ours with heads erect, because we are freed from curse and care. Upon his path he not only carries all our sins to the grave, and breaks a passage through all the obstacles which blocked up our access to the Father, but he makes, at the same time, all the bitter waters of the desert sweet, and neither leaves nor forsakes us, till he brings us safe to our heavenly home.

XXXIX.

SIMON OF CYRENE.

PILATE, driven from the field by the determined opposition of the enemies of Jesus, contrary to the voice of justice in his breast, has delivered the Holy One of Israel into the hands of his murderers, who hasten to carry the execution into effect as quickly as possible. No appeal was permitted to a rebel after being sentenced; on the contrary, a Roman law commanded that such should be led away to execution immediately after sentence had been pronounced. This was believed applicable to him, whom the people thought they could not remove soon enough from human society, as being a rebel against God, against Moses, and against the emperor.

We left the Saviour at the close of our last meditation on the road to the fatal hill. The procession moves slowly forward enveloped in clouds of dust. What a running together from every side! What a tumultuous noise and horrible din! Spears, helmets, and drawn swords glitter in the sunshine. Soldiers on foot and horseback, priests and scribes, high and low, shrieking women and crying children, Jews and heathens, all mingle together in the crowd. At the head of the procession, surrounded by guards, the three delinquents, panting slowly forward under the weight of their instruments of death. Two of them robbers and murderers, and between them, he, to whom, on closer observation, the whole of this hideous exhibition has reference. Behold that bleeding man, who, according to appearance, is the

most guilty of the three ! But we know nim He also bears his cross, and thus claims our sympathy in the highest degree.

Crosses were often seen, under the dominion of the Romans. A rebellious slave was very frequently condemned to this most shameful and painful of all punishments. But there is something very particular and peculiar about the cross which we see the Holy One of Israel bearing to Calvary. If we refer to the roll of the Divine Law, Deut. xxi. 22: “If a man have committed a sin worthy of death, and he be to be put to death, and thou hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt in any wise bury him that day (for he that is hanged is accursed of God), that thy land be not defiled, which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance." This remarkable ordinance of God was punctually observed in Israel. As often as a criminal was nailed to the tree of shame, he was regarded, according to the words of the law, as an object of profound abhorrence to the Almighty, and the people were conscious that God could only look upon the land with anger and disgust, so long as the dead body of the criminal was not removed out of his sight. But such of them as were enlightened, well knew that all this included in it a typical meaning, and had a prophetic reference to one who should hang upon a tree, on whom the vials of heaven's wrath would be poured out, but in whose atoning sufferings, the curse and condemnation of a sinful world would reach its termination. But who would dare to seek in Christ, the individual thus laden with the divine curse, and assert that the ordinance in the wilderness had found its fulfillment on Golgotha, if the word of God itself had not justified such a conclusion? That such is actually the case, turn to Galatians, iii. 13, where the apostle states frankly, and without circumlocution, that "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, as 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."

In the type of the brazen serpent, as well as in the divine ordinances respecting one that was hanged on a tree, the clearest

light is thrown on the horrible cross which the Son of God is carrying to Calvary. Those beams evidently form the stake upon which, according to the promise, the storm of Divine judgment should be discharged. It is the scaffold where, according to Romans, iii. 25, God resolved to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God. The Moriah where, for the benefit of a sinful world, the curse pronounced in paradise is endured in the sacred humanity of the great Surety. The altar of burnt-offering, on which the Lamb of God submitted to the sum total of that punishment which ought in justice to have fallen upon me; and the dying bed, where death, over which Satan has power, and to which I was subject by a sentence of the Supreme tribunal, is permitted to seize upon, and slay another, in order that he might forever lose his claim upon me. Such is the mysterious cross which you see borne toward Calvary. It is the sepulcher of a world; for the innumerable host of those that are saved, died, in the eye of God, with Christ upon it. It is the conductor which carries off the destroying flash from our race, by his attracting it upon himself; the tree of life, "the leaves of which are for the healing of the nations."

Jesus carries his cross. When did he ever show so plainly in his outward circumstances that he bore the curse, as now? If the voice of God had sounded directly down from heaven, and said, "This Just One is now enduring the sentence pronounced upon you," it could not have afforded us more certainty than by this living figure of bearing the cross. Its language is powerful, and points out, even to a simple child, wherein we ought to seek the final cause of Christ's passion. We find the Holy Sufferer, as you know, outside the gates of Jerusalem. The Scriptures attach great importance to the fact that he was led away out of the holy city. Thus we read in Hebrews, xiii. 11, 12, "The bodies of those beasts, whose blood is brought into the sanctuary by the high priest for sin, are burned without the camp. Wherefore, Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate." Here Christ is evidently represented as the true antitype of the Old Testament sin-offerings. But since we know the nature of these, and how,

by this devotional act, the sins of the transgressors were imputed to the animals to be sacrificed; that thus they became objects of abhorrence, and their bodies were not only removed from the neighborhood of the temple, but even burned with fire, in testimony of what was justly due to the sinner; and that the latter, after such sacrificial act, was absolved and declared blameless; so it almost clearly appears, that in the passage above quoted, the apostle can not and does not intend to say any thing else than that Christ, on his being led out of the gates, was in fact burdened with our sins, and bore our curse. Thus it is we that tread the path to the place of execution; for he does so in our stead. That such is really the case, and that He does not proceed upon that road as the holy Jesus, but as the representative of our sinful race, becomes more apparent at every step. Hence it is comprehensible how the Eternal Father could give him up to such nameless ignominy and torment. It is on this account that no angel from above hastens to his aid; no fire falls from heaven to consume his murderers; rather do the clouds pass quietly and silently over the dreadful scene, as if assent were given above to the horrible transactions below; nay, the Just One may, for this reason, while wearied to death, be ready to break down under the burden of his cross, without any one inheaven or on earth appearing to grieve at it. The gates of the eternal sanctuary are closed; the portals of the Almighty's abode are shut; and the same God who delivered righteous Lot out of Sodom, Daniel from the den of lions, and commanded the enraged Laban to speak only kindly to Jacob, and who says to all his saints, "Fear not, for I am with you"-this Keeper of Israel seems to slumber and sleep with regard to his best Beloved, and to have forgotten respecting him who was his 'fellow," his sweet words of promise: "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee." All the circumstances in which we see the Saviour are truly dreadful and appalling; but all exclaim, with the most powerful emphasis, "Behold the Lord Jesus, laden with the sinner's curse!"

แ

We have been contemplating Jesus with the sinner's cross.

The scene now changes, and a new figure presents itself to our view-the sinner with the cross of Jesus.

The Holy One had proceeded forward some distance with his heavy burden, when his blood-thirsty attendants begin to fear lest he should break down under his load, and entirely succumb from exhaustion before the execution. To prevent this, they look about for some one on whom they may lay the cross of Jesus for the remainder of the way; and their eyes soon light upon a stranger, just coming from the field, whom they the sooner select for this purpose from thinking they see in his looks a secret sympathy with the Nazarene. This was Simon, born at Cyrene, in Africa. We are not informed whether he belonged, at that time, to the secret friends of Jesus; but he was certainly regarded as such by the people, and probably not without reason. At least Simon's two sons, Alexander and Rufus, were afterward designated as true Christians; and the inference from the sons to the father is probably correct. Suffice it to say, this Jew, Simon, was stopped, and compelled to bear the Lord's cross. At first he resisted being thus burdened and disgraced, but he soon reconciled himself to it, and then bore it willingly.

It

With reference to this circumstance, the words of Jesus are wont to be applied-"Whoso will be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me;" and occasion is then taken from the history of this part of the passion, to treat of the reproach we have to bear for Christ's sake. But this seems to me not entirely correct, since Simon does not bear his own cross, but that on which Jesus died. Something very different is, therefore, reflected in the symbolical form of the cross-bearer. presents to our view the inward position of faith with respect to the cross of Christ, that is, to the sacrifice and act of redemption accomplished upon it. We ought to be cross-bearers in the same sense in which Simon was, only spiritually so. are such, when the cross of Christ becomes ours in the way of self-accusation, believing appropriation, and continual dying with Christ.

We

He who, in spirit, sees Jesus proceeding toward Calvary under the burden of his cross, will, in so far, immediately become like Simon, in being compelled, by compassion and right feeling,