not reckoning unto them their trespasses, and prays you to be reconciled to God." "Mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other." His salvation is nigh them that fear him, and he that cometh unto him shall in no wise be cast out.

"For thy love is better than wine." Wine is mostly employed as a type of joy and strength. "Wine maketh glad the heart of man." Job's sons were rejoicing, "eating and drinking wine in their brother's house." "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy heart; "a feast is made for laughter, and wine maketh merry." "They of Ephraim shall be as mighty men, and their heart shall rejoice as through wine.” And when the Lord himself riseth "as one out of sleep to repay vengeance on his enemies, he is like as a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine."

Such may be said to be the natural results and concomitants of wine in a good sense; every gift of God may be abused, as in the case of Noah, Nabal, Amnon, Ahasuerus, and others; but everything given of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving (1 Tim. iv, 4); but here we are told that love is better than wine. Wine is a gift of God, but love is far preferable; and who is there that cannot testify to this? What feeling in the human breast can approach to love? "Love is longsuffering, is kind; love envyeth not; love vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, secketh not its own, is not easily provoked, imputeth not the evil, rejoiceth not at unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things"; such is the divine testimony to the powers of love; what more can be said? "It is an everlasting love" (Jer. 31, 3). "Love is stronger than death. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love it would utterly be contemned" (Song of Sol. viii, 6, 7). Time would fail to repeat here a tithe of what the Bible tells us regarding God's love to man; it may be summed up in one word, "God is love;" "and herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us ; and sent his Son as a propitiation for our sins (1 John, iv, 8-10). Before bringing this note to a conclusion, let me refer to the spontaneous impulsiveness of the opening of this

passage. We have seen how the bride, without reference to any antecedent, bursts out, as if from some irresistible necessity, with an ardent desire to be "kissed with the kisses of his mouth." Instances similar to this are found in Scripture. Ps. lxxxvii, 1, commences with an interpellation to God of a most abrupt nature. "HIS foundation is in the holy mountains :" here is a relation without an antecedent. Yet the antecedent is supposed, and easily discovered; and we find the same grammatical incoherence common amongst the prophetical writings, such as "and it came to pass. Nothing is mentioned in connection with the particle "and;" yet we see and understand that the prophet is so wholly engrossed in his subject that he commences his discourse on the supposition that all are equally conversant and interested in the matter as he is himself. Instances of a similar feeling in action are seen in the case of Hannah, speaking with her lips only, and of Isaac meditating at eventide on his expected bride; the thoughts of both being pregnant with their hopes and prayers.

MATTHEW, II, 15.

"Out of Egypt have I called my son."

This is quoted from Hos., xi, 1, where the deliverance from Egyptian bondage is referred to. Israel was then in its childhood; it had just been emancipated from thraldom, and was not yet formed into a kingdom. God may consequently have intended to convey by the endearing title of son, first, His love to the chosen race, and secondly, his resolve to bring it through sore trials and afflictions to an appreciation of their future standing before Him as heirs of the earthly kingdom he had in store for them, first in Canaan, secondly in the kingdom of His dear son-the New Jerusalem-when their final rest should be assured, and as his earthly bride they should reign with him as Melchizedec for a thousand years, all nations being in subjection under them.

To trace this out, turn to Ex., iv, 22, 23, where God commands Moses "thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my first-born, and I say unto thee let my son go that he may serve me."

We learn from Scripture that throughout the patriarchal dispensation every first-born of the race of Shem, reckoning from the father, was a type of the great firstborn, the Messiah; and not a mother in Israel existed that did not hope and believe that her first-born was the promised Saviour. When Eve bear Cain she exclaimed, "I have gotten a man from the Lord," implying, in my opinion, that even at that early period Eve imagined the prophecy of the woman's seed bruising Satan's head was on the point of fulfilment. Mark Sarah's joy at the prospect of a son, and her contempt of Hagar and Ishmael when the promised son was born, saying "cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son." Observe again, Tamar (Gen. xxxviii), who having had no children by her two husbands, and deceived as regarding the third, obtains her wish by practising upon the weakness of her father-in-law. See again the agony of Hannah, who dedicates her offspring to the Lord if a son is granted to her prayers. Manoah's wife (Jud., xiii, 3) may be another instance, and Jephthah's daughter certainly is, for she regretted not death, but bewailed her virginity.

The people of Israel having been thus solemnly declared by God to be his son-even the first-born-must have been considered as a type of the promised Messiah, and this we see exemplified in Isa. xlix, 3, where Israel is put for Messiah; the passage, "thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glorified." In Isa. xlii, 1, the same thing is observed, "Behold my servant whom I uphold, mine elect in whom my soul delighteth." Servant should be Messiah; and so is it rendered in the Septuagint. In verse 19 it so clearly represents the Messiah that no doubt can exist in any mind. "Who is so blind as my servant," &c. can only refer to the Messiah: and so again lii, 13, "Behold my servant shall deal prudently."

If we now turn to Ps. ii, 7, we find the remarkable passage, "I will declare the decree; the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day I have begotten thee;" and again in lxxxix, 27, "I will make him my firstborn higher than the kings of the earth." The decree is gone forth; we have seen it in Exodus, "Israel is my firstborn." Again in Isaiah, as quoted above; also in Ps. cx, 1, “The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand," &c.;

so when Jesus is called out of Egypt, the believer naturally looks back to the time when Israel was called out, and feels the latter is the antitype of the former, and that the allusion here is not only to the fact that Jesus was brought out of Egypt to live in Galilee, but that in due time the Jewish nation will be brought out of bondage they are now in, to dwell in the land given to Abraham and to his seed for ever. See Ps. lxviii, 31; lxxx, 8; Isa. xix, 25.

EZEKIEL, XXVII, 26.

"Thy rowers have brought thee into great waters: the east wind hath broken thee in the midst of the seas."

The prophet having in the former part of this chapter shown the great wealth and prosperity of Tyre, proceeds here to demonstrate that the luxury and pride of this great city shall bring upon her swift destruction; the punishments inflicted on her resemble closely those denounced against Babylon in the Revelations-which I would parenthetically observe does not in my opinion refer to Rome, the papacy, or to any city or creed now existing; but to a real and future Babylon which is yet to arise on the Plains of Shinar. But as this subject would necessarily lead to a thorough investigation of many prophecies, I leave it to a future occasion.

To revert to the particular passage under review, I would remark that the meaning is to the effect that the princes and rulers of Tyre had by their arrogance, policy, and profaneness caused such storms to arise as would imperil the vessel and end in shipwreck. Isaiah had long before prophecied that at the end of seventy years the Lord would visit Tyre (see chapter, xxiii, 17, 18). And we know that this was literally fulfilled when Nebuchadnezzar came up against the haughty city and after a seige of thirteen years destroyed it and took away captive its inhabitants.

Nebuchadnezzar is figuratively represented under the emblem of an east wind, which withers and blights up all within its influence. It is prejudicial to corn, fruit, plants, and vines, it is scorching and consuming. And is very generally employed in Scripture as illustrative of great

afflictions (see Eze. xvii, 10). The prophet Habakkuk alludes to Nebuchadnezzar in the words, "they shall come all for violence, their faces sup up as the east wind" meaning that as the moisture of the earth, and the juice of trees and shrubs are supped up by the blasting aridity of the east wind, so should the Chaldeans suck up and devour every thing that came in their way; they would utterly root up and destroy every vestige of the Jewish race.

Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed and depopulated Jerusalem before he bent his arms against Tyre, and this latter place had revelled over the destruction of the fallen city. God willeth not that we should rejoice in the calamities of our foes-this is patent throughout Scripture. Tyre, in the person of Hiram, in the days of David and Solomon, had been closely united in bonds of political friendship with these great men, and when Judah was in great strait and sorrow, exultingly to rejoice in her misfortune was a cruel and grievous offence; and now God who rules, governs, and ordains all things in this world, caused the vindictive city to drink to the dregs those very trials and sufferings which formerly had been experienced by her ally (see Zec. i, 14, 15).

There is a striking similarity between the description of what Tyre was, and what our great metropolis now is: both cities of wealth, commerce, splendour, and eminence. Riches beget extravagance, ease begets effiminacy, luxury begets vice, and these lead to self-indulgence, intolerance of control, and an insatiable craving after novelty,-the end of which subserves to ungodliness and infidelity; and that this is the state of our land now, few will deny. The subject is too serious to enter into here, but let those "who know the terror of the Lord persuade men that they turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein." things fade and die away in using, but the love of God abideth for ever. Oh! may the prayers of all saints rise as a sweet smelling savour unto God, that He put away these carnal desires from the hearts of all, and fill them with a sense of his infinite love, mercy, long-suffering, and forgiveness.

All

Before closing these remarks, let me beg the searcher after truth to read the account of the prince of Tyre, in chapter xxviii, and compare it with the xiv of Isaiah, the 7th, 8th, 9th chapters of Daniel, and the 2nd chapter of