of the dispositions of God to men, and of the nature of His moral government, which seem to me taught most plainly by Christ and his apostles. I now proceed to state what we know to have been the purposes answered by the death of Christ, in the blessed dispensation of the everlasting Gospel. And I invite your attention to those words of our Lord himself, which you will find in LUKE xxiv. 46, 47. THUS IT IS WRITTEN; AND THUS IT BEHOVED CHRIST TO SUFFER, (literally, THUS IT WAS NECESSARY THAT THE CHRIST, the Messiah, sнould suffer) and to RISE FROM THE DEAD THE THIRD DAY: AND THAT REPENTANCE AND REMISSION (or, FORGIVENESS) OF SINS SHOULD BE PREACHED IN HIS NAME AMONG ALL This passage teaches us, I. That it was necessary that the Christ should suffer, because 'thus it was written.' The death of our Saviour was necessary to fulfil the prophecies respecting the Messiah, (at least that signal one of Isaiah in the 53rd Chapter,) which represent him as suffering and dying for the sins of men, by the appointment of Jehovah, preparatory to the diffusion of his blessings, and to the reception of that kingdom which is predicted by the prophet Daniel ;preparatory to his entering into his glory. It is obvious, however, that this leaves the question just as we found it; for the reasons why it was predicted must be the same with those we are inquiring for. Whatever ends we learn to have been the purposes of Jehovah in appointing the death of our Saviour, these must have been the object of the prophecy as well as of the event itself. It was necessary for the fulfilment of prophecy, and to prove that he was the predicted Messiah, that our Lord should suffer; but except in the increase of evidence that he was in truth the anointed of Jehovah, anointed to bind up the broken-hearted and to proclaim liberty to the captive, the necessity for the death of Christ would have been alike strong if it had not been so foretold. The system of prophecy respecting the Messiah was a merciful provision of Him whose wisdom is unsearchable, to lead the pious Jews to expect, and to receive, this servant of Jehovah; it also assisted, without a doubt, to prepare the mind of our Lord himself for the great work before him; it serves now to confirm the faith of those who duly regard its evidence; it will one day contribute to bring the children of Israel to the fold of Christ. But it does not further add to the purposes of his death. Where should we learn these purposes better than from the lips of Christ himself? He received the Spirit without measure; he was from the first fully acquainted with the nature and extent of the salvation which he was to execute, and the means by which it was to be executed; and he himself declared to the Apostles, that he had made known unto them all things which he had heard from the Father.1 I think it certain that he gave them while on earth the substance of all that was afterwards (by the communication of the Spirit and the course of providence) unfolded to them: and for myself I declare that I discover in the writings of the Apostles no purposes of our Saviour's death which he had not in reality communicated to them by his personal instructions; though the event more fully developed those purposes, and the Apostles expressed them in language naturally springing from their perception of the immense importance of them, and from the nature and language of the Mosaic dispensation. Whether or not you agree with me fully in this view, you will when I say that what Christ stated as to the purposes of his death must be true, and must be the most important truth. I observe then, II. Our Lord represents his blood, his death, as ratifying the New Covenant. This is the essential representation of the ends of the death of Christ; and it is the basis of all which the Scriptures declare on the subject. The merciful Father of His frail, ignorant, offending, mortal creatures, hath promised—and HE is TRUTH-great and inestimable blessings on certain conditions; this promise has been confirmed to us, as respects the messenger of mercy, by his death, and, as respects Him who sent him, by 1It is true that he says (John xvi. 12.) 'I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now': but his words in John xv. 15, clearly prove that the germ of every important truth had been made known to the Apostles. his resurrection; and he that receives Jesus as the Christ, the Son of God, is, by the gracious offers of God, placed in a state to comply with these conditions, and to receive these blessings. God and Man are then the two parties; God offering the covenant, and promising its blessings; Man accepting the offer, and undertaking the conditions, with the hope of the blessings: and there is also the Mediator appointed by Divine grace, the authorized and empowered Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.' He was the Mediator in the same sense (though in a much higher degree) in which Moses was the mediator of the Old Covenant ;-viz. commissioned to execute its solemn duties, to be the minister and messenger of God's will, and to enforce and explain his commands. But, still further, Christ was also the victim, the blood of which was deemed to ratify the covenant, and to give it the requisite sanction. The Old Covenant was by such means1 formally ratified, and as the Gospel was first to be received among the Jews, it was well that there should be something analogous in its character and circumstances to that which was designed to prepare for it. After those solemn and awful manifestations of the greatness and majesty of Jehovah which attended the giving of the Law from Mount Sinai, Moses communicated to the people the words and ordinances of the LORD, and the people answered with one voice, "All the words which 1 Exod. xxiv. 3-8. the LORD hath spoken will we do." He then wrote the words of the LORD; and early in the morning the people were assembled, and sacrifices expressive of adoration and thanksgiving and of vows, were offered for them: part of the blood of the victims Moses put in basins, and part he sprinkled on the altar. He then took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people; and they said, "All that the LORD hath spoken we will do and be obedient." And Moses, by a striking act, ratified the covenant which they had undertaken. He took the blood and sprinkled it upon the people, and said, "Behold the blood of the covenant which the LORD hath made with you." It is in reference to this ratification of the Mosaic dispensation, that the blood of Christ is called in the epistle to the Hebrews 'the blood of sprinkling';1 and that the apostle Peter tells the Christians that they had been chosen unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ,'2 in other words, to obedience to that covenant which was ratified by his death.3 The ratification which was made formally by 1 Heb. xii. 24. 91 Pet. i. 2. Had the Gospel been first communicated in our days, and in our part of the world, perhaps it might have been spoken of as a charter, the charter of mercy, of grace, and of eternal life; and then it might have been well said to have been signed with the blood of the Ambassador of mercy. In either view, we have the blessings of the Gospel through his death. It was the channel through which the waters of life were diffused to all who should serve him as their Lord. Nay, his blood, the blood of the New Covenant (associated as it is with all the spiritual virtues of his words of mercy |