living God, to be the objects of His wrath, under His curse because of transgression of His law: and this not only that they might be moved to earnestness in endeavouring to keep the commandments of God, but that they might, as men fleeing from destruction, seek the forgiveness of sins in the way revealed by God himself. On Mount Sinai, in the giving of the law, God appeared in the glory of His holiness, His justice, and His truth, attributes the contemplation of which is calculated to produce terror, and always more and more terror, in the heart of a man who feels himself to be a sinner, and who knows nothing of God's mercy and of a way of salvation.

The clouds and darkness of Sinai were therefore a symbol of which the signification is easily to be perceived; and the thunderings, the lightnings, the earthquake, and the appearance of devouring fire, were all, in like manner, symbols, all harmonious with each other, and of the same general import. But even on Mount Sinai, God revealed Himself as the God of mercy, when in the very preface to the Ten Commandments, He declared Himself the covenant God of Israel, saying, "I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage" (Ex. xx. 1); and when afterwards He appointed the temple worship, with all its ordinances of sacrifice, and its mercy-seat, the place of the manifestation. of God's glory throughout all the ages of the Jewish dispensation.

CHAPTER VII.

JEWISH SYMBOLS. THE ALTAR OF EARTH OR UNHEWN STONE. THE NOISELESS BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE.

WE find another symbol in the law given to Moses, immediately after the proclamation of the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai: "An altar of earth shalt thou make unto Me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt-offerings and thy peace-offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen; in all places where I record My name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee. And if thou wilt make Me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone; for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it" (Ex. xx. 24, 25). Doubtless there was a reason for this commandment, and the reason is to be found in the meaning of the symbol, of that which was prohibited as well as of that which was enjoined. An altar of hewn stone would have been too much a thing of human art, and human invention must have no part in the worship of God. The altar was therefore to be a simple erection of earth or of unhewn stone. The same prohibition of human workmanship recurs again, in a modified form, as to Solomon's Temple; for although it was built of hewn stone, no noise of workmen's tools was to be heard in its erection. The stones were prepared at a distance, and were brought to Jerusalem, ready to be fixed in their appropriate places. And this was unquestionably meant to symbolise the silent erection of the spiritual temple, the work of God himself and not of human hands, although men are yet honoured to take part in the building of it. Thus it is with the great spiritual temple, the Church of God upon the earth, and thus it is also with the temple of the soul, in which God delights to manifest His presence, the holy temple, in the

perfecting and beautifying of which every believer must employ himself—and in fact every good man does employ himself from day to day-yet giving all the glory to God, of whose grace it is that the foundation has been laid, and of whose grace it is that any progress is made in the work. The Apostle Paul says: "According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereupon" (1 Cor. iii. 10). And yet, whilst thus pointing out the work assigned to man, he is careful to give all the glory to God. He says, "Ye are God's building" (1 Cor. iii. 9). Every one is called to the labour of building God's temple, as earnestly as if all depended on human exertions, and were to be attained simply by human strength and wisdom. Yet all the while God is to be acknowledged as giving grace to do all that is done; He is to be continually looked to for grace, and it is to be asked of Him in prayer, all the glory of the work being given to Him, even as much as if it were a work in which we had nothing to do at all; for man's is but a very subordinate part; his will to work, his power to work, and his success in work, all depend on the grace of God.

CHAPTER VIII.

JEWISH SYMBOLS.-THE LAW OF EXODUS XX. 26.

WE cannot but notice the law laid down in Exodus xx. 26, "Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto Mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon."

It needs no proof that the whole importance of this commandment depends upon what may be called its symbolic character. It signified the necessity not only of the maintenance of purity and chastity, but of modesty, and the offensiveness of anything contrary to this in the worship of God. God was to be regarded as present at the altar, and the greatest care was therefore requisite that no part of the service performed there, should have the slightest taint of what would be deemed corrupt, evil, or unseemly amongst men. The altar was always to be regarded as holy, so holy that nothing was to be visible there which might not properly have been so if it had been a living creature of perfect holiness, and therefore recoiling with abhorrence from everything impure. We find similar rules afterwards in the Jewish law concerning the priests, and the dress in which they were to serve at the altar. This may, perhaps, be the proper place to notice them, although it is to anticipate the historical order which we have hitherto generally pursued. We find them in Exodus xxviii. 40-43: "And for Aaron's sons thou shalt make coats, and thou shalt make for them girdles, and bonnets shalt thou make for them, for glory and for beauty. And thou shalt put them upon Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him, and shalt anoint them, and consecrate them, and sanctify them, that they may minister to Me in the priest's office. And thou shalt make them linen breeches to cover their nakedness; from the loins even unto the thighs they shall reach. And they

shall be upon Aaron, and upon his sons, when they come in unto the tabernacle of the congregation, or when they come near unto the altar to minister in the holy things, that they bear not iniquity, and die. It shall be a statute for ever unto him and unto his seed after him" (Ex. xxviii. 40-43). No remarks are needed on the symbolic significance of this law. It accords entirely with that of the law of the twenty-sixth chapter of Exodus already noticed.