darkly. This glass shall be cast away on the confines of the age to come; the eye shall be purged of its weakness and its film; the air shall be light-that light the glory of Deity; and the future vision realized by John in Patmos from the bosom of the Egean sea, shall be seen by us, stretching out before us a glorious panorama a present fact-the completement of the past-the commencement of an ever-brightening future-the fulfilment of all prophecy-the realization of all promise.

Let us love and be thankful for Christian temples upon earth. They are its chiefest beauty, the springs of its peace, the nuclei around which the forlorn hopes of humanity may cluster and find support. Let their hallowed exercises be dear to us; let us accustom ourselves to their air and associations; let us prefer the "swallow's nest" in the rafters of the humblest, to the sheen of palaces or the pageantry of courts. They have been the nurseries of past generations-the springs in the valley of Baca, dug by our forefathers, and filled from the fountains of heaven, from which weary pilgrims have drunk and gone on refreshed, as from strength to strength, till they appeared before God in Zion.

May God, when he takes from us many precious things, in just judgment for our iniquities, spare to us our sanctuaries; and when these fail, may heavenly and better buildings receive us into everlasting habitations!

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LECTURE XI.

MILLENNIAL LIGHT.

"And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof."— Revelation xxi. 23.

THERE are some portions of Scripture which are surrounded by great acknowledged difficulties; and yet there is a solution of them which it is our duty to attempt, by concentrating on them all the light we can command. Difficulties must not discourage us.

The Spirit of God, in all he has written, designs our instruction; and our text and other passages, although admittedly beset with difficulties, are revealed by him, and not to be avoided by us. We ought rather, in a spirit of humility, teachableness, and prayer, to seek the guidance and direction of that Spirit who is promised to teach us "things to come," that he would enable me to unfold, and you to understand them. I desire, first, to show you that our text relates to the future in time, not in eternity. I believe there is scarcely a promise contained in the Apocalypse. that shall not be actualized on earth. I believe it is, from first to last, mainly a description of the church triumphant belownot the church triumphant in heaven. I believe that every portion of it relates to believers in that glorious resurrection state in which they shall appear when Christ shall come and call them to himself, and that this New Jerusalem is the descent of Christ's people from the air into which they had been caught, and that this their settling upon earth will be the great picture and portrait of what grace can gather from the wrecks and ruin of the fall. He says, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth," (that is, a new outward visible economy,) "for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away." And he then says, “And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem," (which we are now de

scribing,) "coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." And then he adds, "And I heard a great voice out of heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and shall be their God." The term Shechinah, the visible glory between the cherubim on the mercy-seat, is derived from a word which means "to dwell." Thus, then, where it is written, "the Word dwelt among us," may be read, "the Word, the Shechinah of glory, was in the midst of us." I believe that that glory which blazed in the bush on Horeb, which shone on Mount Sinai, glowed in the pillar of cloud by day, and the pillar of fire by night, which guided the Israelites across the desert-the glory which finally rested on the mercy-seat, and between the cherubim, and shone in unearthly lustre from the precious stones on the breastplate of the high-priest, revealing things past, present, and to come, was nothing else than the manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person." We know not now what may be the appearance of Christ; we know not what will be the nature of his future personal appearance among us: he will probably come in some bright manifestation like that which shone between the cherubim, and with an effulgence full of glory, which our eyes shall then be prepared to gaze on, of which we can form but a dim and inadequate conception, amid the clouds and shadows of this dispensation. I have called your attention to the character of those who shall dwell in that city. I then endeavoured to assign reasons for its having gates at the east, west, north, and south, corresponding with that beautiful promise, "Many shall come from the east and the west, from the north and from the south, and sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven." I noticed the character of the city-"it lieth four-square;" and showed, by reference to classic writers, that the Greek word translated "four-square," was used to denote strength and solidity; in classic phraseology, "a man to be trusted, a man of stability, permanence, and strength," is literally a four-square man; and the city so described, to indicate its permanence and strength. I then referred to

the precious stones that are to be its foundations, and showed that they might have been designed to teach us that all the wrecks of the fall shall be restored; that those precious and beautiful fragments, which we now value as gems, and which were cast forth and shattered by the great explosion which took place in Paradise, shall all be regathered and restored; and that the earth, so long defaced and marred by the presence of sin, shall again reflect, with a new and everlasting lustre, the brightness of Him who made it once, and reconstructed it again. I believe that the outward material framework on which we live shall undergo a process of change as great as our own bodies; and that the resurrection of our bodies is the nearest representation of what shall be the change which the earth shall experience, when it shall be consumed by the last flames, and restored, renewed, readjusted by the presence of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I showed, too, that on each stone-precious stone-there was inscribed (as we are told) the name of an apostle-the twelve apostles of the Lamb; they were not the foundation, for Christ is the foundation; but their names will be inscribed on these precious stones. I have sometimes wondered if it was the design of the Spirit of God to teach us the character of the apostles by the character of the stones on which their names are to be inscribed. If it was so, we might suppose the sapphire, mild and beautiful in its lustre, to be the representative of John. We might suppose the glowing topaz to be the representative of Paul. We might thus represent each apostle's peculiar excellence, by analyzing the character of the stone. But perhaps this is mere fancy, and not the design of the Spirit of God; if so, it is better let alone. And then it is added, (as I explained last Lord's-day evening,) "I saw no temple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it." I endeavoured to explain this. I showed that it seemed as a gap in the celestial landscape; as if the removal of our temples from the earth were like the removal of the very stars from the o'erarching sky, or of the flowers from the summer scene; for if there be one thing more beautiful than another here below, it is our groups of churches and worshipping assemblies, and the extinction of them would be like the extinction of the brightest and most lovely features

the whole moral landscape. But I showed the meaning to be, not that there should be no worship, but that there should be no visible sequestered temples for the performance of it; in a word, that the whole earth will be one vast temple, and all its inhabitants but one great body of holy and happy worshippers.

First I said there would be no Socinian's temple in heaven; if he get there it is in spite of his Socinianism, and the reason why I say so is not from any uncharitableness, but because I notice that in all the songs and anthems of the redeemed around the throne, every one ascribes to Jesus glory, and honour, and thanksgiving an ascription in which the Socinian can never join. It is plain, then, that there are no Socinian songs in heaven, but the very reverse: therefore there can be no Socinian temple or worship there. I noticed also that there would be no Romish temple there, for the very obvious reason that the accent "Ave Maria" is not once uttered by the worshipping hosts. "Abba, Father," is the burden of their song: they give no honour either to saints or angels: it rises undividedly and exclusively to Jesus: "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing." I showed, too, that there would be no denominational templesno Wesleyan, Episcopalian, or Presbyterian temples in heavennot one. These names are all merged in the splendour of one name- -the first name by which our Lord's disciples were designated upon earth, that is, "Christians;" and thus the name pronounced in scorn, or otherwise, at Antioch, shall be pronounced with hosannahs in the New Jerusalem. "Christian" shall be the unique, the all-absorbing, all-comprehending name; and sect, and party, and denomination shall be for ever discarded and cast away. Neither will there be any stated hours of worship there, for every hour shall be holy; nor stated places of worship, for the whole earth shall be holy. Now, the universe is the imperfect temple of God; then, God shall be the glorious temple of the universe. Now, the worshippers are few: they who despise him many; then "all shall know him, from the least even to the greatest; and a mighty multitude, which no man can number, bearing palms in their hands, shall give honour and thanksgiving and praise to our God and to the Lamb for ever and ever." And