the needs and sorrows of humanity, and the deep
sympathy resulting therefrom,--these and similar ends were contemplated
and fulfilled. But the grand purpose was disclosed and accomplished on
the cross, where God made his soul an offering for sin. "Forasmuch then
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself
likewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him
that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who
through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage."

The death of Jesus, then, and the end to be accomplished by it,
constitute the central, vital, culminating truth of Christianity. The
apostle puts the death of Christ in a striking point of view,--as a work
done, rather than a calamity suffered. And it was a double work,--a work
of destruction on the one hand, and of deliverance on the other,--of
destruction in order to deliverance. That is the conception of his
mission embodied in the first promise. The bruising of the serpent's
head by the bruised heel of the Saviour, in order to repair the ruin
wrought by the tempter, suggests very significantly the truth which is so
explicitly announced here. And a similar combination runs through the
ancient providential history. The destruction of the old world in order
to the salvation of the righteous, and the fulfilment of the promise of
redemption; and the destruction of the first-born of Egypt in order to
the deliverance of Israel, are instances in point. But the death of
Christ upon the cross in order to the emancipation of the slaves of Satan
is the most glorious and perfect illustration. Let me ask your attention
to the work of Christ's death,

I.--AS IT IS A WORK OF DESTRUCTION.

II.--AS IT IS A WORK OF DELIVERANCE.

I. AS IT IS A WORK OF DESTRUCTION. "That He might destroy him that had
the power of death, that is, the devil."

1. _Satan_, _then_, _is a person_, _and the enemy of Jesus_, _who died
to destroy him_.

(i.) The personality of the devil is necessarily implied in the words of
the text. The theory which seeks to divest all that is said about the
devil in Scripture of everything like personality, and to refine it away
into figurative representation of "the principle of evil," is as
unphilosophical as it is unscriptural. How can we conceive of moral evil
in the abstract? How can we think of it apart from the depraved will of
some intelligent being? Whatever the