Thus would I urge the reader to seek faith; but if he be unwilling, what more can I do? I have brought the horse to the water, but I cannot make him drink. This, however, be it remembered--_unbelief is wilful when evidence is put in a man's way, and he refuses carefully to examine it_. He that does not desire to know, and accept the truth, has himself to thank if he dies with a lie in his right hand. It is true that "he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved": it is equally true that "he that believeth not shall be damned." [Illustration] A HELPFUL SURVEY. To help the seeker to a true faith in Jesus, I would remind him of the work of the Lord Jesus in the room and place and stead of sinners. "When we were yet without strength, in due time CHRIST DIED FOR THE UNGODLY" (Rom. v. 6). "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree" (1 Pet. ii. 24). "The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Is. liii. 6). "For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the Just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God" (1 Pet. iii. 18). Upon one declaration of Scripture let the reader fix his eye. "WITH HIS STRIPES WE ARE HEALED" (Is. liii. 5). God here treats sin as a disease, and he sets before us the costly remedy which he has provided. I ask you very solemnly to accompany me in your meditations, for a few minutes, while I bring before you the stripes of the Lord Jesus. The Lord resolved to restore us, and therefore he sent his only-begotten Son, "very God of very God," that he might descend into this world to take upon himself our nature, in order to our redemption. He lived as a man among men; and, in due time, after thirty years or more of obedience, the time came when he should do us the greatest service of all, namely, stand in our stead, and bear "the chastisement of our peace." He went to Gethsemane, and there, at the first taste of our bitter cup, he sweat great drops of blood. He went to Pilate's hall, and Herod's judgment-seat, and there drank draughts of pain and scorn in our room and place. Last of all, they took him to the cross, and nailed him there to die--to die in our stead. The word "stripes" is used to set forth his sufferings, both of body and of soul. The whole of Christ was made a sacrifice for us: his whole manhood suffered. As to his body, it shared with his mind in a grief that never can be described. In the beginning of his passion, when he emphatically suffered instead of us, he was in an agony, and from his bodily frame a bloody sweat distilled so copiously as to fall to the ground. It is very rarely that a man sweats blood. There have been one or two instances of it, and they have been followed by almost immediate death; but our Saviour lived--lived after an agony which, to anyone else, would have proved fatal. Ere he could cleanse his face from this dreadful crimson, they hurried him to the high priest's hall. In the dead of night they bound him, and led him away. Anon they took him to