His side, He promised a place in Paradise: and the last words that broke from the Redeemer's lips, what were they but hope for our Humanity, while the curses were ringing in His ears?—" Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

Now, it is this hopefulness that raises hope in us. Christian brethren, we dare to hope for that nature which Jesus loved, we dare to forgive that nature which Jesus condescended to wear. This frail, evil, weak Humanity of ours, these hearts that yield to almost every gust of temptation, the Son of Man hoped for them. And it is done by Love; hate narrows the heart, love expands the heart. To hate is to be miserable; to love is to be happy. To love, is to have almost the power of throwing aside sin. See the power of love in the hearts of those around Him. He comes to a desponding man, nourishing dark thoughts of the world; He speaks encouragingly, and the language of that man is, "Lord, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest." He goes to a man who had loved money all his life. He treats him as a Man, and the man's heart is conquered: "Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor." He comes to the coward, who had denied Him, and asks him simply, "Lovest thou Me?" and the coward becomes a martyr, and dares to ask to be crucified. He comes to a sinful woman, who had spent large sums on the adornment of her person, and the ointment which was intended for herself was poured in love upon His feet, mingling with her tears. "She loved

much," and much was forgiven.

And it was not during the Redeemer's life alone, that the power of His love extended. It was manifested also after His death. There was the healing act done on the man who asked for alms. For this the apostles were carried before the Sadducees, and the man on whom this miracle was done stood by them, full of strength and courage. The day before he had been a miserable, cringing suppliant, beseeching pity from the passers-by. But all the wailing tone is gone; the attitude of the suppliant has passed away,

and the renovated cripple fronts the supreme judicature of
Israel with a lion heart. Ask you what has inspired and
dignified that man, and raised him higher in the scale of
Humanity? It was the power of love. It is not so much
the manifestation of this doctrine or that doctrine, that can
separate the soul from sin. It is not the Law.
It is not

by pressing on the lower nature to restrain it, that this can
be done, but it is by elevating it. He speaks not to the
degraded of the sinfulness of sin, but He dwells upon the
Love of the Father, upon His tender mercies; and if a man
would separate himself from the bondage of guilt, there is
no other way than this. My Christian brethren, forget that
miserable past life of yours, and look up to the streams of
mercy ever flowing from the right hand of God.

My brethren, it is on this principle that we desire to preach to the heathen. We would preach neither High Church nor Low Church doctrine. We desire to give Jesus Christ to the world; and in pleading for this [missionary] society I will not endeavour to excite your sympathies by drawing a picture of the heathen world suspended over unutterable misery, and dropping minute by minute into everlasting wretchedness. It is easy to do this; and then to go away calmly and quietly to our comfortable meals, and our handsome habitations, satisfied with having demonstrated so tremendous a fact. But this we say, if we would separate the world from sin, and from the penalty of sin, and the inward misery of the heart attendant on sin in this world, and the world to come, it is written in Scripture, "There is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved,” than the name of Jesus.

THE SANCTIFICATION OF CHRIST

JOHN Xvii. 19.-"And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth."

THE prayer in which these words occur is given to us by the Apostle John alone. Perhaps only St. John could give it, for it belongs to the peculiar province of his revelation. He presents us with more of the heart of Christ than the other apostles with less of the outward manifestations. He gives us more conversations—fewer miracles: more of the inner life-more of what Christ was, less of what Christ did.

St. John's mind was not argumentative, but intuitive. There are two ways of reaching truth: by reasoning it out and by feeling it out. All the profoundest truths are felt out. The deep glances into truth are got by Love. Love a man, that is the best way of understanding him. Feel a truth, that is the only way of comprehending it.

Not that you can put your sense of such truths into words in the shape of accurate maxims or doctrines, but the truth is reached, notwithstanding. Compare 1 Cor. ii. 15, 16.

Now St. John felt out truth. He understood his Lord by loving him. You find no long trains of argument in St. John's writings: an atmosphere of contemplation pervades all. Brief, full sentences, glowing with imagery of which the mere prose intellect makes nonsense, and which a warm heart alone interprets, that is the character of his writing: very different from the other apostles. St. Peter's knowledge of Christ was formed by impetuous mistakes, corrected slowly and severely. St. Paul's Christianity was formed by principles wrought out glowing hot, as a smith hammers out ductile iron, in his unresting, earnest fire of thought, where the Spirit dwelt in warmth and light for ever, kindling the Divine fire of inspiration. St. John and St. John's Christianity were formed by personal view of Christ, intercourse with Him, and by silent contemplation. Slowly, month by

month and year by year, he gazed on Christ in silence, and thoughtful adoration: "Reflecting as from a glass the glory of the Lord," he became like Him-caught His tones-His modes of thought-His very expressions, and became partaker of his inward life. A "Christ was formed in him."

Hence it was that this prayer was revealed to St. John alone of the apostles, and by him alone recorded for us. The Saviour's mind touched his: through secret sympathy he was inspired with the mystic consciousness of what had passed and what was passing in the deeps of the soul of Christ. Its secret longings and its deepest struggles were known to John alone.

This particular sentence in the prayer which I have taken for the text was peculiarly after the heart of the Apostle John. For I have said that to him the true life of Christ was rather the inner Life than the outward acts of life. Now this sentence from the lips of Jesus speaks of the Atoning Sacrifice as an inward mental act rather than as an outward deed a self-consecration wrought out in the Will of Christ. For their sakes I am sanctifying myself. That is a resolve -a secret of the inner Life. No wonder that it was recorded by St. John.

The text has two parts.

I. The sanctification of Jesus Christ. II. The sanctification of His people.

"For

I. Christ's sanctification of Himself. "For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth."

We must explain this word "sanctify; upon it the whole meaning turns. Clearly it has not the ordinary popular sense here of making holy. Christ was holy. He could not by an inward effort or struggle make Himself holy, for He was that already.

Let us trace the history of the word "sanctify" in the early pages of the Jewish history.

When the destroying angel smote the first-born of the Egyptian families, the symbolic blood on the lintel of every

Hebrew house protected the eldest born from the plague of death. In consequence, a law of Moses viewed every eldest son in a peculiar light. He was reckoned as a thing devoted to the Lord-redeemed, and therefore set apart. The word used to express this devotion is sanctify. "The Lord said unto Moses, sanctify unto me all the first-born, whatsoever openeth the womb among the children of Israel, both of man and of beast: it is mine."

By a subsequent arrangement these first-born were exchanged for the Levites. Instead of the eldest son in each family, a whole tribe was taken, and reckoned as set apart and devoted to Jehovah, just as now a substitute is provided to serve in war in another's stead. Therefore the tribe of Levi were said to be sanctified to God.

Ask we what was meant by saying that the Levites were sanctified to God? The ceremony of their sanctification will explain it to us. It was a very significant one. The priest touched with the typical blood of a sacrificed animal. the Levite's right hand, right eye, right foot. This was the Levite's sanctification. It devoted every faculty and every power-of seeing, doing, walking, the right hand faculties -the best and choicest-to God's peculiar service. was a man set apart.

He

To sanctify, therefore, in the Hebrew phrase, meant to devote or consecrate. Let us pause for a few moments to gather up the import of this ceremony of the Levites.

The first-born are a nation's hope; they may be said to represent a whole nation. The consecration therefore of the first-born was the consecration of the entire nation by their representatives. Now the Levites were substituted for the first-born. The Levites consequently represented all Israel; and by their consecration the life of Israel was declared to be in idea and by right a consecrated life to God. But further still. As the Levites represented Israel, so Israel itself was but a part taken for the whole, and represented the whole human race. If any one thinks this fanciful, let him remember the principle of representation on which the whole Jewish system was built. For example