cious had been spilt. His death would be referred to oftevest, because this was the last and strongest proof of his devotion to the cause of truth and man; and because this in a manner comprised every thing else. When this was mentioned, every thing was inentioned. It was the conclusion, the climax, so to speak, of all that he did and suffered; and it would naturally be alluded to, when no allusion was made to any thing else.

But there were circumstances fitted to make the Apostles dwell upon this event with peculiar emphasis. Think, for instance, how it must have impressed and -absorbed their minds, to discover at last that it was in perfect accordance with the purposes of Heaven, that the Messiah should suffer; the glorious Messiah should die, racked with pain, and covered with ignominy! How powerfully must it have arrested and commanded their attention, to find that it was necessary that He, the hope of Israel, the desire of nations, to whom their thoughts had never turned without placing him on a throne, clad in imperial splendor, and grasping the sceptre of universal dominion-He, with whom it had been profanation to associate the remotest idea of disgrace or pain, should submit to a death indescribably excruciating and shameful, inflicted only on the lowest criminals! For any own part, when I consider how entirely unexpected this event was the violent and ignominious death of the Messiah, I cannot wonder that it so commanded the attention and took possession of the feelings of the Apostles. It would have been wonderful indeed, had they thought less of their Master; had his death occupied a less space in their

minds and writings. It requires some effort to put ourselves in their places, and to understand how they must have been affected when they thought that the Messiah, that illustrious personage, the anointed of God, had consented, in the work of enlightening and reforming them, to every privation and indignity; to be made of no reputation, and finally to die! This was a thought that must have had an effect upon their minds, of which we can but faintly conceive. This is the consideration, that must have wrought upon them with inexpressible power, and to which they must have recurred incessantly. He, who was the consecrated child of prophecy, the object of their holiest expectations, had died in doing them good. What new and deep impressions of humility, disinterestedness, and love, must they have received? What a new revelation must have burst upon them of the goodness of God, when they found that he had permitted, nay, designed that this individual, distinguished above all the race of man, should suffer and die for man's sake. I understand now how peculiarly they must have felt themselves bound to live unto him; to his service, who died for them; how they must have been constrained, to use the words of the Apostle, by the love which the Messiah had evinced towards them. It is no wonder that they ascribed such an efficacy to this event, the death of Jesus. The blood of the great Messiah, the thought of the bloody death he had undergone for their sakes, destroyed every sinful disposition in their hearts; cleansed them from all sin. When St Paul mentions the cross of Christ, how naturally does he add, by which the world is crucified

unto me, and I unto the world.' He could not yield to sin; it was destroyed when he thought of that. Let me repeat, it would have been strange, indeed, had the Apostles spoken less frequently or less fervently of their Master and his sufferings.

Again. There is another and an obvious reason why this topic should have possessed a great share of their attention. There was no part of Christianity more obnoxious to those among whom the Apostles endeavored to establish it, than the disgraceful death of its founder. The Jew could not endure to be told, that the great Deliverer of his nation had come and suffered most ignominiously. No two ideas could be brought together in his mind niore discordant than the Messiah and the Cross. The former was the idea of unmingled splendor, consolation, and triumph; the latter was full of shame and agony. And the Gentile -how could he listen with the least show of respect, to the claims of a religion, which, for all that he could see, owned for its author, not only a Jew, a despised Jew, but a base malefactor, a disgraced criminal. You will recollect that the cross was an instrument of punishment far more shameful than the gallows is now. The miserable end-the cross of Christ, was the great stumbling block in the way of its progress among the Jews, and to the polished Greek it was folly; folly to urge a religion that acknowledged so low an origin. But while the Apostle Paul felt that this circumstance was full of spiritual power, that it illustrated the love and wisdom of God, the love of Christ, and the authority of the Gospel, he was not the man to omit the mention of it because it offended the prejudices of

Jews and Gentiles. In matters of less importance, no man was more conciliating than he. But here was a fact of great moral efficacy, and he took especial care to dwell upon it, lest it should be kept wholly out of sight. He tells the artificial and cultivated Corinthians, who betrayed a strong leaning toward the fashionable and sophistical philosophy of their city, and who could not bear the homely traits of Christianity, that he had determined to know nothing among them, 'save Jesus Christ and him crucified.' Again, to the Galatians, his language is, 'God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.' Thus the indisposition of the first christians to this topic made the Apostle particularly anxious to dwell upon it, and to destroy their prejudices, and to bring them to see the death of Jesus in all its moral power and true glory.

The object of my remarks thus far, has been simply to account for the frequency of the allusions to the death of our Saviour in the apostolic writings.

I now proceed to explain the peculiar mode in which our Lord's death is represented. It is spoken of as a sacrifice. And is it thought strange that it is so described? Why, according to the views here given, according to what we conceive the correct representation of our Saviour's death, it may be called a sacrifice. I repeat, with the ideas now expressed, I do not see how some language of the kind found in the Epistles could well be avoided. We are ready to say, and with perfect propriety, considering the use of language, that Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for us. If an individual gives up his own life to save mine, I say

he sacrificed himself for me. So our Saviour was a sacrifice for the world; but not to appease Divine wrath. This is not implied by any means. The truth is, the world was in danger by reason of sin. It was to be saved from sin. Do you ask, 'could not God have delivered it at once by an immediate act of his power?' He could not have done so without altering the nature of man and the principles of his government. The supposition of such a change is inconsistent with the perfection of the Deity. While man is man, while the nature of his moral constitution remains as it is, he can be freed from sin only by moral means, adapted to the laws of his mind and affections. In this state of things, Jesus Christ willingly undertook the work of man's moral deliverance. He came to operate upon the human soul. And in order to establish the truths which were to be the instruments of human salvation, and to affect the soul with power, he submitted to labor, and affliction, and a cruel death. Under these circumstances, we can scarcely avoid describing what he has done as a great sacrifice. He gave himselfdelivered himself up for us.

Now if our language, cold and literal as it is, allows of such a mode of speaking, what should we not expect when the death of Christ is spoken of after the Oriental fashion?. The language of the Eastern nations is throughout in the highest degree figurative. The bible from the beginning to the end illustrates its peculiar characteristics. And no christian has ever denied this. Now consider the ways of speaking to which the Apostles were accustomed, and you will think it strange if they did not exhaust the language of