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Indeed the doctrine of our Lord's divinity is not, as a fact, more interesting to our faith, than, as a principle, it is essential to our hope. If he were not the true God,' he could not be eternal life.' When pressed down by guilt and languishing for happiness, I look around for a deliverer such as my conscience and my heart and the word of God assure me I need, insult not my agony by directing me to a creature--to a man, a mere man like myself! A creature! a man! My Redeemer owns my person. My immortal spirit is his property. When I come to die, I must commit it into his hands. My soul! My infinitely precious soul, committed to a mere man! become the property of a mere man! I would not thus entrust my body to the highest angel in heaven. It is only the Father of spirits,' that can have property in spirits, and be their refuge in the hour of transition from the present to the approaching world. In short, the divinity of Jesus, is in the system of grace, the sun to which all its parts are subordinate, and all their stations refer-which binds them in sacred concord; and imparts to them their radiance, and life, and vigor. Take from it this central luminary, and the glory is departed-Its holy harmonies are broken-The elements rush to chaos-The light of salvation is extinguished for ever!

But it is not the deity of the Son, simply consider.. ed, to which our attention is directed. We are to contemplate it as subsisting in a personal union with the human nature.

Long before this epistle was written (the epistle to the Hebrews) had he 'by himself purged our sins, and sat down at the right hand of Majesty on high.' It is, therefore, as God manifested in the flesh; as my own brother, while he is the express image of the Father's person,' as the Mediator of the new covenant, that he is seated on the throne. Of this throne, to which the pretensions of a creature were mad and blasphemous, the Majesty is, indeed, maintained by his divine power; but the foundation is laid in his

Mediatorial character. I need not prove to this audience, that all his gracious offices and all his redeeming work originated in the love and the election of his Father. Obedient to that will, which fully accorded with his own, he came down from heaven; tabernacled in our clay; was a man of sorrows and acquainted with griefs;' submitted to the contradictions of sinners;' the temptations of the old Serpent, and the wrath of an avenging God. In the merit of his obedience which threw a lustre round the divine law; and in the atonement of his death by which he offered himself a sacrifice without spot unto God,' repairing the injuries of man's rebellion, expiating sin through the blood of his cross; and conciliating its pardon with infinite purity, and unalterable truth; summarily, in his performing those conditions on which was suspended all God's mercy to man, and all man's enjoyment of God, in these stupendous works of righteousness' are we to look. for the cause of his present glory. 'He humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.' 'Exalted' thus, to be a Prince and a Saviour,' he fills heaven with his beauty, and obtains from its blest inhabitants the purest and most reverential praise. Worthy,' cry the mingled voices of his angels and his redeemed, 'worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and blessing.' Worthy' again cry his redeemed in a song which belongs not to the angels, but in which with holy ecstacy, we will join, worthy art thou, for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.'

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SECTION X.

Remarks on the Sufferings of our Saviour.

The sufferings of the Saviour may be exemplified in numberless instances, but in none so easily and so fully, as in the redemption of the world by the means of a Mediator, "obedient unto death, even the death of the "cross. "" The sun never beheld such a scene. History records no such a transaction. The scheme would never have entered the mind of any finite intelligence-"It is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." "The thing proceedeth forth from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working." "It is the wisdom of God in a mystery ;" and the more we are enlightened from above to examine its sublime contents, the more of their perfection shall we discover, the more worthy of God will they appear. "For it became him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."

The sufferings of the Saviour are described in the gospels with simplicity and grandeur combined. Nothing can add to the solemnity and force of the exhibition; and if we are not affected with the relation, it shews that our hearts are harder than the rocks, which could not retain their insensibility when “the Lord of life and glory" expired. The subject has often come under your review. Sometimes we have called upon you to consider his sufferings as peculiar and unparalleled; and you have heard a plaintive Saviour saying, "is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." We have sometimes considered his sufferings as foreknown, and led you to imagine what were his feelings while reading the prophecies, or foretelling

himself the circumstances of his passion. From your eye futurity is kindly concealed. Could some of you be immediately informed of the troubles through which perhaps one year only will require you to wade, you would be overwhelmed in the prospect. But he saw the end from the beginning, and advanced with Judas, and the high-priest, and the nails, and the cross, full in view. You have seen that his sufferings were not the sufferings of an hour or a day; they were perpetual: from Bethlehem to Calvary " he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." You have seen him suffering in his condition, in his character, in his body, in his soul. This morning you have been led to another view of the same interesting subject, the accomplishment which our Saviour derived from them; he was "made perfect through sufferings."

In perusing history, what characters principally engage, and improve us? Those who have struggled through trying and awful scenes. Read the Scriptures; fix your eyes on Job, and Joseph, on David, and Daniel, and Paul: were they not all "made perfect through fufferings?" The picture would have no beauty or effect without shades. It is on the rainy cloud, the heavenly bow spreads its variegated tints. The character of the hero is formed, and his laurels are gathered only in the hostile field, among "the confused noise of warriors, and garments rolled in blood." Never was the glory of a prince however illustrious rendered complete, without some sudden reverse of fortune which tried him; some heavy calamity, under which he had an opportunity to discover his internal resources. That nobility is the truest, which a man derives, not from his pedigree, but from himself; that excellency is the greatest, which is personal; that glory is the most estimable, which is fixed in our intellectual and moral attributes; not that which a man locks up with his cash, or puts by with his ribbon; all these are extrinsical, they are no parts of the man; they are appendages; additions suppose

deficiences: he is the most perfect who needs them

not.

Suppose our Savfour had passed through the world smoothly, attended with all the littleness of riches, and all the insignificance of pomp ; how limited. would have been his example! how insipid the narrative of his life! how uninteresting his character! If there had been any thing of the beautiful, there would have been nothing of the sublime. How does he appear" Christ, the wisdom of God, and the power of God?" "As crucified." Where did he spoil "principalities and powers, making a shew of them openly, and triumphing over them?" On the " cross. To what period does he refer, when he says,

now is

the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out?" The hour of his death.. This he viewed as the season, in which he was to be magnified and adored: "the hour is come, that the son of man should be glorified." This was the consumation of his unexampled career of excellence : "I must do wonders to-day and to-morrow, and the third day I must be perfected." Here is the finish; and the wonders and miracles which attended his sufferings, were not to be compared with the principles and virtues, which he displayed in enduring them.

Of what in his history did Moses and Elias speak,, when they appeared in the transfiguration ? "They spake of the decease, which he was to accomplish at Jerusalem." In what does every christian rejoice? God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." What is the theme of every minister? "I determined to know nothing, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." What is the language of the glorified above? "Worthy is the lamb that was slain." Thus the sufferings of the Saviour were the means of displaying the glories of his character, and of procuring for him unbounded and everlasting hon

ours.

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