nature, he would not go back from the engagements which he had entered into with his Father, but condescended to be born of a virgin, and to become bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. He loved the work he had undertaken ; he delighted in the prospect of glorifying his Father, and saving our ruined race ; and accounted no condescension too great for the accom- plishing of this stupendous purpose.
At tlie time of his sufferings and death, he still persisted in his resolution to do and suffer all that was necessary for our redemption. He often forewarned his disciples of the precise sufferings which he was to endure : and when one of the most highly favoured among them endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose, he reproved him with great severity0, determining never to recede till he had completed the work which he had engaged to perform. When, under the pressure of inconceiv- able agonies, his human nature began, as it were, to fail, he still maintained his steadfastness ; " Not my will, but thine be done." Had it pleased him, even when apprehended by his enemies, or hanging on the cross, to terminate his sufferings before the time, he might have had legions of angels sent for his deliverance d: but he would not suffer the cup to pass from him till he had drunk it to the lowest dregs.]
All this, it may be said, is very true; but what relation has it to the point before us ? We answer, that this steadfastness of his in performing engage- ments, which without any necessity on his part he had undertaken, was the very thing typified in the ordinance we are now considering —
[The Psalmist expressly speaking of Christ's appointment to make that atonement for sin which the Mosaic sacrifices only prefigured, says, (in allusion to the ordinance before us,) that God the Father had " opened, or bored, the ears" of his ser- vant6. And St. Paul, citing that very passage, quotes it, not in the same precise words, but according to their true mean- ing : " Sacrifice and burnt-offering thou wouldest not ; but a body hast thou prepaved mei." Moreover both the inspired writers go on to mark in the strongest terms the determination of heart with which the Messiah should fulfil, and actually did fulfil, the inconceivably arduous task which he had undertakeng.]
c Matt. xvi. 21 — 23. d Matt. xxvi. 53,54.
e Ps. xl. 6—8. f Heb. x. 5—7.
g Note the varied expressions ; " Lo, I come : I delight to do thy will, O my God : yea, thy law is within my heart." These, applied as they are to the whole of the Messiah's humiliation, (Heb. x. 8 — 10.) mark strongly his determination as grounded upon love.
The circumstance of the Septuagint translation of the 40th Psalm