the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." (Heb. iv. 15.) Thus has Christ, the High Priest of the Church, passed into the heavens, with the body which He inhabited on earth. The same body which bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows; which was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted; which was tempted, and persecuted, and slain; the very body, with all its fine sensibilities which give such beauty and interest to the character of Christ-His tender heart, His affectionate bosom, and His benevolent disposition-He has carried with Him into glory, to be seated at the right hand of God, as man's Mediator and Intercessor; and, now, when we approach Him in prayer, when we have any sorrow to pour into His ear, any confession to make, or any blessing to solicit, we may come boldly to the throne of grace; for we remember His earthly character-how accessible He was, and how ready to receive sinners; how kindly He listened to His supplicants, and how readily He granted their petitions. We remember how tenderly he loved us-how deeply He sympathised with us how patiently He suffered for us. We remember that He wept with the friends of Lazarus ; that He pitied the widow of Nain; and had compassion for the hungry multitude; and we forget not how often, yea, how constantly He expressed tender solicitude for man in his guilt, and called, and entreated him to come unto Him, though weary and heavy laden, that He might give him rest;-and remembering all this, we

approach Him with the confidence of brethren. It is not to a great, distant, and incomprehensible Spirit, that we go in prayer; but to One we know, One we have seen on earth, One of ourselves, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh; and, therefore, we draw near unto Him with humble confidence, and adoring love-love inspired by gratitude, and called forth by every recollection of our earthly Saviour; and confidence, grounded on the most delightful, cheering truth, that Christ Jesus, the once suffering, now glorified Redeemer, "is the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." (Heb. xiii. 8.)

CHAPTER XI.

PROPHETIC TESTIMONY TO THE WORK OF OUR COVENANT REDEEMER.

"The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee.”

Te Deum.

THE terms of the covenant being settled, the period at length arrived, when those circumstances transpired, the fore-knowledge of which was the occasion of this covenant.

God created the world, and placed Adam in Paradise; where he sinned, and brought upon himself and his posterity the penalty of death. Yet, no sooner did he forfeit life, than life was offered; and the moment of Satan's power over the fairest portion of the creation, was that of his sentence to a discomfiture, far more dreadful and humiliating than that of his victim.

The covenant of works, which was made between God and man, being broken, a new covenant of grace was established; and Adam was encouraged to hope, that, though worthy of eternal death, a Child should spring from his own loins, who should have power over Satan to subdue him; and he might justly have inferred from this promise, that as the power of

the devil was to be overthrown, so would be conquered all the evils which, by his malice, had been cast into the world; that the human race would be once more emancipated from sin, sorrow, and death, and restored to holiness, happiness, and immortality.

On this promise did the Church rest through many years of suffering; and the people of God were anxiously waiting for its fulfilment, when in the fulness of time, Christ Jesus made His entry into our world, to commence that work, which in the eternal covenant of redemption, He had undertaken to accomplish.

Though it was from eternity that the work of Christ was prepared for Him, it is from the moment of His advent that we must date its actual commencement; for "when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that are under the law." (Gal. iv. 4. 5.)

This work theologians have usually separated into two parts; calling one the active, and the other the passive obedience of Christ: in the former of which they include His obedience to the law; and, in the latter, His sufferings and death. But, there appears no good reason for this division; as, in the first place, there is no Scriptural authority for it; and, secondly, we cannot regard any portion of the work which our Redeemer undertook as passive. He came to act-He came to do the will of His father; and His sufferings constitute a portion of that active work which His Father gave Him to accomplish, and which He willingly performed. "I

gave," says He, "My back to the smiters, and My cheek to them that plucked off the hair; I hid not My face from shame and spitting." (Is. 1. 6) "He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows (Is. liii. 4.); and when His hour came, He went up of His own free will to Jerusalem, to die. He had power to put down His life, and power to take it again. "No man," says He, "taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received from My Father." (John x. 18.) "To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness of the truth." (John xviii. 37.)

But, though there is no such division, as some have made, in the work of Christ, which, from the first moment of His existence to His death, was one of active obedience and love, we may separate it into these two parts; His obedience to the moral law, and His obedience unto death; the former undertaken, because it would have been derogatory to the infinite glory and perfection of God, had He permitted His law to remain dishonoured; and the latter, because man's sentence had been pronounced, and the continuance of God's authority over the myriads of His creatures who are still obedient to His will, called for the most clearly marked and open manifestation of His absolute sovereignty; and now it behoves us to consider whether Christ did faithfully perform these two conditions of our redemption; for upon