conclusion than that: "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man." Blessedness, or happiness, is to be found where it is stated in the text: it is to be found, according to history, according to the experience of the aged, according to the conclusions of Scripture, in doing the commandments of God. And when we know that the curse is removed, that hell is closed, that heaven is opened, that the suspended sword is sheathed, that God is our Father, then we begin to be happy. When we feel that our passions are subdued that there is living water coming forth where was the gall of bitterness before-that there is the service of God where was the slavery of Satan-that there is within us the music of heaven for the discords of the damned-that we have the feelings and affection of sons, and not the crouching, craven terror of slaves-when our whole heart is thus regenerated, and our whole man reformed, and God's commandments become alike our duty and our delightthen we know, we feel, indeed, what true happiness is. And if, instead of visiting the east and the west, the north and the south, to secure what you have not, you were simply to become Christians where you are, I believe you would feel happy just where you are. People of the living God, let your Christianity be seated in every counting-house, let it serve in every shop, let it speak behind every desk, tread upon every Exchange, touch the sceptre, speak in the senate, be heard in the republican congress and in the royal cabinet-let Christianity inspire all, and gild all, and animate all—and you will find a new halo begin to surround humanity, and the heart that was breaking shall bound with joy, and men shall feel that there is blessedness only in the shadow of the tree of life, and in drinking of that river that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb.

But the chief blessedness, let me add briefly in conclusion, of a Christian is in prospective, it is in reversion: "He shall have a right to the tree of life, and to enter in through the gates into the city:"-the city which Abraham looked for the city which is so graphically described in chap. xxi. of this book, and on which I have already spoken-that city that was built by God, and beautified and illumined and made ready for you the city (for all other cities have the dry-rot in their walls, and decay in

all their elements, and graves in all their acres,) that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Such persons shall be admitted through its gates; they have not an access to make, they have no approach to excavate, no obstruction to remove, for the gates are opened, the gates of glory into which the King of Glory has entered: all they have to do is to follow Christ who precedes them, their works following them, and so dwell for ever in the presence of God and of the Lamb. I have explained the tree of life in another sermon-or literally wood of life; its leaves for the healing, and its fruit for the food of the nations, or those who approach that tree to eat its leaves, and participate in its fruit-which gives them life, and is the sacrament of immortality: we receive eternal life here, and we enjoy it there. There was a tree of life in Eden, which was designed to teach our first parents that their life was not an original one, but a derived one; and so we shall feel in heaven that our life is not an original life, but one derived from God, and from whom, therefore, it perpetually flows.

Such is the exposition of the beautiful passage I have read to you; such is the blessedness of those who are justified by Christ; such is the reward of them that do the commandments of God; such are the persons whom I invite to the communion-table next Lord's day all that can say, We lean upon the Saviour for acceptance with God, we desire to do his will, and follow in his footprints till we appear before God. We have no wish but his will; we have no desire that we would cherish which can clash with his commandment; we desire to be found in him, and to be seen serving him our whole life, and to be with him when time shall be no more.

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LECTURE XXVI.

THE INVITATION.

"The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come: and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely."-Revelation xxii. 17.

I PASS by the 15th verse in the course of my exposition of the successive verses of this chapter, because the main sentiment in it is illustrated in the last verse of chap. xxi. I also pass the 16th verse, because the chief truth illustrated in it seems to be proclaimed almost in the same terms in the previous verses of the same chapter: and this evening I adopt for exposition the most beautiful words contained, perhaps, in the Apocalypse; the most precious invitation addressed to sinners in any part of the gospel-addressed directly by Him who is the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last, and who is here represented in this his glorious character, suspending for a little the picture of the future glory, in order to appeal to the hearts of them that read, and to the ears of them that hear: "The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come and whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely."

We are all, without exception, if I may believe the express statements of Scripture, or regard the experience of humanity, athirst. These words are not addressed to saints as such, who thirst for the living water of the gospel, but unto all of every class, tribe and tongue, and cast of mankind, who are without Christ, and need to be saved. It assumes, what all who know humanity will readily admit, that every man, without exception, is more or less athirst. True, it is not for the living waters of the river of life, because they do not really-saints only so thirst; but there is in every man's bosom, from the time that sin first

dried up the pristine streams that flowed through man's unfallen and holy heart, a burning and a parched sense of want-an aching void, that claims to be supplied from some great source, to ease his wants, and neutralize the bitterness of his lost condition. Every one has within him an inward and an aching void -a deep sense of misery, dissatisfaction, and disquiet-created by the departure of that living God whom he offended in Paradise, which is to be removed only by His return, and the reflux of that river of life that proceedeth from the throne of God and of the Lamb. I speak to every man in this assembly, when I ask you this question, Have you not a sense of something wanting still to make you perfectly happy? Is there not occasionally experienced within you some feeling which is to your soul what hunger is to the body-what fever is to the animal economy -what thirst is to your every-day sensations? a consciousness of want a feeling of loss-an aching and an irritating chasm which you cannot fill or destroy, and which, nevertheless, you are ever trying to fill from such broken cisterns as you dig out of the world?

This being the state and experience of all mankind, we thus see what is the great object of all their toiling, their striving, and their labouring under the sun. It is to satisfy this thirst, which every one feels more or less, that every man is running with untiring feet, and toiling with unceasing hand, if peradventure he may reach something at last which he hopes will remove this aching sense, and enable him to feel perfect peace in the retrospect of the past, and a no less perfect repose in the prospect of the sure and solemn future. That stream of living beings that runs like a torrent every day along the Strand and Cheapside, is humanity driven by this inner sense of want, here and there and everywhere, in search of something to remove it. The ambitious man excavates thrones, and soars amid the stars, seeking some fountain at which he may drink and slake it there; and the avaricious man sails to California, or digs mines wherever he can find accessible an acre of the earth; or waits for hours and days on the Exchange, and watches the ups and downs of the stocks, and all the movements of the money-market, if peradventure he may increase his capital, and add to his income, and

reach that point in pecuniary resources which will enable him, as he anticipates, to defy the world, and feel independent of its favour or frown. Every man, in short, whatever be his condition, his profession, his employment in the world, feels that there is a want within him; and he labours night and noon to remove it, and so fill the aching chasm, and quench the burning and the fevered thirst.

My dear friends, it is the great evidence of our fall, that we seek to satisfy the soul with things seen; it is the great demonstration of our aboriginal grandeur, that there is nothing in the universe but God that can satisfy that soul. It is the evidence, I say, of the terrible eclipse that has passed upon us, that we try to fill the infinite vacuity from broken cisterns: it is the evidence of the vastness of that soul, that there is nothing in the heights, nothing in the depths, nothing in pleasure, nothing in possession, that can fill it and make it rest. It is written on crowns and coronets, on thrones, on all that is great, magnificent, and splendid, "Whoso drinketh of this water shall thirst again;" but it is heard in the chimes of the waves of the river that flows from the throne of God and of the Lamb, that was first unsealed on Calvary, "But he that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but it shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." "O Lord, evermore give us this water." The only element that can satisfy this thirst is a supply from that river, the virtues, the excellences, the source, and the issue of which I endeavoured to describe when I preached to you from the first verse of this chapter: "He showed me" -for we cannot see without showing; all that we can see with the outward eye is the outside of the gospel, the channel of Christianity; it needs him that inspired the Bible to open up and show us the river within:-"He showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." I need not tell you that living water is used throughout the Bible as the great symbol of the blessings of the gospel; and if I translated symbolic language into plain prosaic language, it would be this-that man has within him a want which nothing but Christianity can meet, and truly and perfectly remove. In order to convey these and kindred great truths more