severe account for it, go heyond the laws, and add punishments which the law did not prescribe, that so the Scriptures of the prophets might, unioittingly indeed on their part, be in every thing fulfilled.
His crucifixion closes the scene. But that was not a Jewish punishment : it was a penalty inflicted only by the Roman law: yet, though the law by which he was judged was Jewish, the punishment inflicted on him was Roman. But so the pro- phecies had foretold : and it was not possible that one word of them should fail of its accomplishment. The Roman Governor, without whose authority it could not be executed, did all in his power to prevent it ; but could not prevail. He would gladly have embraced the opportunity, which custom had sanctioned, of pardoning one of the prisoners : but the Jews chose rather to have a murderer spared, than Him ; a murderer, whose guilt was fully proved, rather than Jesus, whom the judge himself, after the fullest investigation, affirmed to be innocent. But so God had ordained; and so it came to pass.
Behold, then, how clear and indisputable is his Messiahship! Things were foretold which had no relation to each other, and which, in the common course of events, were inconsistent with each other. But in him they all combined ; and they came to pass, not through the well-adjusted efforts of friends to fulfil them, but through the unwitting agency of enemies, and through the very efforts which were made to prevent the accomplishment of them. I ask, then, with confidence, "Is not He the Christ'?"]
Let us now view him in another hght ; namely,
II. As our surety and substitute —
Having undertaken for us, he must bear all that our sins had merited —
[Shame, and misery, and death, were our proper and deserved portion. Even in this world " the way of transgres- sors is hard," and " there is no peace to the wicked ;" and the sentence of death hangeth over us : and, in the eternal world, the wicked will "awake to shame and everlasting contempt"^." (Who can conceive the contempt and indignation that will then be felt against them by God himself, and by the saints who will sit with him as his assessors in judgment ? The sentence that will be denounced against them in that day amply declares that point : " Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.") As for the misery that awaits us, no finite imagination can conceive it, when we shall lie down " in the lake of fu'e and brimstone, and spend a
1 John iv. 29. "* Dan. xii. 2.