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SERMON XXIV.

LUKE x. 21, 22.

In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight. All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.

JESUS CHRIST, then, it seems, did rejoice in spirit on a particular occasion. It was not common for the Son of God, in the days of his humiliation on earth, to rejoice. Mourning was his ordinary frame: for his circumstances were peculiar; and such as no man, except himself,

was ever involved in. He had to grapple with the condemning sentence of God's holy law, which was laid upon him in all its weight and with all its terrors. Himself, though without all spot of sin, was nevertheless, in the eye of the Divine Law, treated as a sinner under condemnation; as under that special curse from which he came to redeem us miserable sinners.

Well were it, did we often reflect on the awful, the tremendous situation, in which the Son of God was placed; and thence conceive how immensely great are our obligations to Him, who voluntarily put himself into this condition, and was made a curse for sinful men, that all the blessings of redemption might be ours, with all the promises of the Spirit through faith, unto eternal life. Is it not too true, that the ideas of many of us, in estimating his love towards fallen and lost creatures, are much too low? And is it not one reason of this low state of our affections, that we think but little of the sufferings to which he exposed himself? His sufferings were not in show and form only, like the exhibition of a sufferer in theatrical representations: they were real sufferings; they reached every corner of the human

heart of the Second Person of the Trinity. Neither were they ostentatious or affected: they were genuine, bitter, and grievous. We cannot possibly fully conceive what that Being must have endured, who stands between God and man to satisfy Divine Justice. His agony in the Garden was such as perfectly amazed and terrified himself: "His soul was sorrowful, even unto death." The Godhead of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, it is true, could not suffer; it was "the man Christ Jesus" who felt affliction: he was a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief:" and, lest his suffering manhood should be overcome, an angel came from heaven to strengthen him; and he was supported and carried through the trying scene in faith and patience and prayer, in the very same manner as any other holy man may be. To my mind it is very evident, though by no means I think always remembered by us, that Jesus was supported in his afflictions, not by the absolute power of his Godhead, which would have left no room for such reflections as the foregoing, but by the prayer of faith and hope a sa man; looking to his Heavenly Father with a steady, pious, and submissive confidence.

My brethren, pause here for a moment, to think what love, what gratitude, is due to this infinitely precious Saviour, who thus suffered for us, to the very extremity of suffering, under the load of sin imputed to him! It is very evident that he felt this before he felt the bodily sufferings of his cross. Nay, he once confessed that his "soul was troubled" on the prospect of his sufferings; and by analogy, and the nature of the thing, we may conclude that this was not the only instance of his distress. The many evils, also, which his holy nature was ex posed to see and hear and feel, during his stay in a sinful world, must have been exceedingly grievous to his righteous spirit. If rivers of waters ran down the eyes of the Psalmist because men kept not the Divine Law, what pain must the holy nature of Christ have endured on the same account! Satan's temptations must have been peculiarly offensive to him; and yet more than once was he molested with them: for when the devil left him at the first remarkable temptation, it is said, he left him only "for a season."

Thus does it appear that suffering was the constant frame of our Saviour's spirit, that joy might be ours, through the remission of sins and the

unspeakable benefits of his death and passion. Thus to Him sin was imputed; but to us, if we truly receive him in all his offices, righteousness is imputed. Rejoice in the Lord always," is the language addressed to faithful Christians; but the whole tenor of our Mediator's work proclaimed Him to be "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;" and to be an object of contempt and spite and calumny among the inhabi tants of a wicked world, whom he constantly invited to repentance, and peace of conscience, and eternal blessings. Those who have never experienced any trials of this sort may easily treat them as light matters; but they are ever found to be grievous to flesh and blood, when men's tempers are assailed by them in any considerable degree. Forget not, then, that the blessed Jesus was tempted in all points like as we are; and that, therefore, he will be touched with a feeling of our infirmities, being in all things "made like unto his brethren," only with this essential exception, that he was without sin.

Thus far I have spoken of the general frame of our Saviour's spirit while here on earth, so very