"mighty to save, even to the uttermost." He fixed the foundation on which we may build our hope of immortality, and find it to be "a hope that maketh not ashamed," founded on the Rock of Ages. He went into the shadow of death, into "the lowest parts of the earth," that he might lay deep the basis of that edifice which was to rise as high as the throne of God! "He bore our sins in his own body on the tree," that we might become partakers of his own divine nature. This, my brethren, is a view of "the Lamb of God" of the last importance to be taken by us all. If you see him not in this character, you see nothing to any valuable purpose. You have taken hold of nothing, you have grasped only shadows, if you have not taken hold of Christ, your Life. Flee to him; cleave to him: say of him in the sincerity of your heart, "This is all my salvation and all my desire."

There is only one class of beings by whom the object presented in the text is treated with unconcern; for even the legions of hell regard it with a fearful interest:-utterly to "neglect so great salvation" is the peculiar malady of impenitent sinners in the present world. But what infatuation can be compared with this? If there be any other door by which you may hope to enter into heaven, avail yourselves of that "door of hope" without delay. If any other name be given under heaven in which you may safely trust for the salvation of your soul, place your trust in that favourite name, and leave this Saviour to others; but if there exists no other door that can admit us into heaven than that which He has opened who says, "I am the door, I am the way, the truth, and the life,"-if no other name has been given under heaven whereby we may be saved than the name of Jesus Christ,-if this is the only dispensation of mercy; then let us turn our regards from every other refuge, and fix them on this alone. "Let all the house of Israel," let all the world, "know assuredly that this Jesus, who was crucified, is both Lord and Christ; and they who believe in him are justified from all things." In the land of Israel there were several cities of refuge, and the criminal might flee to that which was nearest but there exists only one for us; one "hope set before us, to which we must flee for refuge;" one "Man who is a covert from the storm, a shadow from the heat." In "the Lamb of God” you may obtain present peace: beholding Him, you may die with tranquillity and joy; and rise, through Him, to the mansions of eternal glory. Behold, therefore, ye sinners ready to perish, "behold the Lamb of God."

How is it possible that those can escape "who neglect this great salvation, which at first was spoken by the Lord, God himself bearing witness with signs and wonders, the gifts of his own Spirit?" Not to behold such an object is "to have eyes, and not to see:" not to attend to such a call is "to have ears, and not to hear!" Better not to have eyes, and see; better not to have ears, and hear; better not to have an understanding, a heart, a sentient nature capable of thought and feeling; better to be numbered with the brutes, or to be a mere plant, or stone, than not to believe this divine report,-than to remain one to whom this "arm of the Lord" is not revealed, than to see in

Christ "no beauty that you should desire him," to regard him "as a root in a dry ground," instead of discerning in such a Saviour, “the power of God, the wisdom of God!"

2. But there is a second class of persons among mankind-those who have repented and believed; "the Lamb of God" has an equal claim to the continued and earnest regard of his believing followers.

Some benefits we receive in such a manner that any further attention to their cause is unnecessary; no motive but gratitude requires us to think of them again; they are complete, whether or not we recur to their origin. This is not the case with the benefits conferred by Jesus Christ. Besides the claim of gratitude, which ought to outlast the immediate operation of benefits received-(for we should think it unnatural in a son to forget his parents as soon as they were in the grave),―here we are dependent on our Benefactor for a continuity of blessings. It is not enough to have regarded him at first as the only Source of pardon and salvation: he is as necessary to us from day to day as when we first believed in him. He is not a Saviour whom we may forget, having once for all received his benefits: he is the Source of continual energy through the whole of our career. The Bread of Life can no more be dispensed with in the spiritual life than in the natural: in respect to the one as well as to the other, we must say, "Give us this day our daily," or, as the original word signifies, our essential "bread!" 66 Lord, evermore give us this bread!" We must apply for perpetual repetitions of our Saviour's pardoning grace, and justifying merit, corresponding with our perpetual transgressions and deficiencies. The spiritual life of a Christian can only be maintained in its vigour by a ceaseless emanation from Jesus Christ. "The life which I now live," says the apostle Paul, "I live by the faith of the Son of God: it is not I that live, but Christ liveth in me." In other words, he was continually "beholding the Lamb of God." Every Christian partakes of his experience, and to the end of his life feels the same need of Christ,-of his example, his doctrine, and especially of his atonement,-which he felt at first, when he fled alarmed and distressed to the foot of the cross. When the rock was smitten in Horeb, the water continued to flow through the wilderness for the constant supply of the Israelites; and they drank of that water daily, until they reached the promised Canaan. "That rock was Christ" and thus we must daily drink of the spiritual streams that flow from Him. We must look unto Him, and we shall then be lightened, and our faces not ashamed. When our Saviour, in his great condescension and humility, washed the feet of his disciples, Peter at first refused, saying, "Lord, thou shalt never wash my feet." On this, our Saviour replied, “If I wash thee not, thou hast no part in me." "Lord," said Peter," not my feet only, but also my hands and my head." This our Lord declined, observing, "He that is washed, needeth not save to wash his feet; and now ye are clean." This implies, in the spiritual applica tion which it was probably designed to receive, that after having bathed at our first repentance in the fountain of that blood which "cleanseth from all sin," we must still repair to the same for constant purification

from those innumerable defilements which, by our frailty, we cannot but contract in our walk through the present world. Even the clean require to be again and again purified. The sins of a single day would be sufficient to condemn us: weighed in the balance, we should be found wanting. The believer never subsists on an independent source of his own-he lives by faith: faith is not the reservoir, but the habitual receiver. He is continually directing his eye towards Him in whom it has pleased the Father that all fulness should dwell, and that out of that fulness we all should receive even grace for grace; grace in the streams, corresponding with grace in the fountain. Let us live more by faith in Christ; "the just shall live by faith" it is the safest and the happiest life. On every occasion of infirmity and distress, let us renew our application to that Saviour who said, in answer to the complaint of his apostle, "My grace is sufficient for thee, my strength is perfect in thy weakness." "Most gladly, therefore," adds the encouraged apostle, "will I glory even in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." The moment we forget our dependence on Christ, and are puffed up with a conceit of our own merit or strength, we are in danger of falling into the snares of Satan.

3. Having dwelt the longer on the more direct and obvious application of the doctrine taught by John the Baptist in the text, to the two classes of mankind, as either impenitent sinners or justified believers, we may extend the exclamation, in the third place, to the redeemed in the world of glory. From them, no less than from their brethren on earth, "the Lamb of God" claims the highest degree of admiring regard. He retains this appellation, as we learn from the last book of Scripture, in his present exalted state; and it is remarkable that the name which expresses his humiliation to the death of the cross is selected as the name under which he is adored in the world of glory: "I beheld," says John, " and lo, a multitude, which no man could number, gathered from all nations, stood before the throne and before the Lamb : and they cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God and to the Lamb! Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and power be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever!" It is strange that any should be found who, calling themselves Christians, refuse to pay Jesus Christ that worship here on earth which he is represented in these passages as receiving in heaven! Such persons, if they are admitted into heaven, will have indeed to learn a new song, for they must learn a new religion! But you, my dear brethren, "have not so learned Christ:" you know that the Redeemer holds the most distinguished place in the world of glory; he sits at the righthand of God; he is the centre of the glory that shall be revealed; his presence constitutes to the redeemed the principal charm of heaven. It was his own desire "that those whom the Father had given him may be with him where he is, and may there behold his glory." It is only in him that the Deity is visible: "No man hath seen God, nor can see; he dwells in light which no man can approach: the only-begotten Son has declared him." Deity requires to be shaded and softened, by put ting on the vail of our nature, before it can be suited to our feeble perception: the glory of the Lord must shine in the face of Jesus Christ.

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We read concerning the redeemed inhabitants of heaven, that “ hunger no more, nor thirst any more; because the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, feeds them with the bread of life, and leads them to fountains of living water:" a description which implies that Jesus Christ is himself the source of celestial beatitude.

4. But in the fourth place, there is yet another order of beings to whom "the Lamb of God" presents an object of peculiar attention and profound admiration. The holy angels,-that innumerable company of spirits who "excel in strength,”- -are represented as deeply interested in the service and glory of the Redeemer. From its infancy, they watched with anxiety the fortunes of the rising church. They announced the birth of Christ with exulting strains; they ministered to Christ in the scenes of his temptation, his agony, and his burial; they cheered his apostles with the first tidings of his resurrection, "He is not here, he is risen." Even after his ascension, they still lingered with a compassionate concern among his sorrowing disciples, and assured them of his final return: 66 Why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus shall come again in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." And in that day of his final return, "when the Son of Man shall come in his glory," there shall be "all the holy angels with him." Accordingly, among the glories which accompany the manifestation of God in the flesh, the apostle enumerates this, that "He was seen of angels :" and he represents the Father as introducing the Son into the world with this proclamation, "Let all the angels of God worship him." It is not improbable that those glorious beings are themselves, in some respect, involved in the blessings of that stupendous plan by which "things in heaven" are gathered together in one centre with "things on earth." Angels may probably be secured in that felicity to which saints are promoted, by the mediation of Jesus Christ and certainly the former are described as taking part with the latter in the songs of praise to the Lamb. "I heard," says John, "the voice of many angels round about the throne, and their number was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, saying, with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain."

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5. Finally, there is a Being of another order, a Being infinitely exalted above any of those already mentioned, whose attention is deeply engaged by the object presented in the text :-God himself is concerned, supremely concerned, in the contemplation of "the Lamb of God." To Him the Redeemer is an object, not indeed of admiration, since the Divine Being can admire nothing, but of infinite complacency and satisfaction. On two conspicuous occasions in the ministry of Jesus Christ, at his baptism and at his transfiguration,-did the Eternal Father proclaim, by a voice from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear Him!" In every part of revelation we find the Son of God represented by the Father as the object of his dearest, his most intense interest. "Behold," says he, “ my servant whom I have chosen! mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth!" "Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth take counsel against the Lord, and against his Anointed; He that sitteth in heaven shall laugh them to scorn: then

shall he speak unto them in his wrath, Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Sion: be wise, therefore, ye kings; kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish!" In the opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews, we read that "God hath appointed his Son, who is the brightness of his glory, the heir of all things;" and that, "to the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom: and thou, Lord, in the beginning hast laid the foundations of the earth; and the heavens are the work of thy hands they shall perish, but thou remainest!" It seems as if the Divine Mind were concentrated—as if all the Deity were busied and intent in the scene of redemption and the person of the Redeemer ! It seems as if the Great Eternal could find no other medium in which he might pour out the whole treasury of his perfections,-satisfy his infinite conceptions and desires, display and harmonize all his various attributes his holiness, his justice, his mercy, and his love,—than Jesus Christ," the power and the wisdom of God!" Here he shines in his complete and blended glory,-at once the "just God," and the justifying Saviour of him that believeth in Jesus Christ. Here, doubtless, is presented an object the most glorious and delightful in the universe of God! There is reason to believe that, in a moral (that is, in the highest) point of view, the Redeemer, in the depth of his humiliation, was a greater object of attention and approbation, in the eye of his Father, than when he sat in his original glory at God's right-hand; the one being his natural, the other peculiarly his moral elevation.

Encompassed by so great a cloud of witnesses, summoned by so many powerful voices, let us all more earnestly than ever attend to this incomparable object: so shall we be prepared for the trials of life, the agonies of death, the solemnities of the judgment, and the felicities of the eternal world; so shall we inherit the unsearchable treasures of grace and glory.

XIV.

THE ADVANTAGES OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT CONTRASTED WITH THE BLESSINGS OF THE SPIRITUAL KINGDOM OF JESUS CHRIST.*

2 SAM. vii. 16, 17.-Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever. According to all these words, and according to all this vision, so did Nathan speak unto David.

[PREACHED AT BRIDGE-STREET MEETING, BRISTOL, SEPTEMBER, 1822, for THE BENEFIT OF THE LONDON MISSIONARY SOCIETY.]

THESE words, you are aware, are part of the message which the Lord addressed to David by the mouth of Nathan, at the time when

Printed from the notes of the Rev. Thomas Grinfield.