Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 3.pdf/242

 Lord, endeavours to serve Him, and to follow Him in all things. In one or other of these senses, the correspondence of the lamb is used throughout the Sacred Scriptures, either as referring to the goodness of innocence in the abstract, or the Lord, His Church, or His individual followers.

To offer a lamb in sacrifice, signifies to worship from the good, or delight, of innocence. The wolf lying down with the lamb, implies the subordination of all the inferior powers of the soul to the good of innocence. To be written in the Lamb's Book of Life, is to have the interiors of the mind imbued with the good of innocence, derived from the Divine humanity of the Lord.

Our Lord declares, "Except we eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, we have no life in us;" that is, except we receive into our souls those principles of Divine goodness and truth represented by His flesh and blood, we cannot be His disciples. As the eating of the paschal lamb preserved those who ate of it from the destroying angel, so the reception of those principles of goodness and innocence, of simple piety and ready obedience, will preserve us from the evils and errors which otherwise would destroy the soul,

It is of no avail to call ourselves the sheep of the Lord's fold, unless we really possess love to Him as the Good Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, and practise obedience to His precepts. Without this, we may have sheep's clothing, we may be covered by a profession, and, to outward appearance, may seem a part and portion of the flock of the Lord; but the evil nature is beneath, and, however men may look upon