The thief upon the

sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood." cross said, "This man hath done nothing amiss." The centurion, with his hundred of soldiers, planted around the cross to see the certainty of the fulfilment of the sentence, said first, to the honor of his humanity, "This was a righteous man!" and then exclaimed, to the honor of his divinity, "Truly, this righteous man was the Son of God!" And thus wisdom is justified, not only of her children, but by her enemies also. The very things that were intended to tarnish his innocence, were the means of eliciting and establishing it; and that not before half of the people, but when all the people were gathered together from Dan to Beersheba. So true is it that he was delivered not for his own iniquity, for he never had any.

Now, we are only acquainted with the iniquity of angels and men -with the iniquity of fallen angels, and the iniquity of our own species and the question is narrowed to this: If Jesus were not delivered for his own iniquity - having none at all—it comes to this: he was delivered for the iniquity either of angels that sinned, or for our iniquity. Now, then, for which of the two was it? Was it for the iniquity of the angels? He passed by the angels; he took not hold of their nature; he never was found in fashion as an angel. Oh! I love the angels, and I will tell you why I love them; among a thousand other reasons, I love them for this that they do not envy man the grandeur and glory of his being redeemed by the Son of God, while that part of their own species that are sunk into rebellion, gone away from God, was not taken hold of by the purposes of Jehovah, and not taken hold of by the Son of God. When Jesus of Nazareth was born, the angels sung. What did they sing? What did they shout over the plain of Bethlehem? "Glory to God in the highest" and in hell peace? No; and because they could not sing in hell peace, did they refuse to sing on earth peace? They could not say, and they did not say, "Good will to devils," to our lost brethren; but could say, and they did say, "Good will to man." Jesus of Naz areth was "delivered for our offences, and was raised for our justification." He took hold of our nature: "The chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Jesus Christ, the just, delivered himself up for us, the unjust, that he might bring us to God. He saw human nature sinking, falling, plunging into ruin, total and eternal ruin, and he felt for us. Why he felt for us, rather than for angels that sinned, do not ask me; I know nothing about it I can tell you nothing about the matter. It is enough for me to know, that he loves me, and loves you, and that he loves all our apostate race. It is the grandeur of the gospel, it is our gospel,

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that Jesus of Nazareth loved the human race. In spite of its sinking he came after it, and caught it, and snatched, and lifted it out of the ruin that was enclosing it in, and gave it back to God. "He died the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."

"Well, then, here comes in the old, withered, good-for-nothing objection of the Socinians, who are fain to tell us that this is a very strange procedure - this is a most unaccountable thing to say, that Jesus, the innocent and holy, should suffer for the guilty and unholy. They tell us it is an unjust thing that the innocent should suffer and atone for the guilty; but then I ask them, why did he suffer, for what did he suffer, if it was not to atone for the guilty? There was some end to be answered by the suffering of the cross. When a holy being so distinguished endured such suffering, there must have been some end in view. Why, then, I ask, did he suffer? O, they say, he suffered to give us an example of suffering, to give us an example of magnanimity, to give us a model of patience under suffering. And they talk about justice; they bring an accusation of forming a monstrous doctrine, when I say Jesus Christ died to atone for a guilty world,and they say he died for a reason not a millionth part so good! If there is injustice in his dying to save a world from the curse of God, there is a million times more monstrous injustice in his dying merely to teach us how to suffer. He died by his own consent. He was de livered up, the text indeed says, by the determinate counsel of God, and by the wicked hands or hearts of the Jews, and he was delivered up as much by his own will, by his own consent, as he was either by the determinate counsel of the Father, or the wicked hands and hearts of the Jews. O what a lovely victim is Christ, not unwillingly dragged to the altar, not unwillingly pressed upon the altar: oh no! What bound him to the cross? Was it the nails? If he had never been fastened by any thing but nails, he had never been fastened at all. It was love that bound him to the cross; it was love that carried him to the cross; it was love to us that led him to go to the high altar; and it was love to us that fastened him to that altar.

Oh, for this love of Christ- this love of God! There it is; I am fast; you must ask me no more. If you ask me why Jesus died for you, I can only say because he loved you. If you ask me why he loved you rather than angels, I can give no answer at all; I am lost in an ocean of love I can go no lower I do not want to go higher or

deeper; it is love.

--

"Oh, for this love let rocks and hills

Their lasting silence break:

And all harmonious human tongues

The Savior's praises speak."

I am anxious, before I close the subject, to have the matter brought home to your consciences, and to know how you stand affected to this great subject, to know whether or not you have believed on this crucified Savior to the salvation of your souls. It is not enough to hear of this Savior, and of this salvation; it is not enough to hear of this crucifixion, and the love that prompted it; there must be a personal appropriation of the benefit of the death of Christ, and the blood that was poured out on mount Calvary the blood that was shed there must be poured out on our hearts must be applied here the blood that was shed eighteen hundred years ago must be sprinkled on our hearts now, to-night, this hour, this moment. "His blood be on you and your children," may it be sprinkled on all, to wash away your sins, to justify your persons, to sanctify your natures. Oh, if the blood of the Lamb shall be found upon you at your dying day, at the day of judgment, happy are ye; "happy the people that is in such a case." You remember reading of the case of the children of Israel, of the sprinkling of the blood of the paschal lamb upon the door-posts of the houses in Egypt. Why was that blood sprinkled on the door-posts? You say it was to distinguish the houses of the Israelites from the houses of the Egyptians. What, could not the omniscience of Jehovah distinguish between the houses of Israel and the houses of Egypt without a visible mark being upon the doors of the one to identify it? As I take it, the true, the grand reason, why the blood of the paschal lamb was sprinkled upon the door-posts of the houses of Israel, was to teach you, and your children, and your children's children to the latest generation of those that shall accompany you to the throne of God, that the atonement of Christ must be applied by faith, that the blood shed must be sprinkled. It was not enough that the passover was killed, that the blood of the lamb was poured out, but it must be applied -as the blood was sprinkled on the door-posts, so the blood of the atoning Lamb must be applied to us by faith.

For my part, I see no reason why the application should not take place this instant. I feel assured that, as to many, it has taken place already; but I fear as to some, I fear as to several, the application has not yet taken place; and if you die before it occurs, it had been better for you never to have been born. And why do you not look for the application to be made just now? You very likely will admit with the preacher, that the application must take place some time or other, some how or other, before you die; but then you have a strange way of settling the matter. At present you think some how or other, in some undefinable and mysterious manner, the thing is to take place; I tell you it is to take place by the application of the truth of the gos

pel, and I know of no time and no occasion so likely for the application to take place as when you are hearing the gospel in which the truth is revealed; as when you are in the house of God, and on the day of God. You are at the pool-side, but I want you to get into the pool. It was quite mournful, it was quite melancholy, to hear the story of the man lying at the pool all those years. You are here, get into the pool. You must not be at it, merely, but must step in. gel trouble the waters, that you may wash and be well! lieve and be saved, believe and live, and live for ever.

May the anMay you beAmen.

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will towards men."-LUXE ii. 14.

NOTHING was ever, humanly speaking, more unlikely, than that the cause of the despised and persecuted Nazarene should have survived its universally-furious opposition, or escaped its apparently inevitable disgrace. For, in the external character of Jesus, there were no glories that were calculated to arrest the attention, or to secure the applause of a wicked and a corrupted world. If you refer to his birth, he was born in a manger. If you refer to his circumstances, he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." If you refer to his state, he was so poor, that, though "the foxes had their holes and the birds of the air their nests, he had not where to lay his head." If you refer to his mission, he came to commence no earthly dynasty and to establish no earthly throne; for he came "to seek and to save that which was lost." If you refer to his name, he assumed no name renowned in the schools of philosophy, or in the annals of war; for his name was called Jesus, because " he should save his people from their sins." If you refer to his authority, "his kingdom was not of this world." If you refer to his followers, they were twelve poor, illiterate, and uneducated fishermen. If you refer to his appearance, "his visage was marred more than any man's, and his form more than the sons of men." If you refer to his death, he died upon the summit of Calvary. He had glories; but they were invisible by mortal vision.

error.

He gained victories; but they were solely the conquests of truth over His robe was the mockery of royalty; his sceptre was a reed; his throne was his cross; and his diadem neither glittered with jewels, nor blazed with gems, because it was a crown of thorns."

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But the cause of this despised individual has survived; it has survived, increasing its glory and extending its praise; it has survived, while the desolating hand of time has subverted the firmest foundations of human policy, and blasted the brightest glories of human fame. And this evening, exulting in its perpetually-increasing triumph, during the long period of eighteen hundred years, we anticipate the happiness of the hour which is approaching, when the nations shall rejoice in the beams of "the Sun of righteousness," and in the splendor of the millennial day.

Now it has been one demonstration of the superior glory of the Savior, that it has been identified with the ministry of angels. The angels, indeed, as "the morning stars sang together," and as "the sons of God," they "shouted for joy," when the Savior created this visible universe. The angels, as you see in the context of this passage, were with the Savior when he entered into our world, to die for our sins, the "just for the unjust, to bring us unto God." They followed him through every stage and step of his mediatorial undertaking, oft wondering how and where the scene of love would end. When he died, they surrounded his cross, as astonished spectators of that sad scene of unutterable abasement and distress. When he rose from the dead, they rolled away the stone from the mouth of his sepulchre.

"They brought his chariot from above,

And bore him to his throne;

Clapp'd their triumphant wings, and cried,

The glorious work is done!" "

Now, the words of my text constitute the song of the angels, in connexion with the mediation and work of Jesus; for the shepherds were feeding their flocks on the plain of Bethlehem, " and suddenly there was with the angel," who appeared to them, "a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will toward men."

In these words, my dear friends, there are three topics, to which, by the divine help and blessing, it is my intention now for a few moments to direct your attention. First, you will allow me to request you to refer to the brightness of the divine glory; the angels exclaimed, "Glory to God in the highest." Secondly, to the excellency of the divine influence; they said, " on earth peace." And, thirdly, to the immensity of the divine love; they said, "Good-will toward men."