a sanctifier? My beloved hearers, for a moment pause; for a moment bear with me. Did you ever think upon these words—“the wrath of the Lamb?" the wrath, not of the Lion of the tribe of Judah," but" of the Lamb." Not the wrath of him who goeth forth in his indignation; but "the wrath of the Lamb"-the Lamb meek and gentle the Lamb who was "led to the slaughter"-"the Lamb that was slain." "The wrath of the Lamb!" What! that emblem of compassion, that incarnation of pity-can there be wrath in him? Wrath in that eye which wept over the perishing sinner? wrath on those lips that only spake of kindness and of love? What meaneth this combination? "The wrath of the Lamb!" Exhausted patience then; inflamed mercy then; incensed love then. No more compassion in infinite compassion; no more love in inexhaustible love. The cross no more propitiates; the blood of expiation no more speaks; "the door is shut ;" the very office of Mediator is abdicated; and now there is left but "the wrath of the Lamb!"

Go to him, flee to him, ere that wrath shall be " kindled but a little." One flake of it would consume you; one manifestation of it would destroy you. It will be too late when all this is realized" the wrath of the Lamb" to say, "Rocks! fall on us; hills! cover us." "The wrath of the Lamb" pierces all. And though, my brethren, you might conceive of the sternness of the Judge, though you might bear up under the conception of the severity and the vengeance of the Almighty, what a hell is reserved for you—a hell that shuts you up for ever, under "the wrath of the Lamb!"

SERMON XX.

THE DOUBLE TRANSFER.

BY REV. J. BENNETT.

Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.- 1 PETER ii. 24.

WERE I to announce to you, as an introduction to my sermon, that I am come to make known to you a medicine which should cure all your disorders; put an end to all your pains; make you all immortal;

what attention should I secure! And yet, I can make such an introduction, only with this one remark, that the medicine is for the soul, and not for the body. And if any of you should look blank, and say

Is this all? I may return to such inquirers, and say -No: this is not all; for though your bodies be dead, by this they shall live again, and be united in due time to the everlasting Spirit. For this life is as some gallant vessel which takes a little boat in tow; and not only prevents it from being swamped and carried down to the bottom, but causes it to ride safely with it to the destined harbor: thus shall the spirit ransomed bear aloft the body also to a throne of immortality in the presence of God and the Lamb. Come, then, and let me invite you to listen to the apostle's proclamation: "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed;" for here is a double transfer announced- a transfer of guilt from the sinner to the innocent; while, on the other hand, the benefit is transferred from the innocent to the guilty.

To the first part of the subject, then, let us bend our attention-a transfer of guilt from the sinner to the innocent. If any one be shocked at this language, I call upon him to receive it as truth, unless he would have us renounce our hope, and in despair say, Heaven is lost! And we are but embryos of lost spirits! for he must acknowledge that we are sinners: this all confess; and, if we die guilty, we go from the place of judgment to the place of perdition. "The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Man being a sinner, in the ordinary and strict course of justice, nothing remains but this. And if you allow these things to be so, I ask you whether you must not be prepared to meet with something strange in the gospel? And accordingly, here you find it. For,

1. The sin was ours. This the apostle declares plainly. A preacher is expected to define his subject but how shall I define sin? It is too deep to be explained - too dark to be examined; like the hell to which it leads, too horrible to be dwelt upon. The apostle calls it, "exceeding sinful." Sin is not only the worst thing in the universe, it is the only evil thing: take away this, and there is no evil in the universal world. All penal evil is only the consequence of moral evil. There is in sin an intrinsic evil. Sin is an evil which has in it no amelioration it is evil, and only evil, and evil continually. But whatever sin be, we have committed it, and it is ours. And you will observe, that the apostle uses the plural "our sins" they are many: "My sins," said one, are more in number than the hairs of my head."Who can tell his errors? Were I to ask the best arithmetician to cast

:

up the amount, he would declare that he had no powers by which to express the mighty sum. One penitent, when looking back on the sins of his life, cried out, "Infinite, infinite!" And if one said so of the sins of one, what may we say of them all, when they are all thrown together as in one joint stock, and we say "our sins! Who can tell their number then? Surely, then, we must multiply infinite by infinite. Yet such were the sins which were laid on the Lord; for,

2. The burden was his. Yes, though the sins were ours, the bur den was his; — he, "his own self, bare our sins." The Scriptures employ a variety of figures to denote the same thing: sometimes sin is spoken of as a debt, but he paid it; as a disease, but he endured it; as a burden, but he sustained it. That was a burden which "fools make a mock" of; and which to most men is a "trifle, light as air;" but O, it will be bitterness in the end! One cried out, "My sins are heavier than the sands of the sea! My spirit is drunk up by the poison of the arrows of God!" O, my dear hearers, were you awake to a sense of your real state, you would enter into the views of a poor man, who said to a minister, a friend of mine, "Sir, I seem as if a heavy weight of lead were lying on my heart!" O, there is no bearing up against it, when it is brought home to the conscience by the Holy Spirit! "The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity; but a wounded spirit who can bear" "When he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble? And when he hideth his face, who then can behold him? And if he make a man to feel that he is displeased; that the Almighty has no favor to him in his present state; and that there is no heaven for him hereafter, no language can describe the weight that is on the spirit of such a man!

Yet this weight Christ bore! Not the burden of having committed these sins-not the shame of conscious transgression! No: he "did no sin, and in his mouth no guile was found." Nothing but a lamb, "without spot and blemish," could be placed on God's altar; and unless Christ had been a lamb "without spot and blemish," he never could have been "the Lamb of God." But the burden of the agony; the burden of a just sense of the anger of God against sin; the burden of the ignominy and shame ;- all these laid heavy on his soul. He complained in agony; he sorrowed even unto death. No pain was inflicted, as yet, on his body; there was, as yet, no stroke to bring forth blood, yet the very anguish of his soul caused him to "sweat as it were great drops of blood." And, through life, he looked not like a man of spotless innocence, all light, and gay, and buoyant; he was always as a man ashamed. "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted; he looked like a man who was "stricken and smitten of God;" he had

the constant appearance of "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He knew what it was to bear a burden on his spirits; and it was our sins which lay heavy on his soul.

But the apostle speaks with emphasis here, and he says, "who his own self bare our sins." "His own self!" As if the apostle would remind you of the dignity of his nature; the purity of his character; the excellence of his life; the greatness of his sacrifice. That the king should take upon him the crimes of his subjects! That the fountain of justice and purity should be arraigned at an earthly tribunal, and become liable to suffer as a worker of iniquity. "His own self!" As if the apostle would remind you, too, of his ability; of one "mighty to save!" of one whose "own arm brought salvation;" of one who was Almighty; of one who, when he took this heavy burden upon him, proved clearly that he was able to bear it all.

The Apostle reminds you, too, that this was done" in his own body.” Not that his body suffered chiefly, or only; the most affecting scene of his agonies was before his body suffered; and on the cross he complained chiefly of mental agony :-"My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" But it was only by taking a body upon him that he could be made of the seed of David according to the flesh, though he was still "God over all" according to the Spirit. And it was in the body that he was to suffer; it was during his abode in the flesh alone that he could do this; and when his body had suffered all that was required," he said, It is finished! and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

The apostle adds, on the tree."

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree;" alluding to the cross of wood on which he suffered, which was made from a tree, and to remind us, also, it is probable, of the way in which we fell. By one tree we fell, by another we rise. By eating of the forbidden tree we fell; by believing in the true cross we live. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us; for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree; that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ."

But you say, How could it be that one could suffer for another? I return to meet your inquiry. I ask you, Do you believe the account which is given of his agonies and death? I can account for these but in three ways. First: That Christ was guilty, and deserved to suffer; at this you are shocked. Then the second is scarcely better; that a just and holy God punished him, an innocent person, without any cause, as a vile, wicked person deserved to be treated. And if you reject these two reasons, there remains only a third, which is the doc

trine of the text that Christ endured all these various woes that he might bear the burden of our sins; that he might offer himself as a spotless victim to the divine justice; and that God, who cannot pass by sin, might, in visiting in wrath the person of our surety, effectually punish sin, and visit the sinner in mercy and in grace.

If you still argue, how can this be? I answer, that God has, from the first, acted towards the human race uniformly in a wonderful manner. Angels sinned singly; they fell singly; they were punished singly. But with man it was otherwise the first man was created at

the head of all his race. God acts towards men as a kind of mass. God not only in the natural world has made one man, and from that one caused all others to spring to the end of time, but he has acted thus in a moral point of view also. We all fell in the first man; he sinned, and we are sinners too, because of him. If, then, you regard this representative government in reference to man, where can be the difficulty of his so acting to Christ? Surely you can more readily conceive how God can show favor to some, because he is pleased with one, than you can how he should be displeased with many because of the transgression of one? You admit the first and most difficult part of the subject; why not admit the second, which is, that God could accept of the sufferings of one for the good of many?

Secondly, therefore, let us notice the transfer of benefit from the innocent to the guilty. When the apostle spake of the consequence of guilt, it was all Christ's; now he comes to speak of the benefit, we are included. Of the former he says, "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree." Of the benefit, Of the benefit, he says, " that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness; by whose stripes ye were healed." And in these words we are taught that the death of Christ must be the death of sin in us; that the death of sin must be the life of righteousness; and that this will show that our souls are healed through his stripes.

1. We are here taught that the death of Christ must be the death of sin in us. "That we, being dead to sin." Before we were alive to him, we were alive to nothing else but sin, though it was the very worst kind of life. Death and life are sometimes strangely mixedas when a corpse is so putrid as to become the prey of worms, you say it is alive it is all alive! A strange expression to use as to what is so very dead! So the Apostle speaks of "walking according to the course of this world" when we were "dead in trespasses and sins.” But to be dead to sin, O it is a grand affair! Let us take care that there be no deception here. Many suppose that they are dead to sin because they are almost dead in body; or because they are half dead