jected and punished for crucifying him. I have already, however, declared my insufficiency for unravelling the mysterious ways of the will of Providence. In what method it might have pleased God to deal with his creatures, and to dispense his acts of grace and favour towards them, I cannot take upon me to determine. Until it shall be revealed, it must lie hidden. But Christ was surely wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities. He was, and no one can deny it, despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrow, and acquainted with grief.

The sufferings and death of Christ, we have consequently reason to believe, to have been a propitiatory sacrifice for sin; the moral and effective means for the salvation and recovery of man not perhaps as justifying us altogether in itself, but as directing us to, and putting us in the way and method of our justification and acceptance with God. And thus we may probably be right in supposing, that we are justified and saved by and through Christ, who, by his righteousness and obedience unto death, hath obtained favour of God to set up a kingdom of peace and righteousness in the world; and hence, K 2

* Bolingbroke.

by

by a warrantable metaphor, that he is our Pro pitiator and Redeemer.

But although it be thus contended, that Christ, who is held up as the greatest example of patience, did not die for the sins of men; or even if he did, that he did not bear his sufferings and death with any tolerable courage, even with the composure of heathen resolution; may we not answer with Origen?" Christ's silence under the whips and torments, shewed greater courage and patience, than the most eloquent Greek or Roman could have shewn, by speaking in such circumstances." To this may be added, what eclipses the glory of all former sufferers, that under his sufferings he prayed for his enemies; "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Magnanimity, in great distress, always appears with a divinity about it. But the weakness of sorrow only appears sublime, when it arises from what we feel for others, more than from what we feel for ourselves. This Son of God, then, who was given to be the ruler of men, for "Unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called wonderful, counsellor,

the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace;" when he saw the night was arrived, wherein he was to be delivered into the hands of his enemies, like a dying father in the midst of his family, mingling consolation to his disciples with his last instructions, "He lift up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father! the hour is come." Then finishing with that soleinn prayer of intercession for the church, which closed his ministry, he immediately went forth with his disciples into the garden of Gethsemane, and surrendered himself to those who came to apprehend him. This was the hour of distress, and of blood. When subsequently led forth to suffer, the first voice we hear from him, is a generous lamentation over the fate of his unfortunate, though guilty country; and to the last moment of his life, we behold him in possession of the same gentle and benevolent spirit. No upbraiding, no complaining expression escaped from his lips, during the long and painful approaches of a cruel death. He betrayed no symptom of a weak or vulgar, of a discomposed or impatient mind. With the utmost attention of filial tenderness, he committed his aged mother to the care of his beloved disciple. With complacent dignity, he conferred pardon on a penitent fellow

• Isaiah.

K 3
+ John.

low-sufferer and with a greatness of mind beyond example, he spent his last moments in apologies and prayers for those who were shedding his blood. At length the awful moment arrived; he said, "I thirst," and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it to his mouth. After he had tasted the vinegar, knowing that all things were now accomplished, and the Scripture fulfilled, he said, "it is finished;" that is, this offered draught of vinegar was the last circumstance predicted by an ancient prophet, that remained to be fulfilled. The vision and the prophecy are now sealed: the Mosiac dispensation is closed. "And he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

The interpretation of the vicarious atonement of our Saviour, I shall here, however, wave the particular discussion of, as it stands, in my apprehension, upon similar grounds with miracles, the consideration of which we have not found materially necessary to the prosecution of our enquiries. The publication and establishment of Christianity, is next to be considered. It was a remarkable, and a great event. According to Christ's beautiful image, "The least of all seeds grew up, and waxed a great tree, and spread

spread out its branches, and filled the earth." * The hand of God sheltered this feeble plant from the storm; and by his care it was reared and cultivated, and brought to maturity. The wisdom and power of man united to oppose the doctrine of God; but it confounded the one, and overcame the other.

It is undoubtedly nothing less than miraculous, that twelve poor mechanics should disperse themselves into different parts of the world, to preach an unheard of religion, contrary to the laws every where established, and even to men's natural appetites and inclinations; and yet that this new religion should so far prevail, that, within twenty or thirty years after Christ's ascension, it should have gained footing in all the principal parts of the Roman empire; that churches of it should be settled not only at Jerusalem, but at Antioch, Smyrna, Corinth, Ephesus, Alexandria, and even at Rome itself: and that there should be,about three score years after, a still greater increase; for in Trajan's time, and in Bithynia, one of the most obscure parts of the Roman empire, the Christians were grown so many, that Pliny the proconsul was under the necessity of writing to the emperor for instructions how to treat them. In the next