IMPLICATED IN THE GUILT, and in none other :- hence, the equity of God, when the great Sin-Offering was ordained, passed by the Nature of Angels; and hence also, on the other hand, it was not possible that the Blood of Bulls, or of Goats, could take away sin; although this Blood, indeed, with the ashes of an Heifer sprinkling the unclean, might, and did, by the Divine appointment, sanctify ceremonially and typically to the purifying of the flesh. No,

"Not all the Blood of Beasts,

On Jewish Altars slain,

Could give the guilty conscience peace,

Or wash away the stain."

When, therefore, satisfaction is to be

made for the sin of man, MAN HIMSELF

MUST

MUST BE THE VICTIM! The integrity of the Divine Attributes, and the equity of the Divine Government, indispensably require this-wherefore, saith the Scripture, when He, the Christ, cometh into the world, He saith, Sacrifice and Offering thou wouldest not; but a BODY hast thou prepared me: a Body of flesh and blood, essentially human, containing a human Spirit, endued with human faculties and passions, together constituting a PERFECT MAN, the Man Christ Jesus.

Such, then, was the VICTIM provided for the world's atonement; "of a reasonable soul, and human flesh subsisting;" in whom, moreover, dwelt the fulness of the Godhead, in the second Person of the

glorious

glorious Trinity; and hence was he " equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead; and inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood: who," as it is further expressed by the Church of England, "although he be God and Man, yet is not two, but one Christ; one, not by conversion of the Godhead into Flesh; but by taking of the Manhood into God."

Nor did this mysterious union of the Divine, with the Human Nature of the Messiah, involve the former Nature in any portion of his sacrificial Sufferings; since that, from the spirituality and immutability of its essence, must ever have been incapable of all suffering; and, because penal suffering, or pain, on the part of the Deity,

was

was as needless as it was impossible. The contrary assumption, not to insist upon its radical absurdity, supposes the inviolable Peace, and ineffable Felicity, of the Divine Mind, both of which are necessarily infinite and eternal, to be less than infinite, because mutable, and consequently, not eternal.

A striking, though indirect, corroboration of the truth just maintained, is afforded by St. Paul, in 1 Tim. iii. 16. God was manifest in the Flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of Angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the World, received up into Glory. Here is a detail of great and fundamental circumstances, in which the Godhead of the Redeemer bore

a prominent

a prominent part, in reference to the salvation of the world; but not one word is found therein to warrant the supposition, that He at all participated, either in suffer-ing or in death. If otherwise, wherefore does the inspired Writer, in stating the great mystery of godliness, omit all mention of such momentous circumstances? Why, for this evident reason, that he here speaks chiefly of "GOD manifest in the Flesh;" and not of the Flesh, or Man-hood, in which He was manifested. Had the Apostle expressed himself thus:-"God was manifest in the flesh, stricken and smitten of the Father, put to death," &c. there would have been an end of the argument at once; but the Apostle has said no such

thing;