Eighth, at the end. "For the transgression of my people was he stricken."

My first observation shall be, that both the ancient and modern Jews, to this day, allow this chapter to relate to the promised Messiah, although they would not admit that Jesus was the Messiah expected. The verses selected here can have no appropriate meaning whatever, if the plain truth, which they declare, is denied. If assent be not given to the declaration, that the sufferer was wounded, bruised, and stricken, on account of our transgressions, it must be blasphemously inferred, that the spotless and blessed Jesus was executed as a punishment due to his own sins. Although the Jews, who are still blindly expecting a Messiah yet to come, considered Christ as an impostor, and accused him of treason and blasphemy, and for those crimes deemed him deserving of his agonizing death, it is astonishing that any of the present day,

who presume to call themselves Christians, should deny the great sacrifice which was offered up; should deny that Christ died as an Atonement for the sins of mankind.

We will here cease from observations contained in the Old Testament, and shall only select those from the New, and from our Saviour's own mouth, which will most forcibly prove the truth of the Atonement.

The exquisite language in the four Gospels, must charm every one who is not equally dead to the comprehension of sublime and pathetic composition, as well as blind to the truth; if the Gospel be not yet understood, it is indeed "hid to those who are lost." One material reason why so little is said of the Atonement in the Gospels, is evident, for the Disciples themselves did not understand the great object for which he came into the world, nor even that he was on the third day to rise from the dead, although

he had both figuratively, and in direct plain words expressed it. But after his Resurrection, and immediately before his Ascension, (as I shall more fully notice presently,) he opened their understandings that they might understand the Scrip

tures.

St. John, chap. iii. verse 13 to the end of verse 18. "And no man hath ascended up to Heaven, but he that came down from Heaven, even the Son of Man which is in Heaven. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the Wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up; that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have eternal life. For God so loved the world, that he gave his onlybegotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him, should not perish, but have everlasting life; for God sent not his Son into the world, to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved. He that believeth on him is not condemned, but he that believeth not is

condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only-begotten Son of God."

In the first part of this speech of our Saviour to his Disciples, he states, his having come down from Heaven, and then, that, though in his human appearance and character, he was with them, still he was in Heaven, which manifests. his Omnipresence, and consequently, his Divinity. He then alludes to the great Type, or Prophecy, by action, of the Brazen Serpent in the Wilderness, on which, whoever looked were healed from their infirmities. He then adds, "Even so must the Son of Man, &c." Is it not clear that the healing occasioned by the looking at the Brazen Serpent, was a miraculous mode of cure, and was a type of the great remedy for the worst of maladies, sin, which was to be produced by the lifting up of Christ upon the cross? That this was the prescribed and indispensable mode of Redemption, is plain,

from the words, "Even so must, &c." and he then explains the purpose of his death, that those who believe in him should obtain everlasting life. This, he says, proves the great love of God to mankind, that he sent his only-begotten Son to be sacrificed for this purpose. What can be the meaning of the words, "that the world, through him, might be saved," if salvation were not to be obtained by all faithful, true, and repentant believers, in consequence of the Atonement made by the shedding of his innocent blood? However much his pure, his superior and heavenly Doctrine, which, as a moral teacher he inculcated, has effected towards ameliorating the conduct and condition of mankind, it has not, and could not have, in our depraved and corrupted state, so universal an influence as to secure salvation. Of this, the consciences of even the best men in their own case, and a slight view of the state of the world, will abundantly testify;