man race, till our blessed Saviour appeared on earth. At that time his tyranny seems to have arrived at its utmost height, and to have extended to the bodies as well as to the souls of men, of both which he sometimes took absolute possession; as we see in the history of those unhappy persons mentioned in Scripture, whom we call Demoniacs, and who were truly said to be possessed by the devil. It was therefore necessary, in order to accomplish the complete Redemption of mankind, to subdue in the first place this their most formidable and determined enemy, to destroy his power, to overthrow his kingdom, and to rescue all the sons of men from that horrible and disgraceful state of slavery, in which he had long held them enthralled. Now to execute a work of such magnitude and such difficulty, some agent of extraordinary rank, and extraordinary authority and power, was plainly necessary. Such a personage was our blessed Lord; who therefore spontaneously undertook, and successfully accomplished this most arduous enterprise. The very first preparatory step he took before he entered on his ministry was, to establish his superiority

appears

over this great enemy of the human race, which he did in that memorable scene of the temptation in the wilderness. And throughout the whole of his future life, there to have been a constant and open enmity and warfare between Christ and Beelzebub, between the Prince of this world and the Saviour of it, between the Powers of Darkness and the Spiritual Light of the world, between the kingdom of Satan and the kingdom of Jesus. When all this is taken into consideration, it will no longer be a matter of surprise, that the beloved Son of God himself should condescend to come among us, unworthy as we are of such a distinction. For nothing less than his almighty power could probably have vanquished that dreadful adversary we had to deal with, and whose defeat and humiliation appear to have been essentially necessary to our salvation*.

There is still another consideration which merits some regard in this question.

* See John xii. 31; xiv. 30; xvi. 11. 2 Cor. iv. 4. Ephes. ii. 2; vi. 12. Col. ii. 15.-"Through death, he destroyed "him that had the power of death; that is, the devil.' Heb. ii. 14.

It is, I believe, generally taken for granted, that it was for the human race alone that Christ suffered and died; and we are then asked, with an air of triumph, whether it be conceivable, or in any degree credible, that the eternal Son of God should submit to so much indignity and so much misery for the fallen, the wicked, the wretched inhabitants of this small globe of earth, which is as a grain of sand to a mountain, a mere speck in the universe, when compared with that immensity of worlds, and systems of worlds, which the sagacity of a great modern astronomer has discovered in the boundless regions of space*.

But on what ground is it concluded, that the benefits of Christ's death extend no further than to ourselves? As well might we suppose, that the sun was placed in the firmament merely to illuminate and to warm this earth that we inhabit. To the vulgar and the illiterate, this actually appears to be the case. But philosophy teaches us better things. It enlarges our contracted views of divine beneficence, and brings us acquainted

* Dr. Herschell.

with other planets and other worlds, which share with us the cheering influence and the vivifying warmth of that glorious luminary. Is it not then a fair analogy to conclude, that the great Spiritual Light of the world, the Fountain of life, and health, and joy to the soul, does not scatter his blessings over the creation with a more sparing hand, and that the Sun of Righteousness rises with healing in his wings to other orders of beings besides ourselves? Nor does this conclusion rest on analogy alone. It is evident from Scripture itself, that we are by no means the only creatures in the universe interested in the sacrifice of our Redeemer. We are expressly told, that as "by him were "all things created that are in heaven and "that are in earth, visible and invisible; "and by him all things consist: so by him "also was God pleased (having made peace

66

66

through the blood of his cross) to recon“cile all things unto himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven: that "in the dispensation of the fullness of times, " he might gather together in one all things

"in Christ, both which are in heaven, and "which are on earth, even in him." *

From intimations such as these, it is highly probable, that in the great work of Redemption, as well as of Creation, there is a vast stupendous plan of wisdom, of which we cannot at present so much as conceive the whole compass and extent. And if we could assist and improve the mental as we can the corporeal sight; if we could magnify and bring nearer to us, by the help of instruments, the great component parts of the spiritual, as we do the vast bodies of the natural world; there can be no doubt, that the resemblance and analogy would hold between them in this as it does in many other well-known instances: and that a scene of wonders would burst in upon us from the one, at least equal, if not superior, to those, which the united powers of astronomy and of optics disclose to us in the other.

If this train of reasoning be just (and who is there that will undertake to say, much more to prove that it is not so?) if the Redemption wrought by Christ extended to

* Col. i. 16. 20. Eph. i. 10.