and mystical allusions, was the blessed subject displayed at all.

The Church, such as Christ founded in this dispensation, has its special rewards: it is a system founded on faith, and not on sight; it is centred in an invisible God, whom we love because He first loved us, and who has given us the earnest of the spirit, wherewith we are sealed unto the day of redemption. In this world we are to look for trials and sufferings, and to count it all joy when we fall into divers tribulations, knowing that tribulation worketh endurance, endurance approval, and approval hope; and hope maketh not ashamed, because God's love hath been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, which was given to us (Rom., v, 3, 5).

To dilate on these great blessings it would be necessary to quote nearly the whole of the Epistles; and my object here is only to point out that to the Church belong heavenly blessings, to the Jews earthly blessings-each great and wondrous in its degree, each having Jesus as a loving bridegroom, ruling and reigning over them, and each invested and endowed with those gifts and graces which God in His infinite wisdom has decreed from all eternity, and which he deemed most fitted to His honour and glory.

Such being the case, what right have we-I speak of those who differ from these views-what right have we, I ask, who are blessed with all heavenly blessings in Christ, to appropriate to ourselves the promises made to Israel by an everlasting covenant-what right have we to say Canaan is heaven, Zion the church, that the prophecies bearing on Jewish blessings refer to us as Christians; that the lovely Psalms tell of Christ's love to us, and not to the Jew; that the restoration of the chosen race to their own land is applicable only to the gathering together of all people to acknowledge Christ as God and Saviour; in fact, by what authority, and on what principle, by what law of right or justice do we deprive the Jew of all the temporal blessings in store for him, and pervert, distort, and nullify the plain declarations of God by interpreting them to our own advantage, and to the exclusion of the Jew?

I feel satisfied in my own mind that all interpretation tending to take away from Israel's earthly glory, and applying it to the Church of Christ, is not only erroneous, but positively pernicious: injurious to the chosen race-de

rogatory to God-and in subversion of all truth. Those who uphold and proclaim ex cathedra such a system do infinite mischief, for as many have not time, nor perhaps application or ability to study for themselves, they are naturally led to adopt such views as they hear from the pulpit, or which may be indoctrinated into them by superficial teachers of the word.

It is impossible to expect a blessing on the teaching of the Word, unless that teaching be conformable to the plain, unadulterated language of Scripture. Words must be employed in their literal and natural sense, and every event and prophecy must be judged according to its context, and not from one or two isolated passages. Let this system be adopted, and Scripture becomes comparatively easy and intelligible, whereas now to many it is-consequent on erroneous teaching-so entangled with difficulties and differences of views, that few, very few, are capable of clearing away the web which envelopes them.

There remains one word to add: by the Scriptures of the prophets is meant the apostles, who were also prophets, as we learn from Eph., ii, 20, “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets;" "as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets," (iii, 5), "but what went ye out for to see, a prophet? Yea, I say unto you and more than a prophet" (Mat. xi, 9). "Rejoice over her, ye holy apostles and prophets;" "do it not, for I am of thy brethren the prophets" (Rev, xviii, 20; xxii, 9), &c., clearly showing that the apostles were prophets, and that "the Scriptures of the prophets" refers in this instance solely to the apostles, who, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, wrote the New Testament, that new revelation, which opened out, explained, and elucidated what the prophets of the Old had dimly shadowed forth in dark sayings and parables.

PSALMS, LXVI, 3-5.

"How terrible art thou in all thy works, come and see the works of God, he is terrible in his doing towards the children of men."

Terrible when applied to the works of God denotes awe, grandeur and sublimity, such as are wholly above man's comprehension; we see them, but understand them

not, they are far above our capacity of appreciation. We may admire and marvel, and fancy our puny intelligence competent to solve divine mysteries, and though human knowledge and thought are not to be lightly esteemed, yet after all we must exclaim with Coaleth the preacher, "all is vanity, vanity of vanities." We now see through a glass darkly, but the day cometh when those that wait for the Lord shall hear and see what God has now hidden from our eyes.

Terrible arises from newness, greatness, or the glory of a thing. Things new and strange excite fear. When the earth opened to receive in its gaping jaws Corah and his host, the children of Israel stood by staggered at the appalling nature of the punishment. When the sun stood still in the valley of Ajalon, and the shadow went back on the dial of Ahah ten degrees. When Samuel caused the thunder to roar in the days of the harvest. When Elisha opened the eyes of his servant and he beheld the mountains full of horses, and chariots of fire,-great was the astonishment of the beholder at the terrible power of God.

Terrible and glorious are in the Scripture convertible terms; the lxx often employs the latter to express the former. Where in the Authorised Version (Deu., x, 21), it is written "who hath done for thee great and terrible things," the lxx reads "glorious things.' Again in Isa., Ixiv, 3, where the Authorised Version says, "thou didst terrible things" the lxx render by "glorious things." And in this sense comets, meteors, lightnings, whirlwinds, &c., are terrible; man may attempt to account for them and perhaps partially explain their origin, but nevertheless he sees in them the operations of an unseen power and intelligence, and is compelled to stand abashed in the presence of a potential agency he is constrained to admit but unable to comprehend: an inward feeling of awe necessarily prevades the heart, and do what man may to conceal it under specious speculations of science, he inwardly confesses that God rules over all, and that his ways are terrible.

When God's glory appeared unto Moses in the mount it caused him to fear and quake, and so great was the terror of the surrounding multitude, that they entreated the word might not be spoken to them any more (Heb., xii, 18-21).

The glory was so terrible when the Lord appeared in a shining light to Saul on his way to Damascus, that he fell

terror stricken to the ground. Mark the effects on Abraham (Gen., xv, 12), on Daniel (x, 8), on Isaiah (vi, 5), and others, and see that even in dreams or visions God's communications with man are ever accompanied with a sense of terror (Job, iv, 13-16).

When God or angels appear in human guise to mortals, an incomprehensible sense of a holy presence is so overwhelming that self condemnation is inevitable, and prostration, or some similar acknowledgment of nothingness the only attitude. See the effects on Gideon (Jud., vi, 22), on Manoah (Jud., xiii, 22), compared with verse 6; on the three apostles (Mat., xvii, 6, 7), on John (Rev., i, 17). And note how in each instance terror at first sight was the pervading feeling. Job says (xxxvii, 22), "with God is terrible majesty;" the Psalmist exclaims, "thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things" (xlv, 4), "for the Lord most high is terrible" (xlvii, 2). "By terrible things in righteoussness wilt thou answer us" (lxv, 5). "Thou art terrible out of thy holy place" lxviii, 35. "Men shall speak of thy might and thy terrible act" (cxlv, 6). "Thou art terrible as an army with banners" (Cant., vi, 6).

The day of the Lord, "that great day," is almost invariably heralded in by the epithet "terrible;" and in Ezekiel's vision (i, 22), the firmament is described "as the colour of the terrible crystal." What this means is difficult of interpretation; in the Hebrew it is "the ice; the terrible ice;" and it may be mentioned that the ancients imagined ice by some process of nature became so hardened as to be converted into crystal. In the present day we believe it to be a silicious substance of an hexagonal form, but neither view explains the dread imagery of the "terrible crystal."

Job says, "gold and crystal are not comparable to wisdom" (xxviii, 17). The coupling of these two opposite minerals with regard to wisdom seems to imply that in Job's days crystal was equally as valuable as gold. The lxx render crystal by pearls, so that in either sense it exemplifies a stone or substance of great rarity. In Rev. iv, 6; xxi, 11, we find that a sea of glass, and the light of the Heavenly Jerusalem are compared to crystal, whilst in ch. xxi, 1, the river of life is said to be clear as crystal. In all these comparisons, visions of glory are unfolded, objects new and strange, and wonderful to human com

prehension, and consequently, as before stated, they strike the beholder as terrible.

The point to be weighed and considered by the believer is that God dwells in the light which no man can approach to" (1 Tim. iv, 16). It is of such transcendant glory that no created eye can endure it; the very angels cover their faces with their wings in the presence of God. (Isa. vi, and Eze. i). It is only those washed and purged in the blood of Christ, accepted in the beloved, and owning God as their Father, that can look upon the unseen works of nature, and the awful calamities falling upon a world of sin, with contemplative calmness, and feel and acknowledge that God governs the world in wisdom and righteousness, and that all his works are truth.

The believer sees in God's judgments and in God's mercies equal ground for praise, love, and adoration; he knows whom he has trusted, and has boldness in the day of his appearance, because even as He is so are we in this world. He feels no fear, for fear existeth not in love, for love casteth out fear, because fear hath torments; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us (John, iv, 16, 19).

MATTHEW, XII, 43-45.

"But when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, it goeth through dry places, seeking rest, and finding none. Then it saith, I will return unto my house from whence I came out; and cometh and findeth it empty, swept, and garnished; then goeth it, and taketh with itself seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they enter in and dwell there and the last state of that man becometh worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation."

This parable applies to all backsliders, but it refers here principally to the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, who will return to their country prior to the second coming of Christ in unbelief. They will find the land swept and garnished, but empty. The Jews, ever since their return from captivity, have kept themselves from national idolatry -the unclean spirit; indeed, those who dwell amongst the civilised nations of Christendom are eminent for their kindness one to the other, liberal in character, amiable in