He was born in a stable, and cradled in a manger; the Poverty in which he lived, so touchingly told in his own melancholy language" the foxes have holes, and the fowls of the air have nests, but the Son of Man hath not where to lay his head;"-the Persecutions to which he was exposed: an object of hatred to all the powerful and the great of his nation, He found not an asylum, even in private friendship; but, betrayed by one disciple, and denied by another, in the hour of trial and of danger He was deserted by them all; -the Agonies that assailed Him in the garden of Gethsemane: From his body there fell "as it were great drops of blood "-his soul was overwhelmed-expressions of complaint burst from his sad lips-He implores the Father, that, "if it were possible, that cup might pass from Him;"-the Scene of Horror which closed his life: His hands and feet pierced with nails-his temples crowned with thorns-his side lacerated by the murderous spear! It is for me, he repeats to himself, it is for me, that Christ suffered all this woe! And if there be any thing that can yet more deeply affect him,-if any thing can augment his flowing tears,-they gush afresh at witnessing, in imagination, that spectacle of grief, never to be forgotten, when the Son of God's love, just before his latest sigh is breathed, gives final utterance to his sorrows, in that piercing cry, which, sent through the land of Israel, represents so well his human nature contending with the grasp of death: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" Faith, however, by representing to the Christian his Lord's sufferings and death, not only gives rise to those thoughts and sentiments which are the most becoming in the communicant, but she likewise inspires him with the sublimest hopes: she tells him, that since Jesus Christ is risen again from the dead, he also shall be raised again; that since Jesus Christ is glorified, he shall be glorified also; that since Jesus Christ hath "sat down at the right hand of God," he also, having been victorious over the world, shall be permitted to sit at Christ's right hand :-She tells him, that, having upon him the mark of that spotless "Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world," he has nothing to dread from the sword of the destroying Angel; that "Death" is for ever deprived of his "sting," and the "Grave" of its " victory;" that, after a period of quiet sleep, during which he will be refreshed from the toils and the travail of earth, he shall awake at the dawn of an everlasting day; and shall behold, with transports unutterable, "new Heavens and a new Earth;" where his Lord shall reign over the "just made perfect," and every blessing shall come to embellish an abode, compared with which, all the splendours and the glory and the magnificence of this world, are but as the melancholy glooms of a dungeon! May these sentiments and these hopes accompany you to the Lord's Table! May the vow of fidelity that you are now going to make to Christ your Saviour, be inscribed in the Book of Life, upon a page that shall never be blotted |