the point that was ever recorded out of Divine revelation. No man appears to have had so deep a conviction as Lord Chesterfield had that all in this world was vanity and vexation of spirit; and yet he closes the subject with a determination to continue in the same line of conduct, and not to indulge any new, any higher and religious hope.

If there are any now in the presence of God that are weary of human pleasure, that have tasted it in all its variety; if there are any here who are still pursuing after happiness in the world, let them come to Christ, and they will find rest for their souls. Let such be persuaded that there is another source of happiness, which they may have in Christ. Let them remember that He has entered into the heavenly state, possessed of all the resources of immortal life, and is ready to crown the perseverance of his followers by making them partakers of it. Let them believe He is a true witness when He says, "I give unto my sheep eternal life." Let them believe that He is not the author of the greatest delusion that ever mocked the hope of man. Let them believe that He will come again, and take them unto himself. Let them believe that He prayed with effect to his Father, "Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am, that they may behold my glory." Come, then, to Jesus Christ, if such be your state; renounce that world which you discover to be an impostor; give up all those hopes which are thus illdirected; consult the immortality of your nature, the tendency of your never-dying spirit; provide something that shall survive the revolutions of time; seek a spiritual nature, a spiritual inheritance that fadeth not away; consecrate your powers and affections to the love and service of God, and to the spread of the knowledge of Christ crucified. Begin with the lessons of humility and repentance, and join with them the highest ardour of confidence in the mercy of God; and proclaim to all penitent believers the savour of that liberty with which the Son of God makes his people free.

In the last place, Jesus Christ may be supposed to have in view those that are heavy laden by speculative pursuits in matters of religion; and He invites such to seek a solution of their doubts by a reception of his doctrine. There may be some present who are wearied with anxious pursuits after speculative truth, who have passed from doubt to doubt, and from disputation to disputation, and still can only say that they are filled with confusion and conjecture, and have arrived at no safe conclusion. If, while placing our eyes on the light of Divine revelation, we do not rest satisfied therewith, but surround ourselves with sparks of our own kindling, such must be the case. We can never penetrate the deep things of God, or perceive beyond this scene of darkness, unless we are taught by Him who sent his Son to be "the light of the world." But when you come to Christ and embrace his gospel, all the difficulties are removed out of the way; you see with a clear light-you perceive harmony and regularity where you saw confusion and discord. In meditating on the truths of the gospel, you see a sublimity in their tendency, and a holy influence to result from them, which marks them as coming from the fountain of all

good. You attain a confidence of mind and a certainty of hope, which nothing but revelation could ever inspire. Possessed of this confidence and endowed with the same hope, the martyrs had a full assurance of faith, which enabled them to know in whom they believed. This holy confidence, this assurance that you are not deceived, awaits each of you if you embrace the gospel, if you lay hold of the cross and pray the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ to have mercy upon you, to enable you to learn his lessons, and to take his yoke upon you. You see clearly afar off, but the light you now possess shall be increased, till it terminates in the fulness of the celestial vision.

Recollect that the yoke of Christ is the only yoke that is easy; every other yoke will be found to be heavy. There is a peace and tranquillity attending the breast of a religious man, which no other breast contains. And they never tasted the true peace, which is sweet and which is abiding, till they became acquainted with Christ, the Prince of Peace; they never tasted true pleasure, they never learned comfort in the midst of sorrow, they were never armed with resolution in the prospect of death and eternity, till they acquainted themselves with Him who is "the Truth and the Life." Come, then, to Him; bear his burden; learn the lessons of his doctrine; receive his promises; investigate the evidences of his religion; if you think you find it faulty and reject it, you reject it at your peril; you deprive yourself of the resources of the Divine love; you repel your Saviour; you refuse your remedy; you are in love with everlasting ruin; for it is written, "All they that hate me love death."

LXIV.

ENDS PROPOSED IN THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST.* LUKE, Xxiv., 26: Ought not Christ to have suffered these things? [Preached at Broadmead, Bristol, March 11, 1830, preparatory to the Lord's Supper.] You well remember the circumstances of the interview which oc casioned these words. If the disciples addressed had studied the prophecies with that attention and that impartiality which they deserved, never could they have been cast into despair by the death of Christ; and this He implied when He put the question to them, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things?" He looks back, you observe, upon his recent sufferings with perfect complacency and approbation; He justifies the conduct of his Father, in their appointment, as worthy of the Divine character: his words imply that his sufferings were the effect of design; a part of the whole counsel of God.

I shall point out a few of the reasons for which it was necessary

* From the notes of the Rev. T. Grinfield.

that Christ should have suffered; and also some of the leading effects, and beneficial consequences, of his death.

1. It was requisite that Christ should suffer, in order that He might verify his own predictions. It is not necessary that every witness of truth should seal it with his death: some have died in defence of error. But, circumstanced as Christ, was, it was necessary that He should suffer. He had often and distinctly predicted his sufferings to his disciples. Hence He had reason to be surprised at their incredulity. He had assured them that He came into the world for this purpose; He had looked forward to it with eager desire: "I have a bap tism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" His, sufferings ought, therefore, to have established their faith, instead of shaking it. He is the only teacher that ever rested the truth of his system upon his death and resurrection. This would have been, the utmost folly, unless He had been certain of God's interposing in his vindication; as nothing but infamy could otherwise have covered both himself and his followers. He had gone so far as to announce the very manner of his death: "I must be lifted up from the earth;" and the precise interval between his death and resurrection: on the third day I will rise again :" circumstances which, without the Divine interposition, must have failed. These predictions, in union with other things, tend to prove the reality of his resurrection.

2. A succession of prophets had foretold his sufferings. Moses had foretold them, in those sacrifices which prefigured his: the priesthood was a type of his intercession in heaven; Isaac repre. sented the beloved Son offered by his Father; the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, which has none of the obscurity of a prophecy, resembles an evangelist's account of the sufferings of Christ; it paints them with the utmost distinctness, and entitles Isaiah to be called the evangelical prophet; the twenty-second Psalm is a minute picture of a death by crucifixion; Christ is the substance of the description, to whom alone, in many points, it applies.

Thus the death of Christ was necesary to fulfil the Scripture : "How else could the Scripture be fulfilled?" But, besides this, the most beneficial consequences were involved in the sufferings and death of Christ, which leads me to observe,

3. That the salvation of mankind depended on his death, and could not have been effected without it. Divine wisdom economizes the means which it employs; it never sets a machinery at work more expensive than that which the case requires. If there had been any other way to save sinners, God, we may be sure, would have spared his Son such a costly mode of mercy would have been dispensed with. But the pardon of sin could be effected only thus it is always represented as the effect of his death. "We have redemption through his blood, even the remission of sins: his blood cleanseth us from all sin." God thus confirming that great maxim of his moral government, "without shedding of blood, there is no remission." The sacrifices of animals, which were shadows of his, could never take away

sin but his, which was the substance of those shadows, could. Hence the redeemed in heaven ascribe their salvation to Him that washed them from their sins in his own blood; they appear as those who have "washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb;" and "therefore," it is added, "they stand before the throne of God." The Apostle Paul, who had been most attached to the law, declares that men could not be justified by its works: once, indeed, he had rested in it; but as soon as Christ had come, and was made known, he concentrated his whole mind on Him, as the basis of his justification: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ." All the gifts of God in grace are so many streams flowing from this fountain, the sacrifice and intercession of Christ : pardon, sanctification, adoption, the comforts of the Spirit, and eternal glory, all are to be traced back to this origin. With all these things present to his view, how well might he say, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things?" So dead, so lost was man, that no other provision could suffice for his recovery.

66

4. The full display of the glorious character of God required that Christ should suffer. God can have no higher end, in all his operations extrâ, out of himself, than this, the manifestation of himself. The revelation of the Divine excellence is the cause of all the perfection, beauty, and happiness of all pure and intelligent beings. Now we have reason to believe, from the Scriptures, that the character of the Blessed and Only Potentate" is more fully displayed in the sacrifice of Christ than in any of his other works. Here we behold his purity, as the moral Governor; here his mercy, as the Father of his creatures. Never shall we know which most to admire, as here displayed, judginent or mercy, the awful or the lovely! In other cases we discover these perfections separate and in parts: in the fate of the fallen angels, we see the wrath of God on sin. Here is an intermingled display of holiness and compassion; and it is the brightest, the most intense display of both that ever can be given. The eternal Father hides his face from his beloved Son, consumes his body and his spirit, on account of the sin which He bore as a sacrifice. The condign punishment of the whole world would not have presented so awful a spectacle of holiness and justice! This, at the same time, is the greatest proof of Divine love: had all the world been pardoned by an absolute grant of mercy, so great a proof of God's love to the world had not been given as this! The medium through which the pardon flows is a greater gift than the pardon itself! "God so loved the world, that He gave his only-begotten Son!" This is the unspeakable gift of his love! In this view we may well say, "Ought not Christ to have suffered ?"

5. A farther end, a subordinate one, I confess, was that Christ, in suffering, might give us an example of holiness and virtue. If this is not the first end of his death, yet it is one of which we ought never to lose sight. "Christ suffered, leaving us an example." He knew that his followers would have, in addition to the common experience of man, sorrows and sufferings peculiarly their own: He knew the conflict

which they would have to sustain in that age of persecution: He therefore showed them the way and thus He cheered their minds; after such an example as his, no sort of suffering should appear too bitter they should "overcome through the blood of the Lamb." Whatever we may suffer, He has suffered all before us, either literally or virtually reproach, violence, the strife of tongues, the most excruciating pain, the desertion of friends, the desertion of God's presence in the soul; in a word, the cross. It was necessary, as an example, that He should be an afflicted, a dying, an agonizing Saviour.

:

6. And, once more, the death of Christ was necessary, in order to attain the benefits which it has imparted to the higher order of beings. As this is a view with which we are not immediately concerned, there is little revealed in Scripture; and yet there are a few glimpses given us, in regard to the universal influence of the sacrifice of Christ on the happiness of heavenly beings. From the moment of his death, He became the Judge and Lord of all: the angels of heaven were placed under his authority; Satan and his angels were reserved for his tribunal. Whenever there is a new arrangement of Providence, there is a beneficial end proposed: some great benefit must, therefore, have resulted from the commission of all power in heaven and earth into the hands of Christ. It is an astonishing idea, that angels should be subordinate to a crucified man! We hear of elect angels; elect in Christ: this implies, as there is reason to believe, their confirmation in their present state of purity and bliss, in consequence of the redemption effected by Christ: their felicity is no longer, as before, placed in their own hands, no longer liable to be lost, like that of the fallen angels. Hence it is not surprising that they join in the new song of praise to the Lamb, and cast their crowns at his feet. The death of Christ is a sacrifice of a sweet savour, that diffuses a fragrance over the universe! it affords a stability to the happiness of all holy beings. All are gathered together in Him as in their Head; united to each other and to God. We have the greatest reason, then, to rejoice with Him, in the review of his death, and to say, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things?" We have reason to remember the wormwood, the gall, and the agony, with joy; because such benefits as these are derived from those sufferings; because they issue in glory to God, salvation for sinners, an example to those who suffer, an increase and confirmation of happiness to all the servants of God!

What gratitude is due from us, my brethren, to this dear Saviour! What shall we render to Him for all that He has suffered, in order that He might procure such benefits for us! What can be so shocking as that we should alienate ourselves from Him who bought us with his blood, lifted us up from the abyss of despair, beautified us with salvation, made us to sit with himself in heavenly places! By what strict and tender ties are we bound to Him! especially when the faculties which we give to Him are dignified; and we receive ourselves back, as it were, purified and ennobled! If we should have looked with horror upon Lazarus whom He once raised from the dead,