degree than common minds can imagine; for knowing, from his inherent divinity, the weight of sin he was to expiate by his death, his agony may well be supposed to be greater than that of other men. "Father! if thou be willing, let this cup pass from me, yet not my will, but thine be done1." Pain and sorrow might be borne; many martyrs have experienced them in great severity; but he who bore our sins and carried our sorrows, felt an agony in every pore, and the sweat of his body flowed like blood. Anguish and distress, we know, in many instances, have occasioned great devastation in the human frame, even in the shortest period of time. Are we astonished then that the visage of Christ was marred more than that of any man? His address to his Father, though thrice repeated, was short, but vehement; his blessed soul must have been agonized with the deepest feeling of affliction when he exclaimed, "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death!"

When we reflect, that we are of the number of those for whom Christ died, how feelingly should our hearts respond to the agony of the Saviour! How earnestly should we unite our feeble prayer with his, for the remission of that sin for which he suffered!

When David, in his distress, came to the top of the Mount [of Olives,] "he worshipped God." When Jesus, of whom David was the type, approached the

1 Matt. xxvi. 39.

2 2 Sam. xv. 32.

same Mount, under circumstances of deep agony, he also offered up earnest supplications to his Father. When suspended on the cross, he complained in the very words of David, that he was deprived, for a season, of the divine presence and comfort, while suffering for the sins of men; "My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me1?" St. Peter, in his sermon, applies a prophetic Psalm of David to Messiah under the same appalling dereliction: "They compassed me about also with words of hatred, and fought against me without a cause. For my love they are my adversaries; but I give myself unto prayer 2." The language is still stronger than the translation, I am prayer itself; "it was the element in which his soul lived. He presents himself before his Father as the oblation for the sins of the world, and the import of his prayer is, "Lo! I come to do thy will, O God."

If prayer was the element in which the soul of Jesus dwelt, oh! may it be the element of comfort and consolation to me, and to every Christian in his sorrow! Supplication, at the midnight solitary hour, resembles the presence of the angel of the Lord, who came by night and opened the prison-doors to the apostle. Supplication in our united prayers, is like the voice of many waters streaming from the sanctuary,

1 Ps. xxii. 1.

2 Ps. cix. 3, 4.

3 Et ego sum oratio. Rambach's Meditations, p. 12.

pleasing in its principle, harmonious and powerful in its effect.

The martyr Bradford in the letters from his dungeon wrote constantly to his friends-Pray-pray. Prayer, indeed, is the panoply with which a Christian should be covered. The apostles even multiply words to entreat us to this duty. "Pray always with all prayer and supplication in the spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication." And when David spake in the person of Messiah, overwhelmed with suffering and trouble, what was his energetic language?" But as for me, my prayer is unto thee, O Lord, in an acceptable time: O God, in the multitude of thy mercies, hear me in the truth of thy salvation "."

2

Lord! teach me to pray, as John also taught his disciples !

GOOD FRIDAY.

XIX. The atonement.

A GRADATION of holy thought, in a long period of serious reflection, leads the contemplative man, musing on a safe passage to eternity, with the book of God, the record of salvation, spread before him, to the sublime mystery of the redemption, the crowning

1 Eph. vi. 18.

2 Ps. Ixix. 13.

doctrine of our blessed religion. Nor is there any thing in this study calculated to distract or pervert his well-arranged mind, if he complies with the directions which every page affords. It is here, as in the vision of Daniel, the proof of knowledge is in the application: "none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand." A retrospection, under a corrected solemnity of thought, of all the articles of our holy faith, however distinguished in method or in name, impresses upon us this conclusive truth, that they are all connected in one great design, and are all comprehended in the awful and mysterious sacrifice of this day.

Here I do not recapitulate arguments, but profoundly submit to the declaration of the Almighty propounded in the Gospel of truth. Our religion is not one of argument, but of fact: a fact, of which the weakest can judge, as well as the wisest, that "no flesh should glory in the presence of God; for, " of him, are we in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us [what we never were, or could have been made without him, the author and fountain of all spiritual blessings] wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption "."

2

To improve this thought to the benefit of my soul (I may thus reason)-is difficult, from my inherent sin, and the imperfection of my moral faculties.

For

1 Dan. xii. 10.

1 Cor. i. 30.

means.

how can I correct them? Not by relying on human reason, however noble and admirable the principle; not on my innocence, for that alas! has long been a stranger to my bosom; not on good intention, for that is wavering and unstable; not on sincerity and simplicity of heart, for that is "deceitful and desperately wicked';" crooked dispositions, and perverse imaginings, have destroyed the finer feelings of the mind. What then? am I left in despair? By no That which was bad in me hath God restored by the influence of Divine grace, and the atonement of his blessed Son. Were all my gifts, and all my endowments cleansed and purified truly in the laver of regeneration, the fault of the first man, Adam, would be reversed, and he would be replaced in his original righteousness, through the intrinsic merits and infinite perfection of the second Adam; for "as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive':" not only revived from sin, but made alive in righteousness; the virtues of the man, whatever they were, would become the graces of the Christian.

But every deviation from rectitude is sin; and every sin must be punished, or forgiven. We stand then upon an awful precipice. Conscious of sin, but without a remedy. This natural state would be fatal, were there no Redeemer. But "what the law could not do either the law of nature, or even the ceremonial

1 Jer. xvii. 9.

2 2 Cor. xv. 22.