His whole life was a scene of suffering. From his birth to his death, from the cradle to the cross, from the manger at Bethlehem to the tomb of Joseph, sorrow and suffering seem to have marked him as their own. While yet a babe in his mother's arms, he was driven into exile, to escape the fury of those who sought his life; when but a youth, he was doomed to follow a servile employment, that he might procure the means of bodily subsistence; and when he became a man, he was successively reproached, persecuted, accused, condemned, and crucified. At every period of his abode on earth we meet with the same general features of suffering; we see them in the weeping infant, the pensive youth, the man of sorrows, and the bleeding victim of Calvary. He seems to have been marked out as the object of bitter hatred, the moment he entered our world; to have been followed throughout with deadly malice; and to have been at last hunted down with implacable revenge. The cup of woe, put to his lips at his birth, was never removed till he wrung out its bitter dregs on the cross. Called to dip his feet, so soon as he was born, in the troubled waters of affliction, wave after wave continued ever after to lash with undiminished strength, deep calling unto deep, till the billows of death overwhelmed - him, and cast his exanimate body on the desolate shore.

Every variety of suffering was compressed into his life of woe. He suffered poverty in all its rigour; being born in a stable and cradled in a manger, being ofttimes dependent on the charity of

others for a precarious support, having no property that he could call his own, and being in many cases worse situated than the inferior orders of creation - Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head.' He suffered reproach in all its bitterness; which to one, conscious of perfect innocence, as he was, and possessing the keenest moral sensibility, must have been inconceivably severe. The most malignant accusations, the vilest aspersions, the most cutting sarcasms, were directed against his person, character, and sufferings; and he who had done no violence, neither was guile found in his mouth, had to submit to be taunted as a glutton, a wine bibber, a deceiver, a blasphemer, a Samaritan, a devil, nay the Prince of devils. He suffered temptation in all its malignity. The prince of darkness assailed him with all his ingenuity and power, and let loose upon him his legions, with their infernal suggestions, and wicked purposes, and cruel aims, surrounding him as strong bulls of Bashan, and gaping on him with their mouths like ravening and roaring lions. He suffered the indignity of an unjust trial; being rudely apprehended, dragged unceremoniously to the bar, falsely accused, subjected to the testimony of suborned witnesses, and finally condemned without a shadow of proof. He suffered crucifixion with all its ignominy and pain, being subjected to the previous scourging; bearing the cross on his lacerated body; having the bolts driven with ferocity into his hands and feet; having the whole joints of his body dissevered by the upright beam

being let fall with a sudden jerk into its place in the ground; being left to linger out a wretched existence amid the taunts, and jeers, and insults of an unfeeling mob; and having his heart pierced through with the spear of the infuriated soldier, whose demoniac wickedness impelled him to seek infamous distinction by an act of gratuitous barbarity. He suffered, above all, the wrath of God. It pleased the Father to bruise him. His agony

in the garden and on the cross cannot otherwise be accounted for. When he came into the place called Gethsemane, he began to be sorrowful and very heavy'*'he began to be sore amazed't-he said My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death'-' being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to the ground'§—in the climax of his anguish, falling on the ground, thrice did he pray 'O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me'-' he offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears.'|| And, when hanging on the cross, he gave utterance to the bitter, piercing, piteous cry of felt desertion, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? In all this description, the translation falls as far short of the original language, as the energetic original falls short of the awful reality; no words being adequate to express that fearful amount of mingled terror, and amazement, and

* 1 Matt, xxvi. 37. ἤρξατο λυπείσθαι καὶ αδημονεῖν.

† Mark xiv. 33. ἤρξατο ἐκθαμβεῖσθαι.

Matt.xxvi, 38. Mark xiv, 34, πepíλvnós ioriv ý Yuxý pov ïws Oavdrow § Luke xxii, 44, ἐν ἀγωνια. || Heb. v. 7.

horror, which then seized, with all its intensity, on the holy soul of the devoted sufferer. Without any visible cause, his sufferings were awfully intense, as the bitter tears which he wept, and the deep sighs which he heaved, and the loud groans which he uttered, and the bloody drops which he sweat, and the heart-rending exclamation to which he gave vent, do all most abundantly testify. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.'

Such are the facts of the case.

They are recorded plainly on the page of inspired history. It is no exaggerated description, no overcharged picture we have given of the sufferings of the Man of sorrows. The recital may fall below, but it certainly does not go beyond, the matter of fact. And now comes the question, Can these facts, respecting the Saviour's sufferings, be accounted for without an atonement ? Let us see.

The sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth cannot be explained on the simple principle of retributive justice. He was perfectly pure and innocent in himself. Not only was his life unmarked by any atrocious wickedness demanding a peculiar severity of punishment, but he was so free from the slightest stain of sin as not to have had one recollection tinged with remorse.' If it be denied that he suffered as the substitute of guilty men, it concerns such as hold this opinion to show, how,

in consistency with the equity of God, he could have been subjected to a single pang of that accumulated woe which came upon him to the uttermost, much less to the whole amount of this fearful suffering. The ordinary course of equitable retribution fails to account for a single drop of that full and bitter cup of wrath, which he drank to the very dregs.

The same reason, namely, the innocence of the sufferer, precludes the supposition that the sufferings were simply corrective,-chastisements, severe in themselves, but kindly meant for the good of him who was their subject. In the case of one who was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, one who had no sin, of what could his sufferings be corrective for what could they be chastisements? God corrects man for iniquity; but Jesus had no iniquity. If his children forsake his law and walk not in his judgments, God visits their transgression with the rod and their iniquity with stripes; but he of whom we now speak 'did always those things that pleased the Father.' Even the daring theory which represents the Redeemer as a peccable mortal will not avail here; as it is not the liability to transgress, but actual transgression, which calls for correction; not the possibility of going astray, but actual deviation from the right path, which calls for chastisement.

Nor will it do to assert, that the sufferings and death of Christ were necessary to confirm the truth of his doctrines in general, as if this were the only purpose served by them. This is all that many will admit. He suffered and died, say