^ Says Drummond : The whole of a man's nature is built up. I might say, of cells. One after another, good and bad, ail things have become part of him. His sins have made sin a part of him. That unkind thing you say or do makes you an unkind character. That selfish thing you do makes you selfish, pure and holy and noble thoughts are turned out, and you become an animal. Paul says, " Wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this dead body ? " Chained as they were in those dark dungeons of the East, if one prisoner died he was left chained to the man next him. . . . "This dead body" — it was Sin. But, gentlemen, we are making dead bodies with our own hands and lives : cell by cell we become dead. Sin is a part of one, and the end of these things is death, and all of a sudden some morning we awake and say, " Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this dead body ? " ^
^ Modern masters of science are much impressed with the need of beginning all inquiry with a fact. The ancient masters of religion were quite equally impressed with that necessity. They began with the fact of sin — a fact as practical as potatoes. Whether or not man could be washed in miraculous waters, there was no doubt at any rate that he wanted washing. But certain religious leaders in London, not mere Materialists, have begun in our day not to deny the highly disputable water, but to deny the indisputable dirt. Certain new theologians dispute original sin, which is the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.*
1 E. Waddell, Behold the Lamb of God, 123.
* The Life of Henry Drummond, 478. * G. K. Chesterton, OHXodoxy.
ST. JOHN I. 29 83
I still, to suppose it true, for my part, See reasons and reasons ; this, to begin :
Tis the faith that launched point-blank her dart At the head of a lie — taught Original Sin,
The Corruption of Man's Heart.^
II.
The Lamb of God.
1. In the conception of Jesus as the Lamb of God, to be offered in expiation of human transgressions, the religious genius of the Baptist reaches (if the expression may be used) its high- water mark. So intense was his appreciation of the real significance of moral evil that he saw that while the utmost a guilty soul can do is to repent, yet more is necessary in the counsels of God if forgiveness is to become a full possibility. There must be the actual removal of human guilt through the self-oblation of the Christ. It was a great venture of thought, even although there was that in the literature of the Old Testament which pointed the way. Here and there in Israel there must have been natures — Simeon's seems to have been one of them — which were capable of recognizing the justice and force of such an anticipation ; but it was very different with the almost universal sentiment of the nation. St. John stood nearly by himself in his realization of the profound truth. Flesh and blood had not revealed it unto him.
2. It has sometimes been asked and debated, To which of the lambs of sacrifice, ordained in the Old Testament, did the Baptist here refer; to which did he liken that immaculate Lamb, who, being without spot and stain, should take away our spots and stains, and bear the collective sin of the world ? Did St. John allude to the daily lamb of the morning and evening sacrifice ? or was it to the lamb of the passover, commemorating the old deliverance from Egypt ? or was it to some other of the many lambs which were prescribed in the law of Moses, as a portion of the ritual of sacrifice appointed there ? The question is surely a superfluous one. The reference is not special, but comprehensive. It is to none of these in particular, being indeed
* Browning, Gold Hair,
84 THE LAMB OF GOD
to them all. They severally set forth in type and in figure some part of that which He fulfilled in substance and in life ; in Him, not now a lamb of men, but the Lamb of God, being at length fulfilled to the uttermost the significant word of Abraham, " God will provide himself a lamb."
(1) One thing that was associated with the lamb in the '^ . sacrifices of which it was the centre was innocence. Innocence belongs conceivably to two stages of life. We speak of the innocence of a child. We do not mean, if we understand our words, that he is free from sin. We mean that he has not yet actually done wrong. But in the case of Christ, we mean some- thing more than that.
^ As children emerge into manhood, innocence passes, and it ^\ is one of the sore regrets of life that it comes back no more. uYou remember the beautiful sonnet in which Charles Lamb V utters his grief for the loss of innocence —
We were two pretty babes ; the youngest she — The youngest, and the loveliest far (I ween). And innocence her name. The time has been We two did love each other's company; - Time was we two had wept to have been apart. But when by show of seeming good beguiled, I left the garb and manners of a child, '' And my first love for man's society,