My readers, how can we reconcile such revolting occurrences with the government of a just and holy God! A great mystery must lie at the bottom of them, or our belief in a supreme moral government of the world loses its last support. And is not this really the case? Have you not already perceived that the references of that scene extend back, even to the commencement of the history of mankind? Did it not seem to you as if, instead of the Lord Jesus, you saw our first father standing before you, and suffering the punishment due to his transgression in Paradise? If so, you have hit upon the right clew to explain that otherwise inexplicable scene. Believe me, there is a closer connection between the garden of Eden and the court-yard of the Roman prætorium than might at first sight be supposed. Debts incurred in Eden are there liquidated, and sins committed in Paradise are there atoned for.

Consider, for a moment, what was the crime by the commission of which, the first of our race plunged himself and all his descendants into destruction. He who was so abundantly blessed by his Maker, lusted, nevertheless, after the forbidden fruit, and ate of it. He who was adorned, by the kindness of God, with innocence and beauty, was not satisfied with that attire, but stretched out his hand to grasp a crown which did not belong to him. He refused to be God's servant any longer, but would be himself a god. No longer satisfied with the rod of dominion which had been granted him, as Lord of the earth and every earthly creature; he sought, in a certain sense, to seize the scepter of the Almighty himself. His presumptuous desires tended to the being independent of the Lord in heaven, to the right of unconditionally ruling over his own destiny, and even to unlimited freedom from every law which he did not impose upon himself. 'Independence" was the motto which flamed upon his banner. He wished to be a king-not as he ought to be, under God, but a sovereign, independent as God himself, an autocrat, to whose egotistic will every thing should bow.

But in this tendency of his heart lay the most decided falling away from God; and alas for us! that, in its germ, it was transferred over to, and inherited by us, like a subtle poison.

Who will venture to pronounce himself free from it? Who does not feel those sentiments daily blossoming and bearing fruit in him, in a thousand different ways? Do not we all naturally strive, as a heathen writer has expressed it, "always after that which is forbidden?" Is it not self, instead of God, that we would gladly place upon the throne; and does not its glorification lie incomparably nearer our hearts than that of our Creator? Does not the arrogant desire accompany us at every step, to mark out, as little deities, our own path of life; and do we not all bring with us into the world the rebellious inclination to evade the laws of Jehovah, and instead of them, arbitrarily to make our own laws? Assuredly it is so! We all bear about in us the likeness of our fallen progenitor; and if we refuse to hear of it, we only, by so doing, again evince our inherent pride, and the inward darkness into which we are fallen.

Tell me, now, what, according to your opinion, ought to have been the fate of Adam for lusting after the forbidden fruit, and for his impious infringement of God's prerogatives? "At least," you think, "the scourge instead of sensual delight; a crown of thorns instead of the longed-for diadem; and a robe of mockery instead of the imperial purple." You have judged rightly. Look now into the court-yard of Pilate's palace, and convince yourselves that all this, of which you deem him worthy, really befell him. "Whom;" you ask, astonished, our first father, Adam?" No other than he, and we, his seed, in him. Yes, see there the presumptuous luster, the culpable insurgent, and aspirer to the crown in Paradise; except that you do not behold him there in person, but as represented by him, who, as the second Adam, took upon himself the guilt of the first.

Such is the secret cause of the bloody events we have been contemplating. Away, therefore, with all false sentimentality! with the partial and selfish indignation at the barbarous crew! Apart from the fact of our being innately no better than they -they are the unconscious intsruments in the hands of retributive justice. What befalls Christ, befalls us in him, who is our representative. The sufferings he endures, fall upon our corrupt nature. In him we receive the due reward of our misdeeds;

and now say, if it be too much? With the shudder at the sight of the martyred Lamb of God, ought to be joined a thorough condemnation of ourselves, a profound adoration of the unsearchable wisdom and mercy of God, and a joyful exulting at the glorious accomplishment of the counsel of grace. Our hell is extinguished in Jesus's wounds; our curse is consumed in Jesus's soul; our guilt is purged away in Jesus's blood. The sword of the wrath of a holy God was necessarily unsheathed against us; and if the Bible is not a falsehood, and the threatenings of the law a mere delusion, and God's justice an idle fancy, and his truth a mere cobweb of the brain-then, nothing is more evident than this, that of all the millions of sinful and guilty men who ever trod the earth, not a single individual would have escaped the sword, if the Son of God had not endured the stroke, and taken upon himself the payment of our debts. This he undertook. Then it thundered upon him from the clouds; the raging billows of a sea of trouble roared against him; hell poured upon him all its tortures and torments, and heaven remained unmoved. What was all this but the fate which awaited guilty sinners? But since Christ endured it, the crosses, which were erected for us, have been thrown down; the stake which waited for us has been removed; the cannon which were pointed against us have been dismounted, and, from the royal residence of the Lord of Hosts, the white flag of peace is held out to us poor dwellers upon earth.

The case has been well stated by an ancient writer, in the following words: “Adam was a king, gloriously arrayed, and ordained to reign. But sin cast him down from his lofty throne, and caused him the loss of his purple robe, his diadem and scepter. But after his eyes were opened to perceive how much he had lost, and when his looks were anxiously directed to the earth in search of it, he saw thorns and thistles spring up on the spot where the crown fell from his head; the scepter changed, as if to mock the fallen monarch, into a fragile reed; and instead of the purple robe, his deceived hand took up a robe of mockery from the dust. The poor disappointed being hung down his head with grief, when a voice exclaimed, 'Look up!' He did so, and lo! what an astonishing vision presented itself to his

eye! Before him stood a dignified and mysterious man, who had gathered up the piercing thorns from the ground, and wound them round his head for a crown; he had wrapped himself in the robe of mockery, and taken the reed, the emblem of weakness, into his own hand. 'Who art thou, wondrous being?' inquired the progenitor of the human race, astonished; and received the heart-cheering reply, 'I am the King of kings, who, acting as thy representative, am restoring to thee the paradisaical jewels thou hast lost.' Our delighted first father then bowed himself gratefully and reverentially in the dust; and after being clothed with the skin of the sacrificed animal, fathomed the depths of the words of Jehovah, 'Adam is become like one of us.'"

What I have now related to you is a parable, but one which rests on an historical basis. For, in fact, the great exchange which Christ made with us, as regards the reversion and the right, has again placed us in the full possession of paradisaic glory, seeing that we are "begotten again to a lively hope, and to an inheritance incorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us, who are kept by the power of God, through faith unto eternal salvation."

XXXVI.

ECCE HOMO!

WE stand, in spirit, before Gabbatha. The judgment-seat is still empty. The scene, as we are aware, has been transferred for a time into the inner court-yard. We know the horrible things which have there occurred. The evangelists describe them with a trembling hand. They mention the scourging only briefly. We think we see them covering their faces with their hands at this terrific scene; but they can not conceal from us the tears which silently steal down their cheeks.

Impatience begins to seize upon the multitude outside; when,

suddenly, the gate of the prætorium again opens. Pilate approaches, visibly affected, followed by One who is surrounded by a troop of jeering barbarians. Oh, what an appearance does he present! You shudder, and cover your faces. Do so, and permit me, meanwhile, to relate a brief narrative to you.

Heaven's pearly gates were once thrown open, and a Holy One descended into the world-such a one as the sons of men had never seen since the fall. He was glorious beyond compare, and came to verify the dream of Jacob's ladder, which connected earth with heaven. Love was his banner, compassion the beating of his heart. He sojourned three years among mortals, shedding light on those who were stumbling in darkness, filling the cottages of the wretched with temporal and spiritual blessings, inviting the weary and heavy laden to come to him, in order to give them rest, and irradiating the darkness of the vale of death with promises upon promises, as with so many golden lights from heaven. "I am not come," said he, "to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give my life a ransom for many." He testified that he came to redeem his people from their sins; that he would not leave them comfortless, but would bring them to the Father, and elevate them to be fellow-heirs with him in his glory. And how did he fulfill his promises, whenever any ventured to take heart and filially confide in him! O what blessings must such a guest have brought with him to a world lying under the curse! Even the angels around the throne might have envied the pilgrims in this vale of death by reason of this visit. And as regards the children of -"Doubtless," you say, "they received him with exultation, melted into tears of rapture, conducted him in triumph, and knew not what they should do to manifest their gratitude to their heavenly friend and deliverer."

men

Truly, one might have supposed that such would have been the case. "What, and was it not so?" My friends, lift up your eyes, and look toward Gabbatha. "Gracious heaven!" you exclaim, "Who is yonder sufferer?" O, my friends, whom do you take him to be? Look him narrowly in the face, and say if wickedness could have vented itself worse than it has done on this person? Alas! they have made of him a carnival