would have been appeased. There would have been the resort of law,—punishment. In that punishment Holiness would have been vindicated and Truth fulfilled. Goodness would also have been maintained. But mercy, the noblest exemplification and degree of goodness, would have remained unknown. But now it is made preeminent. It has a regal sway. Grace reigns. The method has been devised to exercise mercy and to satisfy justice; to condemn the sin and to save the sinner; to wield the terrors of punishment and to dispense the blessings of pardon; to exalt holiness and to degrade evil; to rectify the dishonour of God and to retrieve the apostacy of man. "Glory to God in the highest on earth peace, good will unto men." "The Lord hath redeemed Jacob and glorified himself in Israel." Mercy now stands associated with every perfection of the Godhead. "Power belongeth unto God: also unto thee, O God, belongeth mercy." "For thy mercy and thy truth's sake." "Justice and judgment are the habitation of thy throne: mercy and truth shall go before thy face." "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." This is the infinite advantage of the redemption, over the abandonment, of the sinful creature! The Deity finds occasion in it to reveal himself. "The light of the knowledge of his glory is in the face of Jesus Christ." Now the system of his perfections shines forth in the firmament of salvation: the Sun of righteousness is the centre around which all, like radiant spheres, move in their respective orbits and none infringe on each other's tracks. Now the image of his character is unfolded under the fullest light: every feature stands off in its fairest relief, and all its proportions are emblazoned on equally conspicuous grounds. "A just God and a Saviour"! "To declare at this time his righteousness: that he might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus"!

What principle of the Divine government has been foregone? What sanctity of it has been sullied? What pillar of it has been weakened? Can indifference be objected? Can impunity be pleaded? Can misprision be alleged? There is no concession, no unsteadiness, no confusion, no delay. He who came to "magnify the law and make it honourable," laid this government

only deeper in the principles and affections of our nature, and preached, as he hastened to the cross, but a new and a more enlarged modification of it,-He sent forth his apostles, and still commissions his ministers, to uplift the same proclamation,"The kingdom of heaven and of God." It is Christianity which is not only its manifesto, but its law, development, and organization. It is the commandment of the everlasting God made known for the obedience of faith. It is rule. That thought is never lost. Its freest overture never betrays it into inconsistency with the most perfect jurisdiction. Its universal establishment will be the universal subjection of man. Rebellion will be rooted out of the world. The Lord shall be king over it. All nations shall serve him. "Halleluiah! for the Lord God omnipotent

reigneth"!

The experience of this redemption secures the acknowledgment, on the part of its subjects, of all these attributes. They taste that God is gracious. They give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness. There is forgiveness with him that he may be feared.

It is only further necessary to add, that the government of Him, "by whom are all things," has, in making "the Captain of our salvation perfect by sufferings," acquired another advantage. To punish the individual is to destroy him, that is, for all future obedience,—though God can rule in the midst of his enemies. There is the loss of willing service, so comely and so desirable. That creature is made in vain, save for indirect and involuntary obligation. Better were it for that man that he had never been born. But redemption is his recovery. He is now the Lord's freeman. He glorifies God in his body and his spirit. He serves the Lord Christ. His heart is won back to Him from whom it had deeply revolted. "Nevertheless, it has turned to the Lord." Motives of love and gratitude crowd upon it. Its vail is taken away. Its enmity is slain. It revolves to its rest. It is fixed on its God. This is but a specimen. Wherever these specimens have most abundantly prevailed, it is but a beginning. So the world shall be renewed. All hearts shall beat this response and make this music. There shall be one song of

praise.

"All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before him."

Had the Creator not punished sin, he would have put a slight on his works, he would have reflected an injustice on himself, that must have for ever placed his character beyond the power of esteem and veneration: had He punished every sinner, he would have sate on a throne without worshippers, and amidst the ruins of a bereft and smitten world. Had the Governor not punished sin, his law would have been a byeword of connivance; had He punished every sinner, his monarchy would have been dispeopled, and rebellion, though rebuked, would have been perpetuated. The vicarious principle furnished the scope for punishing sin and for restoring the transgressor. The text is the voucher. And lest a doubt should remain, whether the purpose of God in Creation has stood, or the law of his Government has been asserted, the Eternal now appears! Holding in one hand the Scroll of his creative plan, He, for whom are all things, shows that he has fulfilled all his pleasure. In the other is held the Code of his holy and righteous law, and He, by whom are all things, declares it enforced in every award, kept in every tittle, avenged in every infraction, while all the characters of his administration are illuminated, in letters of glory, on his Throne.

And this is sublime generalization! It is a perfect uniformity on which we look, whether we mark the created system, or the moral rule, of our earth, A mysterious suggestion, also, is intimated by it, that the Atonement may have its bearing on other orders and relations of the universe. The consistency of His conduct, whom it became thus to act, cannot be confined to the fitness which arises out of the circumstances of our planet and species: it must be worthy of his entire plan and universal character. Thence may be borne a lesson to instruct beings of whom we possess no record. Thence may beam a light which shall fill unknown centres of existence with joy. We cannot favour any thought that it avails for others as for us. It is our exclusive salvation. But in its principles and interests it is not a thing of limitation. Angels learn from it the manifold wisdom

of God. The devils also believe and tremble. Where may be the far off world which this stupendous event cannot teach, warn, affect? Where is the corner of inhabited space but which it may reach with some wave of its vibrations?

Many are the illustrations which this broader construction of the Atonement offers. It impresses us with a new view of the evil of sin. How "exceeding sinful" is that which is committed against all the purposes and laws of the First Cause and Sustaining Power of the Universe, against him in that very capacity! It reveals an importance in the method which he has chosen which the boundaries of our habitation cannot enclose. How great does all connected with it become, when it is seen reflected from the remotest abodes of life and intelligence! The objection, that our orb is comparatively inferior, can have no force. Though it were as the Bethlehem among those metropolitic worlds,-least among the thousands of the sky,-the principles born in it must give it all its significance. These can gain no strength from material size and radiance. The first reason on account of which our earth was selected, that which chiefly concerns us, is, that "God so loved the world!" It was the love of the guilty and the wretched, and therefore it was the love of grace. But we may not conclude that this was the exclusive end. It was comprehended in that which is invariably and necessarily principal, His own glory. That glory is not increase of what is His personal right and excellence, but their manifestation. He shall be known, by this event, as he could not otherwise be known. There shall go forth from this humble dwelling-place impressions of awe and tenderness to thrill the highest heaven! As the realms of creation open to us, range swelling upon range, perspective opening after perspective, there rises up no argument against our Doctrine, but only the index to its importance and the scale of its magnificence! The argument but takes greater amplitude, finds additional proof, the more boundless the scene, the wider the theatre, -"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."

SERMON XX.

THE CLAIMS OF THE JEWS ON CHRISTIAN

COMPASSION.

LUKE XXIV. 47.

"BEGINNING AT JERUSALEM."

The

NEVER were there circumstances more wonderful and memorable than those which marked the utterance of these words! History of the Man of sorrows is told. He has endured the cross. In this announcement an infinite of woe is comprehended. The cross, the death of the cross, are as nothing to His cross. They are only as the sign and the memorial of a death which takes this form and name, but which is unutterable, lying out of all the known causes and relations of death, affected by considerations which could touch none other death, personally bound to no law and subject to no sentence, yet itself a legally inflicted death, that whose terrors a thousand crosses could not strike, and whose sufferings a thousand crosses could not wreak. He has endured it! He hath died once. He dieth no more. It is finished!-All the fearful emblems of that deed have withdrawn themselves. The cup no more seethes with its ingredients of astonishment and fury,-it is drained. The sword which has awakened,-quick, bright, consuming, as the lightning,—is satisfied, is quiet, and has returned to its scabbard. The day of fierce anger has gone down, settling into an eve of lovely peace. The wine-press has been trodden, and the wine-fat has overflowed.The nail no more suspends His quivering flesh. The thorn no more pierces his sinking brow. The lance no more buries itself in his cloven heart. The law and the curse,-sin and death,heaven, earth, and hell,-have completed and spent their wrath,