his own body on tho tree," says the context. His death was a sacrifice; by thl' spri11- kling of his blood we are lrnllowe<l, No other view <loes justice to the plain import of these nnd other passages than that which takes Christ's sufferings to be substitutionary in their character and propitiatory in their operation, and therefore to be for our advantage. Note, too, that the apostle dwells on the sufferings, the actual mental and physical pain, and not onl_y on the fact of death. The loving memory of the eye-witness of his Lord's Passion retains each incident of the slow torture, the buffeting, the mock- ing, the livid weals of the cruel scourge, the fainting form bearing the heavy cross, and the unmoved meekness in it all. Sensuous representations of Christ's suffering~ have often been carried too far, but surely there is a clanger of going to the other extreme; and every Christian life needs for its vigour a believing and realizing contemplation of tho sufferings of Christ endured for and instead of us. II. THE 1:iUFFERINGS OF CHRIST OUR PATTERN. We a.re fa.miiiar with the idea that our Lord's life is our pattern. But here we have his Passion presented not only for our faith, but for our imitation. 1. Note the special force of the two metaphws here. " Exam !!le" is only used here in the New 'l'esta.ment. It means a copy of writing set to a scholar to be traced over by his unaccustomed ha.ud. 'l'hink of the clear firm characters belo,v, and the wavering clumsy ones scrawled over them. How the figure speaks of careful observance of the example, of laborious effort after reproducing it, and of the hope of constant gradual improvement! . 'l'he view of the whole Christian life which is involved in the figure is that in it all we are like schoolboys writing our copybooks, which have to be examined by the Master one day. What we have written, we have ,vritttn. Let us live as remembering that we have to take up our books to the Master's desk when school is over! The other metaphor is remarkable on Peter's lips. Did he remember how rashly he had asked, "Why cannot I follow thee now?" and the last solemn com- mand by the fire of coals on the lake-side? The word employed has the force of "follow closely.'' \Ve are to take Christ for our Guide, as men walking across a glacier might do by their guide, stepping in the prints of his footsteps, and keeping very near him. 2. Not-ice the solemn thought that Christ's su_fferings can be imitated '/J,y us. They stand alone in their bearing ou man's salvation, and in certain respects, in their severity and awfulne~s. We have but, at the most, to go a little way down the awful descent which he travelled to its depths, to drink a little of the cup which he drained to its dregs, to stand on the edge of the storm through the worst of which be pa8sed. But yet the same spirit and temper may be ours. Not the mocking bnt the meekness, not the scourging but the submission, not the dread desertion by the Father's love but the Son's cry to the Father, may be copied by each of us in our lighter griefa. Complete surrender to the will of God and meek endurance of the enmity of rueu are to be our patterns. The highest ideal of human character is the Christ who, when he was reviled, reviled nnt again. How utterly opposed to it are the so-called virtues of high-spirited resistance, And the whole practice or most of us in regnrd to slights, insults, and injuries! We call ourselves Christians, and say that we take Christ for our Example: do we ever remem- ber that his cross is not only the ground of all our peace and hope, but the law of onr lives? or bethink ourselves that whatever more" being made comformable to his death" may mean, it means that "when we do well and suffer for it, wo take it patiently," and let no anger, or revenge, or bitterness to our worst enemy ever rnflie the clear waters of our hearts? III. 'l'HE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST oun. rowER. The world has plenty of examples. Men do not go wrong for want of patterns. 'l'he worst man knows more of goodness than the best man does, Models make us neither willing nor able to copy tl1em. ·what is the use of a headline in a copy, be it ever ~o bcautirully written, if the scholar has no will to imitate it, has a lame hand, and a bad pen with no ink in it? \Ve want something more than examples ifwe whose disease is that we know the good and choose the evil are ever to be better. So all types of Christianity which merely take Christ as an Example fail to get his example imitated. We must begin witl1 "Christ suffered for us" if wo a.re to live like Christ. Only when I look to his cross as the great act of his love, by which ho gan hims6,f wholly for me and bore the burden of my sin, do I receive the power to follow him and live ns he lived. That death, if I look to it with faith, opens the deepest springs of love in my heart, which make obedience to and imitation of him necessary and delightful. It joins me to him in ll union so close that OG THE FIRST EPISTLE GENERAL OF PETER. [cH. 11. 1-25,
in him I am crucified to the world, and a new life, tbe life of Christ himself, is implanted within me. I~ brings to ~1e a new power of holiness in the Spirit which ho gives, Unless the suffenngs of Christ are to us the propitiation for our sius, they will never be to us the pattern for our lives. Unless they are the pattern for our lives, it is vain to fancy that they are the propitiation for our sins. What God has joined together let not na1n put asunder. "Christ has suffered for us "-there is the whole gospel; "leavin<> us :m example "-there is t.he whole Law.-A. M. "