Page:Some Reflections on the Importance of a Religious Life.djvu/13

Rh a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. Meditate upon the narratives recorded by the Evangelists, of the insults and cruel mockery that were offered to him, of his treatment before Pontius Pilate, of the agony which he underwent in the garden of Gethsemane, of the ignominious death which he suffered without the gates of Jerusalem. And for what purpose? To purchase eternal life for us. And who was it that thus humbled himself unto death, even the death of the cross? It was none other than the Son of God. He who was in the beginning with God, and who was God; who is described by the prophet as the mighty God! who is declared by the apostles to be “God over all, blessed for ever;” “the true God and eternal life.” What greater proof could our Heavenly Father give of his love than to send his beloved Son to seek and to save that which was lost; to raise man, who is by nature dead in trespasses and sins, out of his fallen state. What clearer evidence is there of the iniquity and the guilt of sin, than that he who ordereth all things in perfect wisdom, saw meet thus to provide for our redemption. May we humbly meditate on these things, with that deep reverence and gratitude with which these mysterious but certain truths of Holy Scripture ought ever to be contemplated.

Conversion, regeneration, justification and