fpitefully ufe us-to pray for those who wish to destroy us to load with bleffings those who cover us with curfes and maledictions. Here, then, we behold the fullest exemplification of this in our suffering Saviour. While the nails are agonizing His facred limbs, He intercedes for the men who thus torture Him; while they exhibit the perfection of hate towards Him, towards them He evinces the perfection of love. He does not defpife their fury and their outrages that would have been to fuffer as a heathen hero, or as a philosopher of Greece would have met his doom. He does not reproach them, or taunt them with ingratitude, by enumerating the benefits He had conferred on them, on their fick, fuffering, and dead: that would have been conduct worthy only of a grovelling mortal. He does not threaten them with an infliction of His power; He does not

menace them with twelve legions of mighty angels that would be to take refuge in His omnipotence. He does not confole Himself with the hope and knowledge of the punishment which must await such conduct as theirs: this would be to act like one whose ruffled fpirit longed for vengeance on his foes. Nor does He bemoan the barbarous excess of their cruelty that would have shown a pufillanimity which even mortal martyrs to the truth exhibited not. No. He prays for His crucifiers. He is intent upon their falvation. He seems scarcely to think of His own fufferings or of His bereft difciples. He makes no plea to His Father for them. gaged only with His enemies. He prays, on their behalf.

He is en

He speaks,

They curfe,

but He bleffes. They infift on and accomplish His death. He entreats for their falvation. They imprecate the guilt of

His blood on themselves and on their defcendants. He prays for their pardon"Father, forgive them "- that, instead of His blood refting on them as the mark for their destruction, it may be sprinkled on them as the means of their redemption. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

Oh! what deep and all-extenfive meaning is comprised in thofe words! Chrift, by His death and paffion, was offered up a facrifice for all. Who can tell, but that that blood poured forth was effectual to the falvation of those whose forgiveness the Lord then fought; that thofe, His murderers, became His brethren-His redeemed, pardoned brethren? When Chrift was nailed to the cross, Divine Juftice was satisfied, and the wrath of God, as an offended Judge, appeafed. God thenceforth is a Father ready to pardon. The fhadow of

that cross became a refuge where the guilty could hide, and become fafe from the burning blasts of Almighty vengeance.

The

Saviour would not that God the Father fhould regard the cruel hands that inflicted the lacerated wounds, but the redeeming blood which those wounds emitted, that this might be effectual to efface the crime of which thofe murderous foes were guilty. He employs the only plea in mitigation of the deed which could be found-"They know not what they do;" that is, they knew not that God had fent Him: but, in their blindness, they believed to be doing God fervice in putting His Son to death. They knew not what they did—that the blood they fpilt was to fanctify the world

that the victim they offered was to pur

chafe the falvation of mankind - that the cross to which they affixed Him was to become life and resurrection to all who lay in

death's cold fhadow- that its effects were to remedy the dire difeafe which devaftated the human family-that it was to spread through all the earth the knowledge of His name, and to gather out of all lands a people who should worship God in spirit and in truth. Since the world was to derive fuch bleffings from this direful deed, impute not (He would feem to fay) to them the fin of its accomplishment, "for they know not what they do." They, in flaying the Lord, unconsciously restored Him to His heavenly glories; in effacing, as they thought, His name from the book of the living, they raised Him above principalities and powers -while they rejected Him, they caused Him to be made known to all people—in refufing to acknowledge Him for their King, they made Him Lord of all, and gave Him the fceptre of all dominion both in heaven and earth. The glory promised