ploughshare of Vespasian tore, or the cimeter of the Moslem mowed, or the foot of the Goth trod down,— wheresoever the persecutor drove the Christian, from Pella to the Cottian Alps,-wheresoever the wild beasts devoured, or the flame consumed,-wheresoever the crescent waxed, or the cross waned,-where Trent thundered its anathemas, and Luther echoed his protests,in the Sicilian vespers-at the massacre of Bartholomew -on the pavements of Smithfield-in the French Revolution on the field of Waterloo-in all facts-in all occurrences-Christ was, and is; and this sublime book is the evidence that it is so.

"Unto Him that loved us' -1s the ascription written in my text. Who can this be, who to John was so plainly familiar, and yet so great and so glorious, that he omits even his name, as if no one could mistake him, as if every reader must instantly apprehend him? No angel in heaven, nor ancient patriarch, no apostle nor king, can this be. None of these had love to dare, nor strength to do what is here ascribed to "Him." He must have been man, for he had blood to shed; he must have been a man of sorrows, for he shed that blood.This Christ was,-man in all that the word comprehends, in its infirmities, and tears, and trials, and sorrows. Sin he had not; for it is no part of humanity,— it is its disease-its corruption, and from this he was infinitely distant. He was man, but holy man; a suffering, but from first to last a sinless man; but he must also have been God. The fact that he laid down his life voluntarily, implies this. No creature has his life at his own disposal: a creature giving up his life unbidden, would be a suicide. Besides, were Christ not God, what he has done would go far to make every creature worship him as God; for He that redeems, and pardons, and saves me, and at such an expenditure as that of Calvary," must gather to himself my adoration, my trust, my love. I cannot but worship Him who saves me from eternal perdition, and lifts me to eternal joy. If Christ be not God, the foresight of this tendency would have filled the Apostolic Epistles with warnings against the idolatry which would have inevitably and justly become all but

the universal worship of Christians. But He is God as truly as man; worship and confidence are his due, just as much as they are our sacred duty.

"He loved us," and this antecedently to our loving Him: his love to us originated our love to him, as the sound creates its echo. How great, how sovereign that love which lighted upon us, in whom there was nothing to attract, deserve, or retain it; but, on the contrary, much to provoke, weary, and repel it. He loved us, in spite of what we were, not because of what we were; not on account of excellencies in us, but to create excellencies that were not in us. Man loves, because he sees something in the loved to attract his affections,-God loves, in order to create in the loved something to retain his love. It is this that makes our conscious debt to grace exceed all computation, and defy all repayment. We may conceive the intensity of this love by numbering and estimating, if we can, the difficulties through which it had to wade. He had to save sinners, not in spite of the law, but according to the law, to show God's law righteous while it condemns, and righteous still while it acquits ;-God true while He stands by his testimony, "the soul that sins shall die;" and no less true while He makes real his declaration, "he that believeth in the Son of God hath everlasting life;"-God just while He justifies the ungodly, and holy while He takes sinners to his bosom. These are some of the seeming impossibilities that love had to do-the innumerable contrarieties it had to reconcile-the infinite obstructions through which it had to work its way, to reach us. The height from which it came is the throne of Deity; the depth to which it descends is the ruin from which it plucks us; its breadth is the earth which it circles as with a zone-and its length from first to last is Eternity.

"He washed us from our sins in his own blood." This is the Scriptural phrase employed to denote his atoning expiatory sufferings. Nothing else but the life of the Son of God expended on the cross could insure the forgiveness of the least and fewest of these sins of ours. No other element had virtue. No voice from height or depth in the universe could say, with authority, to the

least transgressor, "thy sins be forgiven thee." No fasting, mortification, or penance, or absolution of the priest, or indulgence of Pope or jubilee, ever approached the inner seat of the soul's disquiet; none of these rise high enough to reach God, or descend low enough to reach us. The accusations of conscience in the midst of all these "refuges of lies" outnumber its excuses, and the law of God, in spite of these and thousands more, will fulminate and make felt its lightnings. Nor does sin ever exhaust its penalties, and thus render forgiveness unnecessary, and the shedding of that blood uncalled for. A convict banished for a definite period, exhausts his sentence, and thus becomes free; but were that convict to commit, in the course of his exile, a new crime, a new sentence would fasten on him, and add to the years of his banishment; we sin while we suffer, we add to our punishment by adding to our guilt, and thus by the very nature and necessity of the case, sin is an eternal evilnever working out its cure, but ever its perpetuity; it is a self-generating evil-eternity does not exhaust it— it adds to it. An atonement was essential to our restoration; without shedding of blood, there could be no remission of sins-and what an atonement! it has touched the deep spot of anger in the bosom of God, and descending along its dark line to its utmost havoc and curse, it has rescued, reconciled, restored us. Christ pardons us while we sin, and draws us off while he pardons alike from the love and practice of sin.

It was his own blood that made this atonement, and it alone. No other element mingled with it, nothing could heighten its value-it needed nothing. He trod the wine-press alone. He suffered alone, and his suffering was sufficient. He obeyed alone, and his obedience was all that was required. His is all the merit of the process, and therefore all the glory of the result. He paid all we owed to God, and purchased more than God owed to us. He began it in the manger, and finished it upon the cross. He humbled himself to merit, and he is exalted to bestow salvation. What depth of dye must there be in sin! what intensity of evil in that terrible monosyllable! what concentrated poison, seeing no less

illustrious a victim, no less costly a price was required
for its expiation, and no less precious a thing than the
blood of Christ could wash it away. Tremble at sin.
Plague, pestilence, and famine are nothing to sin. These
scathe the body, it blasts the soul. These have but a
temporary effect, while sin creates an eternal woe. But
through Christ I am washed from my sins by that pre-
cious blood, alike from their curse, their condemnation,
and all their penal consequences. The law remains in
all its force, its sacredness, and its stability, and yet it
has no hold of me. All my guilt is put away, all my
demerits are cancelled, and from no spot in the wide
universe can a sentence of condemnation come upon me,
or the thunder of a violated law smite me. But I see in
the atonement of Jesus not merely a channel for the ef-
flux of the love and forgiving mercy of God, but a stand-
ing proof of that love, its measure, its exponent, and
representative. It not only shows me that God can for-
give me consistently with all his attributes, but also that
He delights to do so. Hence what this sacrifice expresses,
is as precious as what it does. It is evidence to me that
my salvation is not a mere provision for a bare escape
from punishment, but the proof of the existence of a
love in God my Father that longs to embrace me.
It
meets precisely what I need-it supplies what I long
and thirst to know. I require to know, in order to have
peace, not only that God shall not punish me, but that
he will love me-not only freedom from the curse, but
friendship with God. I cannot be happy with mere
safety. I require reconciliation. I cannot consent to
enter heaven, and spend its cycles as a pardoned con-
vict, tolerated, spared, but no more-I long, I pant to be
there, an adopted son. I feel that God must not only
let me go, but take me back, ere I can be happy.
must be placed, not merely beyond the penalties of the
law, but beneath the love of God. I require to be raised
higher than pardon, justification, and sanctification; I
must not only pass the tribunal of the legislator; I can-
not rest till I repose in the bosom, or rest amid the sun-
shine of the reconciled countenance of my Father. I
see all this embodied, expressed, and secured in the

I

atonement of Jesus. It is not only the way to heaven, but the measure and the pledge of the welcome that awaits me there. It is thus I hear richer music in the words "It is finished" than I ever heard before. Now can I say and sing with an emphasis I never felt before, "Unto Him that loved me, and washed me from my sins in his own blood; to Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever."

But safety from the curse and reinstatement in the love of God does not exhaust the destiny that awaits the children of God. He, that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, makes us kings and priests unto God. It is not enough to save us—to love us. He will also dignify us. The safety of the pardoned-the joy of the restored-the adoption of sons, are heightened by the superadded dignity of kings, and the sacredness of priests. The crown of beauty and of empire we lost in Adam, is restored in Christ. "Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood." Paradise regained, includes man's sovereignty restored. How precious that sacrifice, which not only saves from destruction, and restores to love, but lifts also to a dignity beside which all earthly royalty is but a gleam on the troubled waters of earth. We are kings, hid it may be,

but true and real.

We are also made priests. "Ye are a royal priesthood." If priests, we must have sacrifices: what are these? "To do good, and to communicate, forget not; with such sacrifices God is well pleased." "I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service." Our altar is no perishable one; "we have an altar of which they have no right to eat, which serve the tabernacle." "By HIM let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually." Thus Christ is the eternal altar that sanctifies all that is laid on it, the widow's mite, the royal dowry, and the angel's anthem. Man shall once more be replaced in his pristine position, as the priest of the world,-the eye of the earth, to see above it that innumerable host in the overshadowing sky, the sentinels and outposts of which