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"And must this body die?" &c. The corpse was then deposited in the receptacle prepared for it; and Mr. Evans gave an exhortation to the people, founded on Matt. xxiv. 42—44, "Watch, therefore, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come; therefore be ye also ready," &c.

The high estimation in which Mr. Moody was held by his brethren in the neighbourhood, may be judged of by the many funeral-sermons which they delivered to their respective congregations on the Sabbath-day after his interment.

The pulpits of the Tabernacle and of Tottenham-court Chapel, in London, were covered with black cloth, as a token of respect to his memory. A funeral discourse was delivered, at the latter place, on Lord's Day morning, Dec. 7, by the Rev. Matthew Wilks, from Acts viii. 3. "And devout men carried Stephen to his burial, and made great lamentation over him." The Rev. Mr. Hyat preached a funeral sermon, in the evening of the same day, at the Tabernacle, from Matt. xxiv, 44. "Therefore, be ye also ready," &c. Both the places were exceedingly crowded. On the same day, a funeral-discourse was delivered to Mr. Moody's bereaved and mournful people at Warwick, by the Rev. G. Burder, of London, from 2 Tim. iv. 7, 8, "I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give me at that day; and not to me only, but unto all them also that love his appearing." From a larger account of the deceased, included in that sermon, which has since been published, the preceding pages are chiefly extracted. We shall close our brief Memoir of this truly excellent minister of Christ with the following just and honourable testimony borne to his character in the Warwick newspaper of Nov. 29:

"On Saturday evening died, aged 50, the Rev. James Moody, a Dissenting Minister of the Independent denomination in this Borough; where, for 25 years, he laboured in the Ministry of the Gospel. Few men, of any religious community, have deserved a warmer eulogium than this worthy man. He was a diligent student, an able, faithful, and evangelical preacher; a kind husband, a tender father, an affectionate friend, a pleasant companion; in a word, a true philanthropist, whose heart constantly glowed with a generous concern for the good of his fellow-men, and whose .. life was a continued series of energies for their spiritual benefit. This is not the language of adulation; his family, his congregation, the inhabitants of Warwick and of the neighbouring towns, and his numerous friends and correspondents in various parts of the kingdom, wi'l bear testimony to the superior excellence of his character, and long cherish his remembrance as one of the best of

men.

THOUGHTS ON THE ATONEMENT.

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THE Holy Scriptures represent the sins of men as a heavy burden. "Mine iniquities," says David, " are gone over mine head: as a heavy burden, they are too heavy for me. Under its pressure, the bodies of men by disease, have been crushed down to the dust of death. "I am bowed down," he adds: "I go mourning all the day long, there is no soundness in my flesh," I am feeble and sore broken!" Under it have sunk the characters and fair fame of men, who by their transgressions have become a "reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse, an astonishment and a by-word among the nations. Under it," rivers have been turned into a wilderness, and water-springs into dry. ground; a fruitful land into barrenness.' Its enormous weight hath overturned thrones and altars, and stately cities; as the rubbish of Jerusalem, the extinction of her royalty, and the desolations of Zion, awfully testify. Under its pressure, Pharaoh and his host of Egyptians sunk as lead in the waters of the Red Sea. The throne of Lucifer the Archangel, reared by the hand of God himself, shook under the crimes of him who filled its pre-eminent seat, and himself, with all who joined in his foul revolt, was hurled down into the lowest hell. The whole creation groans under the sin of man.

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How awfully perilous our condition! - to be exposed to the wrathful displeasure of Omnipotence! How passionately did Job exclaim under the feeling only of God's fatherly chastiscment,-"Have pity upon me, O my friends; have pity upon me, for the hand of God hath touched me. What are the roarings of a lion in the ear of the benighted and defenceless traveller, what the horrible din of war, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting,-when compared with the frown, the uplifted arm of the Almighty?

O!

When we seriously listen to the denunciations of divine wrath against transgressors, well may our lips quiver at the voice, rottenness enter into our bones, and we tremble in ourselves. that the Spirit of God would deeply impress on our minds a sense of our danger, that we may relish and duly prize the relieving truth, That Jesus Christ his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree!

"The Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all." The language is brought from a Jewish institution, the nature of which is well understood. "And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat." Suitably to this view, "God," says Paul," hath made him to be sin for us,

who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." Standing before the cross, we behold all the sing of God's chosen people meeting together, and forming the moun tainous load which the Saviour bare; we behold the unbelief of the father of the human race, the intemperance of their second father, the murder and adultery of Judah's first king, and the foul apostacy of his sou, the cruel deeds of Manasseh, and all the other offences of the persons for whom expiation was made, united and charged upon the Holy One and the Just. My pride, my contempt of God's authority, my ingratitude, my excessive love of this world, were there also, and augmented the ponderous weight which bowed his blessed head. It was my hypocrisy with God which procured the traitorous salutation of Judas. It was my lust of being uppermost which put the crown of thorns on his sacred head, I drank iniquity like water, and that iniquity became gall and vinegar to him. The obduracy of my heart produced the tears which he shed. I forsook my Maker, and therefore his Father forsook him, and at a period when most he needed his gracious and soothing presence and support. The unholiness of my soul, made his pure and spotless soul to become exceeding sorrowful, sorrowful even unto death. "All we, like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way. One man hath turned to the way of covetousness, another to the way of vanity, another to the way of ambition; “and the Lord hath laid on him, Messiah, the iniquity of us all :" or, as in the margin," he hath made the iniquities of us all to meet on him.'

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Our sins being thus laid on him, he bare the punishment due to us on account of our sins. When the Jews saw "the man of sorrows" and the accumulated miseries with which he was overwhelmed, they concluded that there must have been some hidden crimes of enormous magnitude, for which yengeance would not suffer him longer to live: "They esteemed him to be stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." But, says the prophet, correct ing the mistake of his countrymen, "Surely, he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows. "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquitics: the chastisement of our peace (or by which our peace was effected) was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Thus the sins of the Jewish nation, for which sacrifice was provided, being put upon the head of the goat, it is said, "And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities." So accursed was the animal deemed as bearing the sins of the people, that the servant who led him out to the wilderness, was not permitted to return to the camp till he had washed his clothes, and bathed his flesh in water. Jesus was "made a curse for us; stricken for the transgression of God's people; suffered, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God."-The punishments due to us for our sins are various

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and heavy, but our divine surety bare then all. The original punishment denounced on our fallen parents, Jesus endured. Cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread till thou return unto the ground." Poor, accordingly, was the lot of the Son of God in this world, and hard his fare. Born of mean parents, and brought up to labour, he was exposed to the fatigue and toil of a low, menial, and dependent estate. "Ye know the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, how that, though he was rich, yet for our sake he became poor, so poor that, while the foxes had holes, and the birds of the air had nests, he had not where to lay his head. The law of God denounced reproach and disgrace upon the transgressor, that he should be come "a proverb, a taunt, and a curse." This punishment Jesus endured. He submitted to be reproached as a wine-bibber; à glutton, a friend or associate of publicans and sinners, a Samafitan, and Demoniac! He was reproached on the cross, as unable to save himself. These foul aspersions deeply affected his spifits. it Reproach," says he, "hath broken my heart, and I am full of heaviness: I looked for some to take pity, but there was hone; and for comforters, but I found none. The law denounced on the sinner," a trembling heart and sorrow of mind." This punishment, in all its fearful extent; Jesus endured. said he, " is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." It is impossible for our minds to enter into the anguish and trembling of his heart, in the garden of Gethsemane, where his sufferings seem to have come from the immediate hand of God, and to have been overwhelming beyond all power of created conception. The law of God denounced on the transgressor, divine desertion, or the with drawing of God's favour from the soul: "Be thou instructed, O Jerusalem, lest my sour! depart from thee: your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not Hear." Jesus suffered this punishment in all its severity; he well knew the sacred and exquisite joy of fellowship with God, and therefore must have very keenly felt the awful blank in his soul when that fellowship was suspended. Hence the doleful cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the voice of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the day-time, but thou hearest not, and in the night season, and am not silent." Among the threatenings of God's most holy law, are these tremendous words: "And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you, and to bring you to nought." But even this dire punishinent Jesus endured; for "it pleased the Lord to bruise him, and to put him to grief." The justice of God rejoiced over the sacrifice. The sword of

Jehovah was satiated with blood; in a word, Jesus was made a curse for us, he died for our sins, he was cut off out of the

land of the living, and made his grave with the wicked.

By thus bearing the sins of his people, Jesus, our divine High Priest for ever removed them, so that when the iniquity of Jacob shall be sought for, it shall not be found. "Behold the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world; in him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace. We have an advocate with the Fa ther, Jesus Christ, the righteous, who is the propitiation for our sins whose blood cleanseth us from all sin: By himself, he purged our sins; and having, through the Eternal Spirit, offered himself without spot to God, he purges our conscience to serve the living God. He loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood."

This oblation of himself derives infinite virtue and worth from the dignity of his person; "for} in him dwells all the fulness of the Godhead bodily." He is God manifest in flesh. The congregation of the faithful is "the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood;" the willingness of his heart to suffer; his matchless patience and fortitude in suffering; the magnanimity of his soul in regard to his murderers; his resignation to the will and unshaken confidence in the faithfulness of his heavenly Father; with the other divine virtues which shine in bright assemblage around his cross, added worth unspeakable to the sacrifice, and lead the troubled mind to repose unsuspecting confidence in its boundless merits.

This is the foundation which God hath laid in Zion, and on which perishing sinners should build all their hopes. It is a sure foundation, having supported the honour of all the divine perfections, and justified the confidence of redeemed multitudes, numerous as the stars of Heaven: all other foundations are sandy and insecure. On the expiatory sacrifice of the Lamb of God alone, let us lean for the restoration of peace with God. He that thus leaneth, or believeth, shall never be confounded; for by this one offering hath our great High Priest perfected for ever he reconciliation and deliverance of them that are sanctified. In proportion to our entire confidence in this atonement, will be the peace of our own conscience, and the inward joy of our heart.

Hath Jesus borne our sins and expiated our guilt? Then, under a sense of his authority, and constrained by his love, let us cheerfully submit our necks to his yoke. His law is love, his service, perfect freedom. Let us never view his statutes as a burden, but rather as a chain of gold, a diadem of beauty; every requisition as an invitation to present happiness, every prohibition as the warning of paternal love to avoid misery and woe. Let us bear also the pressure of suffering which, in his wisdom and

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