unfolding His wisdom and doing His will. A new church makes ultimately a new world. What the Church is, that the world will become. "The kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ," because the Church has become the church of Him, who is Lord and Christ, “and he shall reign for ever and ever. The throne of him who is God and the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads."

Oh may this tabernacle of our God speedily descend with power among men, and spread, until all falsity and wrong, all harshness and despotism, all corruption and sin, all ignorance and superstition shall for ever fade away, and reverent hearts, enlightened minds, and happy homes everywhere shall announce the universal reign of the Lord Jesus.

SERMON XXXIX.

THE HOLY OINTMENT.

'Moreover the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take thou also unto thee principal spices, of pure myrrh five hundred shekels, and of sweet cinnamon half so much, even two hundred and fifty shekels, and of sweet calamus two hundred and fifty shekels, and of cassia five hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary, and of oil-olive an hin: and thou shalt make it an oil of holy ointment, an ointment compound after the art of the apothecary: it shall be an holy anointing oil."-Exodus XXX. 22-25.

Pure interior, celestial love for the Lord, softening and sanctifying all the powers of the soul, is described by the Holy Ointment by which the sanctuary and all it contained were consecrated. The mode in which such heavenly love can be obtained is enjoined in the divine directions before us, and the importance of the lessons the Divine Word has here in store for us may be gathered from the emphatic manner in which the injunctions are given. No imitation of it was to be permitted. It was not to be employed in common use upon the flesh of man. It was not to be given to a stranger. It is called the Ointment of ointment a holy anointing oil.

This Ointment was the universal requisite in all consecration. From the ark of the testimony to the laver and its base all things were to be anointed with it, including the sanctuary itself. Aaron and his sons were also to be anointed with this sacred substance to consecrate them for the priesthood. This was the universal

sanctifier.

This indispensable means in the sanctification of all things of the sanctuary and the priesthood, can hardly fail to remind us that though religion is multiform, and has many agencies and many principles, yet one thing is essential to give purity, sanctity and life to them all that one needful thing is Holy Love. This, then, is heaven's own ointment; the Ointment of ointment; the holy anointing oil; the consecrator of all things. Above all things, said the Apostle, put on Love.

The descent of this divine principle into the Humanity of the Saviour from the Divine Essence within Him, was called anointing

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Him with the oil of gladness above His fellows.-Ps. xlv. 8, 9, Its reception by the individual Christian is receiving the oil of joy for mourning.-Isa. lxi. 3. Love is the inward essence of all that is good. "Love is the fulfilling of the law."-Rom. xiii. 19. But LOVE, the Christian principle, here represented by the Holy Ointment, is a very different thing from love, the human passion often expressed by the same word. The one is like the pure fire of the sun, which recreates, beautifies, strengthens, and spreads abundance where it shines; it diffuses blessing as an universal good. But the human passion is often a lurid fire, burning to seize and to possess, not for the good of the object loved, but for selfish pleasure only. This latter is an impure, blind, passionate, impulsive, short-lived thing, capable of being soon transformed into hate. But Christian love is serene, constant, elevating, unwearied, and intense; borrowed from His love, who descended to save, who lived on earth, and died and rose again to deliver, to win, and to purify the objects of His Divine affection.

How this pure love may be obtained is the subject of the Word before us. Let us carefully attend to the heaven-given lesson.

Do thou take to thyself chief spices. And then the specific fragrant things are named: the first of them is myrrh,—the best myrrh, or pure myrrh.

Truths, which are understood and delighted in, are like things fragrant, exquisitely charming to the spiritual sense. The Word, to the enlightened and loving Christian, is like a succession of paradises, full of odours; it is a glorious country of fields which Jehovah has blessed. And when, like Mary, he has got his alabaster box of spikenard, very precious, whose odour fills the house, he gives it all to Jesus from whom such odours come.

The best myrrh represented the chief truths of the letter of the Word. The leaves of the myrrh were valued in the East for many purposes, and amongst them for the preservation of the dead. Our Lord's body was anointed with myrrh and aloes. -John xix. 39, 40. Such preservation of the dead body was the figure of the conservation of everything good and true in the soul, until its resurrection, that is, its regeneration should take place. The wise men brought to the infant Saviour, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, when they came to worship Him; because in this significant act they acknowledged Him as the author of all celestial, spiritual, and literal blessings. The myrrh is the last named because it represented the literal truths of the Word.

The Lord's garments are said to smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia (Ps. xlix. 9), because He clothes Himself with divine truths as with garments, and these truths in their delightful character, and in their ascending order, are described as myrrh, aloes, and cassia. Take to thyself the best myrrh, would therefore mean, make thyself familiar from affection with the truths of the Divine history, which unfold the tender mercy of the Lord. Dwell upon His loving kindness. Treasure up in thy mind every instance of Divine Patience, Benevolence, Care and Goodness, until thine eye shall glisten with gratitude, and thou shalt exultingly confess, that "the Lord is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works."

Take to thyself the best myrrh. Ponder over the fatherly care of the Almighty with Abraham, with Isaac, with Jacob, with Israel in Egypt, with the Psalmist and the Prophets, but above all, meditate upon everything in the Saviour's history and learn of Him. Walk with Him while He heals the sick, feeds the poor, delivers the possessed, raises the dead, comforts the mourners, elevates the depressed, blesses all who will receive His mercy, and opens heaven to all believers; and thus you will find His divine footsteps so embalmed in a grateful memory, that the undoubting confession of your souls will be, "Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name. He forgiveth all thine iniquities; he healeth all thy diseases; he crowneth thee with loving-kindness and tender mercies."-Ps. ciii. 12. These truths are, spiritually, the best myrrh.

The sweet-smelling cinnamon, and the sweet-smelling calamus, represent the spiritual sense of the Divine Word in relation to faith, and in relation to goodness. Cinnamon is the inner bark of the plant which produces it. It represents those inner truths, which are perceptible and delightful to faith. While the calamus, or sugar-cane, is the symbol of those truths which especially attract to goodness. Goodness gives sweetness to truth. A sweet disposition is gentle, tender, loving, and considerate. The Lord says to the fallen Church by the prophet, "Thou hast brought me no sweet cane for money; neither hast thou filled me with the fat of thy sacrifices: but thou hast made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast wearied me with thine iniquities.”—Isa. xliii. 24. The sweet cane the Lord desires to be brought is the sweet spirit of modest gentleness, of unassuming goodness. The sweet desire to diffuse happiness, to promote peace, to take the bitterness from sorrow, and make sad hearts smile again, this is the sweet cane, the aromatic calamus, the Lord desires us to have.

What a blessing in a home is a young bright spirit full of tender affection! The aroma of such a soul disarms anger, softens grief, and spreads around a sphere of comfort, and of joy. The charm of such a spirit is the heavenly calamus, the guileless love of doing good.

Would you minister to souls diseased? would you bind up the wounds which have been made by falsity, envy, and hate? would you banish discord and cold from souls which have been torn and chilled by doubt, difficulty and dislike? Then be sure you take the cinnamon of inner genuine truth, and, above all, sweeten it with the genuine love of doing good. Never hope to sweeten others, until you have obtained from Him who can sweeten all, the spirit of mercy, of peace upon earth, and goodwill towards men.

The cassia, which was the next ingredient of the Holy Ointment, was a much more precious and costly substance than the others. We might gather this fact and its signification from its being mentioned last in order, both here, and in that remarkable declaration in the forty-fifth Psalm, about the Lord's garments. "All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes and cassia.”

-v. 18. Cassia would seem to signfy that inmost wisdom which springs from inmost love. The soul which feels the play of interior peace, the preference for interior goodness, perceives also in every part of the Divine Word, a supreme lesson of love. It extracts from every narrative and every part of the Holy Volume, an aura of the inner mind of the Most High. There is a hidden something that constrains such a soul to feel that love has framed the universe and every soul in it, and the laws of heaven are laws of love. The inner depths of the Holy Word have a play of heavenly fire, which does not burn, but fills the interior of the spirit with joy unspeakable, with serene and heart-felt peace. It is a fragrance full of heaven; celestial cassia. Like the hidden manna, it is only known by those who receive it.-Rev. iii. 17.

The man who feels interior peace,

Alone can know its worth:

From wisdom, love, and righteousness,
This peace derives its birth.

The weights mentioned in the text, and their proportions, are interesting to notice. The myrrh, the first mentioned, and the cassia, the last mentioned, were to be each five hundred shekels: while the cinnamon and the calamus would only make five hundred between them.