a holy intrepidity, when death takes us out of the world, nay, when the world and its foundations crumble into dust beneath our feet.

We shall be filled with joy unspeakable when we reflect, that we are leaving a world of which we were not, to go to that of which we are citizens. We shall say, amidst the tears and lamentations of a last adieu: "It is true, my dear children, it is true my dear friends, I leave you upon the earth: but my Jesus is in heaven, and I go to be where he is: "having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better," Phil. i. 23; it is true, I tear myself from you, and it is like tearing me from myself; but this mournful, is not an everlasting separation. Jesus Christ has prayed equally for you and for me. He has asked for me and for you, that we should all be "where he is, that we may all be one in him and with the Father:" and I only go before you a few instants into this state of blessedness.

Ah! God grant, that after having preached the gospel to you, we may be enabled to say, with Jesus Christ, at our dying hour; "Father, those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost!" ver. 12. God grant that there may be no "son of perdition" in this assembly! May God vouchsafe to hearken to the prayer which we present in your behalf, in this place, and which we shall present to him on a dying bed: or rather may God vouchsafe to hear the prayer which Jesus Christ presents for us: "Father, I will that they whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory!" Amen. To the Father, to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, be honour and glory for ever. Amen.

SERMON LXXIII.

THE CRUCIFIXION. PART I.

MATTHEW Xxvii. 45-53. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom: and the earth did quake; and the rocks rent; and the graves were opened; and many bodies of saints which slept, arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

WE are going to set before you this day, my Christian friends, the concluding scene of the most dreadful spectacle that ever the sun beheld. On beholding the order, the preparations, and the approaching completion of the

sacrifice of Isaac, the soul is thrown into astonishment. A father binding his own son with cords, extending him upon a funeral pile, raising up an armed right hand to pierce his bosom; and all this by the command of Heaven! What a prodigy! At such a sight reason murmurs, faith is staggered, and Providence seems to labour under an indelible imputation. But a seasonable and happy interposition dissipates all this darkness. An angel descends from heaven, a voice pierces the yielding air: "Abraham, Abraham, lay not thy hand upon the lad: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me," Gen. xxii. 12. And this revolution silences the murmurings of reason, re-establishes our faith, and vindicates the ways of Providence.

A greater than Isaac, my brethren, a greater than Abraham is here. This sacrifice must be completed; this victim must die; this burntoffering must be reduced to ashes. In the preceding chapter you have seen the command given, the scaffold erected, the arm extended to smite the devoted Jesus. You are going to behold him expire; no victim substituted in his room; no revocation of the decree; and instead of inquiring like Isaac, "Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt-offering?" ver. 7, he says, "Lo, I come;

8.

to do thy will, O my God," Ps. xl. 7, Jesus expires: the dead leave their tombs: the sun withdraws his light: nature is convulsed at the sight of her Creator dying upon a And the Son of God's love, before he utters his last sigh, gives a free course to his complaints, and makes an astonished world re-echo those mournful sounds: " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ver. 46.

cross.

And you, Christians, what are you to become at beholding this spectacle; and what effects are these objects to produce, that shall be in any proportion to their magnitude? With whatever success our happiest addresses to you may be crowned, your actions must ever fall far short of your obligations and engagements. It is possible, however, that on certain points, we may have commendation only to bestow. When restitution is the theme, some one perhaps conscience-struck, some Zaccheus is induced to restore four fold. When the doctrine of forgiveness and reconciliation is preached, some one, smitten to the heart, is, it may be, disposed to open his arms to an estranged brother. But what fruit can this discourse produce, capable of, I do not say, fulfilling your obligations, but that shall bear any manner of proportion to them? Were your hearts, henceforward, to burn with the purest and most ardent affection; were your eyes to become a living fountain of tears: were every particle of your frame to serve as a several victim to penitence; were this vaulted roof to cleave asunder; were the dead, deposited in these tombs, te start up into life: what would there be in all this that is not absorbed by the objects which we are going to display?

Come and clothe yourselves in mourning with the rest of nature. Come, with the centurion, and recognise your Redeemer and your God; and let the sentiments which severally occupy all these hearts and minds unite in this

one: "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me," Gal. ii. 20. Amen. That you may derive from the words which we have read, the fruit which the Holy Spirit presents to us in them, we shall, 1. Attempt some elucidation of the letter of the text: and then, 2. Endeavour to penetrate into the spirit of it, and dive to the bottom of the mysteries which it contains.

I. We begin with attempting some elucidation of the letter of the text.

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1. Our first remark turns on the time which the evangelist assigns to the first events which he is here relating: "from the sixth hour," says he, "there was darkness unto the ninth hour: and about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice," and so on. Respecting which, it is to be observed, that the Jews computed the hours of the day from sun-rising. The first from sun-rising was called one hour, the second two, and so of the rest: "from the sixth hour to the ninth hour;" in other words, from noon till three of the clock afternoon.

But what merits a more particular attention is this, that the evangelists appear here to vary in their testimony; at least St. Mark tells us, chap. xv. 25, that part of the events which the other evangelists say took place about the ninth hour, happened at the third hour. A single remark will resolve this difficulty. The Jews employed another method in computing time, besides that which we have indicated. They divided the day into four intervals. The first comprehended the space from the first to the third hour of the day inclusively: the second from the end of the third hour of the day to the sixth: and so of the rest. This mode of computation, if certain doctors are to be credited, took its rise from the custom which was observed in the temple, of presenting prayers and sacrifices at the third, the sixth, and the ninth hour. Now the Jews sometimes denominated the whole of this first interval, which contained three hours of the day, one hour, or the first hour. The second interval they denominated two, or the second hour, which contained the second three hours, and so of the rest. This remark solves the apparent difficulty which we pointed out. Some of the evangelists have followed the first mode of computation, and others have adopted the second. The ninth hour in the style of St. Matthew, and the third hour in the style of St. Mark, denote one and the same season of the day; because the one computes the hours elapsed from sun-rising, and the other that third interval of three hours which commenced precisely at the ninth hour.

2. Our second remark will lead us into an examination of certain questions started, relative to the prodigies recorded by our evangelists. It is said,

1. That "there was darkness over all the land." It appears from astronomical calculation, and from the very nature of solar eclipses, which are occasioned by the interposition of the body of the moon between us and the orb of day, which can take place only at the change, whereas it was then at the full, being

the fourteenth day of the month of March; it appears, I say, from these considerations, that this darkness was not an eclipse properly so called, but an obscuration effected by a special interference of Providence, which we are unable clearly to explain.

If we are incapable of assigning the cause, we are equally incapable of determining the extent of this wonderful appearance. The expression in the original, "there was darkness over all the land," or, according to St. Luke's phraseology, "over all the earth," chap. xxiii. 44, which presents at first to the mind an idea of the whole globe, is frequently restricted in Scripture, sometimes to the land of Judea, sometimes to the whole Roman empire; and this ambiguity, joined to the silence of the sacred historians, renders it impossible for us to decide whether the darkness overspread the land of Judea only, or involved all the rest of our hemisphere.

Neither do we deem it of importance to dwell on an examination of the monuments supposed to be found in antiquity respecting the truth of the prodigy of which we have been speaking. Among those which are transmitted to us on this subject, there is one which bears visible marks of forgery. I speak of the testimony of Dionysius, falsely denominated the Areopagite, who affirms that he himself saw, in Egypt, the darkness mentioned by the evangelists, which drew from him this exclamation: "Assuredly either the God of nature is suffering, or the frame of the universe is going to be destroyed." The learned have so clearly demonstrated that the author of this book is an impostor, who, though he did not live till the fourth century, would nevertheless pass for the Dionysius who was converted to Christianity, by the preaching of St. Paul on Mars-hill, Acts xvii. 34, that this author, transfixed with a thousand wounds, is fallen, never to rise again.

Much more dependence is, undoubtedly, to be placed on what is said by Phlegon, surnamed the Trallian, the emperor Adrian's freedman. He had composed a history of the Olympiads, some fragments only of which have reached us: but Eusebius the historian has preserved the following passage from it: "In the fourth year of the two hundred and second Olympiad, there was an eclipse of the sun, much greater than any one which had ever before been observed. The night was so dark at noon-day that the stars were perceptible, and there were such violent earthquakes in Bithynia, that the greatest part of the city of Nicea was swallowed up by it." These are the words of Eusebius: but the inquiries to which they might lead could not be prosecuted in an exercise like the present, and they would encroach on that time which we destine to subjects of much higher importance.

2. The evangelists tell us in the second place, that "the veil of the temple was rent in twain, from the top to the bottom." There were two veils in the temple at Jerusalem; that which was suspended over the door that

Dionys. Areopag. tom. ii. p. 91. and Annot. Gorder.

P. 33. and 102. Edit. Antwerp, 1634.

Euseb. Pamph. Thesaurus Temporum, p. 158. Edit. Amst. 1658.

separated the holy place from the exterior of the temple, which Josephus calls "a Babylonian hanging," embroidered curiously with gold, purple, scarlet, and fine flax.* There was also a veil over the door which separated the holy place from the Holy of Holies. The expression in the text the veil, described in Exod. xxvi. 31, and denoted the veil by way of excellence, makes it presumable that the second is here meant.

3. The evangelist relates that "the graves were opened; and many bodies of saints which slept, arose, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." This has induced interpreters to institute an inquiry, who those dead persons were? It is pretended by some that they were the ancient prophets; others, with a greater air of probability, maintain that they were persons lately deceased, and well known to those to whom they appeared. But how is it possible to form a fixed opinion, when we are left so entirely in the dark?

4. Our last remark relates to the interpretation affirmed to the Syriac words which Jesus Christ pronounced; "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," and which St. Mark gives in the Chaldaic form. The evangelist tells us, that some of those who heard Jesus Christ thus express himself, said that "he called for Elias." The persons who entertained this idea, could not be the Roman soldiers, who assisted at the execution. By what means should they have known any thing of Elias? They were not the Jews who inhabited Jerusalem and Judea; how could they have been acquainted with their native language? They must have been, on the one hand, Jews instructed in the traditions of their nation, and who, on the other, did not understand the language spoken at Jerusalem. Now this description applies exactly to those of the Jews who were denominated Hellenists, that is to say, Greeks: they were of Jewish extraction, and had scattered themselves over the different regions of Greece.

But whence, it will be said, did they derive the strange idea, that Jesus Christ called for Elias? I answer, that it was not only from the resemblance in sound between the words Eli and Elias, but from another tradition of the Jews. It was founded on those words of the prophet Malachi: "behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet. . . . and he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers," chap. iv. 6; an oracle which presents no difficulty to the Christian, whom Jesus Christ has instructed to consider it as accomplished in the person of John Baptist. But the Jews understood it in the literal sense: they believed that Elias was still upon mount Carmel, and was one day to reappear. The coming of this prophet is still, next to the appearance of the Messiah, the object of their fondest hope. It is Elias, as they will have it, who "shall turn the heart of the fathers unto the children: and the heart of the children unto their fathers." It is Elias, who shall prepare the way of the Messiah, who shall be his forerunner, and who shall anoint him with the holy oil. It is Elias, who

* Exod. xxvi. 36. Joseph. Wars of the Jews, Book vi. chap. 14.

See Kimchi and Aben Ezra on Mal. iv. 5.

shall answer all their inquiries, and resolve all their difficulties. It is Elias, who by his prayers, shall obtain the resurrection of the just. It is Elias, who shall do for the Jews of the dispersion, what Moses did for the Israelites enslaved in Egypt: he shall march at their head, and conduct them into Canaan. These are all expressions of the Rabbins, whose names I suppress, as also the lists of the works from which we extract the passages just now quoted. Here we conclude our proposed commentary on the words, and now proceed:

II. To direct your attention to the great object exhibited in the text, Jesus Christ expiring We shall derive from the words on the cross. read, six ideas of the death of Jesus Christ. 1. The death of Christ is an expiatory sacrifice, in which the victim was charged with the sins of a whole world. 2. It is the body of all the shadows, the truth of all the types, the accomplishment of all the predictions of the ancient dispensation, respecting the Messiah. 3. It is, on the part of the Jewish nation, a crime, which the blackest colours are incapable of depicting, which has kindled the wrath of Heaven, and armed universal nature against them. 4. It presents a system of morality in which every virtue is retraced, and every motive that can animate us to the practice of it, is displayed. 5. It presents a mystery which reason cannot unfold, but whose truth and importance all the difficulties which reason may urge are unable to impair. 6. Finally, it is the triumph of the Redeemer over the tomb.

1. The death of Jesus Christ is an expiatory sacrifice, offered up to divine justice. "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This is the only proof which we shall at present produce in support of the doctrine of the atonement. It is, undoubtedly, difficult, to determine with precision, what were, at that moment, the dispositions of the Saviour of the world. In general, we must carefully separate from them every idea of distrust, of murmuring, of despair. We must carefully separate every thing injurious to the immaculate purity from which Jesus Christ never deviated, and to that complete submission, which he constantly expressed, to the will of his heavenly Father. We have here a victim, not dragged reluctantly to the altar, but voluntarily advancing to it; and the same love which carried him thither, supported him during the whole sacrifice. These complainings, therefore, of Jesus Christ, afford us convincing reasons to conclude, that his death was of a nature altogether extraordinary.

Of this you will become perfectly sensible, if you attend to the two following reflections; (1.) That no one ever appeared so deeply overwhelmed, at the thought of death, as Jesus Christ: (2.) That no person ought to have met death with so much constancy as he, if he underwent a mere ordinary death.

(1.) No one ever appeared so deeply overwhelmed, at the thought of death, as Jesus Christ. Recollect in what strong terms the sacred authors represent the awful conflict which he endured in the garden of Gethsemane. They tell us of his mortal sorrow: "my soul is exceeding sorrowful even unto death," Matt. xxvi. 38. They speak of his agony:

"being in an agony," says St. Luke, xxii. 44. They speak of his fears: he was heard in that he feared: they speak of his cries and tears: "he offered up prayers and supplications, with strong crying and tears," Heb. v. 7. They speak of the prodigious effect which the fear of death produced upon his body: "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground." They even spake of the desire which he felt to draw back: "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me," Matt. xxvi. 39. And in our text, they represent him as reduced to the lowest ebb of resolution: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" Is it possible to be more depressed at the thoughts of death?

(2.) But we said, secondly, That no person ought to have met death with so much constancy as Jesus Christ, if he underwent a mere ordinary death. For,

1. Jesus Christ died with perfect submission to the will of his heavenly Father, and with the most fervent love towards the human race. Now, when a man serves a master whom he honours, when he suffers for the sake of persons whom he loves, he suffers with patience and composure.

2. Jesus Christ died with the most complete assurance of the justice of his cause, and of the innocence of his life. When, at the hour of death, conscience is roused as an armed man; when the recollection of a thousand crimes awakes, when a life of unrepented guilt stares the dying sinner in the face, the most obdurate heart is then stretched on the rack. But when, at a dying hour, the eye can look back to a life of innocence, what consolation does not the retrospect inspire? This was the case with Jesus Christ. Who ever carried so far charity, holy fervour, the practice of every virtue? Who ever was more blameless in conduct, more ardent in devotion, more pure in secret retirement?

the stores of knowledge from the bosom of the Father, and who had "brought life and immortality to light," 2 Tim. i. 20.

IV. Finally, Jesus Christ died in the perfect assurance of that felicity which he was going to take possession of. When the dying person beholds hell opening under his feet, and begins to feel the gnawings of "the worm which dieth not, and the torment of the fire that is never to be quenched," Mark ix. 44, it is not astonishing that he should die in terror. But when he can say, as he looks death in the face, "there is the termination of all my woes, and the reward of all my labours; I am going to restore my soul into the hands of my Creator; I behold heaven open to receive it;" what transports of delight must not such a prospect impart! Such, too, was the case with Jesus Christ. If ever any one could have enjoyed a foretaste of the paradise of God; if ever any one could conceive sublime ideas of that glory and blessedness, still it was Jesus Christ. He knew all these things by experience: he knew all the apartments of the kingdom of his Father: from God he had come, and to God he was returning. Nay there must have been something peculiar in his triumph, transcendently superior to that of the faithful in general. Because "he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross; God was about highly to exalt him, and to give him a name that is above every name," Phil. ii. 8, 9. A cloud was going to serve him as a triumphal car, and the church triumphant was preparing to receive their King in these rapturous strains: "Lift up your heads, O ye gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in," Ps. xxiv. 7.

3. Jesus Christ died, thoroughly persuaded of the immortality of the soul. When a man has passed his life in atheism, and is dying in a state of uncertainty: haunted with the apprehension of falling into a state of annihilation; reduced to exclaim, with Adrian, "O my soul, whither art thou going?" Nature shudders; our attachment to existence inspires horror, at the thought of existing no longer. But when we have a distant knowledge of what man is; when we are under a complete conviction that he consists of two distinct substances, of spirit, and of matter; when we become thoroughly persuaded, that the destruction of the one does not imply the destruction of the other; that if "the dust return to the earth as it was, the spirit shall return unto God who gave it," Eccles. xii. 7; when we know that the soul is the seat of all perception; that the body is merely a medium of intelligence; that the soul, when disengaged from matter, may retain the same ideas, the same sentiments, as when united to the body; that it may be capable of perceiving the sun, the stars, the firmament, death is no longer formidable. This, too, was the case with Jesus Christ. If ever any one enjoyed a persuasion of the immortality of the soul, and of the resurrection, it undoubtedly was this divine Saviour. He it was who had derived all

What, then, shall Jesus Christ do? shall he meet death with joy? shall he say with St. Paul, "I have a desire to depart?" shall he exclaim with the female celebrated in ecclesiastical history: this is the day that crowns are distributed, and I go to receive my share? No, Jesus Christ trembles, he grows pale, his sweat becomes "as great drops of blood," Luke xxii. 44, he cries out, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Add to these reflections, the promises of divine assistance, which all the faithful have a right to claim, in the midst of tribulation, and which Jesus Christ must have had a far superior right to plead, had he died a mere ordinary death; but of the consolation flowing from these he seems entirely deprived.

Add, in a particular manner, the example of the martyrs. They met death with unshaken fortitude: they braved the most cruel torments: their firmness struck their very executioners with astonishment. In Jesus Christ we behold nothing similar to this.

Nay, I will go farther, and say, that even the penitent thief discovers more firmness, in his dying moments, than the Saviour himself. He addresses himself to Jesus Christ, he implores his mercy, and, set at rest by the promises given to him, he expires in tranquillity: Jesus Christ, on the contrary, seems equally to despair of relief from heaven and from the earth.

The opposers of the satisfaction of Jesus