ings; and it is this love which shall raise you at last, sanctified by sorrow, purified by death, to wield the sceptre and wear the crown, in the Jerusalem of the redeemed on high. "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you

before the foundation of the world."

"THESE THINGS HAVE I SPOKEN UNTO YOU, THAT IN ME YE MIGHT HAVE PEACE."

III.

The Lamb of God.

Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."-JOHN I. 29.

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me."-JOHN XII. 32.

“These things have I spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace."-JOHN XVI. 33.

HE first Gospel record in the Gospel accord

THE

ing to St. John is, "The Word," "who was with God, who was God," "was made flesh, and dwelt among us." The second is, The second is, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world." The Incarnation, as we have seen, was the manifestation of the Father; the work of the Incarnate One. was the reconciliation of the Father and the world.

Not the reconciliation of the Father to the world,

for His coming was the gift of the Father, the outflow of His love to man. Nor simply to reconcile the world unto the Father, unless you understand that the atonement is the way of the reconciliation of the Father with the world. He had come to reconcile the world unto the Father, by opening the way by which the love of the Father could righteously reveal itself to man. The atonement is the meeting ground, the only possible meeting ground, of man and God. Thither the Father comes; thither He draws the sinner. meeting ground there is none. “Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.” "Who of God is made unto us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, and redemption."

Other

It was the very last thing which those Jews were thinking about, a Redeemer from sin, when they sent Priests and Levites from Jerusalem to John, to ask him, Who art thou? They, too, remember, had their dream of peace. They were afflicted, tormented, under the iron yoke of the Roman dominion; to them it was intensely galling that God's elect freemen, the people whose national liberties

had been founded, and ofttimes defended by terrible judgments, by the visible hand of God, should pass under the yoke of pagan conquerors, and be indebted to the intolerance of the lords of this world for liberty to pay their worship to their Heavenly King. Their fierce interruption of the Saviour, "We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man; how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?" shows how deeply the iron had entered into their very hearts. They hated Cæsar with a fury of hate, second only to that with which they hated Him who came to declare the Father, instead of the splendid warrior and conqueror, to the world. While they cringed slavishly before Pilate, and said, “We have no king but Cæsar," that they might make the Roman their tool in hunting incarnate Truth and Love to a bloody and shameful death, they were raging against Cæsar, and cursing him in their hearts. They had a dream of peace, and they needed it badly enough, the wretched, enslaved, tormented people, whose fetters their struggles but locked more tightly on their quivering limbs; the sport of masters who repaid their raging fury with a smile of lofty, imperturbable scorn. They needed, badly enough,

rest, deliverance, peace. And they dreamed a dream of it-thus:

A great conqueror, a strong king, shall arise for us from David's line. He shall lift up the standard of the Lord God of Israel; He shall plant His armed foot on Zion, and the myriads of Israel shall swarm to His banners. The ancient spirit of the people and their conquering chiefs, "of Gideon, of Barak, of Samson, of Jepthæ, of David also, and Samuel and the prophets," shall descend and inspire the host. The Lion of the tribe of Judah, with Divine, resistless force, shall sweep through the world on His conquering mission; before the onset of His armies, Rome and every worldly power shall fall. The Lord's elect nation shall pass up once more to the world's high places; the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains; the law of the great Lawgiver of Israel shall rule the world in righteousness, and we, delivered from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us, elevated and purified by the strain of this glorious enterprise, shall see the dream of our hearts realised, and shall thus enter into rest.

Their minds were full of such dreams and hopes,