plucked off the hair: I hid not my face from shame and spitting. Isa. 1. 6. Matt. xxvi. 67, 68. Job xvi. 10.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, &c. Surely he hath borne our grief, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our transgressions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed, &c. We have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath laid the iniquity of us all upon him. He was oppressed, he was afflicted, &c. he was taken from prison and from judgment, &c. he was cut off out of the land of the living; for the transgression of my people was be stricken. He made his grave with the wicked, &c. It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief. When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, &c. He shall bear their iniquities, &c. He hath poured out his soul unto death; and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Isa, liii. 3-12. Psal. cxvi. 3. Luke xxii. 37. Matt. xxvii. 38.

Who is this that cometh from Edom, with dyed 'garments from Bozrah? &c. Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel? &c. I have trodden the wine-press alone, and of the people there was none with me. Isa. lxiii, 1-3.

What are these wounds in thine hands? Then shall he answer, Those with which 1 was wounded in the house of my friends. Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the shepherd, &c. Zech, xiii. 6,7. Matt. xxvi. 31, 47-49.

From that time forth began Jesus to show, &c. how that he must many things of the elders, &c. and be killed, &c. Matt. xvi. 21-23.

suffer

Likewise also shall the Son of man suffer of them, &c. The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of men, and they shall kill him. Matt. xvii. 12, 22, 23. Acts iii. 13, 15.

The Son of man shall be betrayed into the hands of the chief priests, &c. and they shall condemn him to death, and shall deliver

him to the Gentiles, to mock, and to scourge, and to crucify him. Matt. xx. 17-19. Luke xviii. 31-33. Acts x. 39.

The chief priests assembled, and consulted that they might take Jesus by subtlety and kill him, &c. Jesus began to be sorrowful and very heavy; then said he unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death, &c. They spit in his face, and buffeted him, &c. Matt. xxvi. 37, &c. Mark xiv. 33, 34.

The soldiers mocked him, they spit upon him, and smote him on the head, &c. they crucified him between two thieves, &c. they parted his garments, &c. He cried with a loud voice, saying, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished; and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. Matt. xxvii. 27-30, 34, 35, 46, 50. Psal. Ixix. 21. John xix. 23, 24, 30.

Proclaiming life to all who shall believe

In his Redemption, and that his obedience
Imputed becomes theirs by faith, his merits
To save them, not their own.

For this he shall live hated, be blasphem'd,

Seiz'd on by force, judg'd, and to death condemn'd,
A shameful and accurs'd; nail'd to the cross
By his own nation; slain for bringing life.

But to return to the immediate work of Redemption. When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law:

To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Gal. iv. 4, 5.

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people.

And hath raised up an horn of salvation for us, in the house of his servant David. Luke i. 68, 69.

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. Gal. iii. 13.

Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, from your vain conversation re

ceived by tradition from your fathers; but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.

In this was manifested the love of God towards us; because that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

All the works and ways of God have something in them mysterious, above the comprehension of any finite understanding. As this is the case with his works of Creation and Providence, there is no reason to expect it should be otherwise in the astonishing method of the Redemption of the world by Jesus Christ. From this their mysterious nature, or rather from the imperfect measure and degree in which they are revealed to us, they are admirably fitted for the trial of our ingenuity, humility, and subjection. They are all of them, when seriously and impartially inquired into, holy, just, and good. Witherspoon.

This, though greatly culpable, is to be reckoned among the smallest instances of our insensibility. Are we not inattentive even to the work of Redemption? That work, which, according to the emphatical declaration of Scripture, "exceeds in glory;" (2 Cor. iii. 9.) is by far the greatest, the most marvellous of all sublunary, perhaps, of all divine transactions. Hervey.

We shall set this in a clear point of view, if we consider what forms the grand and leading character of Redemption; in the contemplation of which, the glory of Christ will appear abundantly striking, as the great Redeemer.

And, first, the very idea of Redemption is to buy out or deliver what was lost or forfeited, and this by giving a full and equivalent value for it. Thus, when Abraham made a purchase of a buryingplace from the sons of Heth, it is said, he weighed and gave "four hundred shekels of silver, current money of the merchant," Gen. xxiii. 16. Now such was the redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ of our nature.

He gave what might be called current money, that is, a full and rich equivalent; yea, more than an equivalent, when, for the sins of his people, he paid for it the price of his blood. 1 Pet. i. 18, 19,

But the great work of Redemption did not rest here. Jesus, by his merciful undertaking, not only redeemed us from sin, in buying out our mortgaged and forfeited inheritance; but he redeemed our long-lost privileges. We were not only justly exposed, by nature and by practice, to the wrath and displeasure of Almighty God, but our whole nature was under the dominion and influence of sin; and none short of Christ could buy us out. The Son of God, therefore, by price and power, accomplished both these purposes of salvation; not only delivered us from wrath, but brought us into the privileges of a purchased inheritance: yea, he induced in us a new nature, in taking away the natural enmity of our hearts, and making us willing in the day of his power.

What is your notion of a ransom?

Dr. Hawker.

To ransom is to redeem any one from captivity or misery, by pur chase, by exchange, or some other valuable consideration.

When Priam ransomed the dead body of Hector from the victo rious Achilles, how was it done?

By paying a price. Thus Fabius recovered the captives which were taken by Hannibal: he transmitted the sum required, and they were discharged from their confinement.

Such is the redemption procured for sinners by our Lord Jesus Christ; of such a nature, (though incomparably more grand and august in all its circumstances) and expressed by the very same word-" The Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many."

Christ also paid a price-a real price-a most satisfactory price; in consideration of which, our freedom from death, from hell, from every penal evil, is granted. "Ye were redeemed," says the apostle,

not with corruptible things, such as silver and gold; but with the precious blood of Christ." Let me add one text more, which, in the same style of commutative justice, asserts the same truth; "Christ hath redeemed us," not by way of entreaty, but by paying a redemption price. He hath bought, not begged us off," from the curse of the law." Gal. iii, 13. 1 Cor. vi, 20, Hervey,

The ransom was paid down.. The fund of heav'n,
Heav'n's inexhaustible, exhausted fund,

Amazing and amaz'd, poured forth the price,

All price beyond. Though curious to compute,
Archangels fail'd to cast the mighty sum.

YOUNG,

The doctrine of particular redemption by Christ is free from any imputation of libertinism. It is indeed a redemption from the bondage, curse, and condemnation of the law; but it does not exempt from obedience to it, as it is in the hand of Christ; for saints are still "under the law to Christ;" nor do any more delight in the law of God after the inward man, or more cheerfully serve it with their mind, than those, who are most sensible that they are become dead unto it, and delivered from it by the blood of Christ. Redemption is a deliverance from sin, from all sin, original and actual; and that not only from the guilt of sin, and the punishment due unto it; but, in consequence of redeeming grace, the redeemed ones are delivered from the dominion and governing power of sin, and at last from the being of it. Christ saves his people from their sins-he does not indulge them in them. The great and glorious "Deliverer that comes out of Zion shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob," Strange! that a redemption from a vain conversation should ever be an encouragement to one; or that a person being ransomed out of the hands of Satan, and taken as a prey out of the hands of the mighty, should be an argument with him to give up himself to him and his service, or can be thought to have any tendency to engage him in a state of bondage to him, to be led as a captive by him at his will! Besides, the great end of Christ's giving himself of the sons of men, is, " that he might redeem them from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Tit. ii. 4. Nor does any thing lay such obligations upon men to "glorify God with their body and spirit," as the consideration of this, that they " are not their own," but " are bought with a price," 1 Cor. vi. 19, 20. even with the precious blood of Christ; nor can any thing, like the love of Christ, the redeeming love of Christ, constrain men to obedience," to live not unto them

for

any

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