OW frail and weak is human nature! Born into the world a helpless infant unable to provide for its humblest wants, it is only through the assiduous care of others that man can at all be preserved in life. A mother's gentle breast must nourish, her hands protect, her thoughtful mind provide for and supply her feeble charge. And, oh! how long, and through what anxieties and fears, what dangers and what toils, must parental care lead the tottering steps of childhood, and the thoughtless inexperience of youth, up to the years of maturity and reflection! Even then, with all his boasted powers, how dependent is man upon exterior sources for sympathy, encouragement, and support! Rejoicing in [120] his fancied strength, and esteeming nothing impossible to his efforts, he yet finds that alone and unaided, his strength is but weakness, and discovers that it is necessary to lean upon others, and to merge his fragmentary being in the strong and lofty edifice of society, to which he may impart, while from it he hopes to receive strength and elevation.

      But even here, environed by all the aids and sympathies which spring from the natural or social relations and friendships of human life, how deeply the thoughtful mind must realize man's native feebleness in the dark seasons of unrequited toils, of disappointed hopes, of unlooked-for and irretrievable calamities--when the world reveals its nothingness, and the heart despairs of heaven, and no human agency can afford relief! And still more, when life wanes amidst its cares, and is ready to perish with the perishing things which have occupied its busy hours--when man grows old and "his strength faileth," when the faculties of mind and body have become enfeebled, and childish fancies and dim memories return along with the tottering steps of infancy [121] in old age--and most of all, when the hour of dissolution comes, and no mortal skill can alleviate or remedy the suffering that must be endured alone--when every power that life and nature gave is wholly lost--when the eye is glazed and sightless, and the ear no longer hears the voice of affection, and the hand returns no more the grasp of friendship: oh! it is then that the heart may truly realize the utter feebleness and frailty of human nature, the emptiness of all its claims, the nothingness of all man's worldly hopes!

      In taking part of flesh and blood, Jesus partook of our infirmities, and bore our weaknesses, as, in his own body, he bore our sins. It is not in his maturer years merely that we are to behold the man Christ Jesus. It is not through fanciful speculations concerning his natural endowments, or his human motives; or in seeking to be wise above what is written of his spiritual conflicts, that we are to contemplate or to comprehend our blessed Lord's humanity. It is rather in the feeble infant in its unrocked cradle, the helpless Christ-child, nurtured upon a mother's bosom, or [122] hastening to her side with pattering feet for protection or for solace; it is amidst the growing years of youth and all its trials, winning divine and human favor by meek submission and by cheerful aid; it is in the fulfillment of his sacred mission, as a homeless wanderer, in weariness and want, a gentle minister of grace, and peace, and truth, sympathizing with human suffering, partaking of human woes, and enduring the contradictions of the ignorant, and the contumely of the proud--above all, it is when, finally, through the eternal Spirit, he offered himself without spot to God as the propitiation for our sins--it is in that supreme hour, when faint but firm, he experienced for us the bitterness of that death in which all human weakness has its consummation, that we may contemplate aright the Blessed One who became our kinsman that he might be our Redeemer. Had he not assumed our nature, he could not have borne our griefs or carried our sorrows. Had he not become a partaker of flesh and blood, he could not, through death, have accomplished our deliverance, and destroyed the dominion of him that had the power of death. [123] That mighty work was not completed until the last agony was endured, the last loud cry was uttered, and the expiring lips had pronounced the verdict, "It is finished," as he bowed his head in death, and hung motionless, and pale, and cold upon the bloody cross.

      He was, indeed, "crucified through weakness," yet it was in that moment of extremest weakness that he gained the victory. What neither the divine law, nor rich oblations, nor human power could do, was accomplished in the death of Jesus. God's weakness is stronger than men, and He who has constructed the lofty mountains with grains of sand, and with drops of water the boundless ocean, has ever chosen weak things to confound the mighty, and the lowly to abase the proud. Through his "foolishness," so much wiser than human wisdom, he has reconciled us to himself by the death of his Son, in vindicating thereby the inviolability of the divine justice, and rendering the divine mercy accessible to the believer. "What shall we say, then, to these things? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with [124] him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? God that justifieth? Who is he that condemneth? Christ that died, yea, rather, that is risen again, who is ever at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us?"

      Hence it is, that with love's memories of the past, we can blend the joyful hopes of the future, and thus continue to celebrate the death of Christ until he come. For he it is, that liveth and was dead; and behold, he is alive for evermore, and hath the keys of death and of hades. And surely, "if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled," shall we be "saved by his life." If the rich boon of forgiveness and gracious acceptance is accorded to sinners, oh, how untold and inconceivable the blessings that are prepared for saints! If, in the weakness of humanity, Jesus could accomplish the mighty work of reconciling the world through death, how much more shall he not now save the reconciled with an eternal redemption, by the power of an endless life! Since it is in death that all human [125] weakness culminates, it is in life that strength divine resides; and if, in the weakness of death, he has destroyed the dominion of sin, shall he not in the strength of life, secure victory over the grave? If while on earth, straitened in the shackles of mortality, "crucified through weakness," he overcame the powers of darkness, how much more now, that he liveth by the power of God, shall he not come in the glory of his Father and with all the holy angels, to obtain an eternal redemption for us! It is then, indeed, that the last enemy shall be destroyed; that this natural body, which is "sown in weakness, shall be raised in power;" that "this mortal shall put on immortality, and death be swallowed up in victory." [126]

[CITS 120-126]