rocky shore, let us reflect on those glorious truths which God has for ever connected with what is thus sublime in nature. The future prevalence of our most holy faith is compared to the boundlessness of the sea; and the united worship that shall ascend to God from His triumphant Church is likened to the sound of its many waters.

How many shores are washed by that undivided ocean! As we watch its distant billows rolling onwards in an endless succession, we imagine to ourselves the coast from which the ebbing tide has borne them to our own, and then remember that they are parts of one mighty ocean, which, under various names, encircles the round world. The sound also to which we listen is the echo, or rather the continuous utterance of that voice of the great deep which is heard on many a sunny isle far away, and on many an ancient steep. Each way we have ideas suggested to us of unity, vastness, and continuance.

And as the waters thus cover the sea, so shall the earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God. The Divine truth once spoken by Christ and His Apostles has rolled onwards to our remote age and distant land; and it shall still continue to flow forward from age to age, and from shore to shore, until the end of time. Even now it is a blessed and sublime employment for the thoughts, on the return of God's own day, to remember what multitudes (as countless as yonder waves) are engaged in all parts of the world in the same work of praise and adoration; how the law proclaimed on Sinai is re-echoed from ten thousand altars in our own happy land, which at our Saviour's birth was debased by the darkest superstition; and how "the faith once delivered to the saints" is confessed

in every quarter of the world! And as we believe that this will be far more realized, so we know also that, "as the sound of many waters," there shall hereafter be heard one song in Heaven; "Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad, and rejoice, and give honour to him; for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready." "Let the sea roar," said the Psalmist, "and the fulness thereof." The voice of these countless waters ascending up to God as in one universal chorus, is the emblem of that heavenly worship for which Almighty God created us, and for which the services of His earthly courts are a continual preparation. How shall we be fit for that heavenly worship, if we love not His earthly service, and if we are careless whether or not it be shared by all our fellow-creatures?

But if it be so blessed, even here below, to join with the great congregation in the work of prayer and praise, when voice joins with voice, and heart with heart, and the feelings of the whole assembly swell upwards in one sacred hymn, what will it be in those heavenly courts, where the melody of the heart will be without one jarring note, and the adoration of God will be unmixed with one unworthy thought or feeling?

Still let our feet be duly found in God's earthly courts. Still let us strive to spread abroad in all lands the knowledge of the crucified Redeemer ; and pray that that knowledge may cover the earth, as the waters cover the sea.

"The wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."-Isa. lvii. 20, 21.-See also Jude 13.

THE sea in its boundless unity, and in the countlessness of its waves, is an image of the glory of the Church, and the prevalence of true religion in all parts of the world. But when we see a tempestuous sea, which cannot rest, "whose waters cast up and dirt," we have before us a scriptural similitude of the wicked. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked."

mire

As the blessedness of Heaven is often called "rest," and is spoken of as "a pure river of the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb;" so the wicked

1 Rev. xxii. 1.

are said to be “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame." The restlessness of a stormy sea which casts up only mire and dirt upon the shore, is inexpressibly painful to such as long for the green fields and peaceful valleys of some quiet home. And thus intolerable is the tumult in the heart of every wicked man, from the strife of ungoverned lusts and passions, and from the reproaches of conscience, which sooner or later make themselves heard. See how pride and envy disturbed Haman in the midst of his greatness; or think of Ahab restlessly tossing on his royal couch, because he coveted Naboth's vineyard; 2 or consider the dismay of Joseph's brethren at the first reverse which came upon them, and the terrible accusations of conscience which it served to awaken against them; 3 and you have before you what, sooner or later, will be the state of every heart not subdued to the obedience of faith. Such a heart casts up only what is evil and defiling; and there is a hell in it already, even without the infliction of positive punishment. What torment can be conceived more fearful, than a perpetual gnawing of ungoverned and unsatisfied passions, in a heart that is for ever given up only to the accusations of conscience?

Let not my soul be like the dark and turbid waves, which we see indeed to be laden with dirt and mire, but of which we cannot see the bottom! Let it be clear and still. Grant me, O Lord, the peace of regulated desires and mastered passions; even that peace of which it is written, "Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them." 4

1 Esth. v. 11-13.

3 Gen. xlii. 21.

21 Kings xxi. 4. 4 Ps. cxix. 165.

"We shall all stand before the judgment-seat of Christ."-Rom. xiv. 10.-See also Matt. v. 25; Acts x. 42; 2 Tim. iv. 1.

WHEN I see the solemnities of a court of judgment, or hear of some searching trial by which the guilt of a criminal is brought to light, and the majesty of the law is vindicated by a dreadful sentence; give me grace, O Lord, to reflect on that tremendous day, when I shall stand before Thee to be judged with respect to all that I have said, or thought, or done, in the time of this mortal life. I read in Thy holy word,' that the holy Apostle, in the vision vouchsafed to him, saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, before whose face the earth and the Heaven fled away. And he saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged out of those things which were written

1 Rev. xx. 11-15.