e human life of Christ. He who searches
the heart saw that into the most secret thought, down to the most hidden
motive, that life was pure, that heart in perfect harmony with the
Divine will. Christ lived not for Himself, He did not claim property in
His own person and life, but gave Himself up freely and to the uttermost
to God: more thoroughly, more spontaneously, and with an infinitely
richer material did He offer Himself to God than ever burnt-offering had
been offered. And God, with an infinite joy in goodness, accepted the
sacrifice, and found on earth in the person of Jesus an opportunity for
rejoicing in man with an infinite satisfaction.

And this sacrifice which Christ offered to God tends to reproduce itself
continually among men. As Christ said, no sooner was He lifted up than
He drew all men to Him. That perfect life and utter self-surrender to
the highest purposes, that pure and perfect love and devotion to God and
man, commands the admiration and cordial worship of serious men. It
stands in the world for ever as the grand incentive to goodness,
prompting men and inspiring them to sympathy and imitation. It is in the
strength of that perfect sacrifice men have ceaselessly striven to
sacrifice themselves. It is through Christ they strive to come
themselves to God. In Him we see the beauty of holiness; in Him we see
holiness perfected, and making the impression upon us which a perfect
thing makes, standing as a reality, not as a theory; as a finished and
victorious achievement, not as a mere attempt. In Christ we see what
love to God and faith in God really are; in Him we see what a true
sacrifice is and means; and in Him we are drawn to give ourselves also
to God as our true life.

Looking then only at those facts which are apparent to every one who
reads the life of Christ, and putting aside all that may over and above
these facts have been intended in the Divine mind, we see how truly
Christ is our Sacrifice; and how truly we can say of Him that He gave
Himself, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. We see
that in the actual privations, disappointments, temptations, mental
strain, opposition, and suffering of His life, and in the final conflict
of death, He bore the penalty of our sins; underwent the miseries which
sin has brought into human life. We see that He did so with so entire
and perfect a consent to all God's will, and with so ready and
unreserved a sacrifice of Himself, that