glorious heritage. How had the heart of Adam throbbed with joy, if, when driven forth from Eden into the world his sin had blighted, he could have turned to the fiftythird of Isaiah, and there read the clearer explanation of that cheering but mysterious promise, (his bible of one verse) "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head." How too had the more favoured prophet rejoiced, could he, like us, have descended the mount of vision, gilded by the sun, but encompassed with clouds, and in the fifth of Romans, have beheld prophetic rapture displaced by apostolic knowledge ;hope losing itself in the light of confidence, a dim futurity superseded by an assured past, and that past destined to become a glowing and eternal present. How precious had the twelfth of Hebrews been to Job when sitting in the dust, abased in the sight of men, overwhelmed in his own spirit, and forgotten as it seemed by God. How had every pious mourner, under that first dispensation, hailed those "better promises," which afford us a clue through the labyrinth of dark providences.

But they laboured, and we are entered into their labours; we have reaped the fruit, of which they, in patience and tribulation, sowed the seed; they were heralds, proclaiming peace in a language they understood but in part, but which to us who possess the key, is not more glorious than simple. They received the first fruits, but for us was reserved. the increase; their brightest blessings were only pledges of ours; their holiest ministrations but figures of ours yet holier; their tabernacle was but a similitude; their Canaan but an earnest; their substance but a shadow: their glory, their privileges, their dispensation, from first to last, but one continued type of the "better covenant" established with us. Yet "not having received these promises," "having seen them only afar off," they "embraced them," and were "persuaded of them," and "obtained a good report through faith.”

What inference should flash from this view of the Old Testament, its sainted heroes, and heroic saints? Surely, that diligently and devoutly, with all our hearts, with all our

souls, and with all our understandings, we should study the scriptures now a glorious whole as a revelation full; as an exhibition of Deity final; as a moral law complete; as explaining salvation perfect; closed by the hand of God, sealed by the blood of Christ, attested by the Spirit's influence, destined only to be annulled in heaven, and then by the beatific vision of God himself! My beloved bible as a common book? as one to be read from fear, from compulsion, from a cold sense of duty? Shall we loathe its manna as light food? God forbid! rather let us feed upon it with the eagerness of spiritual desire, gather it daily for our use, store it in our hearts as in an ark, an undying record, and everlasting remembrance, of human need and divine bounty. Let me now draw your attention to another point.

shall we dare to treat this

Under all the circumstantial varieties which attend the exhibition of God in the bible, we should carefully bear in mind, that he is one and the same Being. The posi tion is instantly admitted, but I want you to

cherish a minute and comparing recollection of it, as opening more magnificent, more cheering, and more stimulating views, than can be conceived by the reader, who contents himself with vague generalities. For instance, when you peruse the divine descent upon Mount Sinai, and when the trumpet waxing louder and louder, the mighty thunderings, the thick darkness, the ten thousands of his saints, and above all, the "fiery law in his right hand," make you tremble to avouch this God as your God; how will it calm your trembling to realize that very God afterwards displayed on another Mount in the person of Christ, quenching, in his own blood, the fire which proceeding from his own law, must otherwise have consumed us, its transgressors. When the mind is overpowered by the display of Jehovah's unveiled power, manifested in righteous, but tremendous judgments-in mercies that awe, in miracles that appal, in privileges rendered fearful by their grandeur-how sweet to turn aside to Nazareth, to Cana, to the grave of Lazarus, and the house of Zaccheus,

D

and there behold the same Jehovah as Jesus! How wondrous the transition from Genesis and Exodus, to the gospels! To contrast God in the whirlwind of his might, the fierceness of his anger, the overwhelming fulness of his godhead, speaking a world into existence, and looking it again into destruction-with God, "manifest in the flesh,"enshrined in dust, surrounded by, suffering from, submitting to, every human infirmity-boundless only in compassion, infinite only in patience, incomprehensible only in gentleness; lavish of his divine power, but only for the relief of others, omnipotent only for man.

I know not, however, whether the reverse of this view is not more astonishing; whether there be not even more to smite a hard heart, and warm a cold one, in the realization of Jesus as Jehovah. When you next peruse his journey to Samaria, how he sat on the well, and asked the woman (from a human need of the refreshment too) to "give him to drink,”—turn to the prayer of Habakkuk ; the divine suppliant is the being therein repre