SERMONS.

SERMON I.

THE ATONEMENT.

PREACHED ON GOOD FRIDAY.

JOHN xix. 30.

"When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

WHAT was finished? Suffering was finished,Type and Prophecy were both finished, Atonement was finished, and a plenary redemption, a perfect righteousness, a complete salvation wrought out and brought in for believing Jew and Gentile, when Jesus uttered His emphatic death-cry," It is finished." And in proof that all was accomplished; that He

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had fulfilled the gracious errand of reconciling mercy; that the sacrifice had been accepted, the satisfaction made, the ransom-price received, the debt paid to the uttermost farthing; in proof that the Law's demand had been met to the full, the Law's curse for ever rolled away, "He bowed His head," and as the victorious warrior expiring on the won battle-field, rather than as the Man "crucified in weakness," "gave up the ghost."

Beloved Brethren, apart from the circumstances under which these words were uttered, apart from the awful and mysterious accompaniments of the scene of Calvary, the darkened sun, the rent veil, the heaving earth, the opened graves, the dead startled from their sleep of centuries, there is a grandeur and a sublimity in this last utterance of our Lord upon the cross, which makes us feel that we are listening to more than a human voice, though the lips from whence the voice proceeds are quivering in the agony of the death-struggle. There is a Divine majesty in the words, which seems to tell us that the Being who utters them is the Lord of Life, though the Victim of Death. Nor is the impression weakened, when we pass on to the remainder of the verse. Surely there is Divinity here too;

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what calmness, what dignity, what consciousness of Deity seem conveyed to us in those few but expressive words, bowed His head, and gave up the ghost." How the Godhead breaks through the suffering Manhood! "He bows His head," but not because His strength is exhausted, and His body broken down, and Himself fainting from loss of blood; "He gives up the ghost," but not because Death has done its work, and die He must, willing or unwilling. Ono: His strength is yet unbroken, though He has been suffering a three-hours exquisite torture, and He is dying because He wills to die, for He is Master of His own life : "No man taketh it from Me," were the words of the living Redeemer Himself; "but 1 lay it down of Myself, I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again.” *

Let us draw near the Saviour's cross, let us join the multitude who are gathered round it, let us mingle among the crowd who have collected together to gaze upon that sad and shameful spectacle. It is a motley throng among whom we find ourselves. Jerusalem has poured forth its thousands to witness a

* John x. 18.

scene at which Nature trembles, and the Sun hides himself, affrighted to behold. Every class has here its representative. There is the rough Roman and the haughty Jew, the rude Soldier and the heartless Scribe, the coarse Peasant and the mocking Priest, all mingled together, all merging, like Herod and Pilate, their mutual animosities in one common hatred, all vying with each other in aggravating the torture of the victim whom their malice has nailed to the cross. Let us not stay among this cruel company of mockers and murderers, but forcing our way through the tumultuous mass, let us press nearer and nearer until we reach the foot of the cross, and the little band who are standing there,—of all the crowd of friends and followers who for three years had gathered round Him, and to whom He had ministered the words of life, these alone faithful to the end. Among them stands the beloved disciple from whose record we have taken our text, "and his record is true.' Let us listen with him to the last words which Jesus uttered as He hung upon the cross; let us endeavour to catch their emphasis and meaning; and this done, let us with Him uplift the eye of faith, and behold

* John xix. 35.

the Godhead triumphing over the Manhood, as Jesus "bows His head, and gives up the ghost."

I. First, then, the emphatic words, "It is finished," announced to St. John, and through him, to the Church at large, that the sufferings of Jesus were at an end. And Oh! the sufferings of Jesus! What mind can measure, what arithmetic compute, what stretch of imagination conceive them ? Go and count the sparks that fly upward to the Heavens, or the rain-drops that fall downward to the earth, or the sand-grains that stretch along the sea shore, for as soon may you count the sufferings of Jesus. O remember, Brethren, and the thought may have never occurred to you before, that upon the head of Jesus as He hung upon the cross, were heaped, not only the sins, but the sorrows of a world. In the chapter of Isaiah which has been read this evening, it is said, “ Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows," and this, before it is said, "The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Perhaps we cannot better follow the order of Scripture, than to say, that in the garden He sustained our

* Is. liii. 4.