As we still sit down and look at Jesus, we remember that his death was voluntary--he need not have died unless he had so willed: here then is another striking feature of our sin, for our sin was voluntary too. We did not sin as of compulsion, but we deliberately chose the evil way. O sinner, let both of us sit down together, and tell the Lord that we have no justification, or extenuation, or excuse to offer, we have sinned wilfully against light and knowledge, against love and mercy. Let us smite upon our breasts, as we see Jesus willingly suffer, and confess that we have willingly offended against the just and righteous laws of a most good and gracious God. I could fain keep you looking into those five wounds, and studying that marred face, and counting every purple drop that flowed from hands and feet, and side, but time would fail us. Only that one wound -- let it abide with you -- smite your breast because you see in Christ your sin.

Looking again -- changing, as it were, our stand-point, but still keeping our eye upon that same, dear crucified One, let us see there the neglected and despised remedy for our sin. If sin itself, in its first, condition, as rebellion, bring no tears to our eyes, it certainly ought in its second manifestation, as ingratitude. The sin of rebellion is vile; but the sin of slighting the Savior is viler still. He that hangs on the tree, in groans and griefs unutterable, is he whom some of you have never thought of, whom you do not love, to whom you never pray, in whom you place no confidence, and whom you never serve. I will not accuse you; I will ask those dear wounds to do it, sweetly and tenderly. I will rather accuse myself; for, alas I alas! there was a time when I heard of him as with a deaf ear; when I was told of him, and understood the love he bore to sinners, and yet my heart was like a stone within me, and would not be moved. I stopped my ear and would not be charmed, even with such a master-fascination as the disinterested love of Jesus. I think if I had been spared to live the life of an ungodly man, for thirty, forty, or fifty years, and had been converted, at last, I should never have been able to blame myself sufficiently for rejecting Jesus during all those years.

Why, even those of us who were converted in our youth, and almost in our childhood, cannot help blaming ourselves to think that so dear a Friend who had done so much for us, was so long slighted by us. Who could have done more for us than he, since he gave himself for our sins? Ah, how did we wrong him while we withheld our hearts from him! O ye sinners, how can ye keep the doors of your hearts shut against the Friend of Sinners? How can we close the door against him who cries, "My head is wet with dew, and my locks with the drops of the night: open to me, my beloved, open to me"? I am persuaded there are some here who are his elect: you were chosen by him from before the foundation of the world, and you shall be with him in heaven one day to sing his praises, and yet, at this moment, though you hear his name, you do not love him, and, though you are told of what he did, you do not trust him. What! shall that iron bar always fast close the gate of your heart? Shall that door still be always bolted? O Spirit of the living God, win an entrance for the blessed Christ this morning! If anything can do it, surely it must be a sight of the crucified Christ; that matchless spectacle shall make a heart of stone relent and melt, by Jesus' love subdued. O may the Holy Ghost work this gracious melting, and he shall have all the honor.

Still keeping you at the cross foot, dear friends, every believer here may well smite upon his breast this morning as he thinks of who it was that smarted so upon the cross. Who was it? It was he who loved us or ever the world was made. It was he who is this day the Bridegroom of our souls, our Best-beloved; he who has taken us into the banqueting house and waved his banner of love over us; he who has made us one with himself, and has vowed to present us to his Father without spot. It is he, our Husband, our Ishi, who has called us his Hephzibah because his soul delighteth in us. It is he who suffered thus for us.

Suffering does not always excite the same degree of pity. You must know something of the individual before the innermost depths of the soul are stirred; and so it happens to us that the higher the character and the more able we are to appreciate it, the closer the relation and the more fondly we reciprocate the love, the more deeply does suffering strike the soul. You are coming to his table some of you to-day, and you will partake of bread: I pray you remember that it represents the quivering flesh that was filled with pain on Calvary. You will sip of that cup: then be sure to remember that it betokens to you the blood of one who loves you better than you could be loved by mother, or by husband, or by friend. O sit you down and smite your breasts that he should grieve; that heaven's Sun should be eclipsed; that heaven's Lily should be spotted with blood, and heaven's Rose should be whitened with a deadly pallor. Lament that perfection should be accused, innocence smitten, and love murdered; and that Christ, the happy and the holy, the ever blessed, who had been for ages the delight of angels, should now become the sorrowful, the acquaintance of grief, the bleeding and the dying. Smite upon your breasts, believers, and go your way!

Beloved in the Lord, if such grief as this should be kindled in you, it will be well to pursue the subject, and to reflect upon how unbelieving and how cruel we have been to Jesus since the day that we have known him. What, doth he bleed for me and have I doubted him? Is he the Son of God, and have I suspected his fidelity? Have I stood at the cross foot unmoved? Have I spoken of my dying Lord in a cold, indifferent spirit? Have I ever preached Christ crucified with a dry eye and a heart unmoved? Do I bow my knee in private prayer, and are my thoughts wandering when they ought to be bound hand and foot to his dear bleeding self? Am I accustomed to turn over the pages of the Evangelists which record my Master's wondrous sacrifice, and have I never stained those pages with my tears? Have I never paused spellbound over the sacred sentence which recorded this miracle of miracles, this marvel of marvels? Oh, shame upon thee, hard heart! Well may I smite thee. May God smite thee with the hammer of his Spirit, and break thee to shivers. O thou stony heart, thou granite soul, thou flinty spirit, well may I strike the breast which harbours thee, to think that I should be so doltish in presence of love so amazing, so divine.

Brethren, you may smite upon your breasts as you look at the cross, and mourn that you should have done so little for your Lord. I think if anybody could have sketched my future life in the day of my conversion, and have said, "You will be dull and cold in spiritual things, and you will exhibit but little earnestness and little gratitude!" I should have said like Hazael, "Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this great thing?" I suppose I read your hearts when I say that the most of you are disappointed with your own conduct as compared with your too-flattering prophecies of yourselves!

What! am I really pardoned? Am I in very deed washed in that warm stream which gushed from the riven side of Jesus, and yet am I not wholly consecrated to Christ? What! in my body do I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus, and can I live almost without a thought of him? Am I plucked like a brand from the burning, and have I small care to win others from the wrath to come? Has Jesus stooped to win me, and do I not labor to win others for him? Was he all in earnest about me, and am I only half in earnest about him? Dare I waste a minute, dare I trifle away an hour? Have I an evening to spend in vain gossip and idle frivolities?

O my heart, well may I smite thee, that at the sight of the death of the dear Lover of my soul, I should not be fired by the highest zeal, and be impelled by the most ardent love to a perfect consecration of every power of my nature, every affection of my spirit, every faculty of my whole man? This mournful strain might be pursued to far greater lengths. We might follow up our confessions, still smiting, still accusing, still regretting, still bewailing. We might continue upon the bass notes evermore, and yet might we not express sufficient contrition for the shameful manner in which we have treated our blessed Friend. We might say with one of our hymn writers -

"Lord, let me weep for nought but sin,
    And after none but thee;
And then I would - O that I might -
    A constant weeper be!"

One might desire to become a Niobe, and realize the desire of Jeremy, "O that my head were waters." Even the holy extravagance of George Herbert does not surprise us, for we would even sing with him the song of grief--"Oh, who will give me tears? Come, all ye springs, Dwell in my head and eyes; come, clouds and rain! My grief hath need of all, the wat'ry things That nature hath produc'd. Let ev'ry vein Suck up a river to supply mine eyes, My weary weeping eyes; too dry for me, Unless they get new conduits, new supplies, To bear them out, and with my state agree. What are two shallow fords, two little spouts Of a less world? The greater is but small. A narrow cupboard for my griefs and doubts, Which want provision in the midst of all. Verses, ye are too fine a thing, too wise, For my rough sorrows. Cease! be dumb and mute; Give up your feet and running to mine eyes, And keep your measures for some lover's lute, Whose grief allows him music and a rhyme For mine excludes both measure, tune, and time, Alas, my God!"

III. Let me invite you, in the third place, to remember that AT CALVARY, DOLOROUS NOTES ARE NOT THE ONLY SUITABLE MUSIC.

We admired our poet when, in the hymn which we have just sung, he appears to question with himself which would be the most fitting tune for Golgotha.

" 'It is finished;' shall we raise
Songs of sorrow or of praise?
Mourn to see the Saviour die,
Or proclaim his victory
If of Calvary we tell,
How can songs of triumph swell!
If of man redeemed from woe,
How shall notes of mourning flow?"

He shows that since our sin pierced the side of Jesus, there is cause for unlimited lamentation, but since the blood which flowed from the wound has cleansed our sin, there is ground for unbounded thanksgiving; and, therefore, the poet, after having balanced the matter in a few verses, concludes with-

" 'It is finished,' let us raise
Songs of thankfulness and praise."

After all, you and I are not in the same condition as the multitude who had surrounded Calvary; for at that time our Lord was still dead, but now he is risen indeed. There were yet three days from that Thursday evening (for there is much reason to believe that our Lord was not crucified on Friday), in which Jesus must dwell in the regions of the dead. Our Lord, therefore, so far as human eyes could see him, was a proper object of pity and mourning, and not of thanksgiving; but now, beloved, he ever lives and gloriously reigns. No charnel house confines that blessed body. He saw no corruption; for the moment when the third day dawned, he could no longer be held with the bonds of death, but he manifested himself alive unto his disciples. He tarried in this world for forty days. Some of his time was spent with those who knew him in the flesh; perhaps a larger part of it was passed with those saints who came out of their graves after his resurrection; but certain it is that he is gone up, as the first-fruit from the dead; he is gone up to the right hand of God, even the Father. Do not bewail those wounds, they are lustrous with supernal splendor. Do not lament his death: he lives no more to die. Do not mourn that shame and spitting:

"The head that once was crowned with thorns,
    Is crowned with glory now."

Look up and thank God that death hath no more dominion over him. He ever liveth to make intercession for us, and he shall shortly come with angelic bands surrounding him, to judge the quick and dead. The argument for joy overshadows the reason for sorrow. Like as a woman when the man-child is born remembereth no more her anguish, for joy that a man is born into the world, so, in the thought of the risen Savior, who has taken possession of his crown, we will forget the lamentation of the cross, and the sorrows of the broken heart of Calvary.

Moreover, hear ye the shrill voice of the high sounding cymbals, and let your hearts rejoice within you, for in his death our Redeemer conquered all the hosts of hell. They came against him furiously, yea, they came against him to eat up his flesh, but they stumbled and fell. They compassed him about, yea, they compassed him about like bees; but in the name of the Lord did the Champion destroy them. Against the whole multitude of sins, and all the battalions of the pit, the Savior stood, a solitary soldier fighting against innumerable bands, but he has slain them all. "Bruised is the dragon's head." Jesus has led captivity captive. He conquered when he fell; and let the notes of victory drown for ever the cries of sorrow.

Moreover, brethren, let it be remembered that men have been saved. Let there stream before your gladdened eyes this morning the innumerable company of the elect. Robed in white they come in long procession; they come from distant lands, from every clime; once scarlet with sin and black with iniquity, they are all white and pure, and without spot before the throne forever; beyond temptation, beatified, and made like to Jesus. And how? It was all through Calvary. There was their sin put away; there was their everlasting righteousness brought in and consummated. Let the hosts that are before the throne, as they wave their palms, and touch their golden harps, excite you to a joy like their own, and let that celestial music hush the gentler voices which mournfully exclaim—

"Alas! and did my Savior bleed?
    And did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
    For such a worm as I?"

Nor is that all. You yourself are saved. O brother, this will always be one of your greatest joys. That others are converted through your instrumentality is occasion for much thanksgiving, but your Savior's advice to you is, "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." You, a spirit meet to be cast away, you whose portion must have been with devils—you are this day forgiven, adopted, saved, on the road to heaven. Oh! While you think that you are saved from hell, that you are lifted up to glory, you cannot but rejoice that your sin is put away from you through the death of Jesus Christ, your Lord!

Lastly, there is one thing for which we ought always to remember Christ's death with joy, and that is, that although the crucifixion of Jesus was intended to be a blow at the honor and glory of our God—though in the death of Christ the world did, so far as it was able, put God himself to death, and so earn for itself that hideous title, "a deicidal world," yet never did God have such honour and glory as he obtained through the sufferings of Jesus. Oh, they thought to scorn him, but they lifted his name on high! They thought that God was dishonoured when he was most glorified. The image of the Invisible, had they not marred it? The express image of the Father's person, had they not defiled it? Ah, so they said! But he that sitteth in the heavens may well laugh and have them in derision, for what did they! They did but break the alabaster box, and all the blessed drops of infinite mercy streamed forth to perfume all worlds. They did but rend the veil, and then the glory which had been hidden between the cherubim shone forth upon all lands.

O nature, adoring God with thine ancient and priestly mountains, extolling him with thy trees, which clap their hands, and worshipping with thy seas, which in their fullness roar out Jehovah's praise; with all thy tempests and flames of fire: thy dragons and thy deeps, thy snow and thy hail, thou canst not glorify God as Jesus glorified him when he became obedient unto death.

O heaven, with all thy jubilant angels, thine ever chanting cherubim and seraphim, thy thrice holy hymns, thy streets of gold and endless harmonies, thou canst not reveal the Deity as Jesus Christ revealed it on the cross. O hell, with all thine infinite horrors and flames unquenchable, and pains and griefs and shrieks of tortured spirits, even thou canst not reveal the justice of God as Christ revealed it in his riven heart upon the bloody tree. O earth and heaven and hell! O time and eternity, things present and things to come, visible and invisible, ye are dim mirrors of the Godhead compared with the bleeding Lamb. O heart of God, I see thee nowhere as at Golgotha, where the Word incarnate reveals the justice and the love, the holiness and the tenderness of God in one blaze of glory. If any created mind would fain see the glory of God, he need not gaze upon the starry skies, nor soar into the heaven of heavens, he has but to bow at the cross foot and watch the crimson streams which gush from Immanuel's wounds.

If you would behold the glory of God, you need not gaze between the gates of pearls, you have but to look beyond the gates of Jerusalem and see the Prince of Peace expire. If you would receive the noblest conception that ever filled the human mind of the lovingkindness and the greatness and the pity, and yet the justice and the severity and the wrath of God, you need not lift up your eyes, nor cast them down, nor look to paradise, nor gaze on Tophet, you have but to look into the heart of Christ all crushed and broken and bruised, and you have seen it all. Oh, the joy that springs from the fact that God has triumphed after all! Death is not the victor; evil is not master. There are not two rival kingdoms, one governed by the God of good, and the other by the god of evil; no, evil is bound, chained, and led captive; its sinews are cut, its head is broken; its king is bound to the dread chariot of Jehovah-Jesus, and as the white horses of triumph drag the Conqueror up the everlasting hills in splendor of glory, the monsters of the pit cringe at his chariot wheels.

Wherefore, beloved, we close this discourse with this sentence of humble yet joyful worship, "Glory be unto the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost: as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen."