nity. If his administrative justice had not stood in the way, the
offer of pardon to the sinner would have cost him merely a word. And hence
the length, the breadth, and the depth of his love could not have been
manifested. But he was the Ruler of the universe, and as such his law
stood in the way. He owed it to himself not to permit this to be trampled
under foot with impunity, nor its violation to be forgiven, until he had
provided some way in order to secure the high and holy ends for which it
had been established. Hence, as it was not possible for God to deny
himself, he sent forth his beloved Son, who had been the companion of his
bosom and his blessedness from all eternity, to take upon himself the form
of a servant, and by his teaching, and obedience, and sufferings, and
death, to vindicate the majesty of the law, and to render it honourable in
the sight of the universe. And it is this wonderful union of the goodness
and the severity, of the mercy and the justice of God, which constitutes
the grand moral tendency and glory of the cross.

The course pursued by the king of the Locrians, in relation to the crime
of his son, secured the ends of the law in a much greater degree than they
could have been secured by a rigorous execution of its penalty upon the
person of his son. It evinced a deep and settled abhorrence of crime, and
an inflexible determination to punish it. It cut off all hope from his
subjects that crime would be permitted to escape with impunity. And hence,
after such a manifestation of his character as a king, he could permit his
son to enjoy the unspeakable blessings of sight, without holding out the
least encouragement to the commission of crime.

So, likewise, in relation to the sufferings of Christ. These were not, in
strictness, the penalty of the law. This was eternal death; whereas the
sufferings of Christ, inconceivably great as they were, were but temporal;
and there can be no proportion between sufferings which know a period, and
those which are without end. Hence, as we have already said, he did not
satisfy the punitive justice of God. But the sacrifice of Christ answered
all the purposes that could have been answered by the rigorous execution
of the law; and it answered them in an infinitely greater degree, than if
the human race had been permitted to endure it without remedy.

God's love to his Son was inconceivably greater than that which any
creature ever bore to himself or to any othe