How would Paul preach Christ before a Jewish or a heathen audience? With what simplicity and with what explicitness would he address himself to his hearers, that if possible none might misapprehend his meaning! How would he present the subject?

1. No doubt he would exhibit Jesus as the true Messiah, the sent of God, to save a guilty world.

Such a Messenger of mercy had been the theme of prophets from the beginning of the world; the testimony of Jesus was the spirit of prophecy. The minds of inspired men were carried above their ordinary pitch, when they described the coming and glory of this Holy One. Standing on an eminence, to which they were elevated by the Divine Spirit, they looked through the vista of ages, and discerned "the root and offspring of David, the bright and morning star." They caught the first rays of light from the Sun of Righteousness over the tops of the mountains; his beams fell upon their own souls, and in his light they beheld the glories of the eternal world and the attributes of incarnate Deity.

A long series of symbolical representations of the work, sufferings, and death of the Messiah, were given in the Mosaic ritual. The innocence of the dove portrayed his personal purity, while the sufferings of the bleeding victim taught the offerer to rely on his atonement alone for pardon. How glorious was the privilege which the Jews alone thus enjoyed amongst all the nations of the earth! To them were committed the oracles of God, in which the promised Redeemer occupied the most conspicuous station; and to him every eye was invited by the charms of his mercy and grace. However fallen, depraved, and guilty, here they beheld a Deliverer mighty to save. The mind was not racked for expedients, nor tortured to devise means of mercy; but mercy appeared in all her beauty, divinely harmonising with immaculate purity, inexorable justice, and eternal truth.

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David's Lord was exhibited as a being truly human. apostles invited the world to contemplate Jesus as an elder brother, bone of their bone, and flesh of their flesh. The sympathies of humanity were his own. He felt for our infirmities, wept over our sorrows, and rejoiced in our felicities. With all the disinterestedness of a genuine patriot he loved his country; he lived to promote the welfare of its inhabitants, and constantly went about doing good. When he stood by the grave of Lazarus, he mingled his tears with his afflicted friends; and when he contemplated the approaching ruin of Jerusalem, he not only stood and wept over the city, but gave utterance to the most impassioned expressions of sorrow and grief. He had infirmities, such as a spotless being

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might inherit. Hence, when weary, he sat down by the side of Jacob's well. Sleep was necessary to recruit his frame when exhausted by incessant toil. He enjoyed the pleasures of private friendship, and made the beloved disciple his bosom friend.

But, if he sustained the infirmities of our nature, he was perfectly holy. He had never transgressed the divine law, nor ever had a tendency to moral defection. He was, said an inspired writer, "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners; made higher than the heavens." The apostles did not in the least imagine that the flesh of Christ was sinful; nor does it appear to have been any part of the work of the Holy Spirit to bring this heretical novelty before their minds. Such a sentiment is the offspring of a disordered mind, which would convey to us its crude notions and unhallowed speculations in a barbarous dialect, for nearly two centuries obsolete, and would startle us with opinions as destitute of philosophical truth as they are of divine wisdom.

"The flesh of Christ was sinful :" monstrous position! What can it mean? Does it mean that the body of Christ was the subject of moral pravity? But by what extraordinary logical powers will proof be adduced of the depravity of corporeal substance? By no process of argumentation could the human body be proved to be depraved, which would not equally prove the depravity of the brute creation. But surely, if by any extraordinary proof we could satisfactorily evince that the body was the subject of depravity, we might spare him from such a charge who was "undefiled and separate from sinners."

Surely such an idea as that the body of Christ was sinful could not be entertained but by a mind as fond of novelties as are some of our modern visionaries. By a coarse figure of speech, body must be put for mind; and we are to understand, I apprehend, that the soul of Christ was under the influence of moral turpitude. For though such a doctrine would be an abomination in theology, yet in physics we could understand the assertion, that mind was depraved. But, then, shall we admit that Christ was actually a sinner? Was the equal of the eternal Father united to an apostate? And was he who made an atonement for sin labouring under the curse of his own crimes? How then could the Redeemer of mankind be distinguished as a human being by that appellation, "That holy thing?"

It cannot, on any ground, be supposed that the deity of the Son of God was made a sacrifice for sin. The mysterious union of the deity with the humanity of Christ gave an infinite value and efficacy to his work; but it was his soul that was made an offering for sin.

But his soul must have been polluted by sin, if he were sinful at all. And how then could a polluted soul make an atonement for sin ? Or could a holy God accept a sacrifice which in itself was unclean? If a brute animal were accepted as a typical sacrifice, it was because it could not be the subject of depravity; and, if human sacrifices were abominable, one reason, in addition to many others, might be, because they were depraved. Nor can we on any principle conceive how a sinful spirit could, by any sufferings, remove the guilt of another, till its own were fully expiated. Our glorious Redeemer then, before he could have occupied, as a victim, that altar on which we deserved to bleed, must have died for his own sins; for "the soul that sinneth shall die." It is surpassing strange that an old error, subversive of the whole system of redemption, should be strenuously maintained by one who still calls himself a minister of Christ. The Socinian has dismantled the Saviour of his perfections as the true God, but has left his humanity spotless; and now a modern believer in the deity of Jesus has clothed his humanity with pollution and crime !

When the apostle of the Gentiles preached Christ, he insisted on his being "over all, God blessed for evermore." He affirmed that he created and upheld all things by the word of his power; that his throne, as the true God, remained for ever and ever; that all the angels of God worshipped him; and that he, and his fellowchristians in every place, called upon his name. All wisdom, nay, all the fulness of the Godhead, it is affirmed, resides in him. His unsearchable riches were to be bestowed on an impoverished world. His gifts were to be imparted as the only qualification of all his ministers. His grace was the source of all blessedness to mankind. To his wisdom and power, to his justice and truth, were committed the government of the universe, and the final judgment of all intelligent beings.

In support of such high pretensions, the apostles affirmed that the glory of God was seen in the person of Christ; that he was Alpha and Omega, the first and the last; and that of him, and to him, and through him were all things, to whom was due honour and glory for ever. And when they looked into the eternal world, they beheld him imparting felicity, and throwing the light of eternal day around all the inhabitants of these regions of felicity. And, as he was the fountain of life, so was he seated upon the throne, and was receiving the adorations of the exalted spirits around his throne, as his proper homage. Nor do they qualify the expressions they employ, or guard the representations they make from the improper meaning which an ardent mind, or a powerful imaginat ion

might attach to them. While they evidently labour to the utmost to heighten their own descriptions of his personal excellences and glories, they are never afraid of leading mankind into veneration for Christ so excessive as to become idolatrous.

And yet it is most manifest that, if Christ be not truly and properly God, an immense majority in the christian world have, by their representations of Christ, been led into very gross idolatry. And it is also a very painful fact, that a very small and dwindling minority have been compelled to the most laboured and strained criticisms, by throwing out a large number of passages as interpolations, by representing plain narratives of facts as embellishments of style of eastern metaphor, by denying the conclusiveness of the reasonings of inspired men, and even their inspiration itself, and endeavouring to sober down the language of the New Testament to reason and common sense. Perhaps, my hearers, you would think that, if such methods were requisite to render the Bible even intelligible, the shorter and safer method would be altogether to discard the book.

Thus, however, did the apostles preach Christ-as the true Messiah-as a human being, spotless and pure-and as the true God and eternal life. But

2. Preaching Christ includes a publication of his great work, and ultimate design in visiting this world.

Happily the sacred writers are most explicit on these topics. When the heralds of mercy announced to fallen men what the Saviour had done, they boldly affirm that “ Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us;"-that he "bore our sins in his own body on the tree: by his stripes we are healed;"—that "by him we have received the atonement, and have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace."

It is a fact clearly ascertained, that without shedding of blood there is no remission. Long before the incarnation of the Son of God, the Judge of all had assured the transgressor that the soul that sinneth shall die. Sacrifices had been instituted, and the penitent sinner had been taught to look through the victim he was offering to another a purer-a nobler sacrifice, which alone could take away the sin of the world. Conscience appears alive to the propriety of such an atonement; hence every nation, however dark and brutal, offered to the gods they worshipped sacrifices, as expiatory of sin; nor is it easy to perceive how such a custom should have obtained so generally, if the Judge of all had not at first instituted sacrifices as typical expiations of guilt.

While the apostles, in language most simple, explicit, and forcible, exhibited the death of Christ as the atonement for sin, they as firmly and fully declared that his death alone was sufficient for the redemption of mankind; "for by one offering, he has for ever perfected them that are sanctified." While they avowed the discriminating sovereignty of divine grace, and unhesitatingly affirmed that there was a remnant according to the election of grace; yet they never imagined that the value of the atonement was limited by the number of the elect. Its value and its application are necessarily distinct; the latter must be limited, as the number of beings rescued from the fall is limited; the former is truly infinite, as he who died was the true God and eternal life; or as it was the true God who was so united to the humanity of the Saviour as to warrant the apostle to speak of "the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood."

Here there is not, there cannot be, any controversy between the consistent Calvinist and the Arminian himself; for, irrespectively of all peculiarity of creeds, the one cannot believe that the Saviour could have done more, had he designed to bring every child of Adam to glory; and the other could not allow that less was necessary if only one sinner obtained eternal life. The fact is, that all calculation concerning the extent of the value of the death of Christ is not only out of place, but would go at once to destroy the atonement; for, by whatever argument we could prove the expiation made by the Messiah to be limited in value, by the same argument we could prove it not superior to the sacrifices under the law, and could at once nullify and subvert the design of his death upon the cross, as the exclusive medium of pardon.

Nor can we for a moment perceive why the Father's equal should have been united with our nature, if it were not for a twofold purpose. First, because no mere creature, whatever its powers, had a right to offer its own life, nor, even if it had, would it be capable of enduring the wrath due to sin; nor, secondly, could any mere creature, whatever its purity and dignity, infuse such a value into its sufferings as to render them an available plea for pardon. Works of supererogation performed by creatures, may be received as a figment of the man of sin, but can never be admitted as a truth of divine revelation. If Christ were a mere man, all he did was due to his Creator, and, in the great work of salvation, he could not be the surety for others: nor could any divine appointment of him as a Mediator impart a value to his work, beyond what was inherent in the Mediator himself. We are taught, however, that his life was his own, that he gave himself a ransom for sin, and that, in the