So that redemption originates in the unmerited love of God to his elect. For them, the Father gave his Son; the Son gave his life; and that while we were sinners, having no affections for him, or desires after him; he gave himself for sinners doomed to die. "The wages of Sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord."-" When we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son."- "When we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly."-HEB. ix, 22. ZECH. ix, 11. ROM. v, 6—10.—vi, 23. And yet the Lord himself puts the question: "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things?"

Christ Jesus, according to covenant engagement, in his surety capacity, "Ought to have suffered these things." He was the antitype or substance of all the Jewish sacrifices.

The sacrifices and oflerings for Sin, were but shadows and representatives of the one offering Christ. The offerings considered in themselves, were neither efficacious to purge away Sin, nor to make reconciliation for iniquity, but as representatives of the one offering Christ, the Lamb of God that taketh away the Sin of the world." As saith the Apostle, "For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore, when he [that is Christ] cometh into the world, he saith, sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for Sin thou hast had no pleasure. Then said I, Lo, I come (in the volume of the book it is written of me) I delight to do thy will O God. He taketh away the first, that he may

establish the second. By the which will we are sanctified, through the offering up of the body of Christ once."-HEB. x, 4, 10. The Jewish sacrifices were but types and shadows of Christ the Sin-offering:"For the bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for Sin, are burnt without the camp. Wherefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate."-HEB. xiii, 11, 12.

Jesus, as the great high priest, "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh : how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works, to serve the living God."-HEB. ix, 13, 14.

"The blood, which as a priest he bears

For sinners, is his own.

The incense of his pray'rs and tears,

Perfume the holy throne."-WATTS.

Ought not Christ then to have suffered these things?" Hear his language:-" Now is my soul troubled, and what shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour."-JOHN xii, 27. The death of Christ was of necessity, inasmuch as he was the mediator of the new testament :-"For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator."

- And without shedding of blood is no remission.” -HEB, ix, 16, 22.

"Ought not Christ to have suffered these things," according to scripture prophecy concerning the Messiah? The language of prophecy speaks expressly of the sufferings of Christ. "He is despised and rejected of men. All they that see me laugh me to scorn. A man of sorrows;-he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter.-He was taken from prison and from judgment.-The plowers plowed upon my back, they made long their furrows. They gave me gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.-- They pierced my hands and my feet. His visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men.-He was cut off out of the land of the living.-He made his grave with the wicked. After threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself.-He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”—(See Is. lii, 14.-liii, 7, 8, 9.-Ps. cxxix, 3.-xxii, 16.— DAN. ix, 26.-REV. xiii. 8.) Ought not Christ then to have suffered these things in accordance to scripture prophecy, seeing that the Spirit, so clearly, and so minutely testified beforehand of the sufferings of Christ, and also of the glory that should follow? Not the glory of a Sin-ordaining sovereignty; but the glory of a Sin-condemning, Sin-atoning, Sinputting-away, and soul-sanctifying, and soul-redeeming sovereignty. "Jesus, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate.” "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood." ،، Unto hirm that loved us, and washed

us from our sins in his own blood, be glory and dominion for ever."-See HEB. xiii, 12. REV. xv, 5,9.

'Ought not Christ to have suffered these things," according to his own instructions and assertions to his disciples? as the following:-" And he began to teach them, that the Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and of the chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again." Had Christ not suffered these things, where would have been the fulfilment of his words? It is said again: "And he took the twelve, and began to tell them what should happen unto him, saying, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem; and the Son of man shall be delivered unto the chief priests, and unto the scribes ; and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver him to the gentiles: and they shall mock him, and shall scourge him, and shall spit upon him, and shall kill him; and the third day he shall rise again."-(See MARK viii, 31-ix, 2, 10, 12-x, 32, 33, 34.-MAT. xvi, 21-xvii, 22xx, 17.—Luke xviii, 31.) If Christ had not suffered these things his teachings would have been false. According, then, to these teachings, "Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" Most assuredly so, " For he taught his disciples, and said unto them, The Son of man is delivered into the hands of men, and they shall kill him, and after that he is killed, he shall rise again the third day. But they understood not that saying-and they questioned one with another what the rising from the dead should mean."-MARK ix, 9, 31. O the blind

ness of man, even an apostle, until taught by the Spirit; nevertheless, truth is the same, though men neither believe nor understand it. "Though we believe not, he abideth faithful; he cannot deny himself.”—2 TIM. ii, 12. Well might the Lord upbraid the apostles "with their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he was risen."-MARK xvi, 14. And well might the Lord utter that sharp rebuke to the disciples:-"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?"-LUKE xxiv, 25, 26. If Christ had not suffered these things, there would have been no antitype of the sacrifices, there would have been no fulfilment of the prophecies; no fulfilment of the promise which God made unto the fathers; no fulfilment of the declarations of Christ to his disciples; neither could there have been redemption for the church. Had not Christ suffered these things, God's determinate counsel and immutable purpose of grace would have turned up a solemn blank, and the church must have sunk under its own iniquity, without redemption, in everlasting death.

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But thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift!

Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us." "God according to his promise, hath raised unto Israel a Saviour, Jesus. The promise which was made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children."-(See LUKE i, 78.-ACTS xiii, 23, 32.) Christ has appeared according to covenant engage