DOUBTING DISCIPLES

A SERMON

Preached on Sunday Morning, April 17th, 1870

By Mister JAMES WELLS

Volume 12 Number 597

“But we trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and beside all this today is the third day since these things were done.” Luke 24:21

WHEN a work of grace is begun in the soul, that person can never shake off altogether all concern for eternal things. Such may get very low, things may go very much against them, and everything may seem to be gone; yet there is an uneasiness, an unhappiness, a dissatisfaction, which they would not feel if they were in a state of nature. Just so the disciples; they, not understanding as yet, for we read that they knew not the Scriptures as yet, that he should die, and rise the third day, still they were concerned; they ran to the sepulcher; and we read that while they were perplexed hereabout, angels appeared to the honorable women, and said, “Why seek you the living among the dead? He is not here, but he is risen, as he said unto you.” And so, the two disciples going to Emmaus, we read that they were sad; and the Lord takes notice of all those ruminations, feelings, and anxieties, and that concern which he works in the minds of his people. So, these two disciples were conversing upon what had taken place, but at the same time fearing that they had been altogether deceived. Jesus saw their sadness, went and joined himself to them, but at the same time took care that just for the present they should not know who he was, “What manner of communications are these that you have one to another, as you walk, and are sad?” He knew that they were sad. Some of you that are Christians have had perhaps in this respect a great many trials; it does seem to you at times as though you had no right to hope, as though everything was gone, as though it was no use to attempt to pray, or read the Bible, or look any more to the Lord; and you have been ready to say with Jonah, and yet, while he uttered the words, he could not have uttered them if he had not at the same time and concern, “I said, I am cast out of your sight!” Well then, you will give it up, I suppose, now, altogether. No, “Yet I will look again towards your holy temple;” because there is a mercy seat there, there is a sacrifice for sin there, there is the presence and blessing of God there. And the Lord heard and answered him; and so, we heard the sightings, and longings, and feelings of the disciples, and thus joined himself with them. I need not, it would not be necessary to do so, go through all the beautiful circumstances of the dear Savior’s coming with the disciples on this occasion. Our text embodies their feelings. “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel: and besides all this, today is the third day since these things were done.”

Now there are three things I wish to notice here. First, that it is always well with the people of God, whether they can see it or not.

This is the doctrine implied in the first part of our text, “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.” They feared that it was not; they feared that he was not the person. You will at once perceive that things were infinitely better than they thought they were. Secondly, the things that were accomplished, what the things were that were accomplished three days past. Thirdly, that which so fastened upon their minds, “beside all this, today is the third day since these things were done.” This third day they had heard very much of in his ministry, and this fastened upon their minds. And you that know the Lord will always find that when you are tempted to give up your hope, and to say that you will not profess the name of the Lord any more, there is generally some one particular point that lays hold of you, there is a something; you can get away from almost everything except one particular point; and sometimes that point is this, that of Manoah’s wife; “If the Lord meant to kill us, would he have shown us these things?” Should I be brought to see the suitability of the Savior, and of the blessings of God’s everlasting love, if he meant to kill me?

We notice then, first, the truth that it is always well with the people of God, whether' they can see it or not, because God loves them always. He does not say merely, I will love you with an everlasting love, but “I have loved you with an everlasting love;” therefore he always loves them. How can it be ill with them, then? “Say you to the righteous, it shall be well with them.” How can it be ill with them, seeing that God has loved them with an everlasting love and that he rests in his love? And it is always well with them also because of that completeness which they have in the Lord Jesus Christ. We have been reading, shall I say, of the two eternal things, namely, that God has sworn, and that oath is eternal, immutable, that Christ is a priest forever; therefore, it must be always well with them, because of the completeness that is in Christ. And then, thirdly, it is well with them always in the promise of God; there is the promise of God. Let us trace this matter out. To one of old, when he wished to get back to his own land, the Lord said, “return unto your own land, and I will do deal well with you.” But as you know, Jacob in returning met with circumstances that made him fear whether things were well or not; and he began to plead what the Lord had said, You said, “Return unto your country, and I will deal well with you;” and then a little farther on Jacob pleads another word which the Lord had given him, namely, “You said, I will surely do you good.” Now here is Esau with four hundred men coming against me; how matters will be I do not know. You said you would deal well with me, and you are God, and therefore cannot lie; you are not man, that you should repent. You did not attach any condition to your promise; you did say positively that you would deal well with me. And Jacob was a believer in the theme contained in our text: “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel;” Jacob said, “The Angel,” meaning of course the Angel of the covenant, Christ Jesus, “which redeemed me from all evil.” These are the people of God, that know their need of that eternal redemption, which Jacob did, and therefore believed in the yea, and amen, and positive promises that were, and are, and ever will be sealed by the blood of the everlasting covenant, by that precious blood that has obtained for us eternal redemption; for “you are not redeemed with corruptible things, such as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.” And then Jacob, as you are aware, met with very great troubles after this; when Joseph was taken away and Simeon taken away, and now you request Benjamin. Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and now you would have Benjamin; “all these things are against me, and you will bring my gray hears with sorrow to the grave.” Jacob did not think it was well with him then, but we see it was well with him. He could not see it, and did not feel that, and though it was anything but well with him then, but we see it was well with him then. He could not see it, and did not feel that, and thought it was anything but well with him. And how often it is so with the people of God. Their experience seems benighted and dark, and their souls dark and dead; various things seem to come between them and the Lord; and they often have secretly to say (and they do not think it is prayer, and that the Lord notices it, but he does) “I am shut up, and cannot come forth to the house of the Lord.” “Oh, that I knew where I might find him.” And I would not mind, says such, if I could pray; if I could pray, I should take that as evidence that the Lord would appear for me, when in truth the soul is praying all the time. “Jesus perceived that they were desirous to ask him.” It is wonderful how the Lord will step in sometimes and manifest himself in answer to the secret feelings. “Before they call, I will answer.” Even this morning I was meditating over things, just about 6 o’clock; and while running over my subject for this morning something came, What are you going to have for the evening? Well, I thought, I was all right last night for the evening; but I could not think of it; I thought, It is not in this book, not in that, not in the other; think of it I could not. Well, I said, certainly I shall not have a word for this evening; I cannot find it, cannot think of it. And I thought to myself, Well, the Lord knows where it is, and he can bring it to me in a minute. Presently it came with power, and everything belonging to it. I really thought it was the Lord that brought it. I saw the poor forgetful thing I was I thought, My memory is going; but then my comfort is my Remembrancer is not going, if I am; he knows where it is, if I do not. And so it came with sweetness and power, and I enjoyed it over again; for if I had not lost it, I should not have rejoiced so much to find it. There is such a scripture as this, that “he rejoices over the sheep that is found.” The Lord knows how to prepare our hearts for every token of his favor; if he wants to show us some fresh token of his favor, he generally prepares us for it by hiding his face, and by dealing with us in a way we cannot at the time see. He says, “What I do you know not now, but you shall know hereafter.” And so, the disciples would not have rejoiced so much as they did if the Lord had not been taken from them; but the Lord having been taken from them, and they themselves fearing that all was lost, how glad they were when he reappeared. “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord.” Now Jacob thought everything was against him, but that must be well that ends well, and you know what the end is that the believer must come to. “Mark the perfect man,” and the Christian is distinguished by a twofold perfection; the one is the perfection he receives, namely, the perfection that is in Christ; and the other is his perfect decision, for God’s truth. The man that knows what he is, and his need of that eternal perfection that is in Christ, and knows that that perfection is after the order of a positive and an unalterable covenant, that man, knowing this, is perfectly decided; or, as the next clause has it, which is the same thing, “Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright;” that is, upright not in the flesh, for he has deceit, and infidelity, and evil enough there, to sink his soul to a thousand hells, if such a thing were possible; but he is upright in the faith; and “the end of that man is peace.” So, it was well with Jacob, not in appearance, not in his feelings, not apparently in his circumstances; but it was well with him in the promise of God; we see how the Lord abided by him, and the happy end into which he came.

Job could not, when he was at the worst, believe that things were well with him. Oh, as the Lord has so prospered me, I trusted I should have died in my nest; I trusted that everything would have gone on in that smooth way that I should wash my steps in butter unto the end; that his candle would shine upon my head unto the end; that in his light I should walk through darkness unto the end. But then the Lord had some deep and solemn lessons to teach Jacob; and the Lord keeps colleges of his own; where he puts his children in college, it is generally the college of tribulation, not the college of mere information, not the college of mere intellect, and different languages; but that college that Job was in, that taught him that he was vile, that taught him what a poor creature he was, and that taught him most deeply his own helplessness. If he knew where he could find the

Lord, he would come to his seat; but he felt he was a poor, helpless creature, and that he could not find the Lord as he pleased. This is one lesson that Job was taught; yet by and by see how the Lord turns his captivity.

Here, you see, the dear Savior differed from all his brethren. He always knew it was well with him. However, he was slandered, he knew it was well with him. When he was in the garden of Gethsemane, he nevertheless knew it was well with him; and when on the cross he knew it was well with him. And how did he know it was well with him? Because he had not yet failed, and he knew he should not fail, to do those things that pleased God. “I do always those things that please him.” He therefore knew it was well with him. He knew he should rise the third day. Already was the prediction, when the Psalmist personated the dear Savior, “I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved. Therefore, my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices; my flesh also shall rest in hope. For you will not leave my soul in hell; neither will you suffer your Holy One to see corruption.” But then we are poor creatures. He was God, as well as the Son of God, and therefore always knew that it was well with him and knew that it should be well with us. Well, it is a very painful thing to know that we have so many sins to be forgiven; but without that painful conviction we are not prepared for the forgiveness. It is a very painful thing to feel our helplessness and inability to get at anything spiritual; yet if we were not thus led, our faith would not be in the power of God, but in the power of the creature. It is a very painful thing to be subjected to those adversities that make us do as Job did, curse the very day of his birth; and Jeremiah did the same, and wondered why he was born to such sorrow and such tribulation: and yet these are the experiences that prepare us for the reception of all the glories of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. I need not remind you of the people of God when they were taken away to Babylon. The Lord said, “You shall go forth out of the city, and you shall dwell in the field,” the field of the world, where you do not like to dwell, “and you shall go even to Babylon; there shall you be delivered; there the Lord shall redeem you from the hand of your enemies.” So, then, the disciples thought everything was against them, when at the same time everything was for them.

But I must make another remark here. One will say, Well, this is a very blessed truth, but am I a disciple; am I one with whom it is well? Well, you certainly are, if you know your need of God’s Christ; not if you know your need of only man’s Christ; well, I won’t say this, that you are not a Christian; but I will say this, if you know your need only of man’s Christ, there may be a work of grace begun in your heart, but you will go on increasingly dissatisfied, until you know your need of God’s Christ. What is man’s Christ? The Pope’s Christ is man’s Christ, his Jesus Christ cannot save without the merits of prophets, and apostles, and the Virgin Mary, and I don’t know who beside. If you don’t know your need of a better Christ than that, and the work is begun in your heart, you will go on to learn, in the Lord’s own time, your need of a better Christ than that. And then again, free will’s Christ is man’s Christ, a Jesus Christ that saves if he can; a Jesus Christ that professes to redeem, but does not redeem; a Jesus Christ that professes to be a shepherd, and declares his sheep shall never perish, but does let them perish; a Jesus Christ that is the priest of the world and the king of a corner: that died for all the world, and yet can reign over hardly any, only just a few that condescend to accept him: so he is a great priest, having died for all the world; but he is a very little king, and scarcely anybody will obey him. That is man’s Christ. A Socinian’s Christ is a Christ of man’s making. Now God’s Christ is that we have been reading of this morning, in the 110th Psalm, “You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek. that he has by his one offering perfected forever them that are sanctified; and that his priesthood has made a clean, an eternal sweep of sin; there is not a particle, a cloud, a blot, spot, or wrinkle left; and that God, by this eternal priesthood of Christ, is immutable, and shows to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel. If you are poor enough to receive God’s Christ, if you are poor enough to know that nothing but his immutability can be of any use to you, then you are one of the redeemed; and though you are saying, Well, I did trust I was one but I am afraid then have no concern at all. I did trust that I was born of God, but now I feel so much death, coldness, darkness, and distance, I am afraid I am not born of God. Well, better have that feeling than have no concern at all. And you’re not believing that you are born of God does not undo the work that is begun. You know the disciples’ not feeling sure that Christ was the Christ of God did not alter the fact that it was the Christ of God; and while they trusted that this had been he which should have redeemed Israel, but could not now believe it, that did not alter the fact that he had redeemed Israel; that did not alter the fact that the debt was paid, that the enemy was conquered, that mercy and truth had met together, and that he had brought in everlasting righteousness. Shall, then, the infirmities of the people of God hinder the promise of God? No, but shall rather make way for the coming in of his Christ and of his immutable counsel.

This, then, appears to me to be the first doctrine of our text, that it was well with the disciples, though they could not then see it. And so with us: it is always well with us; and at the best of times it is then even better with us than we think it is. The Lord enable you to believe this. You know what the woman of old said, and she had good views, too, “Is it well with your husband?” Yes, it is well. “Is it well with the child?” Yes, well. But he is dead. Well, it is by the pleasure of God it is so. There was faith there. Well, but suppose he should not be raised again? Well, it will be well then, because it is God’s work; I do not see it, but I believe it. But, however, as you are aware, the child was raised from the dead. “Behold your son.” I daresay she thought to herself afterwards, I am glad I believed it was well: I could not see how it was well, and how it could come right, but it has come right. Oh, have you not found it so? Have we not found it so ten thousand things we have trembled at, and cannot help it; but when we came, to where we thought the difficulty would be insurmountable, Oh, we shall do very well till we come to that point, then the difficulty will be insurmountable. Who will roll the stone away for us? Who will drive the Roman soldiers away for us? How can we break the seal? That will be an illegal act, if we break the seal with which the stone is sealed. But then they came there, the Roman soldiers were off, and the stone was rolled away, and the way was clear. Then the Savior might well say, “Have faith in God.” What a sweet thing it is to believe that he will appear. I like those words of Job, God grant us more of the same, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.” I did enjoy this doctrine this morning very much indeed. I thought within myself, Well, after all it is by faith, I believe, in the all sufficiency in eternity of his atonement and righteousness, I shall go to heaven: if I believe in the certainty of God’s promise, I shall go to heaven. And as to loving God, mind, it must be a covenant God, a God in Christ, where the Lord has not one fault to find with me. I never can like the Lord when he finds fault with me. He found fault with the old covenant people; that was not a faultless covenant, that was a covenant by which fault before God could come in. But in the new covenant no fault can come in. Solomon’s Song from first to last is nothing else but one song of rejoicing in this delightful truth. I thought, Well, it is by faith. You will not have to believe, when you come to die, how good you have been, nor how bad you have been, nor how humble you have been, nor anything else; you will have to believe in Jesus Christ, you will have to be accepted in his perfection; you must believe in God’s promise, and each saved soul feels its own case to be the worst. “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief,” is the language of every saved soul. Thus, then, we may take courage; that just.as things were infinitely better with the disciples than they supposed, so with us. Things are infinitely better for us than we have seen even in our best of times; for, after all, “eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for them that love him.” “We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel.” Well, so he has; and so, they soon found out, when the Savior kindled the fire of his love in their hearts. And how did he do that? By opening to them the Scriptures. And what did those Scriptures point to, and what did they mean when they were opened? They meant him: “he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” Bless his holy name! I do not wonder at the disciples saying, “Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way,” I glad it does not stop there, “and while he opened to us the Scriptures?” I can tell you, friends, out of the many thousands of prayers that have gone from my soul to God on my own behalf and on your behalf, that is one that always mingles with my prayers at the throne of grace, that God would open to me that Scriptures. I love to get at the meaning of the Scriptures. I do not like that one scripture, from the first verse of Genesis to the last of Revelation should be useless to me. “Well,” say some, “do you understand them all, then?” No, friends, I do not; and in those that I understand pretty clearly as to their chief meaning, there are depths that I cannot fathom. But that does not alter the fact that the opening up of that Scriptures, and showing their mysteries, their beauties their glories and their wonders does not often wonderfully warm our hearts. They strike us sometimes with astonishment; we see beauties where we thought beauties did not exist; we see privileges, advantages, glories, blessings, and mercies, where we thought hardly any existed. I know we do not live in a searching day; I blame ministers ten times more than I blame the people. many of our ministers are content with a little surface work. There seems no anxiety, no concern, no opening up; and where there is no opening up the soul is not fed. Mark, “he expounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” And again, “he opened their understandings that they might understand the Scriptures.” I would not be without what little knowledge I have of the two covenants of law and gospel, and the two voices that run through the Bible, the voice of the law to condemn, the voice of the gospel to save. I would not be without that knowledge for all the world; for it is a light that does us a great deal of good. You read the Scriptures with ten times more advantage when you know that none of the threatening’s belong to you, but only the promises; and you see by the threatening’s what you are delivered from, and what you owe to God in a way of love and gratitude for bringing you thus to know his blessed name. So, then, it was well with the disciples, though they thought it was not.

Secondly, I notice the things that were accomplished. “Today is the third day since these things were done.” I will not dwell upon what the enemies did, at least, not much; but I would rather dwell for a few moments, and I am sure I shall do so with pleasure, upon what the Savior three days agone had accomplished. Ah, what had he done? Well, friends, let us just put his wondrous doings to the test, and see in what a lovely and beautiful way he answered to it. Mark the language; it stands thus “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” He is the great sin bearer; “the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all,” and there is an end of it, it is gone. Can you look at it without admiring him, without loving him, without admitting that this is one of the essential parts of the good tidings of great joy? And then just notice the spirit in which he bear all this, to show that he did it in the greatness of his love, and in the perfection of patience. “He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth;”, no, he knew that to this end he was born. “Here is love; not that we love God, but that he loved us,” sent as such a Savior as this. “He is brought” only think of it, when he might have crushed the whole of them in the moment, dash them to pieces as a potter’s vessel; but instead of this “he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not his mouth.” Ah, see the spirit of humiliation! He was taken from prison”, that is, he was taken over night, and kept, as it were, in prison all night; “and from judgment.” Now, if you go to Acts 8, you will find that the reading there is varied a little and gives us a very solemn and impressive interpretation “In his humiliation his judgment was taken away.” “He was taken from prison and from judgment,” that is to say, the next morning, when they began to judge him, what did they do? Did they judge him with that judgment that he ought to be judged with? or did they take from him that judgment which they ought to have passed, and judge him most unrighteously? Ah, his judgment was taken away. Only think of it: there he stands, not merely the embodiment, but the actual fact of perfect innocence, and yet judged to be one of the vilest characters that ever walked the earth! See the enmity of the carnal mind. How soon the mob was roused by these priestly hypocrites into clamor and malice against the Savior! His judgment was taken away; yet none of this provocation could move him; still he opened not his mouth, still he remained. And though he knew what would be the effect of what he was going to say, yet he would say it. “Tell us whether you be the Christ.” “You have said it. Hereafter you shall see the Son of man on the right hand of power, coming in the clouds of heaven.” He knew that would do it. They were afraid to go any further, so they immediately created a tremendous noise. “You have heard his blasphemy; what say you?” “Crucify him, crucify him, crucify him;” inside the hall, outside, up the lane, down the street, everywhere, “Crucify him, crucify him.” One fool made many; they cried out the more exceedingly, “Crucify him,” and began to spit upon him, and mock him, and treat him with all possible indignity; but he was not moved. Ah, my hearer, rightly view this, and you will love him. You will say, he not only atoned for sin, but he carried out this great work under most tremendous provocation; if he had not been God as well as man, he could not have stood by us. And yet, as we sometimes say (and it is a pleasure to range over it), involuntarily, some bare testimony righteously. What do you say, Judas? I am obliged to say that “I have betrayed the innocent blood. Ah, you should have thought of that before; it is too late now. “Have nothing to do with that just man.” “I find no fault in him.” “Truly, this was a righteous man.” See, then, what had he done three days agone? He had borne our sins away; he had endured the whole scene without being moved to one shade or shadow of rebellion: “brought as a lamb to the slaughter.” And now mark the limitations too. “He made his grave with the wicked” by suffering himself to be crucified between two malefactors; “and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.” He made that “he made his grave with the wicked;” and they intended to bury him as a malefactor. It does not say he was buried with the wicked, no, only made his grave, but did not go into it. There is a man whose heart God has prepared, there is one man, things are sometimes, perhaps very crooked, some little danger; God stirs up some private solitary man you would not think of. There is a solitary man, Joseph of Arimathea; he knew he should risk his life in what he was going to do, but “he went in boldly unto Pilate” in the face of the terrors of the Roman government, in the face of the terrors of ecclesiastical power, in the face of the terrors of the mighty mob, he “went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus, and laid him in his own new tomb, wherein man was never laid.” Thus, he made his grave with the wicked, but he was not buried with the wicked. And in another scripture, you know, it is said of the paschal lamb, we should have been thought fanciful in applying it to Christ, if the Holy Ghost had not done so, “Not a bone of him shall be broken.” I will not stop to show how all that was fulfilled. Thus, then, what he had accomplished three days before. He had borne our sins away, and had gone through it all without one blemish, one failure, one draw-back. Oh, what perfection! what will it bring us to, what will it carry us to! It makes us sons of God; it makes us kings and priests to God, and will throw us, by and bye, into an ocean which is a fulness of joy, and into God’s presence, at whose right hand there are pleasures for evermore. The prophet dilates upon this; let us do the same. “Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him,” rather than bruise us; “he has put him to grief,” that he might deliver us from all the bruises of sin and death whereby we are wounded and bruised; he put him to grief that he might by him deliver us from grief. And what a significant clause is the next: “when you shall make his soul an offering for sin,” such an offering as was never before made, and will never again be needed, for the work he has done he has done forever; not anything can be taken from it, nor anything added to it, “When you shall make his soul and offering for sin, he shall see his seed” all that his sacrifice has constituted them; he shall see his brothers brought to him; he shall see his seed exactly like him, for they are to be conformed to his image; he shall see his seed triumph in the realms of eternity, when old time so wear out and die. “He shall prolong his days;” “he dies no more, death has no more dominion over him;” “Because I live you shall live also.” Do you not see that you are to live in eternity, not because of any good in you, but because he lives? “Because I live.” While Jesus lives, I cannot die. He is the great secret, “Because I live, you shall live also.” Sin and the devil cannot kill me; they have tried once, but they could not do it; for no man took my life from me; I laid it down of myself; I had entire command of them while they were dreaming they had entire command of me; I laid down my life, no man could take it from me; this commandment have I received of my Father, and my Father loves me for what I have done. “He shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Ah, these are great doings, which none but an incarnate God could accomplish. But what is his feeling upon a retrospect of the whole? He retrospectively, as well as prospectively, looks at the whole, and feels a perfect satisfaction. “He shall see of the travail, the labor of his soul, and shall be satisfied; by his knowledge,” that knowledge which he shall impart, “shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, will I divide him a portion with the great”, with the great God: so he has, “and he shall divide the spoil with the strong the human race is the spoil, the devil is the strong; but strong as the devil is, Christ will have his own; he shall bind Satan with the power of limitation during the whole of the mystic thousand years, and shall gather together his own from the four winds. “He shall divide the spoil with the strong.” And why so? Does Satan say, “Lord what right have you to that soul? that soul deserves death.” “Ah, but” says Jesus, “I have poured out my soul unto death for him.” “Well, but that man is a transgressor, Lord; what right have you to him?” “Ah, but I was numbered with the transgressors, and therefore I put his transgressions away.” “Well, but that man is a sinner.” “Yes, but I have borne his sin; I have borne his sins away.” “Well, but he is still a transgressor, and will be, more or less as long as he lives.” “Very well, I ascend on high in all the claims of my atonement to make intercession for the transgressors.” Is it any wonder that the 54th and 55th of Isaiah should follow such wonderful works as that these? Three days gone by, then, these things were accomplished. Ah, what sweet tidings they are! Watt’s might well say,

“Proclaim salvation from the Lord,

for wretched, dying man;

his hand has writ the sacred word, within immortal pain.”

Time does not allow me to enlarge upon the third day as I had intended to do. Here we are brought before us again the limitation of the enemy, God having “loosed the pains of death, for it was not possible that he should be held of it.”