hear ourselves invited to join it, and are told that we may have the friendship of each and every one in the interminable gathering.

I ask not to be told of the splendid adornments with which the roof of Heaven shall be inlaid-enough for me that, according to words already quoted, there is to be but one roof over all the inhabitants. The representations of the future, which address themselves most to the heart, are not those which are gorgeous with the gold and precious stones: these are the most dazzling, but not the most penetrating. The heart is to be reached by what breathes most of the tranquillities of universal love. And poetry, in its longings for something on which to pour the splendour of its imagery, might seize on the white robes, and on the palms, with which the ransomed are decked: but if the soul's deepest chords are to be swept, then must we hear of the repose of a home, and the hallowed charities which weave themselves into a family; and all this is intimated to us-oh, that we may be incited to make it our own!-by the vision vouchsafed to St. John, "I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and people, and kindreds, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb."

"Before the Lamb"-yes, the glorified humanity of the Redeemer fixes by its presence the position of Heaven, and at the same time gives it its magnificence. We know not what Heaven, or the place of separate spirits, might have been, ere the mystery of godliness was revealed, and the Word had been made flesh, and effected man's redemption. But it could hardly, if we may venture the expression, be considered the same place as now: for until it contained

the Lamb which had been slain, it contained not what makes Heaven to those who had forfeited their immortality. Christ ascended triumphantly the mediatorial throne, that He might be the wellspring of joy, and the fountain of glory, to the great multitude which He had purchased with His blood. There could be no Heaven to such as ourselves without Christ: Heaven would be no Heaven without Christ: so that, in entering Heaven, Christ prepared, as He promised, a place for his disciples.

There are possibly other characteristics of the heavenly state which might be drawn from the words which form our subject of discourse. But we have gone far enough. We have adventured thus far, because it may be a wholesome and refreshing thing, to withdraw occasionally from the mazes of controversy, the cares of life, and the toils of conflict, and to meditate on the portion reserved for the righteous. But we will not pass beyond what may be practical and personal. It is not the Heaven which may dazzle your imaginations, but the Heaven which may stimulate your efforts, which we are anxious to present to you. Is not this Heaven, this place of perfect and beautiful repose, this meeting-place of the children of God-is not this worth striving for, worth the surrender of a few poor indulgences, worth the endurance of a few brief trials? For shame, that you can hesitate. For shame, that, with a Redeemer at your side, ready to impart all the assistance which can be needed to your obtaining the inheritance, you can linger amid earthly entanglements, and be so slow in securing possession, if not so indifferent as to letting it slip. For shame, that, whilst so many are pressing in from all nations and tongues-pressing from the burning east,

man's earliest home: from the distant west, so long an undiscovered world-you, the children of the kingdom, with every advantage of country and churchmanship, can manifest so little earnestness, allowing it to be inferred, from your apparent preference of the shadows and braveries of earth, that you count it but a poor monarchy, of which Christianity has conveyed to you the promise.

Let us rouse ourselves, lest, what we pursue so languidly, we miss eternally. The time is at hand. The Judge standeth at the door. Already has Heaven gathered within its circuit the spoils of many generations. Patriarchs are there, and prophets, and priests, and kings. The young are there, the old are there; the men of every clime have pressed into the spacious dwelling. But the gate is still open: "yet there is room :" all of you may enter Heaven: we will not be content that any should be outcasts. I want to meet you all in a better land: I wish that we might spend eternity together. Therefore do I summon the careless to penitence, and the penitent to diligence. It may be but a little while, and the number of the redeemed will be accomplished: it can be but a little while, and our own portion will be fixed. "The violent,” saith our Saviour, "take the kingdom by force"-oh, that we may not be of the indolent who lose it by sloth!

LECTURE XVIII.

Che Kinsman Redeemer.

RUTH ii. 20.

"And Naomi said unto her daughter-in-law, Blessed be he of the Lord, who hath not left off his kindness to the living and to the dead. And Naomi said unto her, The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen."

You can hardly need to be told that a connection the very closest may be traced between the Jewish and the Christian dispensations. But sometimes this connection is overlooked, and requires to be carefully examined and explained. This is specially the case in regard of Redemption. There was Redemption, a process through which things and persons were redeemed, under the Jewish dispensations, as there is under the Christian; but we are not perhaps so much in the habit of associating them as we ought to be. Yet, one and the same character of a Redeemer is kept up through the whole of the Bible. The Redeemer under the law is most accurately the type of the Redeemer under the Gospel. There may be no broad or distinct allusions to Christ. But whenever you meet with a transaction of Redemption, whether it be a Redemption of land or of person, you will find that the

matter is so ordered as to be most strictly typical-the features of our Redemption through Christ being unequivocally stamped on the legal arrangements which come under review.

It will be the chief object of our discourse to make good this assertion. We count it an instructive and interesting thing to trace Redemption as kept always in sight; so that the Jews were taught, even through the common dealings of life, the great spiritual deliverance that was wrought out in the fulness of time. We are persuaded, that, in proportion as the Jewish code is diligently examined, will it be found to teem with notices of our Redemption by Christ. God so constructed this code that it should be virtually a system of references to Christ, and that thus the devout Jew, whether engaging in the solemnities of the Temple worship, or busying himself with temporal occupations, might have his attention turned to that "seed of the woman," who, in the fulness of time, was to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. We do not indeed mean, that, with the change of dispensation have passed away all these mementoes of the manner of our salvation. We rather agree with those who hold that there is still much in the arrangements of Providence, which may serve to remind us of God's dealings in grace. There is perhaps nothing over-fanciful in the thought, that the food on which we chiefly subsist should constantly suggest the idea of our Redemption through Christ. Is it to be denied that since the use of animals for food, and those principally which were made choice of in sacrifice, the world literally subsists by shedding of blood, so that the death of the innocent is every day the life of the