without first abasing ourselves before God for the guilt we have contracted, and looking unto Jesus for the expiation of it. Doubtless the change that took place in them, was wrought by the agency of the Holy Spirit, whose office is " to glorify Christ, and to take of the things that are his, and shew them unto us." That Spirit is promised " to us, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Let us then pray for the influences of that same Spirit upon our hearts ; that, through his powerful operations, we may " look on him whom we have pierced, and mourn, and be in bitterness, as one that is in bitterness for his first-born d."]
d Zech. xii. 10.
Luke xxiv. 26. Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory ?
AN ignorance of the Scriptures is far more in- jurious to us than we are apt to imagine; for it lies at the root of all our errors both in faith and practice. The infidels of old denied the doctrine of the resur- rection, " not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God." The Jewish rulers crucified their Messiah, because they were ignorant of the character in which, according to the Scriptures, he was to appear ; and thus they unwittingly fulfilled the very Scriptures which they professed to reverence. The Disciples of our Lord himself were confounded at the death of their Master, and averse to credit the reports of his resurrection, because " they knew not the Scriptures that he must rise again." Our blessed Lord, after his resurrection, joined two of them in their way to Emmaus ; and when he found how ignorant and in- credulous they were, he reproved them; and, to con- vince them that " the Messiah ought to have suffered the very things which he had suffered, and in that way to enter into his glory," he expounded to them the principal prophecies relating to those events.
His appeal to them on that occasion leads us to consider,