(5.) Did the Lord Jesus Christ fulfil with absolute perfection every duty even as perfectly, as that to his Mother on the cross? And are his disciples one with Him? Is his obedience to God's law their obedience, his righteousness, their righteousness? What He was in God's sight, by magnifying the law, and making it honourable, that are they also in Him? Ye then who through faith can lift up your hearts and say, “This God is our God: for ever and ever,” praise and bless Him, that your righteousness is the righteousness of God; and make mention of it only. Exalt it in your soul's gratitude, and glory in it before a world, which glories in the righteousness of men, and thus dishonours Him whose perfect obedience is the only robe in which a sinner may stand before God, and live.

(6.) And ye, who never stand near the cross of Christ, except to look with indifference on his sufferings, with some of the multitude, or to join the enemies who

reviled Him, and nailed Him there,It is my heart's wish for heart's wish for you that you may yet look on Him whom you have pierced and that, while the sword of the Spirit pierces through your hearts, it may discern their thoughts, and make you conscious of all the guiltiness of your unbelief, and all the misery that must assail your continued rejection of Jesus Christ, and his salvation. Lo, He calls you to faith and broken-heartedness from his cross. May infinite grace enable you to hear his voice in the depths of your souls, and to answer, "Lo we come unto thee, for thou art the Lord our God."

SERMON III.

THE PENITENT THIEF IMPLORING MERCY

FROM CHRIST.

(FIRST SERMON ON THE TEXT.)

LUKE XXIII. 42, 43.

HE SAID UNTO JESUS, LORD REMEMBER ME WHEN THOU COMEST INTO THY KINGDOM. AND JESUS SAID UNTO HIM, VERILY I SAY UNTO THEE, TO-DAY SHALT THOU BE WITH ME IN PARADISE.

It is declared, upon the authority of the Holy Ghost, that "the wrath of man shall praise God, and the remainder of that wrath, He will restrain." The sacred volume contains many striking and illustrious instances, in proof, that this declaration has been accurately and won

derfully fulfilled: but perhaps none more extraordinary, than the circumstances connected with the crucifixion of our blessed Lord. His implacable enemies not only resolved to put Him to death, with circumstances of the utmost cruelty, but in every method, which their malice could suggest, associated that cruelty with mockery and insult. Among other dreadful refinements of malignity towards the Lord of glory, they crucified Him between two thieves, on either side one, and Jesus in the midst; as though He had been the most eminently guilty malefactor of the three. "But He that sitteth in the heavens, laughed them to scorn; the Lord had them in derision." And while they thought themselves enjoying the utmost gratification of their malice, they were in fact, just accomplishing that work, which He had before determined should be done, and advancing the Saviour's honour by the very means which, in the bitterness of their hostility, they

took to ensure his infamy. They thus unwittingly fulfilled that prophecy of the gospel Seer, which declared, that Messiah was to be "numbered with the transgressors: and they also established his claim to be the Saviour who should come into the world. This act of their hatred exhibited the riches of his unsearchable love, in condescending, not only to die for sinners, the just for the unjust, that He might bring them to God;" but to die a shameful and accursed death. It was overruled in the eternal and unerring counsels of God, that one of the very malefactors, whose share in a common suffering was meant to pour contempt and shame upon the Son of Man, was directed, by the abundance of redeeming mercy, to bear a testimony more unequivocal perhaps, than ever was borne, to the divinity of his nature, and the prevalence of his atonement, and the royalty wherewith He was invested. O that when the hearts of men are lifted up in rebellion