obligation to the curse may arise from one or both of two things: either from being born under the curse, that is to say, from original sin; or from becoming exposed to the penalty in consequence of a personal breach of its requirements, that is, by actual transgression. Infants of the human family are under it in the former way; adults in both: but Jesus was neither the one nor the other.

He was free from all actual sin. His obedience to the divine law, under which he voluntarily brought himself, was complete. His thoughts were ever pure; guile was not found in his mouth; and he did always those things that pleased his father. As regarded God, he fully exemplified the duties of religion;— cherishing every pious emotion of love, faith, grati

10 Num. xix. 2; Deut. xxi. 3.

tude, patience, and submission; and scrupulously performing, with punctuality and exactness, every act of devotion, meditation, prayer, praise, and attendance on the services of public worship. As respected men, every social duty, whether of affection and obedience and respect to relatives, or of kindness and fidelity to friends, or of justice and equity and benevolence and integrity in general society, was fully exhibited. Nor were the personal duties of temperance, sobriety, circumspection, and self-command, less strictly observed by him.

These are not unsupported assertions. The testimony borne to the innocence of the Saviour's life is most complete and decisive. Prophets spake of him as the 'Holy One', who 'had done no violence neither was any deceit in his mouth.' The angel announced him as 'that holy thing' which should be born of Mary. Himself said 'I do always those things that please the Father-Which of you convinceth me of sin? the prince of this world cometh and hath nothing in me.' His apostles spoke of him as one 'who knew no sin'-who was 'without sin'-'who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners'

-'who did no sin, neither was guilt found in his mouth'-one, of whom it could be said, 'in him is no sin.' But the most decisive testimony of all is that which was borne by his inveterate enemies. The Jews, who were brim-full of prejudice against his person and claims, were unwillingly compelled to affirm, ‘He hath done all things well.' The traitor who gave him up to his enemies, exclaimed under the