righteous God could not consistently pardon, without these ineffable inflictions on his only begotten and well beloved Son. O flee to him, that as your sius have caused his sufferings, so his meritorious righteousness, wrought out in pain and humiliation, may save you from suffering without hope and without end. This leads me to remark

4. That we may learn our infinite indebtedness to our Saviour, by contemplating his humiliation. We are accustomed to estimate our obligations to a benefactor, by considering both the intrinsic value of his gift, and what it cost him to bestow it on us. Estimate in this way, if it be possible, the obligations we are under to our adored Redeemer. Can man or angel tell, what is the value of the gift of eternal life, to those who were doomed to eternal death? But such is the gift of Christ to every glorified spirit, that shall be found in "the General Assembly and Church of the first born, whose names are written in heaven." Every individual of that whole assembly owes and will eternally and entirely owe it to Christ, that his are all the unknown joys of heaven, in place of all the unknown miseries of hell. And to procure for his people this happy exchange of destiny; to make them the gift of eternal life, their Saviour, in his humiliation, answered a debt which none but a God could pay. "We were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish, and without spot." "Feed the church of God," said the holy apostle, "which he hath purchased with his own blood." Now, when we thus consider what an infinite benefit our blessed Lord bestows on his people, and at what an expense he procured it, do you not perceive that their indebtedness to him is strictly inconceivable, is literally infinite? He knows that we can never repay him, and he does not require it. Nay, he not only intended that what he did should be gratuitous, but he demands that we receive it as such. It is the height of arrogant and impious self-sufficiency, so much as to think of rendering to Christ an equivalent

for what he has done for us, or to think of adding to it by any deeds of our own. We are to receive his gifts" without money and without price." But he does expect and demand our gratitude. He expects and demands it, as the evidence of our sense of obligation. And where is the gratitude of that human being, who hears the gospel message, and does not feel that he is indebted to the Saviour, beyond what can be uttered or imagined!

Consider then, I entreat you, in what manner you are to make known that you feel your indebtedness to your Redeemer. It is by accepting him as your only Saviour; it is by making nothing of yourselves, and every thing of him; it is by coming to him to deliver you at once from the guilt, the pollution, and the dominion of your sins; it is by devoting yourselves unreservedly to his service and glory; it is by obeying all his commandments; it is by cultivating a temper and spirit like his own, and walking as you have him for an example; it is by adorning his religion, and using all your means and influence to gain others to embrace it; it is by living as citizens of heaven, holding communion with your Redeemer now, and anticipating the happy period when you shall see him as he is, be in your measure like him, and dwell for ever in his presence, in the mansions which he has gone to prepare for his people. Amen.

LECTURE XXV.

WHEREIN CONSISTS CHRIST'S EXALTATION?

We are now to enter on the important subject of Christ's exaltation. It is thus stated in the Catechism. "Christ's exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in his ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day."

When we speak of the exaltation of Christ, you are not to understand by it that any new glory was conferred on his Divine nature. That was impossible; for as God, his glory was infinite and unchangeable. But this glory, as we have seen, was eclipsed and hidden, while he assumed our nature, and appeared in our world in the form of a servant. His exaltation therefore, properly and strictly consists in a manifestation in the human nature, which for a time had veiled the divine, of the same glory which he had eternally possessed as the Son of God. This we are taught in his own intercessory prayer, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee, before the world was."

It was with a manifest and most impressive propriety, that this exaltation should succeed immediately to his humiliation. Such is the representation of Scripture. "He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." Thus it was that the Sun of righteousness, on passing from under

the dark cloud of his humiliation and suffering, shone and astonished with the most striking and glorious lustre. The ignominy of the cross was thus wiped away; and God who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, gave to his people also the evidence, that when their reliance and expectations are placed on him, their faith and hope shall be in God.

Let us now consider the several particulars of our Redeemer's exaltation, as they are stated in the answer before us.

1. He "rose again from the dead on the third day." We have already had occasion to observe, that it was a part only of three days, during which our Redeemer lay in the grave. The time of his continuance there indeed, was not equal even to the space of two whole days. Yet as our Lord was in the tomb a part of three days, and it was customary with the Jews and agreeable to the language of Scripture, to represent an event as extending through all the days on which any part of it took place, there was a complete fulfilment, according to the then current use of language, of the declaration, that "the Son of man should be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth." Our Redeemer was put to death on the eve of the Jewish Sabbath, Friday afternoon, and rose very early on the morning of the first day of the week, called from this circumstance, the Lord's day; and which, from the age of the apostles to the present time, the great mass of Christians have observed as a day of sacred rest, in place of the Jewish Sabbath.The reason and propriety of this will be explained, if we are spared to discuss the fourth commandment.

In the mean time, let us give a few moments of our most engaged attention, to that essential article of a Christian's faith and hope, the resurrection of Christ. That this was an event to take place in the person of the Messiah, was prefigured to Abraham, in his receiving his son Isaac, as it were from the dead. It was foretold to the fathers, as is expressly affirmed by the apostle Paul in his discourse to the Jews at Antioch in Pisidia, who quotes a passage from the second

Psalm, in proof of the fact. Acts xiii. 33. Our Lord himself, not only alluded to it on several occasions, but told his disciples of it in the most explicit terms. Mark ix. 31. "He taught his disciples and said unto them, the Son of man is delivered into the hands of men and they shall kill him, and after that he is killed, he shall rise the third day." Again he said, "After I am risen, I will go before you into Galilee." The Jews therefore attempted to discredit the resurrection of Christ; and modern infidels still attempt the same thing; knowing that if they succeed in this, they unsettle at once the whole Christian system. On the other hand, the advocates of Christianity defend this point, as the citadel of their faith. Nay, if this one point be maintained, the Christian religion is indisputably established as of divine authority. Sherlock has written an able little work, entitled "The Trial of the Witnesses," in which he has examined the evidence of our Lord's resurrection, on the strict principles and forms of taking testimony in the English courts of law; and has shown, that on those principles, and agreeably to that procedure, an upright judge and jury would be obliged to pronounce that Christ had indubitably risen from the dead. But the ablest piece on this subject, with which I am acquainted, is the production of Gilbert West. It is known to all who read their Bibles carefully, that the accounts given of the resurrection of Christ by the different evangelists, seem, at first view, to be hardly consistent with each other. It is said that West had doubted or disbelieved the truth of revelation, and that he first gave his attention to this subject, with a view to prove that the historians had contradicted each other, and therefore that the fact which they all asserted was unworthy of credit: that, however, on examining and comparing the evangelists, critically and closely, he found there was no contradiction: that, on the contrary, he perceived there was the most perfect harmony, and that the variety in their accounts was only a palpable proof that they did not write in concert, but like honest witnesses, each told the facts which