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The manifestations of God's love are many and various. If I look forth upon our glorious world I cannot but feel that God displays His love in the dwelling place which He hath given to the children of men. If I contemplate the succession of seasons, and observe how the sunbeam and the shower unite in the production of sustenance, I recognise love in the workings of God's providence. Thus also, if I think upon man, the creature of mighty capacity, but of mightier destiny, I am necessarily conscious that infinite love presided originally over his formation. And, if I yet further remember that man, whose creation had thus been dictated by love, returned despite for benevolence, I might marvel, if I did not know that love rose superior to outrage, and, in place of forsaking the alien, suggested redemption. Note: —

I. HOW CHRIST'S SUFFERINGS WERE AGGRAVATED BY THE SINFULNESS OF THOSE AMONGST WHOM HE SUFFERED.

1. He possessed infinite perceptions of the nature of sin. He saw it without any of the varnish which it draws from human passion or sophistry; and He discerned that the least acting of impurity struck so vehemently against the bosses of the Almighty's attributes, that it rebounded in vengeance, which must eternally crush the transgressor.

2. Now to this capacity of estimating sin, add(1) The love which He bore to the Father. It would have accorded well with the longings of His heart, that He should succeed in bringing back the earth into obedience, so that the Almighty might draw His full revenue of honour. But when, from the contradiction of sinners against Himself, it became palpable that generations would yet do despite to His heavenly Father, this must inexpressibly have lacerated His soul.

(2) But vast also was His love to mankind; and here again His apprehensions of sin come into the account. It would be idle to enlarge on the greatness of that benevolence which had prompted the Mediator to undertake our rescue. The simple exhibition of Christ appearing as the surety of mankind remains ever the overwhelming and immeasurable prodigy. Yet when He beheld the beings, for every one of whom He was content to endure ignominy and death, pursuing obstinately the courses of unrighteousness, throwing from them the proffered boon of deliverance, it must have entered like a poisoned arrow into His pure and affectionate heart, and lacerating and cauterising wherever it touched, have made an inlet for sorrow where there never could be found admission for sin.

3. If an artist study to set forth the Christ's sufferings, he has recourse to the outward paraphernalia of woe. Yet there is more in the simple expression that Christ died for us "whilst we were yet sinners," than in all that the crayon ever produced, when the genius of a Raphael guided its strokes. We look in at the soul of the Redeemer — we are admitted as spectators of the solemn and tremendous workings of His spirit.

4. We attempt not to examine too nicely into the awful matter of the Mediator's sufferings, suffice it that there is not one amongst us who was not a direct contributor to that weight of sorrow which seemed for a time to confound Him and to crush Him.

II. HOW COMPLETELY THESE SUFFERINGS WERE IRRESPECTIVE OF ALL CLAIM ON THE PART OF THOSE FOR WHOM THEY WERE ENDURED. In the commencement of His dealings with our race, God had proceeded according to the strictest benevolence. He had appointed that Adam should stand as a federal head or representative of all men; had Adam obeyed, all men would have obeyed in him — just as when Adam disobeyed, all men disobeyed in him. We were not, in the strictest sense, parties to this transaction, but I hold that if we had had the power of electing we should have elected Adam, and that there would have been a wisdom in such procedure, which is vainly looked for in any other. And if this appointment cannot be arraigned, then it must be idle to speak of any claims which the fallen have upon the Creator; and whatsoever is done on their behalf must be in the largest sense gratuitous. If the arrangement were one into which the love which prompted the creation of man gathered and condensed its fulness, and its tenderness, then we lay it down that the compassions of the Most High towards our race might have closed themselves up, and, nevertheless, the inscription, "God is love" would have been graven upon our archives, and the lying tongue of blasphemy alone would have dared to throw doubt on its accuracy. But the love of God was a love which could not be content with having just done enough — it was a love which must commend itself — which must triumph over everything which could quench love. We were sinners, but, nevertheless, God loved us in our degradation, in our ruin. We were unworthy the least mercy, we had no claim to it — the minutest benefit, we had no right to it — but God commended His love towards us

(H. Melvill, B. D.)

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KJV: For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.

WEB: For one will hardly die for a righteous man. Yet perhaps for a righteous person someone would even dare to die.