racter which had made atonement necessary: since redemption, we see God's dealings in mercy, but Christ was paying the debt to justice to the smallest atom. All the concerns of eternity swelled before his dying eye, which was closing in the extremity of human anguish, but still perceived, like a God, the vast schemes of creation, the opposition of divinity to the fallen nature he had adopted, the strife of the powers of darkness, to make him abandon in these last moments the cause of Creator and created. But not only did he endure this extremity. All his benevolence was not absorbed even in the eternal concerns of the race of man. It was able also to consider what related to a few years of time, for in the midst of it he looked down from the cross, and provided for the temporal comfort of his mother. He confided the remains of her earthly days to the disciple whom he had found truest and tenderest in the world, commending her to him, to be treated like a mother. How beautiful is this expression of the gentle feelings, amid such exertion of the heroic ones! how glorious the mind which unites in the same moment all the perfections that we see in general put forth, one by one, even by the noblest

and best!

Almost at that very moment he was arrived at that pitch of suffering, the extremity of all his human woe, in which he exclaimed, "My God, my

God, why hast thou forsaken me!" Did he indeed believe that, as the representative of man, he should not live again? and yet He did not forsake man and become a God again, in which character he could not die-He bore it all: this was the greatest pang; and now victor by right of that most exalted virtue, and arrived at last at the end of those painful years of struggle, by the consummation of their difficulty, Jesus Christ bowed the noblest head that ever was human upon his breast, said to the redeemed world, "It is finished"--and died.

I add no more: these are the facts, and they are eloquent enough. Scenes remain within and beyond the grave for the mind to contemplate when it is willing to be so employed. There are still forty days on earth, under different circumstances to any that preceded them. Humanity dwindles in the increasing light of divinity, and his intercourse with his disciples is no longer that of an earthly being and human companion. Material laws are no longer assumed as his rule of action, and the world he is going to quit has nothing further to do with his existence. Then there is departure from it to his God and our God, of whom he said before, those who loved him would rejoice at his death, because he went to the Father; and beyond that departure there is glory, and omnipotence, and happiness again; the man of sorrows be

comes the universal God, without whose presence neither we nor our fellows in the most distant stars do so much as exist. He who was acquainted with grief is happy, and the source of all happiness to creation. There is, beside, the promise of this almighty Being given in his character of Saviour, not universal God, " Behold I am with you alway, even to the end;" and from that, in every station and moment of life, flow such reflections upon the noble and benevolent presence then around us, as may well be the bar to all that is mean and evil, the inspirer of all that is dignified and virtuous. It may well become the Comforter of Sorrow, though it need not repress the natural and healing emotions of the human nature he loved; the support to such forbearance and sweetness of temper as satisfy the imagination when we think of him, and the refuge of anxiety, whether it be felt for ourselves, or for beings at a distance, and beyond our help and comfort, but whom he that is with us is with at that moment also.

CHRIST and the Father are one, and the Holy Spirit is also one with them. Our Redeemer is the God, man worships by the natural light of his reason, and who manifests himself by his silent works to the world (Romans, ii.). That God also is the Redeemer known not by reason, but by special revelation; and the spirit that works in our souls with promptings of good, is Father and Redeemer also. We must not try to form a clear image of their union or distinction, for it seems one of those truths of a further state of existence which look out upon us, as the knowledge of manhood does upon childhood-a form of the times to come, which can as yet not be understood, but is to be believed, by reason of the credibility of the witnesses who inform us of it. In dwelling upon the perfections therefore of one of the persons of the Trinity, we must recollect, that they belong equally to each, and that our homage can be properly paid to neither exclusively, but to God, who is all in one, Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier. So that in the reflections resulting from the foregoing treatise, we must not divide our gratitude to Christ from our duty to God, for in neglecting the latter we should leave unfulfilled part of what we owe to our Saviour, who is himself God; and we cannot diminish what we pay to one person

I

of the Trinity without detracting from the homage we render even to the other, whom we fancy ourselves exalting, because there is unity through all. Again, there is distinction: we pray to the Father through the Son, and for the gift of the Holy Ghost; but these are speculations which need not concern us, although it is lawful to pursue them as far as we can, which is indeed a very little way. Here, however, it is sufficient to have called to mind, that in contemplating one Person we must recollect his attributes are common to Three, and the emotions excited by Him belong to all of the Trinity alike.

THE END.