with the Lord's supper, as they cannot cast off in maturer and more enlightened age.

My dear friends, there is nothing awful in that communion: Jesus took all the awful to himself, and has left to us all the pleasant. He made the sacrifice; we taste the feast that succeeds the sacrifice. He took all the agony; we receive all the blessing. And if there be any festival to which we should come with glad hearts, it is to the communion-table; our jubilee, our congregational festival; that Easter-day when we specially commemorate the fact "the Lord is risen;" that bright and happy day when we look forward to the other truth, that He that rose and reigns will come again; that glad festival in which we sit down at the table of our blessed Lord, and thus actualize the words of the Creed, "the communion of saints." We think too of those that were here before; who are now surrounding a better table, enjoying a brighter fellowship; and we give God thanks for what he has made us, and for what he made them; and we look forward to that happy day when we shall join their loftier communion, and seat ourselves at a table that never shall be drawn. I have noticed myself, during the sixteen years I have ministered in this pulpit, that the communion-table every quarter presents a new aspect; I miss gray hairs, and venerable ones I have often beheld. I miss too once young, and bounding, and hopeful hearts that were once there also. I see new faces taking the place of old ones; and nothing so vividly reminds me within these walls that this is not our home, and that we are pilgrims and strangers, looking for a better city, than our recurring communion-table. When I say our communion-table, it is not mine, it is the Lord's; and if there is any one spot where I rejoice to see all true Christians, whatever be the party to which they belong, it is there. It is not the monopoly of a sect; on it is written, "Do this in remembrance of me: for as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup, ye do show forth the Lord's death till he come."

While I thus show my catholic feeling in this respect, yet at the same time I must say that I prefer our own Scottish form: it is so simple, so beautiful, that the longer I see it the more am I impressed with its simple grandeur, its severe, and, as some would

call it, its stern simplicity. But it matters little whether we kneel, or sit, or stand, if it is at a table surrounded by glad and thankful hearts, who eat this bread and drink this cup because Jesus has suffered that we might suffer no more.

In the next place, I wish to observe, in closing my remarks upon this prayer of Daniel, that the answer was immediate. "While I was speaking," he says, "Gabriel came and touched me." What a striking incident is this! There is a text in the Bible that seems to me expressive of a greater marvel than even the electric telegraph. You know that a question asked at one end may be answered almost instantly two hundred miles away. But there is a text that anticipates the marvel: "It shall come to pass, saith the Lord, that before they call, I will answer, and while they are yet speaking I will hear." A quicker communion with God have we than even that suggested by the wondrous electric telegraph; for God hears us while we speak, answers us before we ask, and in every case "exceeding abundantly above all that we can ask or think."

My impression is, that this Gabriel who was sent to Daniel was not an angel, but the Holy Spirit of God. This conclusion, to which Bishop Heber came, is founded on the derivation of the word, and also upon a passage that occurs in the Gospel of Luke. The word Gabriel means simply "the power of God." Compare Luke i. 19: "I am Gabriel, that stand in the presence of God;" and ver. 26-" Gabriel was sent from God to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph;" and ver. 35—“The angel answered and said unto her, The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee;" which, if literally translated into Hebrew, will be, "and Gabriel shall overshadow thee." It may mean therefore in this place also, the Holy Spirit of God, who takes of the things of Christ and shows them to us. And it seems the more likely, because it was this Gabriel who came and instructed Daniel on a subject on which the Spirit teaches; for what was the nature of his instruction? About Messiah, the Prince. And what is the great office of the Holy Spirit?" He shall take of the things of Christ, and shall show them unto you." It may, however, have been an angel, for

as the apostle teaches us, "angels are ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to them who shall be heirs of salvation." And if Gabriel was a mere angel, he was sent not to claim for himself our adoration, but to execute God's message, and to minister to Daniel. The message was made to Daniel as "Daniel greatly beloved." The acceptance of the person takes place before the answer to the prayer is given. We must first be accepted as Christians before we can pray as Christians. God accepts us first, and then our prayers, to which he sends down an answer.

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LECTURE XXIII.

MESSIAH'S DEATH.

"And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.”—Daniel ix. 26.

I DEFER in this lecture all chronological discussion respecting the epoch which the prophecy plainly intimates. I assume the fact, which cannot be denied, because it has been irresistibly proved, that this relates to the death-I add, the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ. Whether we take the grounds of chronology, or the descriptive language of the passage, it is impossible to come to the conclusion that any other is pointed at here than the Redeemer. I assume, therefore, that this is a prophecy of Christ, as well as the statement of his death, and, by implication, the nature and direction of that death. It was his shame that he was "cut off;" it was his glory that it was "not for himself." It was the evidence that he was man that he died; it was the demonstration that he was more than man, and so his death, very different from ours, that he died not for himself. The death of Christ is the subject of extended prophecy. Isaiah liii. is an exposition of Daniel ix. 26. That wonderful chapter of the evangelical prophet may be called the true crucifix. It describes his death, the nature of his death, the results of his death. It is expressly applied by an inspired apostle to the death of Christ; and therefore, about its application, in a Christian's mind, there can be no doubt whatever. When Peter says, "Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth: who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth

righteously: who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls,"-all this is just the echo of the language of Isaiah, and therefore evidence that Peter clearly understood the 53d of Isaiah to refer to our blessed Lord.

Now, the important truth I am anxious to establish as the testimony of the Spirit is-the sacrificial, or the atoning nature of the death of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; and in order to do so, I will bring forward less the argument of man, and more the simple, but conclusive testimony of the Spirit of God.

Let me notice, however, preliminary to the introduction of the passages that clearly indicate the expiatory, or atoning, or sacrificial, or vicarious nature of the death of Christ,—for all these words have one leading idea running through them,—that in the New Testament, whether in the Gospels or in the Epistles, there is a constant reference made to the death of the Lord Jesus, and far more frequently than to his birth, his life, his example, or to his aboriginal dignity. When he speaks of himself he says, "The Son of man goeth, as it is written of him;" that is, he is about to die, as it has been predicted of him in the prophets. And he alludes again and again in the minutest particulars to this event, as the fulfilment of ancient prophecy. "A bone of him shall not be broken.' "They pierced my hands and my feet." "They parted my raiment, and cast lots for my vesture." All of these are references to his death, the peculiar accompaniments of that death, and to that death as the burden of ancient prophecy, the great central point to which and about which all ancient predictions converge. The death of Jesus, so singularly painful, is represented, throughout Scripture, as that of a perfectly innocent being. His own crucifiers could prove nothing against him. A voice from heaven said, with unearthly majesty, "This is my beloved son, in whom I have been, am, and shall be, well pleased." Judas himself said, "I have betrayed innocent blood." Pilate said, "I find no fault in him." Satan was equally unsuccessful.

If the objectors to the atonement say, "It is not reasonable