enemies was, to make it appear to the ignorant crowd that, notwithstanding his acquittal by Pilate, he was involved in all the guilt, and loaded with all the infamy of these lawless banditti. Yea, to secure their object the more, they made him be crucified in the midst, between the two, as if he had been not merely an accomplice, but the ringleader, the notorious rebel chief. Now, here was, doubtless, another severe aggravation of the Messiah's dying woes. If we must suffer, it is some consolation to suffer in the company of the wise and virtuous. But only consider what a hell must the society and conversation of these two men have been to the immaculate Son of God! their blasphemies having continued, even upon the cross, until the one expired with curses on his tongue, and the revilings of the other gave place to penitence and prayer. Think, too, of the opprobrium of leaving the world under the reputed character of a malefactor. It is just in proportion to the integrity of a man's character, and the consciousness of his innocence, that he feels the pang inflicted by false accusations against him. Christ's apostle says, "Let no man suffer as a murderer or as a thief, or as an evil-doer or malefactor." Jesus Christ the righteous did in appearance so suffer. The Holy One of God passes for the chief of sinners,-the King of saints and angels is ranked with the basest of mankind, the possessor of heaven and earth is deemed a robber, the Prince of life, who gives us life, is held as a murderer who has taken life away. Yet here again the attempt to sully the character of the dying Lamb of God recoils upon his persecutors, for they thereby again unwittingly contribute to a fresh fulfilment of ancient prophecy. Of the Messiah it had been

foretold that he should be "numbered with transgressors." And when the Christ hung upon the cross between two thieves, then, says another evangelist, "was that scripture fulfilled." By fixing on him this last stigma, his enemies intended and expected to leave him not a shadow of a claim to the title of the Messiah, -and yet it is by that very circumstance that they invest him with one of the Messiah's most distinctive and illustrious marks. And thus it is that Jehovah causes man's fiercest wrath to promote his purposes and praise his name.

Pass we on to the fourth and last circumstance which comes before us in watching beside the crossviz., the cruel mockings and bitter railings of which Christ was still the object, even while he hung upon the tree-from verse 39 to 44; and here you cannot fail to be struck with the universality of the odium which was excited and expressed against him. Persons of all classes and conditions of life, from the highest in rank and office to the lowest of the rabble,magistrates and subjects-officers and soldiers-priests and people—the professedly holy and the avowedly profane-all conspire to vilify and insult their dying Lord, and not one voice is raised in his behalf. The thoughtless multitude drawn together by the sight, behaved as they are too apt to do on such occasions, with hardened indifference and disgusting levity. Even the passers-by from the country, many of them on their way into Jerusalem to keep the Passover, must needs stop and rail. The ministers of religion chosen from among men that they might show compassion to the suffering, leave their sacred duties, and come forth to insult the sufferer and mock his dying

agonies. That heathen soldiers familiarised with scenes of blood should join the popular outcry, excites less surprise; but, to crown all, we are told that the thieves that were crucified with him, cast the same reproaches in his teeth. In general, when men suffer together, a mutual sympathy is produced among them, and there have not unfrequently been instances of friendship suddenly formed, but closely cemented by the prospect of a common death. But here, for a while at least, both his fellow-sufferers, instead of being humbled at receiving the due reward of their deeds, vent their blasphemous rage upon the meek and innocent Redeemer, so that the other prediction in the twenty-second Psalm, met with a full accomplishment. “All who see me laugh me to scorn; I am a worm and no man-a reproach of men and despised of the people." You may remark, too, the variety of contumelious and insulting reproaches that were addressed to him, accompanied with gestures that were all expressive of contempt or derision, detestation and abhorrence-shooting out the lip, distorting the face, wagging the head, pointing with the finger of scorn. short, it may certainly be affirmed that there never was a public execution among a civilised people where the sufferer's last moments were disturbed and embittered by such a load of obloquy. And what was the burden of the many and foul reproaches that fell upon him? They are somewhat differently reported by the different evangelists, but the substance of the whole was this, viz. that because he had not been able, as they fancied, to escape from the degrading and ignominious death of the cross, he, by that circumstance, forfeited every claim to the character of the Messiah;

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in other words, it was a charge of imposture founded on impotence—the utter impotence he manifested as a passive sufferer. They exclaimed, "Save thyself and come down from the cross ;" and when he did not obey the summons they raised the maddening shout, "He saved others, himself he cannot save." Therefore, he must be a deceiver.

They ignorantly and rashly conclude that, because he did not deliver himself, he could not; that because the power was not put forth, it was not possessed. How ready are we, erring creatures, thus to reason of the works and ways of omnipotence! For example, you on some occasion sinned against God with a high hand, -no thunder-bolt descended to smite you to the dust, and you thence took encouragement to go on more frowardly in the way of your own heart, practically saying, where is the God of judgment? and foolishly supposing that, because the Almighty has hitherto restrained his power to punish you, he either does not possess it, or will never exercise it.

But yet, while the reproachful taunt addressed to the dying Christ by his revilers contained in it an obvious fallacy, it did likewise include a most important, valuable, and delightful truth, yea, a grand characteristic truth of the gospel, as a remedial scheme for the salvation of sinners, to wit, that as a suffering substitute he could not save himself and others also; and, therefore, he would save others rather than himself,—that if he did not save himself it was not from a want of power, but a want of will, for well he knew that if himself he had saved from death, sinful man he must have left to perish in endless misery; and, therefore, true to his character to the last, he preferred our

salvation to his own, and not saving himself he saved others. And here, brethren, was the real triumph of his omnipotence, here is the most mysterious hiding of his power, that he did not and would not save himself, that he did not do what so easily he might have done, withdraw the nails and come down from the cross. He had but to form the wish, and his Father would have sent him legions of angels to snatch him from death, and annihilate, in the twinkling of an eye, all his murderers. Show us the human being who has the opportunity of saving himself from torment and death like this, and who yet persists in refusing to escape. How do men act when in peril? The first thought of a drowning man is to save himself; the first thought of a man who awakes out of sleep with his house in flames, is to save himself; the first thought of a criminal sentenced to die is how to save himself, yea, though he knows that his doing so would be to defeat the ends of judicial justice, and seriously to injure the interests of society. "Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life." Yet here is one who can save his life, but will not, and that merely in order that he may thereby save others. "He saves others, himself he does not save." If this be a reproach, how glorious!—if this be the offence of the cross, well might he despise the shame! What, if at this awfully trying moment he had pursued a different course! What, if goaded on by the bitter defiances and reiterated challenges of his adversaries— what if he had come down from the cross before expiring as a victim? Had he saved himself, where would this day have been our salvation? Where the pardon of our sins?-where our peace with God?-where our