mercy. They spat upon him, buffeted him, and condemned him to die. Not even the spectacle of Jesus all lacerated by the scourge, and his body covered with blood, rot his uncomplaining silence, his pallid cheek and his tottering step, excited any commiseration. It was not enough that this God-man must die; not enough that he must die on the cross; not enough that he must die suspended between two malefactors; but they must seek to aggravate his dying pains by fiendish taunts and jeers. Never before or since, save perhaps in infidel France, was there such a scene. Crowds have gathered around the dying criminal, and every man in that crowd may have felt that the criminal suffered justly; but still, when they saw him struggling in death, there were pitying hearts and perchance tearful eyes in that crowd. But in the shouting throng around the cross of Jesus, God manifest in the flesh, there was no bowed, melting heart, no moistened eye. Such, my hearers, does the death of Christ show man to be, when his God and Creator is placed in his hands. He cannot see his God. He knows not what he does when he crucifies him. Say not in reply, Had we been there, we would have acted differently, for Christ has been set before you often from the pulpit and at the sacramental board, and you have seen no comeliness in him; you have rejected him; you have shed no tear over your sins as the real cause of his sufferings. No; you would not have acted differently. The conduct of men in this act was human nature, the nature of Jew and Gentile, showing itself when it had God shrouded in human form in its power. It is written, and the death of Christ proves its truth: The carnal heart is enmity against God."

4. In contrast with this display of man's feeling towards God, seen in inflicting the death of Christ, how striking is the feeling of Christ towards man when we regard his death as his own free act! Greater love, he himself remarks, can no man show for his friend than to lay down his life for him. But through love to us Christ did far more than that. He laid down far more than life, and for those who could not with any propriety be called his friends. The divine character of our Lord precludes the idea that he did not foresee all which he would have to endure in accomplishing his loving design for man. Endeavor, then, to imagine something of the vision which lay stretched out before his eye when he undertook to die for us. There was man himself, with the long black catalogue of his crimes, his hardness of heart, his opposition to God, presenting no one redeeming or loveable quality, and virtually saying to him: "Son of God, we do not ask you to redeem us. We love sin; we hate God. If thou comest into our world, we will reject thee, revile thee, do all we can to oppose thee; we will falsely accuse thee, will buffet thee, will scourge thee, will spit upon thee, and will crucify thee; we will laugh at thy

agonies and taunt thee in thy sufferings; we will surround thy cross and disturb thy dying throes by our exulting shouts; and when thou hast endured all, through long ages will we reject thy love, and scorn thy invitations, and generation after generation shall pass on to that death from which thou wouldst save us. Son of man, die not for us; we ask it not at thy hands." We may also imagine the fallen spirits to appear before him, and, in order to deter him, rehearse what they would do. We may imagine them to say: "We will oppose thee, Son of God, at thy every step.. All our mighty powers of evil will we array against thee. We will not tamely give up our dominion over the world: we have struggled for it, and we have obtained it; it is ours, and we will rouse it against thee; we will ourselves assail thee, and give thee no respite from a struggle with sin. Son of God, if thou wilt rescue man, thou must meet hell in all its power, all its sin, and all its hatefulness to thy pure soul."

To these we may add the appeals of the holy angels. "Enter not on this work," we may imagine them to say," for if thou dost, thou must leave the bosom of thy Father, our God most holy; thou must leave the anthem peals of our happy minstrelsy; and instead of being surrounded by us, robed in the brightness and holiness which thou hast thyself given us, thou wilt be attended by unholy, ungrateful, and polluted throngs ; instead of our smiles, thou wilt meet the frowns and curses of men and the scowls of fiends; instead of our songs of honor to God, the cruel blasphemies and the plottings of rebellion will alone fall on thy ear. Let man perish, and we will be thy agents to watch over a new race whom thou shalt create, who shall love and honor thee. Son of God, men are not worthy of thy friendship; even of thy very disciples, some will deny thee, some will betray thee, and all will desert thee in thy need. Go not on this mission." And to complete the picture, we may imagine the Father himself to add : "Son of God, this is not all: not only will the world which thou wouldst redeem be against thee; not only must thou meet Satan on ground which he calls his own, and power be allowed him to bruise thy heel; not only must thy holy angels be withdrawn from thee; but even I must be against thee; I must summon the sword of my omnipotent justice to awake against thee; I must withdraw from thee on the cross, must roll the thunders of my wrath around thy head, and hurl the lightning of my indignation against sin upon thy defenseless bosom. Son of God, if thou wilt save man, thou must die-die all alone-die crying to me, in vain." To all this, clearly presented to the mind of Jesus, his only reply is, "Father, lo, I come, to do thy will, O God." Thus loving man, thus anxious to save man, does the Saviour's part in the act of his own death present him. Does it not present him in a light which should command our entire hearts? But I must on.

5. We have yet to glance at the death of Christ as the act of God.

In this view, it has been the theme of wonder and of song in heaven and on earth, and it ever will be. It presents the character of God in a light and effulgence so endearing and so glorious, that eternity will not suffice to learn and admire; vain would be

effort of mine to delineate it. His own Word tells us that it shows his justice in sweet union with his mercy-his righteousness in union with his truth-that it is the wisdom of God in union with his omnipotence; and upon all and over all it writes in glowing characters, "God is love." He so loved the world as to give his only-begotton Son; and let it not be forgotten, that in thus giving his Son, he exhausted his infinite treasury. God can give no greater gift, for in giving his Son, he gave himself! And for what gave he him? Why, to save the souls of men-to save the souls of even that shouting, wicked, Satan-possessed crowd, disturbing by their taunts the dying hour of his well-beloved Son. Oh! what an exhibition have we here of the value at which God holds the soul of man, as well as of his loving nature-of his delight to bless. What an awful lustre does it throw upon the justice, holiness, and truth of God, and above all on his love. When we look at the cross of Jesus, it seems almost as though God loved us more than he did his well-beloved Son, and hated sin as deeply as he loved us.

III. To complete my plan in this discourse, I ought to add a third point, viz.: The results or consequences of the death of Christ upon the actors; but I have not time nor space for such a theme, indeed it involves the whole grand completion of God's plans in redemption; yet I cannot leave the subject without a single glance at these results.

To the holy angels, the death of Christ has opened up new themes of study, new sources of the knowledge of God, new employments, new joys, and a new song; nay, we are told that so deeply are they interested, that with each penitent as he returns, saved by the death of Christ, they experience a new joy. Dear to them must ever be the memory of their ministrations to Jesus, in the hour of his humiliation. Over Satan and the fallen angels it triumphs and destroys them; hurls down the pillars of Satan's kingdom, and bruises evermore his head. These fallen spirits, when they had succeeded in inducing the death of Christ, accomplished their own final and certain ruin. The cross of Jesus, even as it stood before them, by the salvation which Jesus wrought for the malefactor at his side, became to their alarmed vision a throne; a throne of mercy, down to which even a holy God could descend to pardon and save, and to which even the vilest sinner would dare to come, to receive pardon and eternal life; and so from that

hour has that cross ever been proved to be the meeting place of a reconciled God and saved sinners. One view, by faith, of it has always broken the chains of Satan, and assured the sinner of pardon; and this is the next result of the death of Christ which I mention-its effects on man. The cross, which man in his wickedness raised, has become man's only hope. I cannot perhaps express in more forcible words this effect of the death of Christ than by the touching hymn of Newton:

"I saw one hanging on a tree

In agony and blood,

Who fixed his languid eyes on me,
As near the cross I stood.

"Sure never till my latest breath
Can I forget that look;

It seem'd to charge me with his death,
Though not a word he spoke.

"Alas! I knew not what I did,

But all my tears were vain;

Where could my trembling soul be hid,
For I the Lord had slain?

"A second look he gave, which said:
I freely all forgive;

This blood is for thy ransom paid,

I die that thou may'st live.

"Thus while my death thy sin displays

In all its blackest hue,

Such is the mystery of grace,

It seals thy pardon too."

Mark, my hearers, these different results to the guilty actors. Satan and man united to put Christ to death, and that death destroys Satan and saves man. Grace-free, sovereign grace!

The effect of the death of Christ on himself, how shall I speak of it? He has a name above every other name; all heaven adores him as the Lamb that was slain. He is the theme of everlasting song. He shall be satisfied. And God is glorified; all his great and glorious plans will be accomplished, and all heaven, all earth, and all hell will have to yield assent to the testimony given in the angel's song: "Glory to God in the highest."

There are many reflections suggested by our subject, but I must not dwell upon them. I close with a single thought.

The death of Christ, you see, will afford the touchstone of moral character, and affect the destiny of all created beings.

God, Christ, angels, view it in one light; Satan and his fallen companions view it in another. With whom, dear reader, do you join? The death of Christ! It glorifies God, and increases the joy of Christ and of angels. It condemns and destroys Satan and his angels. Again I ask, with whom will you place yourselves?

Your views and feelings on this subject foretell your charac

ter and your destiny. The cross of Christ! It is your hope or your despair; your crime and condemnation, or your righteousness and salvation! It will raise you to heaven, or sink you to hell. And you, you yourself must decide which of these effects it shall produce in your case. May God enable you to decide right and wisely!

Amen.

SERMON DLXXXIII.

BY REV. DANIEL P. NOYES,

PASTOR OF THE JAY ST. PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y.

THE CHRISTIAN'S HERITAGE.

"Therefore let no man glory in men: for all things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's."-1 Cor. iii. 21, 22, 23.

THE apostle had been reproving the Corinthian disciples for their partisanship. They had divided into schools. Some were followers of Paul, some of Apollos, and some of Cephas. After having visited such perverse and narrow sentiments with merited censure, the great heart of the apostle flashes forth into the questions-"Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos?—but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every

man !"

He reminds them that the apostles, who had "planted" and "watered," were "laborers together with God ;" that it was God who gave the increase; that they who had been converted were "God's husbandry," "God's building," and were not to consider themselves as belonging to any man. He tells them that they are the "temple of the living God," and that "God shall destroy" such as "defile" it. Every Christian is the habitation of the Spirit. But, let no man so deceive himself as to be puffed up on this account with the conceit of wisdom; "for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God." They ought not, then, to rest their faith in themselves, or in any one of their spiritual guides. Granted that Paul or Apollos is their apostletheir teacher; so is Cephas also. "All things are yours," says Paul. Then, lighting up with this thought and expanding it, he details the several particulars of the text, with glowing energy pressing home upon them the great truth that Christians, heirs