alvation for
the lost and guilty. The cross is the symbol of that amazing expedient
of infinite wisdom and mercy, by which a treaty of reconciliation is
offered to convicted traitors against Jehovah's government. Its
exhibition therefore must require a developement of the principles, and
a defence of the doctrines, peculiar to this gracious dispensation.

The grand fact, which constitutes the very essence and glory of the
Gospel, and which it is the leading object of the Christian ministry to
announce; is, that He, who took upon himself the form of a servant, and
offered up the sacrifice of Calvary, is _God over all, blessed for
ever_. This gives to the cross all its glory and efficacy. It is on the
supreme Deity of Christ--on the expiation made for sin by the Maker and
Sovereign of worlds--that the whole fabric of evangelical truth rests.
On any other supposition, the sacrifice of the cross was a very ordinary
affair. If the Saviour of sinners be not God--if he be a created being,
of whatever grade,--where is the _mystery of Godliness?_--Where those
unfathomable depths of divine love, _into which the angels desire to
look_? If Christ be only a servant of God, however exalted, what was
there, in his appearance on our world, to constitute a new era in
heaven, and to fill its inhabitants with astonishment and ecstasy? Did
the heavenly host descend in rapture, and cause the mountains of Judea
to reecho with their acclamations, because a _dependent creature_ had
_consented_ to do his Maker's will? Whence the ascription of _glory to
God in the highest_, and why do the courts above resound with a new song
of praise to God for his redeeming mercy, if this redemption was
effected by the labours and sufferings of one inferior to the Deity? Was
such a dispensation as that of Moses, designed simply to prepare the way
for a messenger of God to declare his will, and to seal the testimony
with his blood, as many good men have done, both before and since? Why
did patriarchs and prophets foretell his coming, and celebrate his
praises?--Why did the continual offering of divinely appointed
sacrifices, for many centuries, typify his sufferings?--And why did
nature shudder, and shroud herself in darkness, at the consummation of
those sufferings? All these things are utterly inexplicable, on the
supposition that Christ is a created dependent being.

But view him as _God manifest in the flesh_--view him as voluntarily
laying aside his glory