Christ possessed of bringing vividly back again to the hearts and to the remembrance of his apostles, at a future period, all those things which they beheld at the time with so little profit. When that period had arrived, it was not without a feeling of wonder and admiration that they remembered what they had heard from the mouths of Moses and Elias, who at the very time that they "appeared in glory," spake to Jesus "of his decease," Luke ix. 31, and of the great sacrifice that he was about to offer to accomplish the salvation of the human race.

III.

JESUS WEIGHED DOWN WITH THE BURDEN OF HIS SUFFERINGS.

"My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death," Matt. xxvi. 38, were the words of Jesus Christ to his apostles. Had he not uttered them, we should never have known his inward state of mind, nor the depth of the sufferings by which he rescued us from that condemnation which we were all under. He reveals something of that sorrow unto death which weighed down his spirit, that we might know at what a costly price he has bought us back, and restored us to life. At this moment Jesus was the representative of the sinner, laden with the heavy burden of all his obligations, and of the whole debt due to Divine

justice; he therefore underwent all the feelings which man would have experienced had the holiness of God been clearly manifested to him, and the book in which all human transgressions are written down, opened before him. The sinner would then have been filled with anguish, confounded, overwhelmed with a sorrow even unto death, admitting of neither comfort nor remedy; and therefore it was that Christ, who placed himself in his stead, suffered every pang which he ought to have endured. By thus first immolating himself, Jesus anticipated the savage men who were the agents of his sufferings, before they were permitted to lay their sacrilegious hands upon him. And in this manner did he in secret bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, before he expired upon the cross. Oh, wonderful mercy! which assures us that he did indeed stand in our place; that he took all our obligations upon him, and has fulfilled them all. Thus, to his inconceivable anguish do we owe our peace and hope. But now behold him, in the midst of his agony, falling with his face to the ground, Matt. xxvi. 39, thus uniting the humiliation of the body to that of the soul, and the outward to the inward

annihilation of himself. This was a posture which indeed became sinners, justly bowed to the dust before their Judge, but which He who has become their reconciliation and their peace, willingly took in their stead.

And Jesus prayed, saying, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt," Matt. xxvi. 39.

The Son of God was infinitely more assured than we could be, that the decree which secured our salvation through his sufferings and death, and which he, together with his Father, had ordained in the councils of the eternal Godhead, though perfectly free in its origin, was immutable; nor did he hope to change it, since he asked, notwithstanding his prayer, that it should be accomplished. But he wished to teach us what we never can sufficiently understand, that all the humiliating and cruel circumstances attending his cross and passion, were indispensable in order to snatch us from the effects of Divine justice, and that this justice could not have been satisfied in any other way. Therefore, that our error is great when we appear to think that God

could absolve us, after we had by our sins brought condemnation upon our heads, without exactin g a full satisfaction; or, that had he spared his Son his inconceivable suffering in offering that satisfaction, his wisdom, his holiness, and al his other attributes would not have lost somewhat of their perfection. Oh! what incompetent judges we are of what is befitting the majesty of God; of the injury committed against him by sin, or of the atonement which he requires for it; of our ingratitude towards his only begotten Son, who condescended to offer himself up as an oblation for us, and, in short, of the contempt that we put upon him, when we so little care to seek for that salvation which he has purchased for us at so costly a price!

The situation of a mediator interposing himself between Divine justice and the sinners condemned by it; exposing himself to that consuming fire to which God compares himself; undertaking to make the most rigorous satisfaction to his infinite holiness; taking upon himself the sins of every man; abolishing the anathema which they were all under, and changing the curses which they deserved into blessings; presenting