intimations, and how truly this has been verified I need not stop to point out to you. He was to be treacherously betrayed by one of his disciples, and even the sum which the traitor should receive was specified.† A vast variety of circumstances are on record concerning the treatment which the Messiah should receive from his enemies; such as that he should be numbered with transgressors-that he should be mocked and reviled amidst his bitterest sufferings that they should give him gall and vinegar to drink-that they should part his garments among them, and cast lots for his vesture-that he should be cut off from the land of the living by a violent death, yet not a bone of him should be broken. He was to be laid in the tomb of a rich man, but his flesh was not to see corruption; for he was to rise again from the dead, and ascend into the highest heavens, whence he would distribute blessings in rich abundance on the children of men.§ These are only a few of the many particulars foretold by the holy prophets concerning the Messiah; and the evangelists and apostles direct us to their accomplishment in the things that happened in their day to Jesus of Nazareth. In him they were all circumstantially fulfilled, but never were they fulfilled in any other; and it is upon these premises that the apostle insisted, when reasoning with the Jews at Thessalonica-" this Jesus whom I preach unto you is THE CHRIST." Should there be any of the house of Israel present this evening attending to this Lecture I would earnestly and affectionately entreat them, as they value the happiness of their immortal souls, to lay aside their prejudices, and as reasonable beings, who must shortly give account of themselves to God, to examine into these matters-search the Scriptures, in which they think they have eternal life, and see whether those Scriptures do not testify of Jesus of Nazareth. We know the source of all their prejudices: Jesus was an obscure character, in humble life; but was it not predicted by their own prophet Isaiah that the Messiah 'should be such? But they rejoin that Jesus was crucified * Isa. viii. 14, 15, ch. xxviii. 16, and liii. 3; Ps. cxviii. 22. † Ps. xli. 9; Zech. xi. 12; with Matt. xxvii. 3-10. Isa. liii. 12; Ps. xxii. 7, 8; lxix. 21; xxii. 18; Dan. ix. 26; Ps. xxxiv. 20; Zech. xii. 20; § Isa. liii. 9; Ps. xvi. 10; ii. 11; lxviii. 18; Joel ii. 28. THE MESSIAH FORETOLD AS A SUFFERING PERSON. 121 as a malefactor, and his crucifixion is a stumbling block to the whole nation, which looks for a mighty conqueror in their Messiah, who shall lead them back to their own land, and reinstate them in all their ancient privileges. Alas! this is the veil upon their hearts in the reading of Moses and the prophets Jesus was taken and by wicked hands crucified and slain; but we ask, was there not a necessity for this? How, upon any other principle, could their own Scriptures be fulfilled? Did not their own prophets foretel that this should be the case with the Messiah? What would they do with a Messiah who should want such credentials to his mission? He might, indeed, gratify their fondness for worldly grandeur and glory; but what would become of the credit of their prophets? They cannot deny that the prophetical writings held forth the Messiah as a suffering person; but some are probably at a loss to account for the fact that such things were foretold of him. If so, I will tell them how the Scriptures account for it-'tis because the Almighty Governor of the universe had determined and decreed that such things should happen to the Messiah. When Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Jews took him, and by wicked hands put him to death, they only fulfilled the purposes of heaven :-wicked as their conduct was, they only did what God's hand and council determined before should be done, Acts iv. 28. This may possibly increase their perplexity, and they may demand, why did the blessed God predetermine these things concerning the Messiah? Now I know of only one satisfactory answer that can be returned to the question, and that is, that all the sufferings which befel the Messiah were indispensably necessary to accomplish the salvation of mankind; and this is the account that is invariably given us of the matter in the New Testament: they were necessary to render the exercise of mercy consistent with the rightful claims of justice, and to vindicate the honour of the divine government in extending pardon to the guilty. "It became him by whom are all things, and for whom are all things, in bringing many sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their Salvation perfect through sufferings :" In other words, it was a conduct every way worthy of the great God, the universal proprietor and Sovereign Lord of all. Jesus died the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God.” "Without shedding of blood there was no remission of sin," even : under the law but the blood of Christ was shed by covenant for the remission of the sins of many; and the Gospel testifies that we have redemption in his blood, even the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of the divine grace. This is the scriptural account of this mysterious matter, and it is the only solution of the mystery that could ever bear examination. In fine, notwithstanding the violent prejudices raised by the unbelieving Jews against a suffering Messiah, the doctrine of Christ crucified is the centre of divine revelation; and it is a doctrine of the highest practical import. For, viewing those sufferings as vicarious, they show us the inseparable connexion that exists between sin and death, in the divine economy. If in any case these could have been separated, it surely must have been when the Son of God himself, standing as the representative of his sinful people, supplicated his heavenly Father with tears to be saved from them; but, even in this case, we see it was not possible. In these sufferings we may contemplate as in a mirror the infinite evil of sin, and its hatefulness in the sight of God. When we think of the divine dignity of the holy sufferer, his relation to the Father, and the delight which the latter had in him, it was natural to think that he would he spared—but even in him the justice of God pursued sin until all its claims were satisfied in his death.-Moreover, in these sufferings we are taught how sin is punished to the utmost and yet the sinner saved. Though there is no loosing the connexion between sin and its wages, viz. death, yet the sufferings of Christ show us a method which infinite wisdom hath devised for freeing the sinner from the obligation to punishment, not by dispensing with it, but by transferring it from the person of the sinner to the person of a substitute, even God's own Son, and so punishing him for the sins of the guilty, according to 2 Cor. v. 22, Rom. viii. 3; Isa. liii. 5-8; 1 Pet. iii. 18. And from the whole we deduce another most important inference, which is, that in the sufferings of Christ we have the highest possible manifestation of the love of God towards a ruined world. For as nothing can give so striking a view of the divine hatred of sin as the sufferings of his Son, so no where else have we such an amazing display of his love and grace toward the sinner. The holy apostles always point us to this as the highest expression of it. Rom. v, 8-10; 1 John iii. 16, ch. iv. 9, 10; Rom. viii. 32. LECTURE V. View of the state of the Heathen Lands—First planting of Christianity, continued-Spread of the Gospel among the Gentiles -Paul's preaching at Athens-Corinth-Ephesus-Success of the Gospel a Proof of its Divine Origin.. THE history, travels, and preaching of the apostle Paul, constitute so important an article in the first planting of Christianity, that, to do any thing like justice to the subject, it is necessary to trace him in his labours, from year to year, from the time of his conversion to the period of his death. To do that, however, would, in the present instance, subject me to a prolixity incompatible with the limits of a Lecture; and it is rendered the less necessary by the circumstance that the inspired historian, in compiling the Acts of the Apostles, has supplied a compendium, which is already in the hands of every Christian. I shall, therefore, confine myself to the notice of a few leading particulars, such as may lay a foundation for some useful remarks. We have followed him during his first and second journeys, and left him, at the close of the last Lecture, reasoning with the Jews at Thessalonica out of their own Scriptures, to prove that Jesus of Nazareth, whom he preached, was the very Messiah they so ardently looked for. The effect of his preaching, we are told, was, that "some of them believed, and consorted with Paul and Silas, and of the devout Greeks a great multitude, and of the chief women not a few," Acts xvii. 4. Thus was the foundation laid of the church of the Thessalonians, to whom the apostle wrote the two epistles which form a portion of the New Testament Scriptures. Adverting to the success of his ministry among them, we find him thus expressing himself in his first epistle: "We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers; remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labour of love and patience of hope in the sight of God and our Father; knowing, brethren beloved, your election of God: for our Gospel came unto you, not in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much assurance”—and he afterwards adds, "ye turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come," 1 Thess. i. 2-5; 9, 10. Such were the blessed effects of their receiving the apostle's testimony concerning Jesus of Nazareth: or believing him to be the true Messiah. But we now proceed with the narrative : 66 Driven by the ruthless hand of persecution from Thessalonica, we next find the apostles at Berea, where the people whom they addressed evinced a commendable disposition to examine into the things which were laid before them; and searching the Scriptures daily, whether the facts really were as testified by Paul, many of the Jews believed, also of honourable women who were Greeks, and of men, not a few," ver. 11, 12. But here, as in every other place, persecution followed in the apostles' train; and to avoid the malice and rage of Jewish zealots, who had pursued them from Thessalonica, Paul quitted Berea and proceeded to Athens; whence, after a time, he went to Corinth, and thence to Ephesus. Before I proceed, however, to narrate the astonishing success of the apostle's ministry in these three renowned cities, it will be useful for us to pause and take a surof the actual state of matters among the Gentiles, or Heathen countries, at that period, in relation to religion and morals. The last Lecture gave us an opportunity of noticing the obstacles which Christianity had to encounter among the Jews, arising from their prejudices against a crucified Messiah, the present will furnish us with a similar view of its difficulties among the Gentiles, arising from Polytheism and a long established idolatry. I am aware that it is difficult for us, who live in the present age, and in a country too where the general diffusion of Gospel light has banished the grossness of idolatry, to vey |