and the fears of death; but we are constantly (and it is most remarkable) admonished to be prepared for the second coming of our Saviour. "Unto them that look for him will he come a second time without sin unto salvation." I do not mean that they only will be saved, as some have rashly and unhappily sometimes taught; but I believe that they will have more joy, as they now give evidence of much grace.

We are taught not to look for our personal happiness by itself, but for a personal joy contemporaneous with that catholic happiness which all the redeemed shall share when Christ comes a second time without sin unto salvation. Hear what the apostle says: "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men; teaching us that, denying ungodliness, and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing (or Epiphany) of the great God, even our Saviour. Jesus." We are to look upon Christ as to come: we are to have the eye of faith riveted upon his cross, and the eye of hope riveted upon his crown: we are to view him in his sorrow, and look for him in his joy-in his affliction, as in his triumph-as the sacrifice offered once for our sins, as well as our victorious kingas, in a word, our all and in all. And herein lay the mistake of the Jew: the Jew of old looked for Christ to come as a conqueror, and passed by the prophecies of his advent as a sufferer. He is still looking for Christ as a conqueror: and we tell him, that we too look for Christ as a king; but we look at his crown through his cross; we must take our stand upon Calvary, to gain a view of his throne in the New Jerusalem; we must be members of his spiritual church, and be baptized and sealed with his Spirit, before we can hope to behold him when he shall come in the clouds, in the glory of the Father, with an innumerable company of angels. The apostles, when they beheld their Master borne upon a cloud and ascending to heaven, were addressed, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." How can I interpret this? I must do it thus: that as Christ rose upon a cloud, and disappeared in the bright

ness of the shechinah or glory, so Christ shall come "with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him; and all kindreds of the earth" who rejected him "shall wail because of him;" but unto us who looked for him, he shall come a second time, without a sin offering, to everlasting salvation. If the sailor looks with joy to the end of a long and dreary voyage-if the soldier, amid the din and shock of battle, anticipates his tranquil, happy home-if the orphan longs for his father, and the bride for her bridegroom-then, may not believers, resting on the Redeemer's sacrifice, look forward with joy and hope and glowing expectation to the day when their Redeemer shall come again and receive them, that where he is, there they may be also? So earnestly did the early Christian. church look for the Redeemer's second advent, that he no sooner had disappeared from the earth and ascended to the Father, than the cry at the commencement of the Apocalypse, "Come, Lord Jesus!" and which is repeated at its conclusion, "Even so, come Lord Jesus!" was the aspiration of every heart.

In one word, those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life are they who can say, "Thou wast slain for us, and we are redeemed by thy blood;" and (if I may allude to what I have addressed to you at our Friday evening lectures) those whose names are recorded in that book are those who are so beautifully described in St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, "Who are in Christ; to whom there is no condemnation ;" and who may say in truth, whether they are able to say it with assurance or not "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

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LECTURE XIV.

THE RIVER OF LIFE.

"And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb."-Revelation xxii. 1.

ALL the imagery in this passage is extremely picturesque, as well as expressive. Earthly things are plainly shadows-not by accident, but by preadjustment and design-of the heavenly; and dim as they are since the introduction of sin, they afford us, notwithstanding, some faint idea of those bright and glorious things that lie folded up in the future, unseen and eternal. The Arabs have an old traditional belief, that there is a perpetual fountain in heaven, and that all who are permitted to drink of the waters of the river that flows from it, drink in the elements of immortality and perfect happiness. This tradition is a remnant of ancient truth. This river may be here employed to denote that full and ceaseless supply of spiritual life and joy and peace, which flows from the throne of God and the Lamb; or it may be the sacred symbol, in this as in other parts of Scripture, of that Holy Spirit who communicates every blessing of which the believer, in heaven or earth, is the recipient. This last idea is confirmed by a reference to Ps. xlvi., in which we read of a river whose "streams make glad the city of our God;" and again, in John vii. 37, "This spake he of the Spirit;" and perhaps the same great truth may be embodied in that beautiful promise, "They shall drink of the rivers of thy pleasure." The figure here employed is plainly fitted to suggest the idea of abundance. A cistern is limited in size, and is very soon exhausted of its waters; it receives all, and originates none; the largest fountain, however teeming, holds but little and may be emptied; but here there is set before us a deep, clear, and glorious stream, its fountain above the skies, rolling onward silently to the main.

In this dispensation we have springs and streamlets, their contents borrowed and easily exhausted; but in that dispensation we have access to the river itself. Past generations, of every clime and age, have drunk of it, and have been refreshed; and future generations will continue to drink of it too. Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Peter, Paul, and Polycarp, Augustine, the Waldenses and Paulicians, Luther, Knox, and Latimer, have all drunk of it, and derived from it refreshment and peace; and yet it rolls with undiminished flood, and countless myriads are welcome to drink of it, and sure to be satisfied from it, still. As light may be divided into its colours, this river may be divided into its component. streams. These streams are named in Gal. v. 22, 23: "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;" and they deposit in their channels, as they run, far more precious things than the fabled sands of the ancient Pactolus.

This river, too, is perfectly "pure." Nothing in this dispensation is so. The trail of the serpent has polluted all: the purest gold has an alloy; the brightest iron contracts rust; the fairest landscape is not without defects; the loveliest flower has blight on it, and the ripest fruit is first insect-stung; and where all the exterior sparkles to the eye with glistening beauty, we have only to penetrate within, and we shall find quicksand upon quicksand, and depth after depth,-in one word, "the heart of man deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." In these waters, however, these is no mixture of uncleanness of any kind. The pure channel pours along a pure current, and the inhabitants of the New Jerusalem drink of its unadulterated waters, which are lit up as they run with the glory that shines from between the cherubim. Neither Abana, nor Pharpar, nor the Tiber, nor the Isis, pour into its flood one drop of their tainted waters. These celestial streams retain through endless generations their aboriginal excellence, and remain pure as their fountain, perennial as the throne.

This stream is also described as being "clear as crystal;" a characteristic perfectly distinct from that on which we have just been speaking. Purity denotes its substance-clearness, its appearance. It is on the bosom of this river that we behold, as in

a glass, the glory of the Lord.

Milton admits this mirror-use of

a river here referred to, when he describes Eve looking at herself in the crystalline streams of Paradise

I laid me down

On the green bank, to look into the clear
Smooth lake, that to me seem'd another sky.
As I bent down to look, just opposite,
A shape within the watery gleam appear'd,
Bending to look at me: I started back;

It started back; but pleased, I soon return'd;
Pleased, it return'd as soon; with answering look
Of sympathy and love.

This river, which broke forth so fair and beautiful in Paradise, now runs often underground, and is shaded and darkened by the existing scenes through which it flows. But in the New Jerusalem it will break forth from the Rock of ages in more than its pristine beauty and purity, and rush along like molten silver, evermore reflecting from its bosom "mercy and truth that have met together, and righteousness and peace that have kissed each other," once more the perfect mirror of a holy God and a perfect universe.

It is also called the "water of life." Life is the great characteristic of that state-a life of holiness, and happiness, and joy. There will be none of the dead: all things will live; a living people, a living glory, a living home, a living God. Its tree is the tree of life, its river is the river of life, its book is the book of life; and this river bears upon its bosom downward from the throne, all that can make life happy and keep it so without end. No frosts shall bind it with their chain, no sultry suns shall deprive it of its freshness, and every soul upon its banks shall sustain his immortal and happy life by drinking of it perpetually. We see from this passage that the Father and the Son have but one throne: the river is said to proceed from the throne "of God and of the Lamb." Our Lord himself says, "I am set down with my Father on his throne." The first and second persons in the Godhead have thus coequal and coeternal dignity and glory. The evidence of the deity of Jesus is strong as that of the existence of God. Our nature, too, is seated on the throne, as a