probability, to depart from this world before you have begun to make any preparation for another. May God, in his mercy, preserve every one of us from a situation so deplorable, and enable us, by habitually communing with our own hearts, to be making daily advances in our progress to heaven! Amen. SERMON IV. THE DEATH OF CHRIST. TITUS ii., 14. Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. THERE is no one event, my friends, recorded either in sacred or profane history, more interesting to those who believe the accounts of it that have been handed down to us, than the death of Christ. Considered merely in itself, it was attended by circumstances well calculated to awaken our strongest and tenderest sympathies. The sufferer himself was distinguished, as we learn from his history, by the possession of every quality that can render a character at once amiable and venerable. In his general deportment, he was meek and inoffensive. From the time at which he had first offered himself to public attention, he had been constantly employed either in endeavouring to communicate valuable information, or in performing acts of kindness. The character which he assumed, Preached before the celebration of the Lord's Supper. and his claim to which he established, as well by the most surprising miracles, as by the irreproachable purity of his life, and the intrinsic excellence of his doctrines and precepts, imparts to him, at the same time, a degree of dignity, such as no other person, of whom we read in history, ever possessed. His persecutors, not merely their conduct towards him, as described by the writers of the Gospels, but the testimony of an historian of their own nation, who was not likely to misrepresent them, justifies us in describing as interested, obstinate, malignant, and, to crown all, hypocritical. The death to which, after having availed themselves of the treachery of a companion to intrude upon his privacy, and supported their false and malicious charges against him, before the profligate and timid Pilate, with the most unblushing effrontery, they succeeded in consigning him, was equally painful and ignominious, preceded and accompanied by every aggravation which conscious innocence and dignity may be supposed to have felt the most acutely. If, however, to these circumstances, calculated, as they are, in themselves, to impart to the event under consideration a far more than ordinary degree of interest, we add the several bearings of this event upon the Christian revelation,-upon the diffusion of Gospel blessings,-upon the moral and religious condition of mankind,-upon our own individual welfare and happiness, both here and hereafter,—there will and there ought to attach to it a degree of interest to which no language can do justice, and the extent of which, indeed, can only be limited by the degree of attention we are induced to pay to it. Some consideration of this subject at present, may not form an unsuitable preparation for the solemn and interesting rite which we are this day to celebrate. There is nothing which will more readily attract the attention of the careful reader of the New Testament, than the frequency with which the sacred writers refer to this event, the interest with which they dwell on it, and the almost numberless variety of attitudes in which they present it to our contemplation. At one time, they represent the giving up of Christ, a perfectly innocent and peculiarly favoured person, to a painful and ignominious death, for the benefit of mankind, as violence done by the Deity to his own feelings of approbation and affection, and an astonishing proof of his unbounded love towards a guilty and rebellious world. "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." "God commendeth his love towards us, At in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." "He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not, with him, also freely give us all things?" another, they speak of the sufferings of Christ as a discipline imposed on him by the Almighty, to perfect his moral character, and qualify him more completely for the elevation to which he was afterwards to be advanced. "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; and being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him." "For it became Him, for whom are all things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings." Our attention is sometimes principally directed to Jesus himself, and the motives by which he was actuated. In one instance, his piety and obedience to the will of God are eulogized. He is said to "have given himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." In another, his disinterestedness forms the prominent object. "Ye know the grace, or generosity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, or lived in poverty, that ye, through his poverty, might be rich."-"Let this mind be in you which was also in |