his sufferings knew? If it be true that God is always in vital sympathetic communication with every part of the suffering creation; that, as the sensorium of the universe, he apprehends every emotion, and commiserates every thrill of anguish, how exquisitely must he have felt the filial appeal, when, in the extremity of pain, in the very crisis of his agonizing task, the Saviour cried, 'My God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?"" "What a new and amazing insight, then, does it give us into his love for sinners, that it was able to bear the stress of that crisis, that it did not yield and give way to the incalculable power of that appeal! This is a circumstance which, if I may say so, puts into our hands a line, enabling us to fathom his love to an infinite depth; but we find it immeasurably deeper still. It invests the attractions of the cross with augmented power; for in the sufferings of that scene we behold more —if more we are capable of seeing-more even than the love of Christ. In every pang which is there endured we behold the throes of paternal love, the pulsations and tears of infinite compassion; more than the creation in travail, the divine Creator himself travailing in the greatness of infinite love."* * Harris's Great Teacher, p. 106–108. Humphrey's Amherst edit. The Christ of the Bible was that "Holy Thing," born of the Virgin, and conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost. He who begat him imparted to the infant God the distinctive appellation of the Christ. The elements composing this unique and august Being were the human nature of his virgin mother, corporeal and intellectual, and the ethereal essence of the second person of the Trinity. His divine and human natures remained distinct, notwithstanding their union. They were united, not commingled. The name, the Christ, was not an unmeaning appellative; it was at once comprehensive and descriptive; pointing significantly to its absorbing centre, the mysterious and awful union of his manhood and his Godhead. To this illustrious personage other names are given in the New Testament. He is there called not only Christ, but also Jesus, Christ Jesus, Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, the Son of God, the Word, and the Lamb of God. All these appellatives are identical in their meaning with the name, the Christ. They are but its synonymes. Our translators should always have prefixed to the name of Christ the definite article. It belonged there. He was not only Messiah, but the Messiah; not only Anointed, but the Anointed; not merely Christ, but the Christ. To the name of the Voice that cried in the wilderness they have V almost invariably prefixed the article. In every instance but one they have rendered the name, not John Baptist, but John the Baptist. This is as it should have been. The article gives to the name its proper significance and force. The prefixion of the definite article should no more have been omitted in the case of Christ than in that of his precursor. The translators have saved a short word. It was not true economy. They lost in meaning more than they gained in brevity. From the numerous scriptural passages declarative of the sufferings of Christ, we have selected the following: "Before I" (Christ) "suffer."Luke, xii., 15. "Ought not Christ to have suffered?"-Luke, xxiv., 26. "Thus it behooved Christ to suffer."-Luke, xxiv., 46. God before showed "that Christ should suffer."-Acts, iii., 18. "Opening and alleging that Christ must needs have suffered."-Acts, xvii., 3. "That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead."-Acts, xxvi., 23. "If so be that we suffer with him" (Christ).-Romans, viii., 17. "For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us."-1 Corinthians, v., 7. "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us."-2 Corinthians, i., 5. "For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin."-2 Corinthians, v., 21. "And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith V., 2. of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me."-Galatians, ii., 20. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us."-Galatians, iii., 13. "As Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God."—Ephesians, "Even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it." Ephesians, v., 25. "That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings." -Philippians, iii., 10. "To make the Captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings."—Hebrews, ii., 10. "For in that he himself" (Christ) "hath suffered, being tempted."-Hebrews, ii., 18. "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered."-Hebrews, v., 8. "For then must he" (Christ) "often have suffered since the foundation of the world."-Hebrews, ix., 26. "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate."-Hebrews, xiii., 20. "When it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ."-1 Peter, i., 11. "Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example."—1 Peter, ii., 21. "When he❞ (Christ)" suffered, he threatened not." -1 Peter, ii., 23. "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree."-1 Peter, ii., 24. "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust."-1 Peter, iii., 18. "Foras |