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difpofing with dignity and authority of a place in para dife to one of his fellow fufferers; and at length, with that confidence which nothing but confcious virtue and conscious dignity could at fuch a time inspire, recommending his fpirit into the hands of his heavenly Father; he could not but conclude him to be a most extraordinary perfon and fomething more than human. But when moreover he obferved the aftonishing events that took place when Jefus expired; the agitation into which the whole frame of nature seemed to be thrown; the fupernatural darkness, the earthquake, the rending of rocks, the opening of graves; he then burft out involuntarily into that friking exclamation, "Truly this was the Son of God."

Here then we have a testimony to the divine character of our Lord, which must be confidered as in the highest degree impartial and incorrupt: the honeft unfolicited teftimony of a plain man, a foldier and a heathen; the teftimony, not of one who was prejudiced in favour of Chrift and his religion, but of one, who, by habit and education, was probably strongly prejudiced against them.

And it is not a little remarkable, that the contemplation of the very fame fcene which fo forcibly ftruck the Roman centurion, has extorted a fimilar confeffion from one of the most eloquent of modern fceptics, who has never been accused of too much credulity, and who, though he could bring himself to refift the evidence both of prophecy and of miracles, and was therefore certainly no bigot to Christianity, yet was overwhelmed with the evidence arifing from the character, the fufferings, and the death of Jefus. I allude to the celebrated comparison between the death of Socrates and the death of Jefus, drawn by the masterly pen of Rouffeau. The paffage is probably well known to a large part of this audience; but it affords fo forcible and fo unprejudiced a testimony to the divinity of Chrift, and bears fo ftriking a refemblance to that of the centurion, that I fhall be pardoned, I truft, for bringing it once more to your recollection, and introducing it here as the conclufion of this Lecture.

"Where, (fays he,) is the man, where is the philofopher, who can act, fuffer, and die, without weakness and without oftentation? When Plato defcribes his imaginary just man, covered with all the opprobrium of guilt, yet at the fame time meriting the fublimest rewards of virtue, he paints precifely every feature in the character of Jefus Christ. The resemblance is so striking that all the fathers have obferved it, and it is impoffible to be deceived in it. What prejudice, what blindness muft poffefs the mind of that man, who dares to compare the fon of Sophroniscus with the Son of Mary! What a distance is there between the one and the other! The death of Socrates philosophizing calmly with his friends, is the most gentle that can be wifhed; that of Jefus expiring in torments, infulted, derided, and reviled by all the people, the most horrible that can be imagined. Socrates taking the poifoned cup, bleffes the man who presents it to him; and who, in the very act of presenting it, melts into tears. Jefus, in the midst of the most agonizing tortures, prays for his enraged perfecutors. Yes, if the life and death of Socrates are thofe of a fage, the life and death of Jefus are those of a GOD."

LECTURE

XXIII.

MATTHEW xxvii.-xxviii.

IN the preceding Lecture we clofed the difmal

fcene of our Lord's unparalleled fufferings; on which it is impoffible to reflect without astonishment and horror, and without asking ourselves this question, Whence came it to pass that fo innocent, fo excellent, fo divine a person as the beloved Son of God, in whom he was well pleased, fhould be permitted by his heavenly Father to be exposed to fuch indignities and cruelties, and finally to undergo the exquifite torments of the cross? The answer is, that the occafion of all this is to be fought for in our own finful nature, in the depravity and corruption of the human heart, in the extreme wickedness of every kind which overspread the whole world at the time of our Lord's appearance upon earth, and which muft neceffarily have fubjected the whole human race to the fevereft effects of the Divine difpleasure, had not fome atonement, fome expiation, fome fatisfaction to their offended Maker, been interpofed between them and the punishment fo juftly due to them. This expiation, this atonement, the Son of God himself voluntarily confented to become, and paid the ranfom required for our deliverance by his own death upon the cross. "He gave himfelfe for us, as the Scriptures exprefs it, an offering and a facrifice to God. He was the Lamb flain from the foundation of the world. He fuffered for fin, the juft for the unjust, that he might bring us to God. He was wounded for our tranfgreffions, he was bruifed for our iniquities; with his ftripes we were healed. In his own blood he washed us from our fins; in his own body he bore our fins upon the tree, that we being dead unto fin might live unto righteousness*." This is that great doc

"

* Ephes. v. 2. Rev. xiii. 8. 1 Pet. iii. 18. Ifa. liii. 5. Rev. i, 5. z Pet. ii. 24.

trine of REDEMPTION, which is fo fully explained and of ftrongly infifted on in various parts of the facred writings which forms fo effential a part of the Christian system, and is the grand foundation of all our hopes of pardon and acceptance at the great day of retribution.

This mode of vicarious punishment, this fubftitution of an innocent victim in the room of an offending perfon, can be no surprise to any one that reflects on the well known practices of animal facrifices for the expiation of guilt, which prevailed univerfally, not only among theJews, but throughout the whole heathen world; and which evidently proves it to have been the established opinion of mankind, that (as the apoftle expreffes it) "without blood there could bé no remiffion*."

Still it must be acknowledged, that in the ftupendous work of our redemption, there is fomething far beyond the power of our limited faculties to comprehend.

;

That the Son of God himself fhould feel fuch compaf-: fion for the human race, for the wretched inhabitants of this small spot in the vast system of the universe, as voluntarily to undertake the great and arduous and painful tast of refcuing them from fin and mifery, and eternal death that for this purpofe he fhould condefcend to quit the bofom of his Father and the joys of heaven; fhould diveft himself of the glory that he had before the world began; fhould not only take upon himself the nature of man but the form of a servant; fhould fubmit to a low and indigent condition, to indignities, to injuries and infults, and at length to a difgraceful and excruciating death, is indeed a mystery, but it is a mystery of kindness and of mercy; it is, as the apoftle truly calls it, "a love that paffeth knowledget;" a degree of tenderness, pity, and condefcenfion, to which we have neither words nor conceptions in any degree equal. It is impoffible for us not to cry out on this occafion with the Pfalmift, "Lord, what is man that thou art mindful of him, and the Son i of man, that thou vifiteft him?”

Heb. ix. 22- + Ephes, iii 19.

Pfalm viii.

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