the rock, and stills the heart. In this world, ripeness and decay come from the same sources; but in the New Jerusalem, there shall be no death. Flower, and fruit, and tree shall bloom in amaranthine beauty; no caterpillar shall gnaw the flower, nor spider weave its web amid its trees. The loveliest thing shall be the longest; its very streams shall flow with immortality. All hearts shall be bounding, and none breaking; no disease shall poison, nor death destroy. Chains, prisons, sick-beds, widowhood, and orphanage, are words not written in the vocabulary of the blessed. The doors that shut the Christian in will shut out all sin, imperfection, disease, death; God himself shall be our portion, incapable alike of change or decay. This happy state shall be the morning twilight of the everlasting noon; the Millennium shall merge into the greater glory of the skies. There shall be no possibility of falling; we shall have "meat that endureth to life eternal," "raiment that moth shall not consume," a "treasure that thieves shall not steal," "a house not made with hands," "a city that hath foundations," "a crown of glory that fadeth not away."

How consolatory is such a prospect in the midst of present painful suffering! One who had been "in hunger, in thirst, in nakedness, in peril by land, in peril by sea, and in perils among strange brethren," seeing from afar the nearing glories of this promised inheritance, exclaimed, "I reckon that the sufferings of this present life are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed." This accurate, because inspired, arithmetician, had made the estimate in the exercise of a calculus which we are not so competent to go through; and his corollary, if we may borrow an allusion from another branch of the same science, is the reckoning which we have just stated. The same apostle says, "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh out for us a far more exceeding, even an eternal weight of glory." He knew his afflictions, as we believe them to have been, heavy; but, placed in the scales with the "weight of glory," they seemed to him light. "Light affliction" is weighed against a "weight of glory;" and "light affliction, which is but for a moment," against an "eternal weight of glory;" and so rapidly and exceedingly does the latter preponderate, that'

judges the former too light to be placed in the same scale with it. It is the same experienced Paul, too, who exclaims, "All things work for good to them that love God, and are the called according to his purpose." The highest wave lifts them only nearer to their rest; the strongest tempest only wafts them more rapidly to their haven; and the sorest persecutions that light upon them serve but to quicken their pace to the New Jerusalem. Well may they exclaim, "What shall we then say to these things? if God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also freely give us all things? Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus." Bear up patiently, my brethren, in the beating storm, for the haven ist near. In due time we shall reap, if we faint not.

In the next place, set your affections on these bright things. We were made to hope. Our eyes are in our foreheads; these glorious features, so magnificently delineated by the seer of Patmos, have transcendent excellences and irresistible attractions. Let us bring onr hearts beneath them, let us fasten our eyes upon them, and doubt not at the same time your certainty of success, if you only seek them. In earthly things, the battle is not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift. In this course, "I run not as uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the air." Every day that closes, brings believers nearer to the Mil lennium. The glorious apocalypse is now upon its way from above. All occurrences, and controversies, and strifes, and revo lutions, and wars, are clearing the air for its approach. The partition-wall between this dispensation and the next is growing thinner every day. I can see scattered rays of its beauty, and hear snatches of its songs: "Behold, I come quickly, and my reward is with me." "It is high time to awaken out of sleep, for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."

There are some here, perhaps, who take no interest in these great and important truths. If you have previously felt no interest in the things that belong to your present peace, it is but natural to suppose you will feel little in the prospects which crown a life with which you have no sympathy. But great and solemn responsibilities are on you. "How shall you escape if you neglect so great salvation? He that despised Moses's law died without mercy. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace? It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God."

The Bible says that we are lost and perishing, and that our restoration and reception to the marriage-supper of the Lamb is suspended on our faith in the Son of God. It does not disclose to us a heaven and hell to speculate on, but as the infinite and antagonistic extremes, to one of which we are rushing. It is this fact that throws over the Bible, the sanctuary, the ministry of the gospel, so sacred, so awful an interest. It is this consideration that renders an assembled congregation so solemn a spectacle. Processes of conviction, that end in conversion, or increased resistance, are going on. You are, my dear hearers, under the necessity either of receiving or rejecting the gospel. There is no middle or neutral course. The instant you know God's will, you must obey it or disobey it. From that pew you must answer, "I will," or "I will not." The lips may remain dumb, but the heart speaks, and says distinctly, "Yes," or "No." This gospel, too, which you hear, must prove to you the savour of life or the savour of death. Every moment a character is being formed on which death will stamp immutability and immortality. Rains and suns do not more certainly add to the growth of the tree, than ceaseless influences add to our character. Every hour a hardening or softening process is going on; we are growing more susceptible of lofty impressions, or less so. God's truths heal or kill. Appeals augment or part with their power-motives, their force terrors, their dread-and hopes, their attrac

tion; and thus you are travelling to, or receding from, the mar riage-supper of the Lamb.

None are loaded with so terrible a guilt as those who know and reject the truth. On none does there hang a heavier accountability. "They know their Lord's will, and do it not." In face of warnings, remonstrances, obstructions, crowding around them, they continue in rebellion against the King of kings.

It is no excuse at all, that your heart is not right. Surely it is no excuse in a disobedient child, for some act of contumacy, that his affections were not favourably disposed toward his parents. If there be no duty unless there be a right disposition, all obligation is at once relaxed, and immunity to crime becomes the inevitable result. Duty remains in all its force, unaffected by the liking or disliking of its subjects. "Thou shalt love," binds wherever it is heard. "Repent," "Believe," are obligatory on every human being. Nor is it possible to denude ourselves of our responsibility, any more than of our immortality. Both cleave inseparably to us all; we cannot run from either. If we could cancel all the recollections of the past, we could not thereby cancel our obligations.

But, in truth, there is no excuse that will bear one moment's analysis for rejecting the invitations of the gospel of Christ. Duty ceases where a valid excuse begins: both cannot coexist. Be not deceived; God is not mocked. Brethren, very soon other scenes than those you now witness will burst upon your sight. The rising dead, the descending Lord, the blazing earth, and the darkened and eclipsed sky, will strike every soul, and "every eye shall see him, and them that pierced him."

Do not put off or put away these appeals-these near and sure realities these personal and personally interesting facts. We are on the dark mountains, and our feet will either stumble on them, or be guided over them by the rod and staff of the Son of Jesse. Centuries are crowding into days, and days into minutes, and all things are rushing to the last crisis.

185

LECTURE XIII.

THE FRANCHISE OF THE NEW JERUSALEM.

"And there shall in no wise enter into it [that is, the New Jerusalem] any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life."-Revelation xxi. 27.

WE have seen a few of the grand characteristics of the Apocalyptic New Jerusalem. We have traced such of its features as are contained in the twenty-first chapter, and are still to trace its more glorious features as they are embodied in the twenty-second. It is encouraging to see that, amid the most glowing pictures, full of poetry and beauty, there are interspersed those great spiritual, moral, practical truths, which come home constantly to our hearts. The New Jerusalem must be tenanted by a new people: the new song must be sung by those in whom all things have been made new by the Holy Spirit of God. We have here in this passage the counterpart of what was stated in the eighth verse: "But the fearful and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire." "Any thing that worketh abomination" might be rendered, "they who are guilty of idolatry," for the word "abomination" in Scripture, very often means "idolatry." On the other hand, those who shall enter the New Jerusalem, and be its inhabitants, happy and holy for ever, are those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life; or (as is further depicted in the thirteenth chapter) "in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world."

Now, without entering upon the special sins that are enumerated in this passage-sins the nature and evil of which we can easily comprehend if we have only learned to repudiate their contamination-I proceed to observe, first of all, there is here stat