lest we feel ashamed or unwilling to ask an injured, neglected Saviour for his aid.

But there is another hour, more affecting even than the hour of sickness and dying- the hour when we shall see him face to face. There we shall think of his death for us; there, the minutest circumstances of his pain and shame will visit our thoughts. If they never led us to befriend him, we cannot look for any thing from him but neglect. And when he comes with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also that pierced him, and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him, and we, with his crucifiers, are at his bar, we shall be numbered with his unrelenting crucifiers, unless we have repented and accepted the offered Redeemer. They who drove the nails and spear into him were by no means sinners above all others. We, who have enjoyed such light, have pierced him' more, by our treatment of him, than they.

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If this relenting crucifier really believed on Jesus, then or afterward, his kindness to the Saviour will be to him a source of recollection which the world could not purchase. So may we do something for Christ, for his cause, for his poor, afflicted saints, of which he will hereafter say, Ye did it unto me. But unless we love Christ, our motives are defective. Let us stand, in imagination, at the cross. All those sufferings, that entire atoning sacrifice, are

necessary to save one soul. We do not, we cannot, divide our interest in Christ with the race, nor with one of them; the whole sacrifice of the Redeemer is required for the justification of each sinner. It was necessary for Christ to become flesh, for Christ to die, in order to save your soul. If so, then each of us may say, I am the occasion of that cross. I brought the Saviour from heaven to the accursed tree.

Does this excite no contrite feeling within us? We see at the cross some who are befriending Christ; the beloved disciple and Mary Magdalene. Are we at heart with them? or does our interest in thẹ sufferer not even rise so high as that of a relenting crucifier? One single emotion of love and gratitude to Christ, from you, will be as grateful to him as was that cooling draught to his lips. One look, with an eye of faith, upon the Son of man lifted up for you, would enable him to say for you, "It is finished ; and all the benefits of his death would, by one act of a believing, contrite heart, become yours.

But, while you hesitate, or pass carelessly by the cross, as though it were nothing to you, the time draws nigh, when, instead of his knocking at the door of our hearts, we shall knock at his door, and any delay to admit us will bring with it alarm and dismay. The Man of Calvary is now exalted to be a Prince and Saviour, to give repentance and remission

of sins. Now is the time to ensure forgiveness and acceptance through his death, and to prove the sincerity of our love to him by deeds of kindness and affection toward him, his people, and his cause. No more will he come dependent upon a relenting crucifier for a slight act of mercy to refresh his dying lips; no more will it be at the option of sinners to accept or to reject him. BEHOLD, HE COMETH WITH

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CLOUDS; AND EVERY EYE SHALL SEE HIM, AND THEY

ALSO THAT PIERCED HIM; AND ALL KINDREDS OF THE EARTH SHALL WAIL BECAUSE OF HIM. EVEN SO. AMEN."

SERMON XII.

JOSEPH OF ARIMATHEA.

MATT. XXVII. 57, 58.

WHEN THE EVEN WAS COME, THERE CAME A RICH MAN OF ARIMATHEA, NAMED JOSEPH, WHO ALSO HIMSELF WAS JESUS' DISCIPLE. HE WENT TO PILATE, AND BEGGED THE BODY OF JESUS. THEN PILATE COMMANDED THE BODY TO BE DELIVERED.

AMONG the dark things of the ancient Scriptures to the mind of a pious Jew, no doubt this prophecy respecting the Messiah was mysterious and perplexing: "And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death." A celebrated Jewish infidel rejected the prophecy of Isaiah chiefly on account of the remarkable coincidences between its prophetic descriptions of Christ's death and the actual circumstances of it, proving, as he contended, that a description so minutely exact, must have been written by an eye-witness.

The allusion, in this prophecy, to the death and burial of Christ, contains, seemingly, a contradiction ; and there was, indeed, a strange contrast between his

death and his burial. "He made his grave with the wicked." The word "grave" is here used in an extended sense for a place of death; the passage may, therefore, be paraphrased thus: He was joined both with the wicked, and with rich men, in his death and burial. Joseph of Arimathea was a rich man, and also an honorable councillor, a member of the great Jewish council, the sanhedrim. In burying Christ, he was assisted by another honorable man, a ruler, Nicodemus. "And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight." We infer that he was rich.

Behold these eminent men fulfilling the prophecy of Isaiah. That dark passage is made clear, and the reason annexed to the prophecy is also explained. These two rich men and rulers knew that he was a good man, that "he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth." The burial of Christ by these two men of reputation, was a testimony that he was all that he claimed to be, and no impostor. These incidental proofs that the Christian religion is from God, were arranged by its great Author, to convince and persuade men.

There are three things which are placed in a strong light by this interesting transaction — -the burial of the Saviour by Joseph, assisted by Nicodemus.