hour in this extreme agony, before the powers of nature are exhausted and death closes the scene.

This is but a faint outline of the sufferings of crucifixion, to which the Priests and Rulers sentenced the blessed Jesus, whom we see going forth to the place of execution, carrying his own cross, and fainting beneath the load. His unfeeling persecutors, fearing, lest he should expire by the road, and thus disappoint them in their cruel design, lay hold of a Cyrenian, named Simon, whom they compel to bear the cross to Calvary, a spot, rendered sacred to memory by the sufferings of Jesus, who humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross. Yes, he who could command a legion of angels to his rescue, here submitted to a painful and ignominious death. Do we hear the Prophet inquire" Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth the wine-vat?" Jesus replies, I have trodden the wine-press alone; and of the people there was none with me; and "I looked and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold therefore, mine own arm brought salvation." Whenever we look to the cross of Jesus, we should eye him as "the surety of his people," as the " just suffering for the unjust, to bring sinners unto God."

It was for them he wept, bled, groaned, agonized, and died. But while Christ crucified is to the "Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness, it is unto them that are called, both Jews and Gentiles, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God." Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, "suffered without the gate." "Let us therefore go forth unto him without the camp, bearing his reproach." Jesus suffered a painful, shameful, and ignominious death, to deliver his people from the bitter pains of eternal death. His crucifixion is the procuring cause of their salvation; for he died that they might live. Ought we not to admire and adore the wisdom of our God, who could cause such invaluable good to spring out of what, distinctly considered, was an act of such injustice and cruelty. We see the persecutors of Jesus full of fury and indignation, executing their eruelties on the innocent object of their abhorrence. But, at the same time, we discover, that by their instrumentality, the designs of God are accomplished. Not that their

crime is in the least degree lessened.

malice, envy, injustice, rage, and

No, the hatred,

cruelty, was all

their own act and deed, and the sin and guilt, consequent on the foul transgression, is with justice laid to

their charge. The moral evil of the act, is in nowise diminished by the Lord's overruling it to accomplish his purposes and making it minister to his glory. He can make “the wrath of man praise him, but the remainder of that wrath he will restrain.”

CHAPTER XLVI.

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?-Psalm xxii. 1.

If we would know whose language this is, we must by faith ascend the hill of Calvary; there, taking our stand at the foot of the cross of Jesus, we hear him utter the dolorous cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me." We do not find a word of complaint of the pains and sufferings of his mangled body escape his lips. They are borne in patient silence, the cruelties inflicted by the puny arm of flesh, cannot extort a groan or a murmur from the holy sufferer. This mournful exclamation, was not occasioned by the agonies of his body. He was not incapable of feeling them in their highest extent, (for his human nature was left to its infirmities, that he

H

might fully suffer) but he was so entirely swallowed up with the weight of his Father's wrath; that it overwhelmed the sense of bodily pain. Here again we are constrained to eye Jesus in the character of a surety. He had become a surety for rebel man, and he truly smarted for it. He felt the awful extent of the tremendous debt he had engaged to cancel, he found the wrath of God "as an overwhelming flood," as deep waters in which there was no standing." At that soul-appalling season, the phials of divine vengeance were poured out, and he drank of the cup of trembling from the hand of the Lord; not a sip merely, but he drank of it to the very dregs. He felt by bitter experience that God's wrath is a consuming fire; for by it, his "heart was melted like in the midst of his body." The sorrows of his soul, were occasioned by the sins of the world imputed to, and charged upon, him, and for which he then endured the wrath of God. Yes, in the six hours Jesus hung upon the cross, he had to struggle with the sorrows of death and with the fierce anger of God; he was forsaken by his Father, and suffered his divine wrath, which indeed constitutes the tremendous curse. If the thought should arise in the mind, how that Infinite Being who is emphatically described

wax,

as a God of Love, could find in his heart to use such severity toward him, whom he styles "his only-begotten, well-beloved Son, he in whom the Father is always well pleased," it should be remembered, that God sustains two relations towards Christ; the love of a Father to him as a Son, and the claim of a Judge toward him as a surety. Although God never expressed so much anger toward Christ,* as when he hung upon the cross, yet in fact, he was never so well pleased with him as then.† Yea, he was more pleased with him, than he had been displeased by all the sins that creatures have committed or can commit. It is true, mercy is God's delight, but justice is his sceptre, whereby he rules, governs, and judges the world. His attribute of wisdom, gives to both their fullest demonstration and accomplishment. The plan of reconciliation, the scheme of redemption, by Jesus; is God's masterpiece in which all his attributes meet, and harmonise. If we would know the abhorrence God bears toward sin, then we must look at the cross of Jesus. There it is God has exhibited the greatest manifestation of his hatred toward it, by his treatment of him who became the sinner's surety.

The drown

* Zechariah xiii. 7.

+ John x. 17.

Psalm lxxxv. 10,