"he was made of a woman, made under the law to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons." -Exult, O believer, in the infinitely tender, endearing name "Immanuel, God with thee," in thy nature; "thou hast not a high priest who cannot be touched with a feeling of thine infirmities," but being really bone of thy bone, and flesh of thy flesh, "he is in all things tempted as thou art; he knows experimentally thy frame; he remembers that thou art dust," and although elevated to the highest throne, he most tenderly sympathizes in all thy sorrows.

Christ is the end of the law for righteous

ness, as,

3. He obeyed and suffered in the room of his people, as their surety and substitute by an eternal transaction. It was this consideration which constituted him the Lord OUR righteousness, and rendered his obedience and blood satisfactory to justice in our behalf. It is the consideration of his vicarious sufferings which emboldens us to plead, at the bar of an accusing conscience and of a condemning law, the merit of that sacrifice which he offered up.

The Son of God might have assumed the nature of man; he might have submitted to the law of his Father, both in its precept and penalty, without any advantage to our pe-rishing world. But all that he did, and all that he endured, had an immediate relation to his chosen: Every act of obedience which

he performed, and every instance of suffering which he experienced was exclusively in their name, standing in their stead, considered in their room, by his own voluntary, everlasting agreement. He is therefore designated the second Adam, because he embarked in the covenant of works precisely where the first Adam was shipwrecked, and became the representative of a spiritual offspring, as the other had represented a natural offspring; he undertook to magnify that law which the former had degraded, and to expiate that curse which the former had incurred. "For, as by the disobedience of one many were made sinners, so," in virtue of a similar constitution, "by the obedience of one many are made righteous." Messiah is also denominated "the surety of a better testament," or covenant. To whom is this character usually and properly applied? To him who voluntarily engages in behalf of another; who becomes obligated to fulfil some contract in which the other had failed. Paul became surety for Onesimus, by undertaking to pay what he owed. The Eternal Son is therefore denominated surely for man, because he actually assumed their debt he appropriated their sins to himself, by which they became no less his own, in the estination of law and justice, than if he had personally committed them. "The Lord hath laid on him" (charged to his account) "the iniquity of us all. He hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be

made the righteousness of God in him." As the Son of God, in the capacity of surety, assumed the debt of his people, at his hand the payment was required to the uttermost farthing. That wrath, in its very essence, and in all its accumulated horrors, which must have been inflicted on them, was executed upon him their sponsor. He suffered the punishment of loss; those smiles of his Father's countenance, which he esteemed better than life, were utterly denied him ; not a ray of light was afforded to gild that gloom which overcast his spirit, or sooth him in his hour of agony. While "darkness was over the earth, a cloud infinitely more awful and impenetrable, enveloped the soul of the Surety. "My God, my God," he exclaims through exquisiteness of inward distress, "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?" To the punishment of loss was added in the highest possible degree the punishment of sense. His body was subjected to sufferings the most excruciating, and his soul was overwhelmed with successive billows of divine indignation.. Such was the pressure of wrath which he endured, that great drops of blood burst from every pore of his body, "all his bones were out of joint, his soul within him was melted like water, and he was brought into the dust of death. He suffered for our sins," as an apostle expresses it, "the just for (in the room of) the unjust, that he might bring us to

God. He bare OUR sins in his own body upon the tree;" those crimes which we had committed were transferred to Jesus our substitute, that curse which had been denounced against us was literally and awfully executed upon him, "that we being delivered from wrath might live unto God."

Christ is the end of the law for righteousness, because,

4. His sufferings, being the sufferings of Jehovah in our nature, were infinitely and everlastingly meritorious. His obedience and sacrifice, partaking of the perfection of his Godhead, were a complete compensation for all the demerit of human transgression. It was formerly mentioned as indispensably requisite that our mediator should be man, that the same nature which had sinned might suffer; it was no less requisite that he should be God, in order to render his sufferings a full satisfaction. The reconciliation of our world to the divine favor was a work infinitely surpassing the ability of a mere creature, however exalted. "No man can by any means redeem his brother, or give to God a ransom for him." The obedience of ten thousand angels could not compensate for the injury of a single transgression, because, being finite themselves, they are incapable of making an infinite atonement. Did we conceive in our imaginations a created intelligence, possessing excellencies ten thousand times greater than any angel, or all the angels in glory, his obedience through un

numbered ages could be no satisfaction for a single offence of man; he owes for himself all that homage which he can possibly render, and consequently has no righteousness to spare for another: In proportion as his powers are enlarged, his obligation to obey his Creator and Lord is necessarily encreased. But every act of suffering endured by the GOD-man, the WORD made flesh, was divinely valuable for the expiation of our guilt every act of obedience which he performed was divinely meritorious for confirming our title to the immortal inheritance. He who undertook to become "the end of the law for righteousness" to us was essentially "the Mighty God, the Lord of glory, the express image," or counterpart" of his Father's person;" and suitable to his uncreated, underived perfections as God, is the perfection of that redemption which he accomplished as Mediator. Prophets and evangelists, eminently enlightened by the Holy Ghost, appear to emulate each other in extolling its excellence and all-sufficiency. "A great salvation, an everlasting righteousness, a plenteous redemption," are terms which in their turn they ascribe to it. They pronounce this "work of righteousness to be peace, and the effect of this righteousness to be quietness and assurance for ever." They rise higher in their contemplations of this delightful subject, and exhibit Messiah, the anointed One, as finishing transgression, he really annihilating sin, with respect to his