e not redeemed with
corruptible things as silver and gold, but with the precious blood of
Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot,' and if so, we
are living examples of what Christ our Saviour has done for the whole
world.

There is another point I want to speak about in dwelling on the first
part of the text. If you will read this Epistle of Peter at your
leisure, you will see that while with Paul both make the cross of Christ
the centre of their teaching, Paul speaks more about His death, and
Peter more about His sufferings. Throughout the letters of Peter the
phrase runs, and the phrase has come almost entirely into modern
Christian usage from this Apostle. Paul speaks about the death, Peter
speaks of the sufferings. The eye-witness of a Loving Friend, the man
who had stood by His side through much of His sufferings (though he fled
at last), a vivid imagination of His Master's trials, and a warm heart,
led Peter to dwell not only on the one fact of the death, but also on
the accompaniments of that awful death, of the mental and physical pain,
and especially the temper of the Saviour. I shall not dwell on this,
except to make one passing remark on it, viz., that there is a kind of
preaching which prevails among the Roman Catholic Church, and is not
uncommon to many of the Protestant churches, which dwells unduly on the
physical fact of Christ's death and sufferings. I think, for my part, we
are going to the other extreme, and a great many of us are losing a very
great source of blessing to ourselves and to those whom we influence,
because we don't realise and don't dwell sufficiently on the physical
and mental sorrows and agony He went through with the death on the
cross; and one bad effect of all this is that Christ's atonement has
become to be a kind of theological jungle, and I don't know that the
popular mind can have in the ordinary way any better means of the
deliverance of Christ's cross from this theological maze than a little
more frankness and honesty in dwelling on the sorrows and pain of our
dear Lord.

Now a word about the second part. The sufferings of Christ as
represented here in the text are not only for our gain but our pattern,
leaving us an example that we should follow His steps. We are not
concerned here about the general principles of Christian ethics, and I
don't think I need dwell on them at all as being great blessings to us;
and passing from that I would rather dwell on the o