The work of Christ is one, although it may be advantageously viewed in different lights, or as including different parts. It is not supposed, that in some acts he obeyed, and that in other acts he suffered only. Obedience and suffering are different views, or, if you will, different parts of his mediatorial work; but they are inseparable from one anotherinseparable in covenant, in act, and in consequence. They are inseparably connected in the covenant, both being included in the stipulated condition which he engaged to fulfil, namely, that he should make reconciliation for iniquity and bring in an everlasting righteousness. They were inseparably united in what he did;-while he suffered he obeyed, and while he obeyed he suffered; he became obedient unto death. They are inseparable in the consequences of his work; that is to say, no one ever reaps the fruits of the one, without reaping also those of the other; whoever is delivered from death, is made a partaker also of life; whoever is freed from condemnation, is put in possession of a valid title to glory; whoever receives forgiveness of sins, obtains, at the same time, inheritance among them who are sanctified. Yet, though thus indissolubly united, they are nevertheless distinguishable from one another; and the work of the Redeemer admits of a corresponding distinction, in the aspects in which it may be viewed. The formal matter or substance of Christ's atonement is, thus, his sufferings, by which he fulfilled the penal obligation of the law, and procured the pardon of sin or deliverance from guilt; as distinguished from his formal obedience, by which he complied with the preceptive demands of the law, and in virtue of which his people are regarded as righteous and entitled to glory.

II. The whole of Christ's sufferings are comprehended in the matter of his atonement.

It was not by those of his soul to the exclusion of those of his body, or by those of the latter period of his life on earth to the exclusion of those of an earlier date, that he effected the purchase of our salvation. All were necessary, from his birth to his death, from the feeble cry of infancy to the piercing complaint of desertion. From the benevolence of God we conclude, that not a single pang was inflicted more than was requisite. Every pain he endured, every grief which he felt, constituted an indispensable part of that sacrifice by which he made reconciliation for the iniquities of his people. All his sufferings were of a vicarious, none of them of a personal nature. In every case he suffered for

us, never for himself; he suffered, the just for the unjust that he might bring us to God.

Some have held the opinion, that as a creature, Christ was under natural obligation to the law for himself. This we reckon an objectionable statement, as it overlooks the circumstance that he had no personal existence as man, and it is a person alone that can be the subject of a law; as well as that his being under the law naturally for himself as a creature, must have disqualified him from coming under it federally for others as a surety. But even were it admitted that he was under natural subjection to the law on his own account, it is never supposed by any that he was under penal subjection to the law for himself; he had no sin, consequently was entitled to no degree of suffering on his own account; he had no iniquity of his own for which he required to atone by his sufferings; nor was there any moral discipline of a personal nature to be subserved by what he endured. It pleased God, indeed, to make the captain of our salvation perfect through suffering; but it was a relative perfection as the surety of sinners, not a personal perfection as the Son of God, that was, in this way, promoted. What is said of his death, may be affirmed of every suffering by which it was preceded -it was NOT FOR HIMSELF. Not one throb of pain did he feel, not one pang of sorrow did he experience, not one sigh of anguish did he heave, not one tear of grief did he shed, for himself. All were for men; all were for us. If not one of his sufferings was personal, it follows that they were all substitutional, that they were all of course, included in the matter or substance of his atoning sacrifice. During the whole period of his mortal life the victim was a-slaying. At the moment of his birth, the sword of justice was unsheathed against the man who is Jehovah's fellow, and returned not to its scabbard till it had been bathed in the blood of Calvary.

It may be deemed at variance with this view of the subject, that the redemption of man is sometimes in Scripture ascribed simply to the blood of Christ, or to his death alone. But such language is not to be understood as limiting the atonement of Christ to the simple act of dying, or to those sufferings in which there was an effusion of literal blood. The bloody agony of the garden, and the accursed death of the cross were prominent and concluding parts of his sufferings, and, by a common figure, were fit representatives of the whole. They were the last portions, so to speak, the completion of his humiliation, without which all that went before must have been vain; and may be regarded as having pro

cured salvation, in the same way as the last instalment of a sum which is paid by degrees, may be supposed to cancel the debt and procure a discharge. But, as when Christ is said to have been obedient unto death,' we are to understand the phrase, not of a single act, but of the duration of his obedience throughout the whole period of his life, so it may be said that he suffered unto death, as expressive of the duration of his sufferings throughout the whole of his earthly

course.

III. Yet is it not intended by these remarks to deny that a special importance attaches to the sufferings of Christ's soul, and of the concluding period of his life.

It is impossible to peruse the Scriptures attentively and not perceive that a special emphasis is put upon these. We are not to confine the matter of atonement to any one kind or degree of suffering; but as little are we at liberty to overlook the speciality that attaches to those sufferings to which we now refer. His bodily pains were of consequence, but the agonies of his holy soul were of more consequence. The sufferings of infancy and childhood and youth are not to be lost sight of, but those of the final conflict call for particular notice.

The soul is often spoken of with peculiar emphasis. Thou shalt make his SOUL an offering for sin-The waters are come in unto my soUL-MY SOUL is full of troubles and my life draweth nigh to the grave. My SOUL is exceeding sorrowful even unto death-Now is my SOUL troubled, and what shall I say?' (Is. liii. 11; Ps. lxix. 1.-lxxxviii. 3; Mat. xxvi. 38; John xii. 27.) What our divine surety suffered in his soul must ever surpass all our powers of description or conception. The language used by the inspired writers denotes the highest pitch of intensity, while we have the best reason to suppose that every variety of inward agony which a sinless spirit can possibly feel was experienced by him. His soul was exceeding sorrowful;-the most pungent sorrow filled his bosom; his heart was pierced through with many sorrows; he was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. He began to be very heavy:-an unutterable load of dejection, an overpowering weight of consternation pressed down his spirits to the lowest depth of depression. He was sore amazed:-filled with inexpressible wonder and horrific terror at the evil of sin, and the magnitude of the curse to be endured for its expiation. His soul was troubled ;-agitated with alarm, filled with apprehension, overwhelmed with anguish, at the thought of that awful wrath which he had to

endure; at sight of that thick darkness, that midnight gloom of hell which he had to approach and to dissipate; at experience of that condemnation which now weighed him down under its mountain load; at taste of that cup of gall which had to be drunk with all its wormwood bitterness. Well might he take up the complaint, My soul is full of troubles; the waters are come unto my soul." And thus was it that

'he made his soul an offering for sin."

Nor can it be doubted that the sufferings of the latter period of his life possess a speciality of interest. The period of his mysterious agony, his awful desertion, and his actual death calls for particular notice. This is what is emphatically called his hour-the hour and the power of darkness-the hour that he should depart out of this world.' (John vii. 30; Luke xxii. 53;. John xiii. 1.) It was now that he was subjected to that inexplicable agony which, in the absence of every adequate external cause, covered him over with a copious sweat of blood. It was now that he was cruelly deserted by all his former friends, there not being among the whole multitude of those whom he had cured of their sicknesses, to whom he had preached the gospel of salvation, and whom he had chosen as his disciples, one to abide with him in his dire extremity, but being left to utter the heavy complaint, I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none.' (Psalm Ixix. 20.) It was now that he suffered the withdrawment of all sensible tokens of his Father's love; the suspension of every kind of sensible support, of every display of divine complacency; the felt manifestation of God's righteous displeasure at sin; the total eclipse of the hallowed light which had formerly cheered him amid the deepest gloom; the paternal desertion which drew from him the deep groan of bereavement, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' It was now that he suffered the pains of actual dissolution; he died the death of the cross; he bowed his head and gave up the ghost. It was no faint, no swoon, no temporary suspension of the vital functions. It was death-a complete separation of the soul and body; the heart having been pierced by the soldier's spear, and his enemies themselves bearing witness to the reality of his departure. Then came the soldiers and brake the legs of the first, and of the other which was crucified with him: but when they came to Jesus and saw that HE WAS DEAD ALREADY, they brake not his legs: but one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came thereout blood and water." (John xix. 32-34.) This was the period

when emphatically the Son of God made atonement for sin : when the tide of suffering rose to its height; when the dregs of the bitter cup of anguish were wrung out; when the sentence of woe reached its climax. A period, into which whatever is painful in torture, ignominious in shame, distressing in privation, terrific in satanic assault, and overwhelming in experienced wrath, was, as it were, compressed!—a period, whether to the sufferer himself or to the guilty world whose cause he undertook, the most awfully momentous that had ever occurred since the commencement of time.

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Such, then, is what constitutes the matter or substance of Christ's atonement, his sufferings, all his sufferings, and the sufferings of his soul, and of the concluding period of his life in particular. It is not necessary to suppose that the sufferings which Christ endured on our behalf were precisely the same in kind and degree which are experienced by the wicked in the place of final woe. There are, on the one hand, ingredients in their misery which he could not feel, as remorse, despair, and the fury of evil passions. Remorse, he could not feel, for his soul was a stranger to personal guilt. Despair he could not feel, for he had full assurance of deliverance from the bondage of death and the prison of the grave. And as for sinful passions, they had at no time a seat in his breast. On the other hand, there were ingredients in the sufferings of Christ, arising from the repugnance of his pure soul at moral defilement, which those who go down to the pit are incapable of feeling. It is, I humbly conceive," says Dr. Pye Smith, worse than improper to represent the sufferings of Jesus Christ, in their last and most terrible extremity, as the same with those of condemned sinners in the state of punishment. In the case of such incorrigible and wretched criminals, there is a leading circumstance which could not, by any possibility, exist in the suffering Saviour. They eat of the fruit of their own way, and are filled with their own devices. A most material part of their misery consists in the unrestrained power of sinful passions, for ever raging and for ever ungratified. Their minds are constantly torn with the racking consciousness of personal guilt; with mutual aggravations and insults; with the remorse of despair; with malice, fury, and blasphemy against the Holy and Blessed God himself; and with an indubitable sense of Jehovah's righteous abhorrence and rejection of them. No such passions as these, nor the slightest tincture of them, could have place in the breast of the holy Jesus. That meek and purest Lamb offered himself without spot. His heart,