sedate minds, of high excellence of character, and of undoubted probity, lest haply we be found despising not men but God. What though we cannot tell, nor it may be they themselves, how these raptures were excited within them, or how they could distinguish them from the operations of their own minds, or from the effect of some purely human agency, it does not follow that they could not be a divine and blessed reality, and so evidenced to themselves beyond contradiction! It cannot be questioned that God is able to make such communications of joy to the human mind, with such a self-evidencing light of its divine source, as should preclude the possibility of doubt. Instead of doubting or disputing, therefore, far better would it be for each of us to say, "If there be such an experience to be obtained; such a sabbath for the soul on earth, such an enjoyment of heaven before we enter it, would that it were mine !"

Yet must we not live upon these excitements; nor upon the expectation of them. The ordinary witness of the Spirit, by our own consciousness of possessing a gracious character, may be, and doubtless is, sufficient to carry us with comfort through our earthly pilgrimage. These illapses of the spirit, these enkindlings of heavenly joys, are cordials to exhilirate rather than daily nourishment to support. They teach us what

God can do, and has in store for us. Yet nothing hinders but our own unwatchfulness and unbelief, from aspiring after something of the same kind. Let us not forget, that in moments when these joys are least expected, but most needed, they may be enkindled within us. In some dire calamity, in the hour and power of Satan's temptation; under the stroke of bereavement, which rends the heart from earthly joys, and leaves it open to none but spiritual consolations; or in the conflict of nature's last sighs, these consolations of God with us may be neither few nor small. If, then, there be days of darkness before us, let us not, in anticipating their possibility, fail to anticipate the rainbow of hope in the cloud.

Days of prosperity, through this work of the Divine Spirit, yet await the christian church beyond what she has ever known. These will fully redeem the prophetic pledges of her future glory. Her sun shall then no more go down. Prosperity, not only external but internal, shall distinguish her coming age; for the church will increase intensively and extensively at the same time. Then will the glorious Being dwell again illustriously in his holy temple. Its altars shall have fresh offerings laid upon them; its lights be all re-kindled, and its courts be filled with a fragrant and ascending incense well-pleasing unto God. Not literally, but spiritually; for the

temple of God in the last days will be no material edifice, but the souls of men inhabited by the gracious Spirit of God. Then the church will lose herself from the bands of her neck, will arise and put on her beautiful garments, for his glory shall be seen upon her, and its divine irradiations will create a millennium of universal joy and gladness.

"But the nearer we approach on earth to the heavenly state," says the great Mr. Howe, "which only a more copious and general pouring forth of the blessed Spirit will infer, the more capable shall we be of inward and outward prosperity, both together. Then will our differences vanish of course. The external pompousness of the church will be less studied, the life and spirit of it much more; and if I may express my own sense on this matter, it should be in the words of that most worthy ancient, (Isidore of Pelusium) namely, that supposing an option or choice were left me, I would choose to have lived in a time when the temples were less adorned with all sorts of marbles, the church not being destitute of spiritual graces."

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DISCOURSE VIII.

THE SEALING AND EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT.

"In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory."—Ephesians, 1, 13, 14.

We find abundant provision made in the gospel for the hope and comfort of all who are true believers in Christ. They are assured of a title to the favour and bliss of the Almighty, through the merits and sacrifice of him who is their covenant head and surety they are informed of his perpetual meritorious intercession on their behalf in the heavenly temple, so that they may draw nigh to God in worship, with the full confidence of the acceptance of their worship, and of answers

to their requests, through the medium of his gracious advocacy: and they have also a revelation made to them of that future heaven which they are destined to inherit, and for the enjoyment of which they are now undergoing a course of holy preparation. The types of this heaven, under the former economy, are transferred to them in their full significancy. They behold a celestial Canaan, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, peopled with troops of holy angels, to whom have been gathered the spirits of just men from this earth out of all past ages, and with whom they are to be united on their dismissal from the body. Still more, that body itself, they are apprized, will re-appear at a future day adorned with light and glory; and, in their re-possession of it for the completion of their whole personality, they will be presented to God, as conformed to the image of his Son Jesus Christ, to be made partakers with him in the consummation of his immortal bliss and glory. What strong consolation, then, is provided for those "who have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before them in the gospel?"

And that this abundant consolation may be enjoyed by them, God puts a seal to the efficacy of this religion in their own breasts. Through the influence of the divine Spirit, they have a confirmation of it wrought in them, so strong and indubitable that nothing is able to overcome it,