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liverance. And such has been the experience of many, not merely thoughtless, but deeply profligate characters in different ages of the church. the book of the prophet Isaiah has been under God the means of converting some, and of leading them to the Saviour, when every hope had failed, and every momentary stay upon which they had been leaning proved to be but a refuge of lies.

The fifty-third chapter of

This whole chapter seems to say with the apostle, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the propitiation for our sins."

The person spoken of in the text is, then, the ever-blessed Son of God, who, when he had taken our mortal nature upon him, in that very nature, the nature which had sinned, suffered, died, and was buried. We are assured of the truth and correctness of this statement, because every little minute particular in the life and death of Jesus corresponds with the prophecies which had gone before. At his birth he was called Jesus, because he should save his people from their sins. In his early years he grew

up before the Jewish people as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground, the family which once was great being now reduced. In his ministry, which for four years was a ministry of mercy, kindness, and compassion, he was despised, and we esteemed him not. He was betrayed by his own familiar friend whom he trusted; he was sold, like the patriarch Joseph by his own brethren, for thirty pieces of silver; he was led from prison and from judgment, from Herod to Pontius Pilate, and under the Roman governor he suffered the accursed death of the cross. As St. Jerome observes, "He is not therefore accursed, because he hangeth, but therefore he hangeth because he is accursed." He was made a curse for us." He makes his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; he is executed between two malefactors, and buried in the sepulchre of an honourable counsellor, Joseph of Arimathea. All this was done that the Scriptures might be fulfilled.

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2ndly. Let us consider further, that he, the ever-blessed Son of God, did all this for us. He bare, as St. Peter expresses it,

our sins in his own body upon the tree, that we, being dead unto sin, should live unto righteousness, for by his stripes we are healed. He was made sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

I know not anything, next to reading the prophets and apostles themselves, upon this great subject, so edifying as to take the sense of the christian church, in all ages, upon this point. The early fathers dwelt much upon it. Our own reformers, who sealed the truth with their own blood, preached nothing but this great doctrine; they knew nothing else save Jesus Christ and him crucified. Of later date, to take only two instances from the writings of very eminent men in our own church, I will just show those who can compare what they wrote with their Bibles,-(for you all have the fountain from which living waters flow in your possession)-I will just show you, in two passages, how Bishop Hall and Bishop Beveridge, whose delight it was to preach salvation by a crucified Saviour, how they touched upon his agonizing death.

Speaking of Christ as nailed to the cross,

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Bishop Hall says, (vol. v. p. 31,) "Which of his senses now was not a window to let in sorrow? His eyes saw the tears of his mother, his ears heard the revilings and blasphemies of the multitude, his touch felt the nails, his taste the gall. Look up, 0 all ye beholders, look upon this precious body, and see what part ye can find free. That head, which is adored and trembled at by the angelical spirits, is all raked and harrowed with thorns; that face of which it is said, Thou art fairer than the children of men,' is spit upon, and furrowed with tears; those eyes, clearer than the sun, are darkened with the shadow of death; those ears, that hear the heavenly concerts of angels, now are filled with the cursed speakings and scoffs of wretched men; those lips that spake as never man spake, are scornfully wet with vinegar and gall; those feet, that trampled on all the powers of hell, (his enemies are made his footstool,) are now nailed to the cross; those hands that freely sway the sceptre of the heavens, now carry the reed of reproach, and are nailed to the tree of reproach: that whole body which was conceived by the Holy

Ghost, was all scourged, wounded, mangled; this is the outside of his sufferings."

My brethren, it does us good, or at least I am sure it ought to do us good, to hear such passages of devout feeling as that which I have just read to you. It does us good to see the warmth of those holy men who have gone before us in the church of Christ, because we are by nature cold and dead to these agonizing sufferings of our blessed Saviour. We repeat the creed, we possess our faith in the article, that Christ was crucified, dead and buried; and we take no more interest in the transaction, or in all the scopes of its momentous consequences, than if he had died for the inhabitants of some other world, or we had no souls to save. How different was the conduct of the apostles! St. Paul rejoices even in being counted worthy to suffer shame for his name. He is satisfied, that "Christ hath loved him, and given himself for him." He glories in the thought that a crown of righteousness is laid up for him, and not for him only, but for all them also that love his appearing. There is a warmth, a feeling, a devotional ardour, in all these expressions,

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