And shall such conditions appear hard? If God had required that, in order to our final happiness, every one of us should endure the miseries of hell a thousand years, we ought to have embraced his offers of salvation with gratitude and joy; for, what are a thousand years in comparison of eternity? But when he only enjoins us to repent of those iniquities, for which the Saviour died; and to believe in him, whom the Father has set forth for a propitiation; and to obey his precepts, which are holy, just, and good; shall these injunctions be thought grievous? Shall we turn our back upon him, saying,

If I cannot be saved without all this trouble, I will not be saved at all?" Well indeed might Jesus, when the conditions of our salvation were proposed to him, have replied, "No; if man cannot be saved on lower terms than these, let him perish." But what lower terms could we wish for? Yea, what is there in in all our duties, which does not tend even to our present happiness? Let us then embrace the gospel with all thankfulness: and let us cheerfully comply with all that God has required of us, knowing assuredly that he is faithful who hath promised, and that our labour shall not be in vain in the Lord.

CXCIII. CHRIST'S SATISFACTION IN HIS PEOPLE.

Isai. liii. 11. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.

THE prospect of saving a ruined world was a strong inducement with our Lord to undertake the office of mediating between God and them, and afforded him rich consolation under the heavy trials he was called to endure in the execution of that office. And, now that his expectations are in a measure realized, he feels an inexpressible complacency in a retrospect upon all that he has done and suffered for our sake. It had been declared in the foregoing verse that, after making his soul an offering for sin, he should see a seed, who should be, as it were, his spiritual offspring. In the words before us the same promise is repeated, though with a remark

able variation in the terms; and it is foretold that, in the accomplishment of this promise, he should feel the most abundant satisfaction.

The promise of a successful issue to his undertaking having been already considered, we shall wave every thing relating to that, and make some remarks upon the representation which is here given of believers, and the satisfaction which our blessed Lord takes in them in that particular view.

I. The representation here given of believers.

1

Of all the numberless descriptions given of believers in the holy scriptures, there is not any one so interesting as that before us. Similar ideas indeed are suggested in many passages, where mankind are spoken of as begotten of God, and as sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty: but there is a tenderness in the expression before us, which well deserves our most attentive consi

deration.

a

The image of a travailing woman is very commonly used by the inspired writers to illustrate different topics. As applied to the ungodly, it expresses the fear and terror, the distress and anguish, which they either do experience under the divine chastisements, or will experience, when death and judgment shall come upon them.* As applied to the godly, it declares the relation which they bear to the church, to ministers, and to Christ himself. It is in this last view that we are now called to notice it.

Without entering too minutely into so delicate a subject, we may observe that believers are justly represented as the fruit of the Redeemer's travail, both on account of their being brought into the family of God by means of his sufferings; and on account of his watching over them continually with more than maternal care and anxiety.

It is solely by means of his sufferings that they are brought into the family of God. They were indeed pre.

a Isai. xxvi. 16-18. Jer. xxx. 6, 7.

c Isai. liv. 1. with Gal. iv. 27.

e The text.

b 1 Thess. v. 3.

d Gal. iv. 19.

pared from eternity in the womb of the divine counsels: they were "given to Christ," and "chosen in him from the foundation of the world." Long before the Gentiles were actually called, our Lord spake of his having many, who were not of the Jewish fold, whom yet he must in due season bring into his church. And the apostle Paul, though he was so long ignorant of God, and a bitter persecutor of the church, yet speaks of himself as a chosen vessel, that had been "separated to God from the womb." But that, whereby men are really brought into the family of God, is, the crucifixion of Christ. If Christ had not "borne their sins in his own body on the tree," and "made his soul too an offering for sin," not one of them could ever have enjoyed the divine favour, not one of them could ever have presumed to cry, Abba, Father. But by his stripes they obtain healing, and peace by his chastisements, and life by his death. By his vicarious sufferings they are exempt from all the penal effects of sin, and have the power and privilege of becoming sons of God. To this one source is the whole of their salvation continually traced in the inspired volume. Are they redeemed from the curse of the law? it is by his having become a curse for them. Are they made the righteousness of God in Christ? it is by his having been first made a sin-offering for them.' The troubles of his soul, whether in the garden or on the cross, were the travail, of which their salvation is the fruit. And as a parent, looking on her numerous family, may call to mind the pangs which she endured at each successive birth; so may the Lord Jesus, when he beholds the various members of his family, well recollect the sufferings which he endured by means of each; there not being so much as one among them, who has not occasioned him many bitter pangs, not one, for whom he did not endure the wrath of an offended God.

But believers may also be called the travail of the Redeemer's soul on account of his watching over them with

more than maternal care and anxiety. St. Paul speaks of himself, not only as having travailed in birth with the Galatian Christians at their first conversion, but as "travailing in birth again with them, until Christ should be formed in them." He saw that they were in danger of being drawn away from the faith of Christ by the false teachers who had crept in among them; and he illustrates his anxious concern for their welfare by this affecting image. Well therefore may we apply it unto Christ, whose love to the very meanest of his childern so infinitely exceeds all that the most exalted creature is capable of feeling. He sees all the dangers to which they are exposed, and all the perverseness which they manifest. He well knows how much more ready they are to follow the counsels of their deceitful adversary, than to adhere resolutely to the truth of God. How often, alas! do they grieve his Spirit by their evil deeds! how often do they even "crucify him afresh, and put him to an open shame," by acting unworthily of the relation they bear to him. If even earthly parents are sometimes so distressed by the follies and indiscretions, or by the troubles and miseries, of their dear children, that all the pangs of child-birth were as nothing in comparison of the sorrows they afterwards conflict with, much more may we consider the sympathy of Christ in our afflictions, and his grief at our misconduct, as a renewal of the troubles he sustained on Calvary. Nor are his labours destitute of their desired effect: "he heals that which was sick, and binds up that which was broken, and brings back that which was driven away,' m and, by his almighty power, "keeps them unto his heavenly kingdom." Thus, in whatever light we view believers, whether as purchased by his blood, or as preserved by his grace, we see how just is the representation given of them, as the fruit of the Redeemer's travail.

While we stand amazed at this endearing description of the Lord's people, let us consider

m Ezek. xxxiv. 15, 16.

II. The satisfaction which Christ takes in them in this particular view.

Our blessed Lord himself, advertising his disciples of the troubles which they were to sustain by means of his removal from them, and the permanent joys that they should afterwards experience, as soon as he should renew his visits to them, illustrates his discourse by the very simile before us: "A woman, says he, when she is in travail, hath sorrow, because her hour is come: but as soon as she is delivered of the child, she remembereth no more the anguish, for joy that a man is born in the world: and ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you." Such is the satisfaction also which Christ himself is here represented as feeling, in the sight of those who are born to God through him.

He is satisfied, first, when he beholds any penitent sinner returning unto God. Were there but one in the whole universe, and he the meanest and the vilest of the human race, that should "bethink himself, saying, What have I done?" and should tremble at the denunciations of God's wrath, and turn to the Lord with sorrow and contrition, our compassionate Lord would instantly fix his eyes on him; according to that promise, "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my word." When his people of old began to repent of their transgressions, he was attentive to the first motions of their hearts, and declares to us with what pleasure he noticed the smallest risings of good in them; "Ephraim said, What I have to do any more with idols?" upon which the Lord immediately adds with exultation, "I have heard him, and observed him." So, on another occasion, as though he had been listening unobserved to the lamentations of his servant, he says, "Surely I have heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke; Turn thou me, and I shall be turned." Upon which his whole soul is moved with pity; and he

n John xvi. 21, 22.

Isai. lxvi. 2. P Hos. xlv. 8.