stifled amidst general interests, and who would fain assert that each soul is sacred and infinite. Believe in one, who was in all points tempted like as we are; who bore the sins of each man on Himself; who was heard in that he feared; who has entered into the presence of God, to utter the cry of every captive, to present the blood that is shed for every man; who is yet the King of all, the Head of the Church, the Priest of the Universe; and you can find that the individual man is only the more distinct, and the more wonderful, because he is but one of a Society. There are some who are overwhelmed by the miseries of the earth, on which mountains of evil seem to have been growing, from the day that Adam fell. Believe in that strong crying of the Son of Man, and the Son of God. Believe that it was heard against sin, death and hell; then we shall be sure that every tyranny, and every anarchy, is falling before Him; that every enemy of the earth and of God must be put under his footstool; that peace and freedom must prevail wherever strife and slavery have been, because God has willed it, and Christ has done his will on earth as it is done in heaven.

SERMON XVIII.

THE ADORATION OF THE LAMB.

(Lincoln's Inn, 7th Sunday after Trinity, July 30, 1854.)

REVELATIONS I. 5, 6.

• Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.'

MANY persons seem to fancy that the Apocalypse consists mainly of prophecies, or intimations concerning that which shall come to pass in the latter days. That it contains such prophecies,-that its lessons respecting the future should be deeply pondered, because they are lessons upon which we may act-not mere guesses about times and seasons, with which we may amuse ourselves-I thoroughly believe. But I do not think we shall find out their precious import, unless we dwell earnestly upon such a passage as the one I have read to you; the language of which, you will perceive, points to that which is, and to that which has been done.

Some may suppose it a mere interjectional sentence,

the expression of a strong passionate feeling, not a part of the substance of the work, not one which can give us any hint respecting its character. The more you read the Apocalypse, the more you will feel that thanksgivings and doxologies of this kind are inseparable from its texture; that you would lose its meaning and purpose if you lost them. Flourishes of rhetoric do not belong to a Bible: they belong, least of all, to that book of the Bible which gathers its previous revelations into one; which explains the very nature of revelation; which shows us in whom, and for what ends, God has revealed Himself, and does reveal Himself in one age or another.

But such a book is the very one, in which words that can no longer be profaned to purposes of ambition and display, acquire their full force as expressions of the mind of God, as the echo of that mind in man. He that bore witness of the Word of God, and of Jesus Christ, and of the things which he saw, had learnt that from that Word all the life of things and of men was derived; that the crucified man was that Word made flesh; that all his visible acts of power and meekness were the outcomings of that which eye had not seen nor ear heard. He had learnt that the Word had been on earth, and suffered and died, that the enslaved spirit and body of his creatures might be set free, that the tongue of the stammerer and of the dumb might be loosed, and might speak plainly. He was claiming the

redemption which had been won for him, he was exercising the freedom of a spiritual creature, when he sent back his ascription of praise to Christ, who had loved him and emancipated him.

Το

According to one reading of the text, the word 'loosed,' or 'emancipated,' ought to be substituted for our word 'washed.' I do not say which is the best reading; there are internal, as well as external, arguments in favour of each. The word 'blood,' and the analogy to Baptism, made our translators partial to one phrase ; the perpetual allusions to Redemption in connexion with sins, may incline some to adopt the other. A more important hint is conveyed by a change of the tense in the preceding word ἀγαπῶντι for ἀγαπήσαντι. Him who loveth,' for 'to Him who loved us.' The present tense seems certainly more in harmony with the spirit of the beloved disciple generally, and with the context of this passage particularly. A third variation in this passage introduces some difficulty into the construing of it; for 'kings,' in the last clause, we are told that we ought to read 'kingdom.' In that case we can only suppose that St. John here, as in many other places, was falling back into Old Testament forms of expression; that the phrase 'kingdom of priests,' with which he was familiar, was dwelling in his mind; and that he did not take any pains to translate it grammatically into the language in which he was writing. The meaning cannot be essentially different from that which

our version embodies. I shall, therefore, adhere to it. Let us now consider the passage clause by clause.

I. 'To Him that hath loved, or that loveth.' Since there cannot be a moment's doubt that Jesus Christ is the object of this ascription, the thought may easily intrude itself, After all, it is to Him, and not to the Father, ' that the most inspired teachers turn in their moments ' of rapture; His love presents itself to them as their 'real strength and consolation; upon it they rest; what 'lies beyond it is dark, if not terrible.' That you may understand how far this suggestion is reasonable, turn to the opening of the fifth verse; consider the titles by which our Lord is there denoted. Pause especially on the first of them. He is called 'the faithful witness.' A faithful witness to what? St. John must interpret himself: This is the message,' he says, in his first Epistle, which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all!' Or, take the report which he gives of our Lord's own last prayer with his Apostles, on the night before the crucifixion, that which we were reading in our course of lessons yesterday: O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee; but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent me. And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it; that the love wherewith Thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them.' Jesus Christ, according to St. John, according to Himself, is the faithful witness of His Father. The