ng of the first-born could never atone
for the sin of the soul--may we not suppose that from their lips also
the same inquiry was elicited, Where is the lamb? Nature cannot answer
that cry. She is fascinating, especially when she dimples with the
smile of spring, and unveils her face in summer to receive the caresses
of the sun. But with all her beauty and fascination she cannot answer
the entreaty of the conscience that the penalty of sin may be removed,
its power broken, so that man may walk with God with a fearless heart.
Animals at the best are only symbols of the complete solution to the
ever-recurring problem of human sin: thus from all the ages goes forth
the cry, Where is the lamb? Then from his heaven God sends forth his
Son to be the sufficient answer to the universal appeal: and the
heaven-sent messenger, from his rocky pulpit, as he sees Jesus coming
to him, cries, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of
the world."

Dear soul, thou mayest venture on Him. He is God's Lamb; on Him the
sin of our race has been laid, and He stood before God with the
accumulated load--"made sin"; the iniquity of us all was laid upon Him;
wounded for our transgressions; bruised for our iniquities; chastised
for our peace; stricken for our transgression; bearing the sin of many.
As the first Adam brought sin on the race, the second Adam has put it
away by the sacrifice of Himself. Men are lost now, not because of
Adam's sin, nor because they were born into a race of sinners, but for
the sin which they presumptuously and wilfully commit, or because by
unbelief they contract themselves out of the benefits of Christ's
death. The servant who had been forgiven by his king, but took his
brother by the throat, brought back upon himself the full penalty from
which the royal warrant had freed him; and if any one of us cling to
sin, rejecting and trampling under foot the Saviour's work on our
behalf, we cancel so far all those benefits of our Saviour's passion
which otherwise would accrue, and bring back upon ourselves the
penalties from which He would fain have delivered us.

(3) _He understood the baptism of the Holy Spirit_. "The same is He
that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit." As Son of God, our Saviour from
all eternity was one with the Holy Spirit in the mystery of the blessed
Trinity; but as "the one Man," He received in his human nature the
fulness of the Divine Spirit. It pleased the Father that in Him shou