medium by which this divine life is imparted and received. There must be a medium of contact between the benefit and the subject of that benefit; between the eternal life provided, and the Spirit for which it is provided. This connecting medium is faith. Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through Jesus Christ. Faith is the link of union between the salvation as prepared and perfect without ourselves, and our own personal being.

This is beautifully, though briefly, expressed by Peter, when he assures the cripple whom he had healed, that the cure had been effected through the medium of faith: "His name, through faith in His name, hath made this man whole." Faith was as necessary in the subject of the cure, as the name itself on which his faith relied. The work of the Spirit of Christ on the heart, is as necessary to our salvation as the work of Christ himself, his obedience unto death, and his intercession in heaven.

4. In the last place, the subject concurs with the occasion to remind us of the duty, the obligation under which we lie, to impart the knowledge and enjoyment of these vital, eternal blessings, to our suffering fellow-sinners. The civil, and merely temporal benefits of christianity, are great: the water of life, in its passage through a country, diffuses innumerable improvements wherever it pursues its peaceful course;-the very leaves of the tree of life are given for the healing of the nations. But far be it from us to recommend the civil as the great and ultimate blessings of the gospel: these

are of a spiritual and eternal nature; furnishing a perfect antidote to the dread of death-a perfect satisfaction for the desire of life, so deeply implanted in the human breast.

XIII.

NOTES OF THE FOLLOWING SERMON,

TRANSCRIBED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT OF MR. HALL.

"Behold the Lamb of God."

1. The import of this appellation.

1. The peculiar features of His personal character.
2. The design of His death.

1. His personal character. His innocence. His patience. "Such a High-Priest became us, &c."

2. He was the Paschal Lamb. Exod. xii.

Draw the parallel in several particulars. Both sacrifices the instrument of effecting a great deliverance. The benefit of both, moral, not physical. The lamb must be perfect, offered by and for all the people. Blood sprinkled. Not a bone broken. Time of offering.

II. The purport of the exclamation,-that He is an object of attention. Its most proper object. Three qualities entitled to attention.

1. Intrinsic greatness. An incarnate Deity, the Ruler of all things, the mysterious Mediator and Advocate.

2. Newness. What so new as the invisible Creator clothed in human flesh-The Ancient of Days cradled as an infant;-He who upholdeth all things sinking under a

weight of suffering;-the Lord of glory expiring on the cross; -the Light of the world sustaining an awful eclipse ;—the Sun of Righteousness immerged in the shadow of death?

3. The relation an object bears to our interest. The Lamb of God a most interesting object to all classes of men: (1.) To sinners; (2.) To saints."*

ANALYSIS OF THE SERMON,

AS REPRESENTED IN THE FOLLOWING PAGES.

I. Import of the appellation, "Lamb of God."

1. Features of the personal character of Christ: (1.) Innocence; (2.) Patience.

2. Design of his appearance.

Points of resemblance between His sacrifice and the Passover. In each, (1.) A great deliverance achieved; (2.) A destruction, otherwise inevitable, averted; (3.) The benefit moral, not physical; (4.) The personal qualities of the victims similar; (5.) The blood required to be sprinkled; (6.) The sacrifice to be regarded by the whole congregation; (7.) The time of the offering the same; (8.) No bone to be broken; (9.) The passover prepared by fire, as an emblem of torture. II. Design of the exclamation, "Behold!"

An object worthy of supreme attention from all :

1. From sinners. Three qualities which command attention, exhibited here in the highest degrees: (1.) Greatness; (2.) Novelty; (3.) Usefulness.

2. From believers.

3. From the redeemed in glory.

4. From the holy angels.

5. From the Divine Being.

* These notes give the plan of the sermon as it was preached at Bedford at Bristol the application of the text was extended, as the following sketch represents, to all orders of beings.

[PREACHED AT BROADMEAD, BRISTOL, NOVEMBER, 1820, AND AGAIN AT BEDFORD, MARCH, 1821.]

JOHN i. 35, 36.-Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God ! *

THE forerunner of our Lord manifested a peculiar anxiety to impress the minds of his hearers with a conviction that he was not himself the Messiah. Yet there appears to have existed a party among his disciples, who entertained an improper attachment to his ministry, preferring it to that of our Lord. Their disciples constituted two distinct classes the partizans of John, disposed to exalt his pretensions greatly beyond their real nature and his own assertions, seem to have countenanced the opinion that he was the great expected personage. To counteract such a fatal misconception, the Baptist embraced every opportunity of referring his followers to Jesus Christ, as well as of explaining his own character. He was, as he represented, "the voice crying in the wilderness, Prepare the way of the Lord;" he was "the friend of the Bridegroom," not the Bridegroom himself: and,

* The present transcript is the result of the notes taken by the Rev. T. Grinfield, at Bristol, collated with the notes taken at Bedford.

with the same view, he uttered, on two occasions, the declaration contained in the passage just read. The testimony there expressed is not the first which he had borne to Christ: it appears that on the preceding day he had announced Jesus as "the Lamb of God, who taketh away the sin of the world:" and, as the evangelist relates, in the text, "Again the next day after John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!"

While we admire the disinterestedness of this great man in endeavouring to convince his converts that Jesus Christ was infinitely his superior, we cannot help supposing that, probably, his ministry and his life were the sooner closed, in consequence of the inordinate attachment of his adherents. It was unfit that he should remain as a rival to the Saviour: he was therefore withdrawn from the scene, and his ministry prematurely closed, that every degree of confidence for salvation might be removed from the creature, to be fixed on the Saviour alone.

In considering the testimony borne to Jesus Christ in the text, I shall direct your attention, first, to the import of the appellation; and then to the purport of the exclamation, as it may be understood to express the claim which Jesus Christ possesses to the attention of every order of beings.

I. The import of the appellation, "the Lamb of God." There are two things which, in all probability, John had in his view when he used this appellation: the distinguishing features of our