up the ghost; while, as if in sympathy with the awful catastrophe, the sun, though it is yet day,` withdraws its light, and the shuddering earth is enveloped in a funeral-pall of darkness!

II. Passing from these strange, tragic, thrilling events, let us now direct our thoughts to the religious lessons which they embody and enforce.

I. One lesson is-the awful depravity of fallen

man.

With the exception of the divine Man Himself, who is indeed "holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," the men who here come into view are all notably wicked. We see a disciple who, for a paltry bribe, scruples not to betray the Master who had generously raised him to the rank of an apostle. We see a junta of ecclesiastics who, to crush a supposed rival, hesitate not to pervert the law and prostitute the judicial function. We see a Roman governor consenting to perpetrate what he knows to be a judicial murder, merely to appease the clamour of a faction. We see a besotted populace turning against their best friend and benefactor, and by their low insolence abetting, if not outdoing, the injustice of their rulers. And, yet more deplorable, we see a sincere and loving disciple so beguiled and distracted by his selfish and craven fears, that he denies with an oath the Master

whom, only a few hours before, he had solemnly engaged to die with, sooner than disown. But were these men "sinners above all other men"? Or do we libel our fallen nature when we quote their maltreatment of Jesus as only a sample of its depravity? In its outward form, indeed, their criminality was peculiar and even unique. For there was but one Christ to crucify, and that Christ could be crucified but once. But in their inward hostility to Christ they only exemplified a spirit characteristic of fallen man always and everywhere. In all ages there have been thousands of men, who, if placed in their circumstances, would have been equally with them "the betrayers and murderers of the Just One." It has never been an uncommon thing for men to dislike and oppose Christ; it has ever been a much more uncommon thing for men to love and serve Christ. Even among His professed friends there are many who still betray Him, by seeking to make a gain of godliness; who still deny Him, by refusing to suffer for His sake; who still crucify Him afresh, and put Him to an open shame, by persisting in those sins which even more than the wicked hands of the Jews killed the Prince of Life. Are such professing Christians less guilty than Judas, or Caiaphas, or Pilate, or Peter? O, they are more guilty. None of those men knew the full extent of our Lord's

dignity and claims. But in our day a professing Christian can scarcely be ignorant that it is God Incarnate he denies when he is false to Jesus; that it is Love Divine he insults when he avows an attachment to Jesus which he does not feel. Yet think what a stigma upon our nature it is, that men calling themselves His followers should be ready to deny and insult the meek, the holy, the all-merciful Jesus! After this, tell us not that the human heart is not awfully depraved.

2. A second lesson here taught is, that sin cannot go unpunished.

Who is this Sufferer whom we follow into the garden, and then into the house of the high priest, and then into Pilate's judgment-hall, and then along "the dolorous way," until we stand by the bitter cross and behold Him expiring in agony and shame? Is He one whose vileness of character and condition render Him justly obnoxious to such contumelious treatment? Far otherwise. His character is absolutely spotless; and such, withal, is His personal dignity, that He counts it no robbery to be equal with God. He is the Lord of glory. And yet Him we behold subjected, because of imputed sin, to human cruelty, diabolic malice, divine dereliction. Think you would the eternal Father have consented thus to pour out the vials of wrath upon the partner of His nature and His throne, had it been possible

to allow sin to go unpunished? Why, in thus giving up His own dear Son to the stroke of vengeance, the divine Father, in a sense, sacrificed Himself. Every pang of the Son wrung the heart of the Father. And yet that all-righteous Father paused not, relented not, withdrew not His avenging hand, until the cup of penal woe had been drained to the very dregs. O hope not, ye infatuated men who refuse the proffered benefit of Christ's vicarious sufferings, that you can escape the wrath of God in your own persons! He who spared not His own Son, will He, can He, spare you? He who so rigorously exacted the punishment due to believers at the hands of Incarnate Innocence, will He, can He, suffer you to escape the damnation of hell? If these things have been done in a green tree, what shall be done in the dry?"

It is true, God is our Father, and as such unwilling that any of us should perish. But then He is our Ruler also. He stands towards us in a judicial as well as a paternal relation. And in His judicial capacity He must condemn and punish sin. However tender His love as a Father, He cannot as a Ruler pass over our transgressions without an adequate satisfaction to His broken law and outraged government. The honour of His law and government must be maintained, come what may. And hence, in the

case of those who will not flee to the shelter of Christ's atonement, there remains, and can remain, nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation. Hope not then, I repeat, ye who live and die without Christ, that you can evade the bolts of divine vengeance! Delude not yourselves by a vain trust in God's mere mercy. The bitter cup which Jesus had to drink in the room of His people you must yourselves drink if you abide in unbelief. Nay, even a fuller cup of trembling than His must be wrung out by you! Jesus had no self-crimination to envenom His sorrows; His conscience was clear. But to you the very sting of your sufferings will be that you voluntarily incurred them, and stubbornly refused to avert them. Jesus had no despair of eventual deliverance; for, on the contrary, hope came to Him even in His darkest hour, and winged His thoughts forward to a bright reversion of eternal glory. But in that region of woe to which you wilfully doom yourselves, "hope never comes that comes to all." No star will ever break on its midnight; no primrose will ever tell of its departing winter. What a prospect for beings who must exist for ever! O, why not avert and reverse it while yet you may, by fleeing to Christ for refuge?

3. A third lesson is, That the believer in Jesus may safely count on his own personal exemption from judicial punishment.