penalty merited by men, by the sufferings of His life and of His death; and thus the opposite claims of justice and of mercy have been paid.
Has Jesus Christ, then, from being innocent become guilty, to free men from eternal death? That is to say, has He chosen to pass for a sinner? Yes, the love which He bears to mankind has brought Him even to this pass. Let us consider Him in this state; but let us first beg light of Jesus and Mary to profit by it.
I.
What was Jesus Christ? He was, answers St. Paul, holy, innocent, undefiled. [Heb. 7:26] He was, to speak more correctly, sanctity itself, innocence itself, purity itself, since He was true Son of God, true God as His Father; and so dear to that Father, that the Father there on the banks of the Jordan declared, that in that Son He found all his complacency. But this Son being bent upon freeing mankind from their sins and from the death incurred by them, what did He do? He appeared to take away our sins, says St. John. [1 John 3:5] He presented Himself before His heavenly Father, and offered Himself to pay for mankind; and then the Father, as the Apostle tells us, sent Him on earth to be clothed in human flesh, to take the appearance of sinful man, and to be made in all things like to sinners; God sending His Own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. [Rom. 8:3] And then St. Paul adds; And of sin hath condemned sin in the flesh. And by this he means, according to the explanation of St. John Chrysostom and Theodoret, that the Father sentenced sin to be dethroned from the tyranny which it exercised over mankind, by dooming
