go unto Jerusalem, and suffer many things of the elders, and chief priests, and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day. Peter took him and began to rebuke him, saying, be it far from thee Lord this shall not be unto thee."-Mat. xvi, 22. They had no idea, much less a faith view, of redemption through the blood of the Lamb; they only anticipated a temporal redemption, a restoring of the kingdom of Israel from under the Roman yoke. So that when they saw him taken, condemned, and crucified, their expectations were cut off. Hence, when the women bring the first tidings of a risen Jesus, unto the apostles, "their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not." LUKE xxiv, 11.

The language, also, of the disciples, going to Emmaus, shews how the crucifiction had shaken their confidence; hence their pitiful tale to the supposed stranger:-"The chief priests and our rulers delivered him to be condemned to death, and have crucified him. But we trusted that it had been he which should have delivered Israel."-LUKE xxiv, 20, 21. Thus they express their disappointment, and are sad, concluding that the cause of Jesus of Nazareth was finally overthrown by the crucifixion. "For as yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise from the dead."--JOHN xx, 9.

But upon the morning of the third day, wonderful manifestations of a risen Jesus begin to astonish their bewildered minds. Divine light begins to dawn upon their poor disconsolate hearts. One astonishing soul.

reviving ray from the Son of righteousness is reflected after another; one personal visit of a risen Jesus after another and in addition to this, the Holy Ghost is poured upon them, and this blessed remembrancer brings the words of Jesus to their remembrance, takes of the things of Jesus, shews them his sufferings, death, and resurrection; and also the accordance of these circumstances with scripture prophecy concerning the Messiah; giving them to see light in God's light, and guiding their hearts into truth and grace, and giving them joy and peace in believing; and accompanying the ministry of the word with rich displays of the miraculous power, love and grace of Jesus until the most unquestionable, and soul-convincing evidence of a risen Redeemer fills their hearts with joy and rejoicing:-" And their joy no man taketh away."

And now they no longer stagger at the crucifixion, but view it as the gracious appointment of God, as the act of his boundless goodness and grace; and as being replete with undescribable mercy and good will to men, that is so far as it respects the act of God. Hence we have the language of Christ to his apostles, as follows:-"Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise again the third day and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached, in his name, among all nations, begining at Jerusalem. And ye are his witnesses of these things."-LUKE xxiv, 47. And hence, the atonement, the sufferings, the death, and the blood of Christ, (and also the divine appointment of this blessed atonement for the sheep,) becomes the theme

of the ministry, of them who preached the gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Hence the language of the apostle Peter, in his first sermon after the crucifixion, on the day of Pentecost, is as follows:-"Ye men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know. Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain; whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be holden by it." The apostle then goes on to prove the resurrection of Christ from the words of David, to be according to scripture prophecy; and adds, "therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he," that is David, "seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up. whereof we all are witnesses."--ACTS ii, 22, 30.

Paul's first sermon at Antioch is also full upon the same points of doctrine, viz. :-God's gracious gift and appointment of Christ as the Sin-offering; the wicked act of the rulers in crucifying him; God's raising him from the dead, and the blessed effect resulting from the atonement. "We declare unto you glad tidings, how that the promise which was

made unto the fathers, God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again. Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins: and by him all that believe are justified, from all things, from which they could not be justified by the law of Moses.-(See ACTS xiii, 26-39. Hence again the Apostle's language to the Corinthians :-" I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our Sins according to the scriptures; and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day, according to the scriptures; and that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve; after that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; after that he was seen of James; then of all the Apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.-1 COR. xv, 3, 8.

Preaching the forgiveness of sins by the death and resurrection of Jesus, is a scriptural, soulcomforting, and God-glorifying doctrine. "We have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins."-EPH. i, 7. But the doctrine of the divine appointment of Sin, is an unscriptural, God-dishonouring, and soul-poisoning doctrine: it is "Death in the pot !" "But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come,-by his own blood, he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us."--HEB. ix, 11, 12.

Hence, I consider the passage under investigation to be the triumph of faith, in God's great goodness

Y

in providing a ransom, in putting away Sin, in accomplishing salvation, and bringing in everlasting righteousness for his people; and as their retort upon the enemy, as to their vain attempt to frustrate God's gracious purpose; according to the language of the psalmist "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel against the Lord, and against his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them greatly in derision." -Ps. ii, 1, 2. But if this their rage was the effect of God's secret will and sovereign purpose, the Lord might as well have asked, why do the stars shine in the firmament? as to ask, "why the heathen rage, &c." But the heathen rage from carnal enmity, not from sovereign appointment; they rage against the sovereign appointment of God, and against his anointed, and against the work and priestly office of his Anointed. Yet notwithstanding their rage, counsel, gathering themselves together, and arranging themselves, as it were, in battle array against the Lord, and against his Anointed; God finally upsets the whole, brings the counsel of the heathen to nought, makes the devices of the people of non-effect; and accomplishes his own unfrustable purpose of grace in the salvation of his people by Jesus of Nazareth, whom they slew and hanged on a tree; and that too in every step, according to covenant engagement, in the eternal and immutable purpose or grace counsel. "Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill

of Zion."