"When Jesus, therefore, had received the vinegar, and thus had perfectly fulfilled the prophecies relating to his sufferings, he said, It is finished." My eternal, wonderful, and triumphant probation has now received its final termination; my Almighty Father has been gloriously glorified by evil having been completely overcome by good. His typifying laws have been magnified, and rendered honourable; perfection has been fully delineated; and by this public vindication of my great Father's glory to the beholding universe, a full and plenary propitiation for the transgressions of all, past, present, and to come, has been completely obtained for all repentant sinners: thus utterly destroying the operations of the evil one, effecting the total overthrow of the kingdom by him. erected, and the spoliation of the infernal powers and princedoms, (Col. ii. 15,) whose impotence I now show openly, triumphing over them in it. And one everlasting fountain is opened for pollution and uncleanness, wherein all are now invited. to wash and be clean. These are the stupendous and eternal purposes of my Almighty Father which I now have finished.* "And when He had cried again with a loud voice, He said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having

* All these momentous communications we derive from revelation. The symbolic religion was abolished for ever by the death of Christ; for by it He blotted out the hand-writing of ordinances that was against all those who did not perfectly perform them. It is now taken out of the way from this time forth even for evermore. It is now nailed to the cross, perfection having been thereon fully illustrated.

VOL. III.

G

said this, He bowed his head, and gave up the ghost."

Now undemanded signs, tremendous, irresistible, came down from God himself to warn the impious multitude. For, behold, while the sun was darkened, a very awful and miraculous interposition avowed and demonstrated the relation to the paternal Deity which the filial one had claimed. "Immediately on the death of Christ, the veil of the temple, which separated between the holy and the most holy place, though made of the richest and strongest tapestry, was miraculously rent in two in the midst, from the top to the very bottom, so that while the priest was ministering at the golden altar, it being the time of evening sacrifice, the sacred oracle was laid open to full view,* God thereby declaring and manifesting the abolition of the whole Mosaic ritual, which depended on a distinction between those two parts of the temple, and thereby clearly demonstrating that a passage was opened into the most holy place by the blood of Jesus, which was now poured out on Mount Calvary; and at the

* 66 (While the priest was ministering at the golden altar.) This being so high a day, it is probable that Caiaphas himself might now be performing the solemn act of burning incense just before the veil, which if he did, it is inexpressibly astonishing that his obdurate heart should not be impressed with so awful and significant a phenomenon. There is no room to doubt but many of the other priests who had a hand in Christ's death saw the pieces of the veil, which, considering its texture, and the other circumstances, must as fully convince them of the reality of this extraordinary fact as if they had actually been present when it was rent."

same time, to increase the terror, the earth did quake, and the rocks were rent,* and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy eity, and appeared unto many, attesting the truth of that important fact, and declaring their own rescue from the grave as a kind of first fruits of his power over death, which should at length accomplish a general resurrection.

"And when the Roman centurion who stood over against him and guarded the execution, saw that He so cried out with such strength of voice, and such firm confidence in God, even at the moment when He expired, and also saw what was then done in so miraculous a manner, in those amazing prodigies that attended his death, he glorified God by a free confession of his persuasion

*

"(The rocks were torn asunder.) Mr. Fleming tells us in his Christology,' vol. ii. p. 97, 98, that a Deist lately travelling through Palestine was converted by viewing one of those rocks, which still remains torn asunder, not in the weakest place, but across the veins a plain proof that it was done in a supernatural manner. Sandys, in his excellent Travels, page 164, has given an accurate description and delineation of this fissure; and Mr. Maundrel, in his Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, page 73, 74, tells us that it is about a span wide at the upper part, and two spans deep, after which it closes, but opens again below, (as may be seen in another chapel below, contiguous to the side of Calvary,) and runs down to an unknown depth in the earth. He adds, that every man's sense and reason must convince him that this is a natural and genuine breach"-that is, that it was not the work of man, though it bore evident marks that it was the work of God.

of the innocence of Jesus, saying, Certainly this was a righteous man; yea, notwithstanding all the vile reproaches which have been cast upon him, truly this man was what He declared himself to be-even the Son of God himself. And the soldiers also who attended the centurion, even they that were with him guarding Jesus on the cross, seeing the earthquake and those other things which were now done, feared greatly, saying in like manner, Truly this Jesus of Nazareth, whom we have thus been insulting and murdering, was the Son of God; and his heavenly Father will certainly avenge his quarrel very terribly on us, and on the whole nation of the Jews, who have delivered him to us.

"And all the multitude* that were come together on this remarkable occasion to see this doleful spectacle, even some of those who but a little before had been insulting him in his dying agonies, when they saw the things that were done, returned beating their breasts for sorrow and remorse, in terrible expectation that some sad calamity would speedily befal them and their country, for the indignities and cruelties they had offered to a person for whom God had expressed so high a regard, even in his greatest distress;" and whom He had so publicly acknowledged as his beloved Son, by the most stupen

"The conviction produced by these prodigies undoubtedly made way for the conversion of multitudes by the preaching of the apostles on the descent of the spirit, which was but seven weeks after, when these things were fresh in their memories. (Acts ii. 41.)"

dous miracle. "And surely we, when we return from such a view of it as this, have reason to smite upon our breasts too, and to be most deeply affected with what we have heard and seen in this lively description. Let us set ourselves, as with the mother of Jesus and the beloved disciple, at the foot of the cross, and see whether there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow. Well might the sun grow pale at the sight-well might the earth tremble to support it! How obdurate must the hearts of those sinners be, who could make a mock of all his anguish, and sport themselves with his dying groans! But surely the blessed angels who were now, though in an invisible crowd, surrounding the accursed tree, beheld him with other sentiments-admiring and adoring the various virtues which He expressed in every circumstance of his behaviour, and which, while the sun of righteousness was setting, gilded and adorned all the horizon. Let us likewise pay our homage to them, and observe with admiration his tenderness to his aged mother; his meekness under all these injuries and provocations; his steady faith in God, in an hour of the utmost distress; and his concern to accomplish all the purposes of his life before He yielded to the stroke of death.

"Yet with what amazement must the holy angels hear that cry from the Son of God, from the darling of heaven, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (These were the things they bent down with such fervent desire to look into and fully comprehend.) Let not any of the children of God, therefore, wonder if their heavenly Father sometimes withdraws from them