understanding; look to Him as raising the dead in trespasses and sins.

But if God would have us read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest the lessons that are thus repeated, how much more earnestly and emphatically does He call upon us to realize the great closing scene itself—the Death and the Resurrection of Jesus. Blessed be His Holy Name, we cannot think of His Son except as One Crucified and Raised again. He is born to be crucified for sinners. We feel that through all His life He had the cross before Him. And when we come to read of His being betrayed, and condemned, and scourged, and crucified, we feel assured that His work, His one work, was the reconciling of the world to God. As we read over St. Matthew, and St. Mark, and St. Luke, and St. John, giving all the same account, we hear St. John the Baptist crying out from his very tomb, "Behold the Lamb of God!" When we read of Pilate saying "Behold the man!" we can scarce think that they are Pilate's words. It seems as if God Himself says, "Behold the man!" Yes, the blessed Lord who has caused all Holy Scripture to be written for our learning has so caused them to be written that we cannot think of Jesus except as One Crucified and Raised again.

All things so point to the cross, all Our

Lord's life so leads to the cross, that we cannot think of Jesus except as One Who was once in our stead upon the cross.

Do we think of the manger at Bethlehem? we think that He who lays there will be crucified. Do we see Him baptized in Jordan? we think of another baptism that yet awaited Him. Do we read of His choosing His Apostles? we know that one will betray Him to be crucified; and we cannot think of the tomb in which He was laid except as one that will shortly be empty; and we cannot think of His resurrection without having our minds carried on to His ascension. He died-He rose again-He appeared first to one disciple, then to another, then to ten at once, then to eleven, and He ascended.

Now why are we thus obliged to think of God's Son, first as an infant with His mother and Joseph, then as baptized and the Dove hovering over Him, then as going about for a short space preaching and teaching, and evil men opposing Him fiercely, and all leading to the judgment hall and the cross and the tomb, and the resurrection, and the appearance as of a spirit, and yet no spirit, and the ascension? Why this image of Christ born, Christ baptized, Christ tempted, Christ healing, Christ teaching, Christ condemned, Christ crucified, Christ risen, Christ ascended? Why do we thus think of Christ when we think of the Bible and what is in it, or when we

hear the name of Christ mentioned? Because God intended it. God has so caused all Holy Scripture to be written for our learning, that He to Whom the law and the prophets and the evangelists and the apostles testify always flashes across our minds as thus Incarnate, Crucified, Risen, Ascended. So that, speaking after the manner of men, we cannot but thus think of Christ. And why did God thus intend us to think of His Son ? In order that thus thinking of Him we may really and truly and with our hearts believe in Him, for to believe in Him as doing all this and suffering all this for us is our life.

So that if we read God's word, we cannot in the nature of things fail to see Christ there-Christ enthroned on the cross. For, as I said, God has so caused all Holy Scripture to be written that all in them points to the cross of Christ. It is the one event of Scripture. Holy Scripture says nothing about the creation of the world compared to what it says about the cross of Jesus Christ, and this because in the cross and resurrection, that can never be separated from it, we have the blessed hope of everlasting life which God has given us in His Son.

Well, then, my beloved, have we so heard, read, marked, learnt and inwardly digested Holy Scripture as to have in very deed embraced the hope of everlasting life there set forth?

This is the end of all Scripture. This is the end of every sermon, this is the end of every sacrament, that we should first embrace the hope of everlasting life which God has given us in his Son, and then hold it fast after we have embraced it. Only think of men having the Bible in their houses, hearing God's word in church, hearing it applied and expounded from the pulpit, and yet, because they will not come to Christ, and forsake sin, having no hope, no real good hope of eternal life.

Let it not be so with any one of us! We glory that we have the Scriptures in our own tongue, we glory in an open Bible. What is the use of this unless we have embraced and are holding fast The One Hope set before us in the Bible? Oh, let ours be the words of the ancient hymn:

Whilst on the cross Thy latest breath
Thou drawest in the pains of death,
Teach us, O Christ, our eyes to raise,
And fix on Thee our steadfast gaze.

Thou, by Thy Cross, Thy saints dost mould;
Thou, by Thy Cross, Thy love hast told;
Thou, by Thy Cross, hast healing given;
Thou, by Thy Cross, hast opened heaven.

So from Thy Cross, as from a throne,
Thou dost command the world alone;
Uplifted on the accursed tree,
Thou drawest all men unto Thee.

Hail, Jesus! Thou Whose graces shower
Upon our lives all cleansing power,

We stand beneath Thy Cross. We would
Be sprinkled with Thy Precious Blood.

To Thee Who gavest Thine Only Son,
To Thee Who hast the victory won,
To Thee, Co-equal Spirit, be

Glory and praise eternally.*

And if we have thus embraced the hope of everlasting life that God has given in Scripture, are we holding it fast? For as we embrace the hope of everlasting life by truly believing in Jesus, so by looking to Him as our perpetual high priest, our intercessor, our example, and our judge, we hold it fast; as the Apostle says, "Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin that doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before Him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God."

* Translation of ancient hymn, "Dum, Christe, confixus cruci," in Chope's collection.