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perseverance, and keeps alive his activity, by a reference to the commands and promises of Scripture ; and by dependence on the strength of an Almighty Arm. In the mean time, he is not insensible to the great recompense of reward, and to the dreadful consequences of losing it. This obliges him to "keep his heart, with all diligence;" and, in watching over his own personal advancement in religion, he finds that he is promoting most effectually the spiritual good of others, and that his example adds tenfold weight to his instructions.

It is perhaps, vain to hope for many such brilliant exhibitions of Christian piety and holiness, until that period, when "the knowledge

of the Lord shall cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea." Providence, however, has graciously ordained, that a few such "lights in the world" should arise in every age, for the purpose of shewing what true religion is able to do for men, putting to shame the languid and lukewarm professor of Christianity, and rousing the sincere believer to greater vigilance and exertion. Instances of this kind are patterns of good works; which ought to be preserved, like the great master-pieces in cabinets of art, as proper objects for the study of all who desire to grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is true, there is but one who did no sin, and in whom every species of perfection is to be found. Let Him ever be the grand model for our imitation. But let us, at the same time, follow others, in proportion as they followed the Saviour, and learn to admire and copy his excellence, as it appears reflected in those who

have most adorned his doctrine,

and extended farthest the boundaries of his kingdom.

F.

FAMILY SERMONS.-No. CLX.' Luke xxiii. 46.-And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.

FEW things affect the mind more than the dying words of those whom we have known and loved; and if the individual be in any way eminent, or his last hours remarkable, with what eagerness do men listen to the narrative of his words and actions at the closing period of his existence! And who so eminent, who so worthy of affection as the great Martyr of Calvary, the Son of God, the Saviour of the world? Of his expiring moments, we have, in the four Evangelists, a most af fecting detail. He was not indeed quietly breathing out his soul in the retirement of a peaceful deathbed, but was in public, and in tortures upon the cross. We are not therefore to look for lengthened expositions of his doctrines, such

as are recorded of some of the an

cient philosophers, or for a repeti

tion of the conversations which he
was accustomed to hold with his
multitudes. His words were but
beloved disciples, or the listening
few they amounted to but seven
brief exclamations from the time
he was transfixed to the cross, to
the time he bowed his head and
gave up the ghost. Yet what vo-
lumes do those few short ejacula-
tions speak! The first was a prayer
for his enemies, "Father, forgive
them;" the second was a promise
"This day
to a humble penitent,
shalt thou be with me in paradise;"
the third was an effusion of that
love, tenderness, and sympathy
which beamed in all he said and
did," Woman, behold thy son;
son, behold thy mother;" the fourth
was an expression of the deepest
mental anguish,-" My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me !?
the fifth, of extreme bodily suffer-
ing, "I thirst;" the sixth, a tri-

*

umphant exclamation of victory and conscious pleasure, even in the midst of extreme weakness," It is finished;" the seventh, and last, was the calm self-committal to God of a soul about to quit a body worn down by afflictions and languishing on the cross, in sure and certain hope of that heavenly state which was instantly to burst upon it in unclouded glory," Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Hav ing said thus, he meekly submitted to the stroke of death, and was translated to the presence of his Father and our Father, of his God and our God, there to dwell for ever in the glory which he had with the Father before the foundation of the world.

It may afford us profit, in meditating on the last words of our dying Saviour, first, to consider some of the circumstances under which he uttered them; and, secondly, to inquire what impression they ought to make upon our miuds.

And, first, let us ask what were the circumstances under which these memorable words were pronounced. Often have they been uttered by the lips of the faithful in all ages they were the language of David, in the thirty-first Psalm, when in his heaviness he betook himself to his God: they were the language of St. Stephen, the first of that noble army of martyrs who died for the testimony of a cruci fied and ascended Redeemer: since which period often have they vibrated from the dungeon and at the stake, as well as from the calmer death-beds of innumerable private Christians who from time to time have" slept in Jesus," awaiting the blissful moment when the sacred deposit thus committed to the hands of a "faithful Creator" shall be reunited to its once frail and earth ly, but then glorified and imperishable, tenement, and shall be for ever with the Lord. But, hallowed as are these memorable words, by the lips of saints, and confessors,

and martyrs, never were they uttered under circumstances so interesting to us all, as those in which they are recorded in the text. They were then the language of the incarnate and expiring Redeemer ; of Him who though equal with the Father, as touching his Godhead, and thinking it no robbery to claim the incommunicable honours of the Divine nature, yet made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men; and, being found in fashion as a man, humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross, under the lingering tortures of which he was now bidding farewell to a world which he had dignified by his presence, and redeemed by his blood; but which knew him not, and treated him as a blasphemer, an outcast, and a malefactor.

In looking back at the circumstances connected with the dying exclamation of our Lord, we may, in fact, retrace all the leading events of human history. Even in paradise his final conflict with the powers of darkness was foretold. The Seed of the woman was to bruise the head of the serpent; but "thou," it is added of the serpent," shalt bruise his heel." The whole train of the subsequent narrative of mankind, up to the present hour, has shewn the unhappy necessity for such a sacrifice for human transgression: the rites of primitive worship pointed towards it: it was foreshadowed in types, revealed in promises, and predicted in prophecies. At length, in the fulness of time, Messiah came: he was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners: he went about doing good: his greatest enenies could find no fault in him; yet we see him despised, rejected, buffeted, spit upon, scourged, and at length nailed in agony to the cross. When we retrace all the affecting circumstances of his extreme suffering in the garden of

Gethsemane; his rejection, his being betrayed by an avowed friend and follower-one who dipped his hand with him in the same dish; denied by his most courageous disciple; led from street to street, and tribunal to tribunal, in pain and in derision; forsaken by his dearest earthly friends, and exclaiming, My God,my God, why hast THOU forsaken me! -surely never were circumstances so calculated to rivet the impression of a dying exclamation as those under which the Saviour of the world exclaimed with his last breath "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." The peculiar observ. ances, also, of the time at which he suffered, were remarkably striking. As no one of the Jewish rites or sacrifices could exhibit all the circumstances of his death, he united the peculiarities of many. He was the victim led without the camp; being driven as an outcast from the gates of the city; and, as if to shew more forcibly the correspondence between the appropriate type of the paschal lamb, and the Anti-type Christ, our Passover, who was slain for us, the very time when he was outstretched upon the altar of the cross was not only the ordinary hour of the evening sacrifice, but the very period when the paschal lamb was being slain according to the injunction of the Levitical Law. Having thus adverted to the circumstances under which our Lord's dying words were uttered, let us inquire, in the second place, what are the impressions which they ought to make upon us.-It is not enough that we gaze upon Him as it were with idle curiosity, as did the multitudes who witnessed his crucifixion; it is not enough even that we weep for his sufferings, or are aroused, like his disciple Peter, to a vehement indignation against his betrayers and murderers. We must bring the subject yet nearer to ourselves. Whence this scene of sorrow? why was that pure and sinless spirit thus breathed out in agony? why should He, who had

never offended, thus bow beneath an unmeasurable load of sorrow? The Scriptures furnish an answer to these inquiries. He died, the Just for the unjust, to bring us nigh unto God: his heavenly Father permitted Him who knew no sin, to be made a sin-offering for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. In this sad spectacle, we strikingly behold the truth of that fundamental doctrine of our faith, the fallen and miserable condition of mankind; for it was to redeem us from this state of wrath, to procure us pardon for the past, and sanctifying grace for the future, that the Saviour thus submitted to bear our sins in his own body upon the tree, in order that, as in Adam all had died, so in Him might all be made alive. Here, also, we witness the righteous displeasure of God against sin; here we read the extent and malignity of our offences, which made such a sacrifice necessary; and here we behold, in unextinguishable characters, the love of the Father, who gave his eternal Son for our transgressions, --the grace of the Son, who willingly devoted himself to be the victim for our offences, and the consenting mercy of the Holy Spirit, whose office it is to lead us, as humble nitents, to repose upon this neverfailing Sacrifice for pardon and acceptance with God. No words can express the debt of gratitude which we owe to the ever-blessed and undivided Trinity for this stupendous act of mercy; but in a most conspicuous manner should our eye be turned, in devout acknowledgment and humble faith, upon the great Sacrifice himself. Was ever sorrow like unto his sorrow, or ever love like unto his love? Truly, that love was stronger than death. He had power to the last moment to have retracted his arduous undertaking; yet not all the pains of death could overcome his constancy. We find him, in the passage before us, still possessed of such unexhausted energy as to be

pe

able to cry with a loud voice; and still the sovereign disposer of his own immortal spirit. He had but to exert the wish to come down from the cross, in order effectually to reverse the taunt of his enemies, by saving himself, and thus abandoning the perilous task of saving others. But no; we see him, as it were, firmly fixing his soul for one short parting struggle; or rather we may say, for a composed and voluntary committal of his soul to God. His office had been willingly and cheerfully undertaken: He was the arbiter of his own life or death; yet such was his love, such his constancy, that he deliberately drank off the awful cup, drop by drop, to its bitterest dregs: he did not repent of his sacrificial undertaking; he went step by step through the whole of its painful stages; and now, having triumphantly exclaimed "It is finished,"-the effort is over, the work is done: he seals it beyond the possibility of retractation, by allowing the frail tie that bound him to earth to be disunited, and committing his spirit into the hands of his Father; not, as in the case of his servant Stephen, by a humble prayer, but by a confident and authoritative resignation, such as indicated to the last, that the events of both worlds were still under his control.

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And while this scene is thus eminently calculated to impress us with an awful sense of the weight of our transgressions which made such a sacrifice necessary, and of the unextinguishable love and constancy of the Divine Surety, it should also strengthen our faith, and confirm our hopes. Are we tempted, for example, by specious objections, urged against the Divinity of our blessed Lord? How strikingly does the whole scene of his crucifixion prove him to have been infinitely more than a mere man. Had he been an impostor, is it likely that he would have sustained his assumed character to the last, in the midst of such acute and

protracted agonies, and with every inducement to retrace his steps? Would he have died praying for his enemies, or have been permitted by Divine Providence to exhibit those marks of supernatural character, which led even a Roman Centurion to exclaim, "Truly, this was the Son of God?" Men are wont to be sincere in the agonies of a cruel and lingering death: yet the Saviour expired without wavering from his testimony, and with his last dying breath confirming that great fundamental truth, that "God was his Father;" thus, "making himself equal with God." And if any thing were necessary to add to the evidence which this scene affords of his Divinity, it would be incidentally supplied by the dying words of St. Stephen, already alluded to; for the last solemn deposit which our Lord placed in the hands of his heavenly Father, and which could be rightly committed to none but the Creator, St. Stephen, a very short time after, implored the Saviour himself to receive; thus affording the testimony of that holy martyr, that the Redeemer, in whose cause he was expiring, was in truth "God over all, blessed for evermore."

Or do we need our faith to be strengthened with regard to a future state, and the immortality of the human soul? Here we behold the incarnate Saviour in the agony of death; his body wounded, bruised, and about to yield up that breath of life which the Creator had breathed into it; yet his soul was unsubdued; and his faith never wavered as to the future existence, the eternal duration, and the never ending blessedness of that pure and untainted spirit which he was about to resign into the hands of his Father. He did not indeed employ that exulting language which we sometimes find issuing from the lips of dying malefactors, who, if they had been spared, would perhaps have fatally proved by a relapse into sin, how little reliance is to be

placed on a hasty repentance, in the prospect of immediate death, and how much more befitting, under such circumstances, is the humble language of the publican, "Lord, be merciful to me a sinner," than the confident expressions of saints and apostles, and martyrs who had long "fought a good fight," before they thus" finished their course with joy!" But though we do not hear from the Saviour any expression of those triumphant feelings with which he has often mercifully favoured his faithful servants in their last moments, and which selfdeceivers have sometimes appro. priated, yet he exhibited a calmness, a confidence, an unshaken certainty as to the future, which ought to strengthen our faith, even more than if he had devoted his expiring moments to a formal statement of his doctrines, and the proofs of their Divine inspiration.

at the right hand of the Majesty on high, and pouring down upon us the daily influences of his Holy Spirit. We may therefore confidently repose in him; we may look forward with devout joy to the eter nal world as having there a faithful and tried Friend; and we may tread as on the confines of a paradise, where this once crucified but now risen and ascended Conqueror, awaits our arrival. Into his hands, therefore, let us every day and hour habitually commit our immortal spirits, not knowing how soon he may summon us to his heavenly mansion, there to be like him, and to see him as he is; not as on the cross of his humiliation, but in the glory which he had with the Father before all worlds.

To the Editor of the Christian Observer. ROM. i. 19, 20, is often triumphantly adduced as affirming the competence of reason, unaided by revelation or any supernatural influence, to discover the grand perfections of the Deity from the works of creation. Now, the persons who appeal to this portion of Scripture as an argument, must admit the Bible to be divinely inspired; but it will be no easy task for them to reconcile the decisive and reiterated announcements of that volume, respecting the being and attributes of God, with their own opinion as to the sufficiency of unassisted reason. Nor will they find it less difficult to account for the fact, supported not merely by the testimony of Scripture, but by the voice of all history, that, in the absence of revelation, even the wisest philosophers have been unable to attain accurate conceptions respecting the charac-. ter of the Supreme Being.

And O that, after His example, we may be enabled in our dying hours to commit our souls in faith and hope to our God and Saviour! And in order that such may be our blessed lot, let us begin from the present moment diligently to make our calling and election sure. Let us repair, in penitence and faith, to his all-sufficient sacrifice; let us earnestly endeavour to do his will, and fulfil his commands; and let us pray for the constant grace of his Holy Spirit for that purpose; remembering always that He died not only to bring us nigh to God by his blood, but also to purify to himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. If called to suffer for his cause, let us imitate the example of his patience; and follow him in the thorny but salutary path of self-denial, taking up our cross daily, and treading in his hallowed footsteps. If such be our character, unspeakably great is our privilege. In all our affliction, therefore, it appears to me imtions, he is afflicted: the spirit probable that the sentiment alluded which he committed to his Father, to should be conveyed in the pasis still in heaven, where he forever sage which is quoted in its support. dwells, touched with the feeling of A careful investigation of the sense our infirmities, pleading our cause and bearing of that passage, will CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 244. 2 E

On an à priori view of the ques

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