A Goodly Heritage

Our blessed Lord when He had hung near three hours on the cross, and suffered, not only in His body, but, which was more dreadful still, endured in His immaculate soul that sense of the divine wrath which was due to His people, broke out into that pathetic and bitter cry “My God! My God! why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Or as I think it may better be rendered, My God! My God!  how  hast Thou forsaken Me?” as much as to say, to what depth of immense distress does the withdrawing of Thy presence reduce Me! Christ suffered as  our  substitute, and in  our  stead; the punishment, which must otherwise have fallen on us, was transferred on Him. And one part of that punishment consisted in the inward manifestations of the divine displeasure. These, therefore, the Redeemer felt, not for any evil done by Him, but for the sins done by others, and which He graciously took upon Himself to atone for. So that this was the time wherein it pleased the Lord to bruise Him, and ...

The heart of man, says God by the prophet, is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked: who can know it? -- In me, said the apostle, that is, in my flesh, abstracted from supernatural grace, dwelleth no good thing.--And, says a greater than both, From within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness: all these evil things come from within, and defile the man (Mark vii). Is it possible that any who calls himself a Christian can, after considering the above declaration of Christ, dare to term the human mind a sheet of white paper? No - it is naturally a sheet of paper blotted and blurred throughout. So blotted and defiled all over, that nothing but the inestimable blood of God, and the invincible Spirit of grace, can make it clean and white. Neither the temptations of Satan by which we are exercised, nor the bad examples of others whi...

L ONG before our blessed Saviour was manifested in the flesh, the particular circumstances of His humiliation and death were revealed to the ancient prophets, and by them made known to the people. Neither can there be a more unanswerable proof given of the Messiahship of Christ than that all the prophecies from the least to the greatest, that were descriptive of the Messiah, were accomplished, to a tittle, in Him. Thus, for instance — Isaiah, who flourished about eight hundred and thirty years before the coming of Christ, foretold of Him that He should be despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; that He should be wounded for our transgressions, and bruised for our iniquities; that He should be numbered with transgressors, and make His soul an offering for sin. Zechariah expressly foretold, that Christ should be delivered up for thirty pieces of silver, and that a potter’s field should be bought with the money. And David, who died upwards of a thousa...

By one man's disobedience, many were made sinners (Rom. 5:19). Self-knowledge is a science to which most persons pretend; but, like the philosopher's stone it is a secret which none are masters of in its full extent. The mystic writers suppose that before the fall, man's body was transparent, analogous to a system of animated chrystal. Be this as it may, we are sure that, was the mind now to inhabit a pellucid body, so pellucid as to make manifest all the thoughts and all the evil workings of the holiest heart on earth, the sight would shock and frighten and astonish even_ the most profligate sinner on this side hell. Every man would be an insupportable burden to himself, and a stalking horror to the rest of his species. For which reasons among others, Heaven's Sovereign saves all beings but himself That hideous sight, a naked human heart. The most enlightened believer in the, world knows not the utmost of his natural depravation, nor is able to fathom that inward ...