daughters of the Lord Almighty : but there is a tenderness in the expression before us, which well deserves our most attentive consideration.
The image of a travailing woman is very commonly used by the inspired writers to illustrate different topics. As applied to the ungodly, it expresses the fear and terror, the distress and anguish, which they either do experience under the Divine chastisements3, or will experience, when death and judgment shall come upon themb. As applied to the godly, it de- clares the relation which they bear to the church c, to ministers'1, and to Christ himself6. It is in this last view that we are now called to notice it.
Without entering too minutely into so delicate a subject we may observe, that believers are justly re- presented as the fruit of the Redeemer's travail, both on account of their being brought into the family of God by means of his sufferings ; and on account of his watching over them continually with more than maternal care and anxiety.
It is solely by means of his sufferings that they are brought into the family of God. They were indeed prepared from eternity in the womb of the divine counsels: they were " given to Christ," and "chosen in him from the foundation of the worldf." Long be- fore the Gentiles were actually called, our Lord spake of his having many, who were not of the Jewish fold, whom yet he must in due season bring into his church g." And the Apostle Paul, though he was so long ignorant of God, and a bitter persecutor of the Church, yet speaks of himself as a chosen vessel, that had been " separated to God from the womb1'." But that whereby men are really brought into the family of God, is the crucifixion of Christ. If Christ had not " borne their sins in his own body on the tree," and " made his soul too an offering for sin," not one of them could ever have enjoyed the Divine favour,
a Isai. xxvi. 16 — 18. Jer. xxx. 6, 7. b 1 Thess. v. 3.
c Isai. liv. 1. with Gal. iv. 27. d Gal. iv. 19.
e The text. f John xvii. 2. Eph. i. 4.
s John x. 1G. i» Gal. i. 15.
974.] Christ's satisfaction in his people. 409
not one of them could ever have presumed to cry, Abba, Father! But by his stripes they obtain healing, and peace by his chastisements, and life by his death. By his vicarious sufferings they are exempt from all the penal effects of sin, and have the power and pri- vilege of becoming sons of God1. To this one source is the whole of their salvation continually traced in the inspired volume. Are they redeemed from the curse of the law ? It is by his having become a curse for themk. Are they made the righteousness of God in Christ ? It is by his having been first made a sin- offering for them1. The troubles of his soul, whether in the garden or on the cross, were the travail, of which their salvation is the fruit. And as a parent, looking on her numerous family, may call to mind the pangs which she endured at each successive birth ; so may the Lord Jesus, when he beholds the various members of his family, well recollect the sufferings which he endured by means of each ; there not being so much as one among them, who has not occasioned him many bitter pangs, not one, for whom he did not endure the wrath of an offended God.
But believers may also be called the travail of the Redeemer's soul on account of his watching over them with more than maternal care and anxiety. St. Paul speaks of himself, not only as having travailed in birth with the Galatian Christians at their first conversion, but as " travailing in birth again with them, until Christ should be formed in them." He saw that they were in danger of being drawn away from the faith of Christ by the false teachers who had crept in among them ; and he illustrates his anxious concern for their welfare by this affecting image. Well therefore may we apply it unto Christ, whose love to the very meanest of his children so infinitely exceeds all that the most exalted creature is capable of feeling. He sees all the dangers to which they are exposed, and all the per- verseness which they manifest. He well knows how much more ready they are to follow the counsels of their deceitful adversary, than to adhere resolutely to « John i. 12. k Gal. iii. 13. « 2 Cor. v. 21.