manifestation of kindness and charity? These men were deserving of proud contempt; but as a proof that he was so differently minded from his brethren after the flesh, and that nothing dwelt in his heart of all that is termed wounded pride, revenge, or angry feeling-he solicits from his adversaries an act of compassion and kindness, and says to them, suppliantly, "I thirst." What else did he intend to say by this, than, “See, I do not break with you. I continue faithfully inclined toward you, and hold the bond firmly which connects me with you." Let him look here, who does not yet know what it is to heap coals of fire on his enemy's head. How does the holiness of your Redeemer again manifest itself! How does the pure golden grain of his divine nature here display itself afresh! Yes, light is his garment. But it was necessary that he who was willing to be our Surety and Mediator should be so constituted. A speck on the white robe of his righteousness would have sufficed to have deprived him of the ability for the accomplishment of his great work.

It might be supposed that the delicate trait of heartfelt approximation and confiding condescension, as evidenced in the words, "I thirst," must have filled those who crucified the Saviour, with a confusion which would have scarcely permitted them to lift up their eyes any more. And it certainly seems as if it had not entirely failed of its conciliating impression, by producing in them milder sentiments. We see them immediately prepare to fulfill his request. One of them runs and fetches a branch of hyssop, and after they had dipped a sponge in vinegar, and put it on the reed, they held it up to his mouth that he might suck it. But even this miserable refreshment is mingled with the gall of renewed mockery. "Let alone," say they, "let us see whether Elias will come to take him down!" But if I mistake not, there is more seriousness than jest in this speech, and that they really intended by it to disguise the better and gentler feelings of compassion-nay, even a certain inclining toward the dying man, which they felt arise within them at that moment. If we wish to gain our opponents, we can not do so more rapidly or surely than by requesting them to do us a kindness, and thus oblige ourselves to thank them. This will

immediately soften them.

But in order to this, a degree of

humility and charity is requisite, which every one does not possess. But this charity and humility dwelt in the Saviour in unlimited fullness; and in order to place himself in a position to owe the world his thanks, he gives the latter, by saying, "I thirst," the opportunity of presenting him with the last earthly solace of his life.

What an affecting and heart-winning trait is this! O that it may win our hearts also, if they are not already gained for Jesus! For that for which he chiefly thirsts is, that he may gain us over to himself. The principal object of his desire and longing is, that transgressors may be freed from sin; they that are under the curse, absolved; those that are bound, liberated; and the prisoners set free. But that this great end of human redemption may be accomplished, he still thirsts for our love, the resignation of ourselves to him, and for our childlike confidence in his saving name. We therefore know how and with what we can still refresh the Lord of Glory. The first solace which he, with desire, awaits from us, is our tears of penitence Or shall we never

and he will heal us; he Shall the blood which

and repentance. O let us bear them to him! fall weeping into each other's arms saying, "Come, and let us return unto the Lord; for he hath torn hath smitten, and he will bind us up?" flowed on the cross, never succeed in softening the hard ground of our hearts, nor the love which died for us, inflame our frigid souls with a reciprocal affection? O the abundance of awakening voices and attracting powers, which urge themselves upon us from the cross! Will we ever resist them, as if we considered it an honor to make it evident that the hardness of our hearts was altogether invincible? May God prevent it, and bestow upon us the humility of the publican, and the ardent desire of the dying malefactor.

There may be some of my readers whose eyes, from which a penitential tear never flowed, will soon close in death. O that they would melt before despair hardens them forever! There may be those who, from childhood up, have witnessed what many prophets and kings have desired to see and have not seen, and yet are far from recognizing the one thing that is needful.

O that they would weep at length over their blindness, and their base and appalling ingratitude! There may be those, also, whose eyes require no light to reveal to them their misdeeds, and yet are nevertheless like sealed fountains which yield no water. 0 that you could weep as Peter wept, and like David, who watered his couch with his tears! Such tears are the drink-offering for which the Saviour still thirsts. God grant that we may approach his throne with them! As soon as this takes place, the actions change, the relations are reversed. It is then he who gives us to drink, and refreshes us; and we imbibe and enjoy. And blessed is he who experiences in himself the truth of his words, "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him, shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." Who would not say with the Samaritan woman, with reference to such a draught, "Lord, give me this water, that I thirst no more !"

XLIX.

"IT IS FINISHED!"

THESE are the greatest and most momentous words that were ever spoken upon earth, since the beginning of the world. Who does not find in them a cry of victory? It is a shout of triumph, which announces to the kingdom of darkness its complete overthrow and to the kingdom of heaven upon earth its eternal establishment. How wonderful! At the very moment when, for the Hero of Judah, all seems lost, his words declare that all is won and accomplished! Our Lord's exclamation is like the sound of a heavenly jubilee-trumpet, and announces to the race of Adam, which was under the curse, the commencement of a free and sabbatic year, which will ever more extensively display its blessing, but never come to an end. Listen, and it will appear to you as if in the words, "It is finished!" you heard fetters burst, and prison-walls fall down. At these words, barriers as

high as heaven are overthrown, and gates which had been closed for thousands of years, again move on their hinges. But what was it that was finished at the moment when that cry was uttered? The evangelist introduces his narrative with the words, After this, Jesus knowing that all things were accomplished." Only think-"All things!" What more can we want? But wherein did they consist? We hasten to lift the vail, and view in detail what was realized and brought about, and may the full peace be imparted to us which the words, "It is finished!" announce to the world!

"Jesus cried with a loud voice, It is finished !” It would seem as if he had wished to drink only to make this victorious cry sound forth with full force, like the voice of a herald or the sound of a trumpet. The Lord has now reached the termination of his labors. He has performed the stupendous task which he undertook in the council of peace, before the world was, when he said, "I delight to do thy will, O my God!" Death, to which he is on the point of submitting, formed the summit, but also the concluding act of his mediatorial work. Only take into your hands the divine programme of his vicarious earthly course, as compiled in types and prophecies in the archives of the Old Testament, and be convinced how it has been most minutely carried out. The mysterious delineation of the Messiah, as it passes before us in increasing brightness and completeness, in the writings of Moses and the prophets, is fully realized in its smallest and minutest traits in the person of Jesus. If ¦ you ask for the wondrous infant of Bethlehem described by Micah, "whose goings forth have been of old, from everlasting;" or for "the Child born, and the Son given, with the government upon his shoulder," whom Isaiah brings before us; or for the meek and lowly King mentioned by Zechariah, who makes his entrance into Jerusalem on the foal of an ass-it meets you bodily in Jesus Christ. Do you seek for the seed of the woman, who, with his wounded heel, bruises the serpent's head; or the second Aaron, who should actually bring about a reconciliation between God and a sinful world-look up to the cross, and there you will see all combined in One.

Do

you look about you for the antitype of the brazen serpent

in the wilderness, or of the paschal lamb and its delivering blood in Egypt; or for the exalted Sufferer, who appears in the appalling descriptions given us in Psalms xxii. and lxix., which record a malefactor's awful doom, even to the mournful cry of "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!"—all is combined in the bleeding Saviour who hangs yonder, and exclaims, "It is finished!" Then take a retrospective look into the writings of the ancient prophets, and what meets your view? The ancient types have lost their significancy. They have put on flesh and blood in Jesus Christ. Their importance to us is henceforth limited to the testimony they bear that the divinelypromised Messiah is indeed come, and that no other is to be looked for. Every condition of the work of human redemption had been fulfilled at the moment when Christ uttered the words, "It is finished!" with the exception of one, which was included and taken for granted in them, because it inevitably awaited him, and actually took place immediately afterward-thus bringing the whole to a perfect conclusion.

That which still remained unaccomplished clearly proves that Jesus did not hang on the cross on his own account, but as our representative. It was our death. The laws of nature forbade that a green and thoroughly healthy tree, which was rooted in eternity, should bleed and sink beneath the blows of "the last enemy." It was contrary to the divine government that One, who had not, with Adam, tasted the forbidden fruit, should nevertheless fall under the sentence pronounced upon the latter, "In the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die!" It was also entirely opposed to the immutable and fundamental statutes of the sanctuary, that a tribute should be demanded of a righteous person, which is there expressly indicated as the wages of sin. It was at variance with the express promise of the Most High-" This do, and thou shalt live"—that One, who did not leave unfulfilled one iota of the divine commands, should not live, but die. He himself repeatedly declared that the universal law of mortality had, abstractedly considered, no claim upon his person. He asserted most pointedly, that no one, not even his Father in heaven, took away his life, but that he laid it voluntarily down. Truly, the death of Jesus would