there would be only a continuation of his employment here the godlike work of blessing them. He meant to cheer them with the impression that his departure to heaven, so far from terminating his ability to bless them, would augment that power: that the intercession which he had begun on earth, he went to carry on and complete in the immediate presence of the eternal throne.

His kindness to his disciples only corresponded with the grace of his conduct towards the guilty city. He commanded them, that repentance and remission of sins should be preached, in his name, among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.' Could tears have washed away the crimson guilt of its inhabitants, they would now have needed no remission; for over them the Man of sorrows had dissolved into grief. Could kindness have melted or moved them, they would not now have required an exhortation to repentance: for his last anguish on the cross included a pang of compassion for them; and for them he had saved his latest breath to pray, Father, forgive them ; for they know not what they do.' But their impenitence was triumphant. Yet no sooner does he find himself in a capacity to bless, than he exercises the prerogative in blessing them. We might almost as soon have expected that he would have sent his gospel to be proclaimed over the mouth of perdition as to Jerusalem, the hell of earth. At least, we should have expected to see it making the circuit of the earth before it came there; to hear him directing his apostles to wait till his immediate enemies had descended to the grave; to visit Jerusalem last. But the course of his grace admits not of human calculation; for he sends them to Jerusalem first. While the eyes of his enemies are yet gleaming with the fire of triumphant revenge, he commissions his apostles to hasten and open the charter of redemption within sight of Calvary; to

let them know that, whatever they might have drawn from his heart, his love for them remains there still; to assure them that there is one mode of inflicting on him greater pain than even that of employing the cross-by obstinately refusing the blessings which his cross has procured. But, O, there is an exalted sense, in which this act of grace to Jerusalem is only to be regarded as a type of his benevolence to the world at large; an affected rehearsal on a limited scale, of that great dispensation of mercy which selects for its objects the chief transgressors of every age, and traverses the world in quest of those whose lives have been spent in 'crucifying the Son of God afresh, and putting him to an open shame.'

Accordingly, his last injunction to his apostles was to preach salvation in his name to every creature. His final act on earth was to make the world the heirs of his grace; to leave behind him in trust the conveyance of his salvation to all mankind. He had now contemplated man from various and affecting points; and, from each point, the aspect presented to view was calculated to try his love in a new and peculiar manner. From heaven, he had beheld us falling by myriads into perdition: but awful as the sight was, it was only the natural result of guilt, so great as to make even the earth itself to loathe us. He clothed himself with love, and descended into the midst of us; offering himself and his glory to the service of man; but he had beheld us instantly league and arm against him, making common cause with hell in the work of his destruction. He had earnestly gazed on us from the cross; and what was the spectacle he beheld immediately before him, but a group of maniac fiends, yelling a song of triumph at having compassed his death? And now, at the moment of his departure, as he pierced the future, he saw his humiliation continued and perpetuated through every succeeding

age, and in every variety of form; he beheld the enmity of the carnal mind, true to its character, daily enacting afresh the ignominious scenes of Calvary down to the close of time. Yet, with all this infinite guilt lying distinctly like a map before him, he commended and sent his love to every creature. He remembered only that we were perishing, and felt only that he could save. He found himself in possession of the gift of eternal life, and he sent it in messages of grace over all the earth. By connecting this embassy with an act of special benediction on those whom he honored to fulfil it, he significantly taught them that he set them apart to a work of blessing: that they were to go from under his uplifted hands to bless mankind as he had blessed them; to issue forth from under the canopy of his blessing, propagating and diffusing that blessing to the ends of the earth. And as they were the only agents he employed, he thus intentionally taught us that henceforth he devoted himself to the office of saving us; that he engaged no agency, owned no agency whatever, but for this purpose; that henceforth his only communication with man would be in streams of unmingled mercy, the ocean of his grace pouring its fulness into our emptiness; that while he needed no destructive agency whatever, he should require all the benevolent agency of heaven and earth to be put into motion, in order to do justice to the purposes of his love. Having died for the redemption of the world, he felt that he had made the world his own; and, embracing all its dearest interests, he pressed them to his heart.

But fascinating and enchaining as this subject is, we must now hasten to a close. Casting our eye back on the ground we have passed over, what a miracle of moral portraiture do we behold in the evangelical history of Christ! What transcendent wisdom! What divine

benevolence! What perfection! The character of Jesus stands alone; it has no archetype in history; no analogy in nature; no model in all the worlds of imagination; as pourtrayed in scripture, it could only have been drawn from a contemplation of the living reality. It was the conception of an infinite mind. It was the triumph of mercy aiming to condense in the same being the evidences of divinity, adequate illustration of divine love, and the power of winning the souls of men to salvation, and transforming them to holiness.

The character of Christ forms a distinct proof, an invincible demonstration for the truth of the gospel. When we remember that it received a tribute of homage from fallen spirits, we shall the less wonder that it has extorted expressions of reverence from some of the worst specimens of fallen humanity. Men, who have sported with the sanctity of everything else that religion owns, have passed by the character of Christ in respectful silence; this was conscience, recognizing in his perfection a likeness which it felt it ought to be familiar with and adore; such is the awful power of goodness on natures preconfigured to its image. Some have been entirely restrained from violating the sanctuary of truth, by the same guardian influence: the character of Christ, like the presence of a shrine, protected it. As the house of Obededom was blessed for the sake of the residing ark, so religion has often escaped evil, and received homage from its foes, for the sake of the character of Christ. Men who have destroyed, in intention, every other part of the temple of truth, have paused when they came to this; have turned aside and desisted for awhile from the work of demolition, to gaze and bow before it; have not merely left it standing as a column too majestic, or an altar too holy, for human sacrilege to assail, but (it was the only redeeming act in their history,) have

even inscribed their names on its base, and have been heard to burst forth in admiring exclamations approaching to love.

The peculiar excellences of the character of Christ, as an argument for the gospel, are, that it tends to attract and invite inspection; for it is the perfection of moral beauty: it is level to the apprehension of all; for it makes a direct appeal to some of the first principles of our nature, to our natural perceptions of goodness, and our instinctive approval of it; and it not only convinces, but transforms; engaging and carrying with it at once the understanding and the heart. While some, who were in the last stages of depravity, have been allured by it to the pursuit of excellence; others, who have been sitting in despondency at the gates of perdition, have beheld it, and conceived hope. And though the best specimens of our race have, in every age since his appearance, been laboring to imitate, they have not been able to equal it. The character of Jesus challenges the affections of all intelligent beings, leaves the impression of its image on every object it touches, and is destined to collect around itself all the sanctified passions of the universe.

But, besides being an evidence for christianity, the character of our Lord is to be regarded as an example. 'I have given you an example,' said he, 'that ye should do as I have done unto you. Learn of me. A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another.' Thus he seeks to augment the value of his own character, regarded as an argument for the gospel, by multiplying the copies of his excellence in the lives of all his people he would render each of his disciples like himself—a living demonstration for the truth. All the wealth of moral power which the wise and the good have ever possessed is