fierceness of that wrath which our sins had deserved, fell with its full weight upon his innocent head; the pure, the spotless Lamb of God was, for the time, reduced to a state as abject and deplorable as that of the veriest wretch he came upon earth to redeem.

Such was the bitter cup which his Father's will commanded him to drink; and well might he, in the agony of the moment, pray, that "if it were possible that cup might pass from him;" well might he exclaim, in the bitterness of his soul, "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" But, although the divine nature was quiescent within him for a season, in order that the human nature might suffer the full measure of that vengeance to which he had offered himself as the expiatory victim, and he was thus left to the mere strength of his human virtue to bear him through the conflict; yet, the piety of his heart, and the constancy of his mind, sustained him under the trial, and put an end to the struggle "Nevertheless, not my will, but thine be done !"

And this submission on his part, was en

tirely voluntary; he was neither compelled to submit, nor was he to reap any advantage from his obedience. "Thinkest thou," said he to St. Peter, "that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legions of angels ?" 6 The whole host of heaven was ready, at his command, to be drawn out against his persecutors; nay, the very fiat of his own will was sufficient to have destroyed them: "but how then should the Scriptures have been fulfilled that thus it must be ?" The work of redemption would have been incomplete, and we should be yet in our sins; the triumph over sin and death and the grave would not have been achieved; we should still be subject to the powers of darkness, the bondslaves of sin, the children of wrath, and under the curse of the heavy displeasure of God. But his obedience to his Father, and his extreme love to mankind, were paramount to every feeling which regarded himself; he sought no means of avoiding the fate to which he had subjected himself; and thus, while

6 Matt. xxvi. 53.

7 Matt. xxvi. 54.

he paid the purchase-money of our salvation, he afforded us the additional advantage of an example, which must, if our hearts are not indeed waxed gross, have more efficacy in bending our wills to submission to God, than any argument which the utmost efforts of human reason can invent.

And while you study and contemplate this bright pattern of excellence, raise your thoughts, my brethren, to that Being, whose will it is that you are required to obey. Reflect that it is He who made the heaven and the earth by his word, who governs them by his isdom, and preserves them by his fatherly care that it is He to whom the highest orders of celestial beings fall down and worship that it is the King of kings, and Lord of lords, who sitteth upon the throne from everlasting to everlasting that it is our Creator, our Father, and our Redeemer that it is He who will finally be our Judge.

For recollect, too, my brethren, that although you are now free agents, and God permits you to use a liberty which he could

at once control; yet that this liberty has its bounds, and will be terminated with the present life. The time will come, when rebellion will be useless, when the long-suffering of God will come to an end, and when he will not fail to execute his pleasure upon you: "when he shall call for those his enemies who would not that he should reign. over them, and have them slain before him." 8 "O terrible voice of most just judgment which shall then be pronounced upon them, when it shall be said unto them, 'Go, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." "9 O day of horror unutterable, when they, who by the obstinacy and perverseness of their lives, "have crucified the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame," shall stand before him face to face, to receive, with his actual murderers, the vengeance due to their crimes : when that Jesus, who came heretofore "meek, and lowly, and riding upon an ass," shall come in the glory of the Father, and the full

8 Luke xix. 27.

9 Commination Service.

1 Heb. vi. 6.

majesty of the Godhead, borne upon the wings of the wind, and surrounded by the holy angels-not as at first, to suffer and to save, but to triumph and to punish; not the humble, the gentle, the forgiving Saviourbut the just, the terrible, the avenging God! "Who then may abide the day of his coming, and who shall stand when he appeareth?" 2 Not they, who in the pride of their hearts have rejected his atonement-not they, who have made their own sinful enjoyments the idols of their adoration, who, with the gospel open before their eyes, and its truths sounding in their ears, have sacrificed their Redeemer to their own inclinations, have obstinately disobeyed his commands, and walked in the impurity of their own lusts and evil imaginations.

My brethren, if ye would avoid the fate of such as these, if ye would stand before the judgment-seat of Christ, holy, and blameless, and washed from all your sins by his most precious blood-sacrifice at once the desires of your hearts upon the altar of obedience

2 Mal. iii. 2.