soon it was promised, by the same supreme word, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, while his own heel should be bruised by the serpent before the struggle should be finished. It was the image of a contest, in which a slight wound should be inflicted on one side, but on the other an utter destruction. The seed of the woman was the human nature; and emphatically, that nature in the promised Redeemer, the Son of man, "made of a woman," born of a virgin. He was to have enmity against the tempter, the cause of this curse of death, and to overcome in the contest, but not without suffering; and in Him the human nature was to suffer and to conquer. It was, in the language of Holy Writ, "that, through death, He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who, through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

Whatever were the effects of the incarnation, they were not dependent on the date of its accomplishment. Time, in the counsels of heaven, is not the element which it must be in the thoughts of the human intellect. Forgiveness and sanctification are the results of the intercession of the One High Priest; yet both were. given to multitudes who had died in their several generations before He entered within the veil. His death casts its benign and soothing shadow behind as well as before; and its influence has been felt by those who never heard the story, but lived, in time or place, beyond the sphere of its propagation. The incarnation of the Son of God was the great event to which the whole history of the earth looked forward; and He was incarnate, and "took part of flesh and blood," that He might die and rise again. This was the significance of that original promise, which, diminished of its

lustre in the Pagan channels, and brightening with accumulated accessions in the line of the Hebrew patriarchs and prophets, was in both preserved till the fulness of time was come.

A contemplation of death, not merely as the universal fulfilment of the original doom, not merely as it is seen by nature, science, and experience alone, but as it is in the revealed light of God and in the hope of the believer, may best begin at the death of Jesus. But that which made His death so distinct from every other was the union of Deity with the mortal nature, the absence of all taint of sin, and the spontaneous submission of Himself, therefore, to a lot to which He was not liable, neither in His divine nature, which was not mortal, nor in His human, which was not sinful. In assuming our flesh and blood, indeed, which were already under the doom of death, He might necessarily assume mortality, but not that death which He endured, in which His soul was made an offering for sin, and He cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"

Such a death was the chief of mysteries; and so it stands, amongst all the scenes of death which have been so many millions of times renewed upon this earth. It was worthy to be the close of a life which was itself the close of all preceding history; and to be the beginning of one with which the better life, the life of regeneration, and of resurrection to come, was to be given to man. From the earliest days of our race, the smoke of sacrifices ascended in all lands; the death of a living creature, solemnly celebrated, was the highest rite of religion. It was the worship of the patriarchs, from Abel downward; it was the custom of the classic nations; it was appropriated and hallowed

anew by the Mosaic revelation. All religion thus pointed to death; to a death, through which heaven and earth were to be reconciled. When that death had been accomplished, it was remembered and signified in the most sacred ordinance amongst all Christian nations. To the death of Christ, consciously or unconsciously, all who solemnly thought of the destinies. of the immortal spirit, have been accustomed, in all ages and lands, to direct their eyes and their hopes, in longing, in inquiry, in wonder, or in trust. The heathen knew not to whom they looked, when they saw in the blood of their sacrifices a propitiation for their guilt. The Hebrews and the patriarchs probably knew only that, like the brazen serpent, it was the appointed type of things in the heavens," and was to have their reliance, not for its own mere sake, but for some great mystery which it signified. But to all, death, the death of the sacrifice, seemed the only gate of hope, opening from sin, fear, and sorrow, to life, purity, and peace.

Such is it, far more than even to the most enlightened of the prophets, such is it to the faith of the Christian. He sees no death as what death must have been had Christ not died. At this point, this central point, of the history of men he must place himself, when he would survey the flight of ages, and the ceaseless and universal decay of generations, and would look over into the future abodes, and know death by the light of two worlds.

XLII.

Anticipation of the Death of Christ.

"Amidst the visions of ascending years,

What mighty Chief, what Conqueror appears!
His garments rolled in blood, his eyes of flame,
And on his thigh the unutterable name?”
“'Tis I, that bring deliverance: strong to save,
I plucked the prey from death, and spoiled the grave.”
"Wherefore, O Warrior, are thy garments red,
Like those whose feet amidst the vintage tread ?”
MONTGOMERY.

It is hard to imagine how the thought of deliverance through the death of a victim, the thought of substitution in sacrifice, should ever have arisen in the human soul, except from divine suggestion. But it was there, when the righteous Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock; and there it remained in all its strength, while the covenant with heaven was renewed successively by Noah, by Abraham, by Jacob, by Moses, by David, and by Solomon. Once, the command, which was not to be consummated, that a promised son should be offered up by a righteous father, intimated still more of an awful, tender mystery. Sacrifice was the chief, the hourly exercise of the great Mosaic ritual, "a figure for the time then present." The victim, too, was always to be spotless, perfect in its kind; and that which was most significant and solemn, for the deliverance which it commemorated, for the universality of the requisition, and

for the time of the offering, was a lamb without blemish, the very type of innocence.

To the prophecy of symbols was added the prophecy of words. The primeval prediction betokened a transient injury of the conquering seed of the woman, in the very act of redemption. From the patriarchal times of Job, the eye went forward to the coming of God in the latter day, as a Redeemer, as the next of kin, paying the ransom. David sang of One who was bowed down to the dust of death, whose hands and feet were pierced, whose enemies offered him vinegar and gall, and shook their heads in scorn of his dying anguish; of One who cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" and who yet, from such humiliation, should be brought out into a triumph that should be shared by all nations, and that should continue for ever. Isaiah beheld One who was wounded for the transgressions of men, and made His grave with the wicked, yet divided the spoil with the strong, even because He had poured out His soul unto death. To Daniel the time was revealed when Messiah should be cut off, but not for Himself. Zechariah foretold that the Shepherd should be smitten; that Israel should look upon Him whom they had pierced; and that, by the blood of His covenant, the Lord should send forth His prisoners out of the pit wherein was no water.

So wonderfully were deliverance and death linked together in prophecy. So they remained through the life of Jesus, tinging the most glorious prospects with a hue of unutteřable sadness. Even when the aged Simeon foretold that He should be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of Israel," he said to the virgin mother, as if anticipating the day when she should stand at the foot of the cross, "a sword shall