I dwell in the high and holy place; with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite" (Isai. lvii. 15). "Yea, though I walk through the valley of THE SHADOW OF DEATH, I will fear no evil, for THOU ART WITH ME," &c. (Ps. xxiii. 4.) "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there; if I make my bed in HADES, behold, thou art THERE" (Ps. cxxxix. 7, 8). So that it ought not to surprise us to find such an expression as Phil.-i. 23, in the language of St. Paul (who, in reference only to this present life, was one of the most miserable of men, 1 Cor. xv. 19): for, in the separate state, being immediately present with the Triune Godhead in the person of the Holy Ghost, he is "with Christ," and with the Father; the veil of the flesh no longer intercepting his communion with God; while, nevertheless, he awaits, with patience and with desire, the crown of righteousness which he shall receive at the second coming of Jesus Christ to this earth! (2 Tim. iv. 8.)

:

But, again, the holy catholic church is only one; so that every word that can be predicated of the unity of the members of my body in the individuality of my spirit, may with still greater emphasis of truth be predicated of the members of the mystical body of Christ in the unity of his Holy Spirit. As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world and for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also may be sanctified through the truth. Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word; that they all may be one: even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us; that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me, I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me: that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me" (John xvii. 18-23).

Wherefore it is plain, and easily intelligible, that the catholic church, as well in the consummate perfection of the anticipation of faith as in the positive enjoyment of the actual and immediate, although spiritual, presence of the Godhead, should employ such expressions as the following; Canticles i. 13; ii. 6, 16; iii. 4; v. 2, 4—6; and vii. 10, 11: while at the same time it is equally manifest and intelligible, that the Holy Spirit doth not compensate the church for the personal absence of her Lord; for in so doing he must, and would, annihilate her desire for his coming, whereas she is continually giving utterance to this desire (and, for example, in Canticles i. 2, 7; ii. 8; iv. 16; .8; and viii. 1-3, 14); for the Comforter, even the Spirit of Truth, speaketh not of himself, but whatsoever he heareth that

v.

he speaketh: he testifies of Christ, and he shews us things to come! (John xv. 26; xvi. 13); teaching us for those future things to look, and THE CHRIST to desire!

Hath Christ two kingdoms? Or is there any authority in all the Bible for that schism which is made in his body by the newfangled and unscriptural terms, "a church invisible," and "a church visible;" A CHURCH, part militant on earth; and the other part triumphant in heaven; part in the condition of hope, the other part in present enjoyment; part walking by faith and not by sight, the other part in the beatific vision of God? Where then would be the sevenfold unity, of the body, the Spirit, the hope, the Lord, the faith, the baptism, and the Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in you all? (Eph. iv. 4—6.)

Could it be said that we have all one faith, if part of our number had already attained to the sight of him in whom we believe? or all one hope, if some were already in possession? Certainly not! for, indeed, the only text that can have given rise to the term "beatific vision" expressly defers its attainment until he shall appear: "We know that WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John ii. 2); and the fourth and fifth chapters of the Apocalypse, which describe the glory that awaits us, expressly designate it "the things that shall be HEREAFTER" (Rev. iv. 1): and in "that day," and not till then, "the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall award the crown of glory to all those that love his appearing" (2 Tim. iv. 8). "In that day the Lord himself shall descend from heaven....the dead in Christ shall rise first: then....we, together with them, shall be caught up to the Lord's amarnos in the air (1 Thess. iv. 16, 17), AND SO shall we be ever with the Lord : ""for in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, we ALL shall be changed; and THEN shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory; O DEATH: where is thy sting? O HADES, where is thy victory?" (1 Cor. xv. 51—55.)

The whole creation groaneth and travaileth until now; and we all who have the first fruits of the Spirit, do groan within ourselves; and the Spirit also maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; while we wait for "the ADOPTION" (that is) "the redemption of the body:" namely, until our brethren, who shall be killed as their fathers were, shall be fulfilled (Rom. viii. 16-26; Rev. vi. 9-11).

In one act, as in one attitude of one man, we wait for the hope of righteousness by faith (Gal. v. 5); hungering and thirsting for it (not in selfish fear, or sectarian uncharitableness); but as the patriarch Jacob hungered for his children's bread, when he said, in the bitterness of his soul, “I, if I be bereaved of my children, Aм bereaved.”

Neither are we impatient under the long delay; but, knowing that the Lord is long-suffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, we account that the long-suffering of God is salvation (2 Pet. iii. 9, 15), and heartily unite in the sentiment of the whole church universal: "I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love until he please" (Cant. ii. 7; iii. 5; viii. 4).

Since the time when the kingdom of heaven was opened to all believers (A. D. 33: compare Matt. xi. 11; Eph. iv. 8, 13; Gal. iv. 4-6, and John vii. 19), taking a generation of mankind at the usual estimate of thirty years, no less than fiftynine generations of the elect are fallen asleep in Jesus; while ours, which is the sixtieth, hath nearly fulfilled its term. Saving in the influence of that dark cloud which the world, the devil, and the flesh, do cast forth around our spirits, even so as to obscure our communion with the Sun of Righteousness himself; saving in this body of sin and death in which we groan, I read of no difference between us and those fifty-nine generations of departed saints. We also are dead, and buried with Christ; with whom also we are risen (Col. ii. 8-13). "We also are dead, and our life is hid with Christ in God;" and, as hath been shewn, "when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, THEN shall we also," together with them, " appear with him in glory" (Col. iii. 3, 4). And, truly, if in this vile body we do groan, it is "not that we would be unclothed," (although that indeed were "gain" in our times, as in St. Paul's, Phil. i. 21): yet it is not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon with our house which is from heaven;" (namely, in the day of the Lord's second advent, 1 Thess. iv.), when the saying shall be brought to pass which is written, "Mortality is swallowed up of life," "Death is swallowed up in victory; O DEATH, where is thy sting? O HADES, where is thy victory?" (Compare 2 Cor. v. 2, 4; Phil. i. 21, 23; and 1 Cor. xv. 54; with Isa. xxv.; Ps. cxxxix. 8, xxiii. 4, &c).

In this alone doth the condition of those fifty-nine generations excel ours, namely, in that "they rest from their labours" (Rev. xiv. 13), and their communion in the Spirit is neither obscured nor interrupted by the affections of the flesh, which they have put off (Job iii. 17, 18).

They are "one body" with us; and "whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it" (1 Cor. xii. 12—26). “There are threescore queens and fourscore concubines: my dove, my undefiled, is but one" (Cant. vi. 8, 9).

What, then, do we believe concerning the communion of the saints? Have they no sentiments in common; have they no sympathy with one another; no knowledge of what transpires

on earth? Surely they have all these. Our faith and hope is one; our prayer is the same: and from Rev. vi. 9-11; 1 Pet. iv. 6; 1 Sam. xxviii. 17, 19; Luke xvi. 27, 28; 1 Cor. xii. 12-26; and Heb. xii. 1 (where the departed saints are expressly declared to encompass us as a cloud of witnesses); I cannot doubt that the separate state admits of the continuance of that brotherly interest and community of sentiment which we enjoy even here on earth, so far as our gross ignorance, our little faith, and hard combat, prevent it not: and I have been convinced, from a diligent study of the Canticles, that we have in that book the appropriate and true expression, in human language, of the catholic sentiment of the one church universal, during the centuries past, and onwards to the Lord's second coming. I say not that the Song of Songs is exclusively the voice of the saints in Hades, or of those fifty-nine generations that are deceased; still less do I restrict it to the one single generation that now, or at any time, calls itself " the church" on earth: but I am satisfied that it is in detail the flow of sentiment which the whole of the church catholic hath entertained, in one and in all its living and conscious members, during these centuries; or, in other words, that it is, by excellence and propriety, the symbol of that COMMUNION which the saints enjoy with their Head, and with each other, during the night-season of the Christian dispensation (Rom. xiii. 12), and until the morning of the resurrection; when the anticipations of faith shall indeed and in fact be exchanged for the glories of the beatific vision. FOR WE KNOW THAT WHEN HE SHALL APPEAR, WE SHALL BE LIKE HIM, for then shall we see him as he is." AMEN.

ON THE TYPICAL IMPORT OF MANY OF THE HISTORICAL RECORDS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.-NO. II.

THE XVth and xvith chapters of Isaiah record the burden of MOAB.

The ancient kingdom of Moab, which lay on the east and south-east of Judea, possessed a rich and fertile country, and rose to great power and splendour. Travellers, who have visited its site, describe its plains as very thickly covered with ruins of towns or cities, many of them of considerable extent.

But "the horn of Moab" has long been "cut off, and its arm broken;" it is "utterly spoiled ;" and the kingdom and the nation have ceased to exist for very many centuries and so far the predictions in these chapters, in the xlviii th of Jeremiah, &c. have received a partial fulfilment.

Yet Moab is continually introduced in prophecy as participating in the scenes of the last days, in events yet unfulfilled. Unless, therefore, we suppose the kingdom of Moab to be

literally restored-for which we have no sufficient warrant in the Scriptures the inference seems irresistible, that, like Babylon and Idumea and Assyria, we must count Moab to be a prototype of some modern power, temporal or ecclesiastical, or both united; to be a shadow, reflecting in fainter lineaments a portion of that substance, framed in the Divine purpose and set up in Christ, which shall be developed in more perfect fulfilment in the awful scenes of the last days*.

Close attention to the account given in the Scriptures of the origin, the character and conduct, and the predicted doom of Moab, leads to the impression that Moab-and perhaps Ammon, its sister kingdom, conjoined with it-represent the professors of the Mohammedan faith; Moab designating more especially that power which has held precedence among them,-the ruling authority, priestly and secular, among the countless tribes and peoples which profess the religion of the Arabian impostor.

Let us now examine various particulars, in respect to the past and the future, which seem to establish the identity of the typical Moab with the adherents of Mohammed, or with the leading Mohammedan power, whether the Saracen, the Turk, or some other potentate yet to rise to that pre-eminence. Let us consider,

I. The origin and first recorded acts of Moab.

Moab sprang from one of the family of Abraham; the offspring of an unlawful and unnatural union; the result, no doubt, of the association of Lot and his family, professing followers of God, with a degenerate, corrupt, and licentious world. So Mohammed arose and established his imposture, acquired his first ascendancy, and constructed his wonderful empire, in countries which had been especially blessed with the light of the Gospel, but had sunk into a state of spiritual defilement, and had reunited themselves in a great measure to idolatry.

The first account we have of Moab, in its national character, is, that the king of Moab hired a false prophet-whose proceedings deserve particular attention, being identified with the history of Moab, whose priest and prophet Balaam became. He, for love of this world's honours and wealth, sold himself to work wickedness, to oppose and resist Christ the King of Israel, and his chosen people. To that end he set up a new species of worship, consisting of an unhallowed mixture and multiplication

That the declaration in Jeremiah xlviii. and xlix. that the Lord will bring again the captivity of Moab and of Ammon, does not indicate the literal restoration of those kingdoms, is fairly to be inferred from this fact; that there is no promise that the captivity of Edom shall be brought again, although Edom, as well as Moab and Ammon, are introduced in the transactions connected with the restoration of Israel and the destruction of its foes. That declaration must, therefore, have reference to some other event-probably to the shewing of mercy to a remnant of the modern nations thus to be overthrown; from which blessing the antitypical Edom (the Papacy) shall be excluded.