Sermons of the Rev. James Saurin

nearer view of the person of whom so lofty an idea is conveyed from preparations so magnificent? All these preparations, however, are in many cases, not so much the badges of the real greatness of the personage whom they announce, as of his vanity. It has oftener than once been felt, that the object of the least importance in a splendid procession, was the very man who acted as the hero of it. But what could the Levitical dispensation furnish, to convey an idea of the Messiah, but what fell infinitely short of the Messiah himself?

Simeon at length beholds this Messiah, so eagerly expected through so many ages. Simeon, more highly favoured than Jacob, who, on his dying bed exclaimed, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!" Gen. xlix. 8. Simeon exulting, says, "Lord, I have seen thy salvation:" more highly favoured than so many kings, and so many prophets, who desired to see the Redeemer, but did not see him, Luke xi. 24, more highly privileged than so many believers of former ages, who saw only the promises of him "afar off, and embraced them," Heb. xi. 13, he receives the effect of those promises; he contemplates, not afar off, but nigh, "the star which was to come out of Jacob," Numb. xxiv. 17, he beholds the accomplishment of the prophecies, "Christ the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth," Rom. x. 4, the ark, the Shechinah, the habitation of the Deity in his temple, he in whom "all the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth bodily," Col. ii. 9, he sees the manna, and more than the manna, for "your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead," John vi. 58, but, "whoso eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life," ver. 54. "Father of day," exclaimed a Pagan prince, "thou radiant Sun, I thank thee that before I leave the world, I have had the felicity of seeing Cornelius Scipio in my kingdom and palace; now I have lived as long as I can desire." It is the very emotion with which Simeon is animated: he has lived long enough, because he has seen "the salvation of God." Let the Roman republic henceforth extend her empire, or let its limits be contracted; let the great questions revolving in the recesses of cabinets be determined this way or that; let the globe subsist a few ages longer, or crumble immediately into dust; Simeon has no desire to see any thing farther: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

could I but live to see that adversary of the church confounded: could I but live to see that mystery of Providence unfolded: could I but live to see Zion arise out of her ruins, and the chains of her bondmen broken asunder: could I but live to see my son attain such and such a period. Such emotions are not in every case to be condemned as unlawful; but how much do they frequently savour of human infirmity! Let it be our study to die in peace with God, and we shall be disposed to die, whenever it shall please him, who has sent us into the world, to call us out of it again.

ness.

Death draws aside the curtain, which conceals from our eyes what is most worthy of our regard, of our desire, of our admiration. If thou diest in a state of reconciliation with God, thine eyes shall behold events infinitely more interesting and important than all those which can suggest a wish to continue longer in this world. Thou shalt behold something unspeakably greater than the solution of some particular mystery of Providence: thou shalt discern a universal light, which shall dispel all thy doubts, resolve all thy difficulties, put to flight all thy darkThou shalt behold something incomparably surpassing the confusion of those tyrants, whose prosperity astonishes and offends thee: thou shalt behold Jesus at the right hand of his Father, holding "a rod of iron," ready to "dash in pieces, like a potter's vessel," Ps. ii. 9, all those who dare oppose his empire. Thou shalt behold something incomparably more sublime than the dust of Zion reanimated: thou shalt behold the "new Jerusalem," of which "God and the Lamb," are the sun and temple, Rev. xxi. 2. 22, 23. Thou shalt behold something incomparably more interesting than the chains of the bondmen broken asunder: thou shalt behold the souls of a thousand martyrs invested with white robes, Rev. vi. 11, because they fought under the banner of the cross: thou shalt hear them crying one to another; "Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready," Rev. xix. 6, 7. Thou shalt behold something incomparably more interest than the establishment of that son, the object of so many tender affections: thou shalt behold those multitudes of glorified saints who are eternally to partake with thee in the felicity of the ever blessed God: thine eyes shall behold that adorable face, the looks of which absorb, if I may use the expression, all those of the creature.

Let it be admitted, at the same time, that if ever any one could be justified in expressing a wish to have the hour of death deferred, it was in the case of those believers, who lived at the period when the Messiah was expected. This was the case with Simeon. Brought up under an economy in which every thing was mysterious and emblematical, he is justifiable, should he have expressed a wish to see the elucidation of all these sacred enigmas. When a prince is expected to visit one of our cities; when we behold the sumptuous equipages by which he is preceded, the train of messengers who announce his approach; palaces decorated, and triumphal arches reared, for his reception: does not all this excite a desire of obtaining a

Secondly, Simeon remains no longer attached to life from terror of the punishment of sin after death. "The sting of death is sin;" that sting so painfully acute to all mankind, is peculiarly so to the aged. An old man has rendered himself responsible for all the stations which he occupied, for all the relations which he formed in social life, and in the church. And these in general, become so many sources of remorse. Generally speaking, it is not separation from the world merely which renders death an object of horror; it is the idea of the account which must be given in, when we leave it. If nothing else were at stake, but merely to prepare for removing out of the world, a small degree of reflection, a little philosophy, a little fortitude, might answer the purpose.

What is the amount of human life, especially to a man arrived at a certain period of existence? What delight can an old man find in society, And through what a path was she to behold after his memory is decayed, after his senses this Son departing out of the world? By a speare blunted, after the fire of imagination is ex- cies of martyrdom, the bare idea of which scares tinguished, when he is from day to day losing the imagination. She beholds those bountiful one faculty after another, when he is reduced hands which had so frequently fed the hungry, so low as to be the object of forbearance at which had performed so many miracles of mermost, if not that of universal disgust and dere-cy, pierced through with nails: she beholds that royal head, which would have shed lustre on the diadem of the universe, crowned with thorns, and that arm, destined to wield the sceptre of the world, bearing a reed, the emblem of mock-majesty; she beholds that temple in which “dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily," Col. ii. 9, with all his wisdom, with all his illumination, with all his justice, with all his mercy, with all the perfections which enter into the notion of the supreme Being; she beholds it assaulted with a profane hatchet, and an impious spear: she hears the voices of the children of Edom crying aloud, concerning this august habitation of the Most High, "Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof."

liction? But the idea of fourscore years passed in hostility against God, but the idea of a thousand crimes starting into light, and calling for vengeance; by their number and their atrocity exciting "a fearful looking for of judgment”this, this presents a just ground of terror and astonishment.

thing that communicated motion and life had been annihilated.

But all such terrors disappear in the eyes of Simeon; he knows the end for which this child was born, whom he now holds in his arms: he directs his eyes beyond the cradle, to his cross; by means of the prophetic illumination which was upon him, he perceives this Christ of God "making his soul an offering for sin," Isa. liii. 10. He expects not, as did his worldly-minded countrymen, a temporal kingdom; he forms far But if even then, while she beholds Jesus juster ideas of the glory of the Messiah; he con- expiring, she could have been permitted to aptemplates him "spoiling principalities and pow-proach him, to comfort him, to collect the last ers, making a show of them openly, nailing sigh of that departing spirit! Could she but them to his cross," Col. ii. 15. Let us not be have embraced that dearly beloved Son, to accused of having derived these ideas from the bathe him with her tears, and bid him a last schools, and from our courses of theological farewell! Could she but for a few moments study: no, we deduce this all important truth have stopped that precious fluid draining off in immediately from the substance of the gospel. copious streams, and consuming the sad remains Ponder seriously, I beseech you, what Simeon of exhausted nature! Could she but have been himself says to Mary, as he showed to her the permitted to support that sacred, sinking head, infant Jesus: "Behold this child is set for the and to pour balm into his wounds! But she falling and rising again of many in Israel; and must submit to the hand of violence: she too is for a sign which shall be spoken against: yea, borne down by "the power of darkness," Luke a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also," xxii. 53. She has nothing to present to the Luke ii. 34, 35. expiring sufferer but unavailing solicitude, and fruitless tears: "a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also:" Simeon understood, then, the mystery of the cross: he looked to the efficacy of that blood which was to be shed by the Redeemer whom he now held in his arms, and under that holy impression exclaims, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation."

What could be meant by that sword with which the mother of our Lord was to have her "soul pierced through?" That anguish, undoubtedly, which she should undergo, on seeing her Son nailed to a cross. What an object for a mother's eye! Who among you, my brethren, has concentrated every anxious care, every tender affection on one darling object, say a beloved child, whom he fondly looks to, as his consolation in adversity, as the glory of his family, as the support of his feeble old age? Let him be supposed to feel what no power of language is able to express: let him put himself in the place of Mary, let that beloved child be supposed in the place of Jesus Christ: faint image still of the conflict which nature is preparing for that tender mother: feeble commentary on the words of Simeon to Mary, "yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also." Mary must lose that son whose birth was announced to her by an angel from heaven; that Son on whose advent the celestial hosts descended to congratulate the listening earth; that Son whom so many perfections, whom such ardour of charity, whom benefits so innumerable should have for ever endeared to mankind: already she represents to herself that frightful solitude, that state of universal desertion in which the soul finds itself, when, having been bereaved of all that it held dear, it feels as if the whole world were dead, as if nothing else remained in the vast universe, as if every VOL. II.-19

3. Finally, Simeon no longer feels an attachment to this world, from any doubt or suspicion he entertained respecting the doctrine of a life to come. He is now at the very fountain of life, and all that now remains is to be set free from a mortal body, in order to attain immortality. We may deduce, from the preparations of grace, a conclusion nearly similar to that which we draw from the preparations of nature, in order to establish the doctrine of a future state of eternal felicity. How magnificent are the preparations which nature makes! What glory do they promise after death! The author of our being has endowed the human soul with an unbounded capacity of advancing from knowledge to knowledge, from sensation to sensation. I make free here to borrow the thought of an illustrious modern author:* "A perpetual circulation," says he, "of the same objects, were they subject to no other inconvenience, would be sufficient to give us a dis

* Mentor, tom. iii. Dise. exli. p. 340.

munion table! And then to die? And then to exist no more? And can this be all that salvation which the earth was to bring forth? And can this be all that righteousness which the skies were to pour down? And can this be the dew which the heavens were to drop down from above? And can this be the whole amount of the achievements of that Counsellor, of that Wonderful one, of that Prince of Peace, of that Father of Eternity? "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." Good Simeon, what meaning do you intend to convey by these words? Into what peace art thou wishing henceforth to depart, if these eyes, which behold the Messiah, are going to be doomed to the darkness of an eternal night? If these hands, which are privileged to hold, and to embrace him, are going to become a prey to worms? And if that life which thou wast enjoying before thy Redeemer appeared, is going to be rent from thee, because he is already come?

Ah! my brethren, how widely different are the ideas which this holy man of God entertained! "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." Wherefore now? Because now I know, from the accomplishment of thy promise, what was before a matter of presumption only, namely, that my soul is not a mere modification of matter, and a result of the arrangement, and of the harmony of my organs: because I am now convinced, that this soul of mine, on being separated from the body, shall not become a forlorn wanderer in a strange and solitary land: because now I no longer entertain any doubt respecting my own immortality, and because I hold in my arms him who has purchased it, and who bestows it upon me: because to see Jesus Christ, and to die, is the highest blessedness that can be conferred on a mortal creature.

gust of the world. When a man has beheld frequently reiterated vicissitudes of day and night, of summer and winter, of spring and autumn; in a word, of the different appearances of nature, what is there here below capable of satisfying the mind? I am well aware," adds he, "how brilliant, how magnificent this spectacle is, I know how possible it is to indulge in it with a steady and increasing delight; but I likewise know that, at length, the continual recurrence of the same images cloys the imagination, which is eagerly looking forward to the removal of the curtain, that it may contemplate new scenes, of which it can catch only a confused glimpse in the dark perspective of futurity. Death, in this point of view, is a transition merely from one scene of enjoyment to another. If present objects fatigue and excite disgust, it is only in order to prepare the soul for enjoying, more exquisitely, pleasures of a different nature, ever new, and ever satisfying."

The conclusion deducible from the preparations of nature, may likewise be derived from the preparations of grace. Let us not lose sight of our leading object. How magnificent had the preparations of grace appeared in the eyes of Simeon! This we have already hinted: the whole of the Levitical dispensation consisted of preparations for the appearance of the Messiah; if we form a judgment of the blessings which he was to bestow upon the human race, from the representations given us of him, it is impossible to refrain from drawing this conclusion. That the Messiah was to give unbounded scope to the desires of the heart of man, was to communicate to him that unspeakable felicity, for the enjoyment of which nature had already prepared him, but which nature had not the power to bestow. There, I mean in the Levitical dispensation, you found the shadows which retraced the Messiah; there you found types which represented him; there oracles which predicted him; there an exhibition in which were displayed his riches, his pomp, his magnificence; there you heard the prophets crying aloud: "Drop down, ye heavens, from above, and let the skies pour down righteousness: let the earth open, and let them bring forth salvation; and let righteousness spring up together," Isa. xlv. 8. "For unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace," Isa. ix. 6. Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look upon the earth beneath: for the heavens shall vanish away like smoke, and the earth shall wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein shall die in like manner; but my salvation shall be for ever, and my righteousness shall not be abolished,"

Isa. li. 6.

Now, what state of felicity could possibly correspond to conceptions raised so high by preparations of such mighty import? What! amount to no more than that which the Messiah bestows in this world? What! no more than to frequent these temples? What! no more than to raise these sacred songs of praise: to celebrate our solemn feasts: to eat a little bread, and to drink a little wine at the com

Permit me, my beloved brethren, to repeat my words, and with them to finish this discourse: to see Jesus Christ, and to die, is the highest blessedness that can be conferred on a mortal creature. Enjoy, my friends, enjoy the felicity which the Saviour bestows upon you, during the course of a transitory life: gratify, as you this day turn a wondering eye to the manger in which this divine Saviour lies, and as you celebrate the memory of his incarnation, gratify the taste which you have for the great and the marvellous: and cry out with an enraptured apostle, "Without controversy, great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh," 1 Tim. iii. 16. Gratify, as in the retirement of the closet you devote yourselves to the study of the doctrine of this Jesus, gratify the desire you feel to learn and to know: draw constant supplies of light and truth from those "treasures of wisdom and knowledge," Col. ii. 3, which he opens to you in his gospel. Gratify, as you receive, next Lord's day, the effusions of his love, gratify the propensity which naturally disposes you to love him. Let every power of the soul expand on hearing the tender expressions which he addresses to you in the sacrament of the supper: "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heaven laden, and I will give you rest," Matt. xi. 28. "Behold I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come

in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me," Rev. iii. 20.

But after all, it is not during the course of a transitory life, at least it is not while you consider death as still remote, that you are capable of knowing the pleasure there is in being a Christian. No, it is neither in the retirement of the closet, nor seated at the table of the Lord: it is not in your solemn feasts, that you are capable of relishing the sweetness which is to be found in beholding Jesus Christ, in embracing him, in believing on him: it is in the last moments of life; it is when stretched on a death-bed. Till then, your passions will sometimes call it in question, whether the man of the world does not actually enjoy more happiness than the Christian; whether the commerce of society, whether spectacles, plays, the splendour of a court, do not confer more real pleasure than that which flows from communion with Jesus Christ.

SERMON LXX.

May these ideas of the Christian religion attach us inviolably unto it. Let us, with Simeon, embrace the Saviour of the world; let us, with the wise men of the East, present unto him our gold, and frankincense, and myrrh: or rather, let us present unto him hearts penetrated with admiration, with gratitude, with love. Yes, divine infant, desire of all nations, glory of Israel, Saviour of mankind! divine infant, whom so many oracles have predicted, whom so many prophets have announced, whom so many types have represented, and whose radiant day so many kings and prophets were desirous to behold: my faith pierces through all those veils which overspread and conceal thee; I behold, in the person of a creature feeble and humbled, my God, and my Redeemer: I contemplate thee not only as born a few days ago at Bethlehem of Judah, but subsisting "before the mountains were brought forth, before the earth was formed, even from everlasting to everlasting," Ps. xc. 2. I behold thee not only lying in a manger, wrapped in swaddling cloths, but I behold thee seated on a throne of glory, "highly exalted," having 'a name that is above every name," adored by angels and seraphim, encircled with rays of divinity.

Every power of my understanding shall henceforth be devoted to the knowledge of thee: it shall be my constant endeavour to please thee, my supreme delight to possess thee; and it shall be my noblest ambition to prostrate myself one day before thy throne, and to sing with the innumerable multitudes of the redeemed of every nation, and people, and tongue: "Unto him who sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, be honour and glory, and power, for ever and ever. Amen."

CHRIST'S VALEDICTORY ADDRESS
TO HIS DISCIPLES.

JOHN XIV. xv. xvi.

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me,* &c.

WE begin, this morning, with explaining to you the texts which refer to our blessed Saviour's passion. If the knowledge of the Christian be all reducible to this, "to know Jesus Christ, and him crucified," 1 Cor. ii. 2, it is impossible to fix your eyes too frequently on the mysteries of the cross. Very few discourses, accordingly, are addressed to you, in which these great objects are not brought forward to view. Nay, more; it is the pleasure But when you shall find yourselves, like of this church, that, at certain stated seasons, Simeon, in a state of universal dereliction; but the doctrine of the cross, to the exclusion of when you shall behold nothing around you save every other, should be the subject of our unavailing solicitudes, save ineffectual medi- preaching: that all the circumstances attendcines, save fruitless tears, then you will knowing it should be detailed, and every view of it what the religion of Jesus Christ is; then, my displayed. But whatever powers may be apbrethren, you will taste the delight of being a plied to the execution of this work, it cannot Christian; then you will feel all the powerful possibly be accomplished within the space of a attraction of that peace which is mentioned in few weeks. We have especially had to lament the text: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant that our Saviour's last address to his disciples depart in peace, according to thy word, for should be omitted: I mean the discourse which mine eyes have seen thy salvation." he addressed to them, a little while before he retired into the garden of Gethsemane, and which St. John has preserved to us in the xiv. xv. and xvi. chapters of his gospel. This part of the history of the passion is, unquestionably, one of the most tender and most interesting. We propose to make it pass in review before you this day, as far as the bounds prescribed to us will permit.

Were it proper to make the place where I stand a vehicle for communications of this kind, I am ready ingenuously to acknowledge, that a particular circumstance determined my choice on this occasion. A few days only have elapsed since I was called to be witness of the dying agonies of a valuable minister, whom Providence has just removed from the superintendence of a neighbouring church. God was pleased to visit him for some months past, if we may presume to speak so, with a "temptation," more than "is common to man," 1 Cor. x. 13; but he granted him a fortitude more than human to support it. I was filled with astonishment at the violence of his sufferings; and still more at the patience with which he endured them; I could not help expressing a wish to know, what particular article of religion had contributed the most to produce in him that prodigy of resolution: "Have you ever paid a close attention, my dear brother,' said he to me, "to the last address of Jesus Christ to his disciples? My God," exclaimed he, "what charity! what tenderness! but above all, what an inexhaustible source of consolation in the extremity of distress!" His words

Those who wish to derive benefit from the following

discourse, must previously peruse, with attention, the xiv xv. and xvi. chapters of John's gospel.

Mr. Begnon, pastor of the church at Leyden.

filled me with astonishment: my thoughts were immediately turned towards you, my dearly beloved brethren; and I said within myself, I must furnish my hearers with this powerful defence against suffering and death. I enter this day on the execution of my design. Condescend to concur with me in it. Come and meditate on the last expressions which fell from the lips of a dying Saviour; let us penetrate into the very centre of that heart which the sacred flame of charity animated.

I must proceed on the supposition that your minds are impressed with the subject of the three chapters of which I am going to attempt an analysis. The great object which our Lord proposes to himself, in this address, is to fortify is disciples against the temptations to which they were about to be exposed. And, in order to reduce our reflections to distinct classes, Jesus Christ means to fortify his disciples,

I. Against the offence of his cross. II. Against the persecution which his doctrine was going to excite.

III. Against forgetfulness of his precepts. IV. Against sorrow for his absence.

I. First, Jesus Christ means to fortify his disciples against the offence of the cross. A man must be a mere novice in the history of the gospel if he know not how extremely confused their ideas were with respect to the mystery of redemption. Those who ascribe to them superior illumination are mistaken, both in the principle, and in the consequences which they deduce from it. Their principle is, that the Jewish church was perfectly well acquainted with the whole mystery of the cross; an opinion supported by no historical monument what

wherefore trust no longer? Whence then arises this diffidence? Wherein has his promise failed? What oracle of the prophets has he neglected to fulfil? "O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" ver. 25, 26.

Taking it for granted, then, that the apostles had but confused ideas of the mystery of the cross, what offence must they not have taken when they were called to be witnesses of that fearful spectacle! From our being accustomed to hear the punishment of crucifixion spoken of in terms of high dignity, we lose sight of what was ignominious and humiliating in it. Represent to yourself a man whom you had made the centre, the fixed point of all your hopes. Represent to yourself a man, a God-man, to whom you had been accustomed to yield all the homage of adoration: represent to yourself this divine personage, whom you believed to have descended from heaven to remedy the woes of mankind; to remove your private distresses; to re-establish your credit, and to restore to your country all its splendour and all its importance: represent to yourself this divine personage bound by the hands of an insolent rabble; dragged along from one tribunal to another; condemned as a felon, and nailed to a tree. Can this be that Messiah, into whose hand God was to put a "rod of iron to break the nations, and to dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel?" Ps. ii. 9. Can this be that Messiah who should "have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth?" Ps. lxxii. 8. Can this be the Messiah who was to make us "sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel?" Luke xxii. 30. As this was the grand offence with the apostles, their Master supplies them with more than one buckler to repel it.

1. The first buckler for repelling the offence of the cross-The miserable condition of a lost world. "I tell you the truth; it is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you," ch. xvi. 7. Had not Jesus Christ been offered in sacrifice, there had been no Comforter, and no consolation for the wretched posterity of Adam. The anger of a righteous God was kindled against them. They had nothing to look for from heaven, but thunderbolts and "a horrible tempest," to crush their guilty heads. On the cross it was that Jesus Christ restored a blessed correspondence between heaven and earth; "for it pleased the Father, that in him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven," Col. i. 19, 20.

ever.

But granting we were to admit this principle, we must of necessity resist the consequences deduced from it, with respect to the apostles. It is very possible to have a clouded understanding amidst a luminous dispensation, and to grovel in ignorance be the age ever so enlightened. Had we a mind to demonstrate to what a degree the age in which we live surpasses those which preceded it, whether in physical discovery, or in metaphysical and theological speculation, would we go to collect our proofs among our common mechanics, or from among the fishermen who inhabit our seaports?

Let us call to remembrance the indiscreet zeal of Peter, when Jesus Christ declared to him, “How he must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things-and be killed," Matt. xvi. 21, "Be it far from thee, Lord: this shall not be unto thee," ver. 22. Recollect the reply which Jesus made to that disciple: "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence to me," ver. 23. Recollect farther the question which the apostles put to their master some time before his ascension: Lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel?" Acts i. 6. Above all, recollect the conversation which passed between certain of them immediately after his resurrection: "we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and besides all this, to-day is the third day since these things were done," Luke xxiv. 21. "You trusted that it had been he which should have redeemned Israel!" Well! and

2. The second buckler against the offence of the cross-The downfall of the enemy of mankind, I mean the devil and his angels: "the prince of this world is judged," ch. xiv. 30, xvi. 11. The crucifixion of the Redeemer of the world, it is true, seemed to complete the triumph of Satan, but it was, in reality, precisely the point of his decline and fall. He "bruised the heel" of the promised seed, but Jesus Christ "bruised his head," Gen. iii. 15. On the cross it was that Jesus executed the

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