as the great source of holiness, peace, and joy. We know that we are not; and conscience tells us why. It is because we are sinners. The veil in the temple represents that separation which sin has made, -a barrier which no human power, which nothing but a mighty operation of divine compassion could put aside.

3dly, The veil represented the separation between this present material state which we now experience on earth, and that future state to which we are looking, that we call heaven. St Paul in his epistle to the Hebrews, when drawing the parallel between the Mosaic and Christian dispensations, shews this; for he says, chap. ix. 6-12. that "the high priest went alone into the holy of holies, once every year," with the blood of atonement; but that Christ, "the high priest of a greater and more perfect tabernacle, hath, by his own blood, entered in once into the holy place:" and then, in the 24th verse, he explains this further, when he says, "Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true, but into heaven itself, now to in the presence of God for us." The compartments then, of the tabernacle on earth, were the figures of the true tabernacle. The holiest represented the heavenly world, where God is fully revealed; and the outer sanctuary or holy place, represented the church on earth, in which Christ offered his atonement; and consequently the veil that shrouded the

appear

holy of holies, represented that mysterious separation which hides so entirely from our natural sight the eternity on which we must shortly enter. And in fact St Paul's language in another place distinctly specifies this, for he says, chap. vi. 19. "our hope is an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, entering into that within the veil, whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus:" by which he evidently intimates that the point at which we, the inhabitants of earth, lost sight of the ascending Saviour, was typified by the veil of the temple. When the heavens received him, when he ascended "to his father and our father, and to his God and our God," the essential laws of this our material sojourn, forbade our looking further; a veil closed upon him, which concealed him from our natural sight, and which the eye of our weak faith can but dimly penetrate.

4thly, This veil represented the body of Christ. This St Paul shews, Heb. x. 10. where he speaks of "the new and living way which Christ hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say his flesh." The chief cause of our inability to perceive spiritual and eternal things, is our sinful flesh, corrupted by the fall; and inasmuch as the veil was a representation of the separation between earth and heaven, it was an emblem of that sinful flesh. But even in the Mosaic dispensation, which was in fact a dispensation of mercy and atonement, the veil was not only a separation, but a point of

union between the two. It was a barrier certainly, but one that was passable, upon certain principles, by the high priest, when he made an offering for the errors of the people; and thus it became an organ of communication between the two parts of the tabernacle. And it was in this light that the veil represented the body of Christ: for he was made in the likeness of sinful flesh, which separated man from God, in order that he might be the point of union between an offended God and a guilty world. So it is said in Romans viii. 3. " for what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh," hath done. Again, it is written, "God was manifest in the flesh;" "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." So that while the veil typified, in one sense, our weak and sinful flesh, which precluded our approach to God; in another it typified that flesh as assumed by the Son of God, in every respect but its sin and pollution, to be the medium of our reconciliation and return to the divine favour. It was spread out before the eye of the worshipper, a type of the incarnation; and therefore the object of reverential contemplation, as enveloping the mystery of the Godhead, into which he desired to look, and as being the true way by which alone he could draw nigh unto God.

II. Having thus endeavoured to point out the

typical meaning of the veil of the temple, we proceed now secondly, to inquire, What was implied by the rending of it, at the precise moment when Jesus Christ expired on the cross?

After the Saviour was crucified, he hung upon the cross until the ninth hour of the day, that is, till three in the afternoon,-which was the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice. At that precise moment, he cried with a loud voice, "It is finished;" and bowed his head, and gave up the ghost and then "the veil of the temple was rent in the midst, from the top to the bottom," and the mysterious secrecy of the holy of holies,-the habitation of the mercy-seat, was at once disclosed. Now, here evidently the typical lesson which the veil had previously inculcated, was still carried on, and ought to have been received by the ministers of that sanctuary. The rending of the veil was an intimation of all that had really then happened in the true tabernacle, in the temple not made with hands. But it was their misery and their curse to to be spiritually blinded by their pride and carnality, and not to be able to receive the instruction. The fact, however, which, with all its powerful meaning, they disregarded, stands now on the record for the confirmation of the faith of the Christian church.

1st, The rending of the veil represented the rending of the body of the Saviour. We have seen that the veil was an emblem of tl:e incarnation ;

and as the veil was violently torn in two, it represented the event of his death, which was at the moment taking place, the dissolution of the union between the human soul and the body of the Mediator, by the violent, and cruel, and mortal laceration of his flesh; and it shewed the intimate connection between the real sacrifice of Christ, and the shadows of the ceremonial law.

2dly, The rending of the veil represented the termination of the shadowy dispensation of the Mosaic ceremonies by that death, because now in him every thing was fulfilled. The universal language of all the temple service was, that God could not be approached by a sinner, without the remission of sin; and that without the shedding of blood, there was no remission; that under the legal restrictions of the first covenant, and through the blood of animal sacrifices appointed by the law, God might be in a measure approached and propitiated: but that still this was only a ceremonial approach to God, allowable only through the merit of that real offering, which was to be subsequently offered. The unveiled perception of God was not permitted,―the merit of these shadowy services, was itself a shadow; they looked out to the coming of a promised deliverer, who should really turn away ungodliness from Jacob. The blood of bulls and of goats did not open an effec tual way into the sanctuary; the veil still remained suspended. It still concealed the approach to a