not what they did, but "according to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of GOD."* JESUS, sold to death, is yet a conqueror in the place of His captivity, and what are those words-" FATHER, forgive them, for they know not what they do,”but a manifestation of Himself as another Joseph, if His brethren would but acknowledge Him!

O sweetly forgiving SAVIOUR, Who, even when we will not listen to Thee, wilt yet make known Thy love in accents which we may treasure up and understand hereafter. Reigning upon the cross, Thou speakest to us in forgiving Majesty, “Fear not: for am I in the place of GOD?' Am not I here rather because I am your brother? As for you, ye thought evil against Me; but GOD meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.""†

Our LORD spoke plainly to the same effect to Nicodemus years before. Those words of His, mark Him out as the Lamb of GOD, as often as we draw near to His Holy Altar-"GOD 80 loved the world, that He gave His Only-begotten SON, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."‡ Our Joseph

*Acts ii., 23. + Gen. 1., 19, 20.

S. John iii, 16.

is the Shepherd Who laid down His life for the sheep, becoming as one of them, "Therefore," says He, "doth My FATHER love Me, because I lay down My life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again."-Yet it is not of Myself that I do this, but-" this commandment I have received of My FATHER."* He came to fulfil the law and the prophets.

You may have noticed, my dear brethren, that when I asked you to call up before your minds the figure of CHRIST bleeding upon the Cross, I took not the words of Evangelists, but the scattered predictions of the Hebrew Scriptures. "To Him give all the prophets witness ;" and what is their witness, but the witness of GOD the FATHER Who "spake of old time by them," before He sent His Son into the world. Think not, therefore, that the Lamb of GOD is not a Sacrifice approved of the FATHER. No! For this reason He bids you draw near to feed upon His Flesh and Blood as sure pledges of life, even because the FATHER hath so appointed Him. "Labour not," said

*S. John x., 17, 18. + Acts x., 43.

Heb. i., 1.

JESUS, "for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you: for Him," by many sure marks of type and prophecy, "hath GOD the FATHER sealed"* as the Lamb ordained to take away the sin of the world.

2. But secondly, He is the Lamb of GOD, as being the SON of GOD Who willingly offered Himself.

No mere sacrifice of earth could merit the seal of GOD. The seal of Divine prophecy is an outer witness to the inner seal of Divine life. The Lamb of GOD bears the seal of GOD by eternal generation, as being the brightness of the FATHER'S glory, and the express image of His Person. That seal we cannot now behold, although we worship it Satan could not behold it as he watched maliciously beside the Cross. But it was manifested when He entered into hell through the gates of the grave, and was worshipped there as the Lord of Life, according to the promise of GOD of old, "O grave, I will be Thy destruction." † It was manifested upon earth when He was "declared to be the SON of GOD with power by the resur

rection from the dead,"* an of that seal was His authority of the Older Testament, the ritual which, as He had ful "blotted out, nailing them t when that which is perfect is c part must be done away. He worthy of GOD, for He is the from the foundation of the wo of that Eternal Being whic FATHER, being begotten bef death which should melt us in beside the Cross to-day, is the SON, Who emptied Himself of and took upon Him the for order to "humble Himself" f death, even the death of the "Before Abraham was, I took upon Him the seed of A be said of Him that He was earthly father, when Abrahar chizedek, for He was then i Eternal FATHER, and from th the fulness of time as the So

+ Col. ii., 14 S. J

substance indeed of human nature, but not to seek an origin of personal existence. He Who ever liveth with the FATHER, came to give His life a ransom for many. The Lamb of GOD is not a child of man, exalted by Divine favour to a rank which He could not claim. The Lamb of GOD rules over the works of GOD, "as a son over his own house."* Though in manhood He merited by Divine power what as man He had not, and though as a SON He obtained what being a SON He could not have without receiving it from the FATHER, yet the glory which He claimed, as the reward of His sacrifice, for the manhood wherein that sacrifice was offered, was a glory essentially His own. "O FATHER, glorify Thou Me with Thine own self with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was." Therefore is He now "made so much better than the angels, as He hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they."+

He is thus not merely a sacrifice which GOD is pleased to accept by an act of condescension, but worthy of GOD's acceptance, being Himself Divine. No created offering could have had this character.

* Heb. iii., 6. + S. John xvii., 5.

+ Heb. i., 4.