through thy dying love, and behold thy glory, with the company of thy redeemed I may sing from the most humbled heart, "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, be glory and dominion for ever and ever."

Secondly. As the sufferings of Christ have taught me the truth of my own character, so have they helped me to a plainer discovery of the true character of sin. The infinite God I know can alone be acquainted with the whole sinfulness of sin; and it is only by what he has manifested concerning it that I could have conceived anything of its sinfulness; for I plainly see, that, till I began to know God as he has made himself known, I saw nothing of the real sinfulness of sin. But when I began to take notice that sin was the occasion of death, which was the revelation of God's righteous justice against sin, I began also to be sensible there must be somewhat extremely base in sin, which could provoke infinite Goodness thus to rise up against his creatures. I considered the desolations that have been in the world, and saw sin more deformed. I beheld the daily bounties of God, and was struck with its ingratitude. I meditated on the endless damnation of sinners, and said in my heart, If God be not cruel, what must sin be? But when I turned my eyes on the sufferings of Jesus, then I saw plainly what a monster Sin is. There the Majesty of God presented itself to my view as infinitely affronted by it, there Justice appeared to me taking infinite vengeance upon it, and there Holiness expressing an infinite detestation and abhorrence of it. There I saw the character of God and the character of sin together; where he showed me what himself was, there he taught me what sin was also. In the sufferings of Immanuel he showed me both. Without these I had never known what I do of his holiness and majesty, his justice and mercy; and without this knowledge I had never discovered the true sinfulness of sin, which I now plainly see to be evil in the very degree I know God to be excellent. O mercy in God, to teach me the sinfulness of sin by that very means whereby he is reconciled to me a sinner! had he taught it me any other way, the sight of it had been despair and hell in my soul. But when he shows me sin's vileness by the sufferings of him who died to save me from the dreadful wages of it, he has taken an astonishing method of emboldening me to look on the holy,

just, and avenging Majesty of heaven without fear, though I am a sinner, and yet to see sin in such colours of deformity as makes me loathe and detest it, and turn from it as from the face of a serpent. O may I see in this glorious glass more and more of its vileness! may I hate it with increasing abhorrence! may I war against and crucify it with all my strength! knowing it was sin which crucified my Lord, without whose sufferings it had sunk me into the furthermost hell.

Thirdly. While by the sufferings of Jesus I am made to see the exceeding sinfulness of sin, I am at the same time made sensible of the riches of God's love in the method he has taken for pardoning it. If I could never have known the real sinfulness of sin, had I not seen Christ dying for sinners, much less could I have known the love of God but by this very means. The goodness of God to his creatures his daily acts might have shown me, but that he had any love for sinners I could never have imagined if he had not told me it. Could I have conceived that a holy Governor of the world, cast off by his creatures gone into rebellion against him, should have any love towards them? But what eye had not seen, nor ear heard, neither had it entered into the heart of man to conceive, that God hath revealed, even that there is mercy with him. Nay, not only mercy, but mercy in such a way as magnifies the gift it brings beyond all comprehension and our utmost astonishment. I see the Lord of glory leaving the Father's bosom, and, since sinners must be saved, making satisfaction to infinite Justice. I see this. I see him suffering. I know it is the very Son of God. Sometimes, while I contemplated myself, I have thought it impossible God should ever look upon me such a sinner. And when again I have considered these sufferings, declared to be endured for such as I am, I have been ready to doubt on the other part through the very vastness of this mercy; can it be so? is it possible God should stoop thus to sinners ? That love, which one while seemed incapable of reaching a case so wretched as mine, another while appeared too great to be believed. I sought the Scriptures. I read the history of Jesus. Here I was brought evidently to see that he was God manifest in the flesh, while as evidently I saw that he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. The result was, I was amazed and satisfied. I could not

deny the unspeakable gift. I saw and wondered. I said, what is God? How unsearchable are his ways! Who can find him out? How high his thoughts! I said also, What is man, that thou hast such respect unto him? What am I? God so loved the world, that he gave his only-begotten Son; gave him to suffer, to die. Here, here, I said, is love. What love! O teach me to know this love which passeth all human knowledge! O it is a knowledge I long for! It is my life to know thee the true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent. Eternity will not suffice to fill up the longings of my soul after this knowledge of thy love. But,

Lastly. The sufferings of Christ have taught me the value of reconciliation with God. While I see these sufferings, and know whose sufferings they are, I am awfully instructed what it cost to redeem the soul of a sinner, and thereby how great the blessing of being reconciled to God. Here the demands of infinite justice upon sinners are set manifestly before me. I see what they are in the sufferings of my incarnate God. But here also I see the worth of the sacrifice, and proportionably of the benefit procured by it. These sufferings teach me the double blessing of being saved from wrath and accepted to God's favour. To regard myself no longer as a condemned criminal, under sentence of death, and an heir of hell, but as a son of the Lord Almighty, whose sentence is reversed, and whose home is heaven; this is glorious. But what makes me eminently think it so is the manner by which I am thus pardoned and acquitted, thus accepted and glorified. When I see my pardon procured and my peace made through the sufferings of the Lamb of God, this shows me the misery I have escaped, and the riches I am heir to; how tremendous the one, how valuable the other! O that Christless sinners would see here their misery! and that saints would learn from hence to make a right estimate of their privileges! See, my fellow-sinners, who carelessly neglect this great salvation, see the amazing justice and vengeance of God, which stands out against you. Ye are not in Christ; therefore ye have no benefit from his sufferings. Ah, let his sufferings teach you what yours shall be! If God spared not his Son, will he spare you? If he bruised him and put him to grief, how will ye endure when the vials of his wrath shall be poured out upon your

heads? If the sufferings of Jesus made him cry out, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me," what will your cry be, when you shall be drinking to eternity the dregs of the cup of God's fury? O that ye would be wise! that now, while yet there is time, ye would flee from the wrath that is to come! And ye, my brethren, who are fled to this glorious hope that is set before you, be sensible of the greatness of your privileges. Whatever they are, the sufferings of Jesus bought them for you. And let those sufferings declare their value. Ah, what a blessing that forgiveness of sins, which was so dearly bought! how valuable that peace with God, which cost so high a price! how inestimable that glory to come, which is the reward of the Redeemer's blood! See here what ye have in possession, and what ye are heirs to! Behold the sufferings of Jesus, and know your blessings, and despise the little things of the world! Behold the sufferings of Jesus, and let nothing trouble you, for surely eye hath not seen what his sufferings have purchased for you. If need be, ye may be in heaviness through manifold temptations :' but look unto Jesus, and behold your crown; look unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is for ever set down on the right hand of the throne of God.' Yea, 6 consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be (and so doing ye will not be) wearied and faint in your minds.'

SERMON XX.

ACTS xvi. 30, 31.

What must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.

WE have already treated of the sufferings of Christ, and considered the cause of them, and their efficacy to the purposes. designed by them; and are now led on by the order of the Creed to his crucifixion and death.

As there was a necessity that he should suffer by crucifixion, to fulfil certain types and prophecies relative thereto; so was it also necessary that his crucifixion should issue in death, to the end that thereby atonement might be made for sin.

That he was indeed crucified, and that he died, are points, as to the fact, so fully set forth in the Scriptures, and with the circumstances regarding the one and the other you are so well acquainted, that I need not take up your time in describing or proving either of them. What is principally designed in the profession of his crucifixion and death is the benefits obtained thereby; for, when I declare myself assured that the Son of God was crucified and died, I mean to profess my steadfast belief that by this means all those ends for which he was crucified and died were effectually answered. Wherefore, having shown already wherein the merit and efficacy of these his sufferings unto death do consist, to wit, in the dignity of his person, his perfect righteousness, and the most eminent exercise of obedience in his last work of giving himself a sacrifice unto God, I am now to set out particularly the ends of his sufferings and death, and to introduce the professor as maintaining his steadfast belief that they are answered by them, when he says, he not only suffered under Pontius Pilate, but adds, was crucified, and dead. His meaning is to say, I believe,