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stricted existence, but the future and eternal welfare of the beings he has so wondrously formed, and so beneficently endowed.

The most important interference that the Lord has made in human interests, is in the bestowal of His sacred Word. Must we not therefore conclude, that every word therein contained is pregnant with import as to fitting us for this eternal state of being;—that it is teeming with lessons of spiritual instruction,—with food for the invigoration of our spiritual strength,-with promises far more referring to spiritual blessings than to any natural and external comforts sought after by the natural and carnal man, and which the experience of the natural man even proves, after all, to be only hollow and false, sating in their gratification, fleeting in their possession, only adding to the crushing weight of earthly anxieties, and becoming in their loves a new canker worm gnawing into the heart, inducing it to be carnal, while "to be carnally minded is death, and to be spiritually minded only is life and peace." "Set your minds on things above," is the grand injunction of the apostle; and as a school book of instruction, as a help to our efforts, a light to our feet in treading the upward path to spiritual-mindedness, this glorious volume must have been accorded to us. "The things of God are to be spiritually discerned, for they are foolishness to the natural man," is the illuminated decision of the Apostle Paul. This Word of the Lord is the greatest of the things of God; and unless it be spiritually discerned, it is only foolishness, as empty and vague, as hollow and unsatisfactory as any other merely natural gift. The world has been labouring for centuries to understand the things of God contained in this Book, according to the "foolishness of the natural mind," until they have bewildered the faith of the simple with mysteries that exist nowhere but in their own brains; and until they have justified the scruples of scepticism, which has learned to regard the whole Word, and faith in it, as foolishness altogether.

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This rule of "spiritual discernment" must not only be applicable to the Word as a whole, but to every part of it; coming from God alike, it must all alike be important to all and for all, and in all its parts, because it must all alike refer to eternal things, rather than to temporal and transitory interests. As, therefore, the regeneration and salvation of mankind must be the great object of the Lord in the bestowal of the Book, so every verse and every phrase of the Book must contain spiritual lessons for every individual who is toiling onwards in the pilgrimage of the regenerate life. Regeneration must be the purport and burden of every word of it, because regeneration is the sole object and intention of the whole. Its predictions, consequently, must all primarily refer to

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this subject; its injunctions must relate primarily to this subject; its promises, however couched in natural language, and however ostensibly naming external things, must all really refer to spiritual blessings for the regenerating man; because this was the sole object with which it has been written, and for which it has been bestowed upon man, and because it is, too, the sole benefit that could accrue to the world from possessing it.

These important principles, which from a hundred considerations, and with numberless arguments, can be proved to be correct, are eminently illustrated in the passage selected for this evening's discourse. Supposing, as many persons presume, that these promises of Moses' prophetic song, refer only to the natural and external things, very many grave objections may be urged against the whole passage. The first of these is, that it is not true. When did the children of Israel literally suck honey out of the rock, or oil out of flinty rocks? When did they literally eat of the fat of kidneys of wheat? And the only answer that can be returned is, Never! The very phraseology that Moses employs must convince us all that these promises did not and could not relate merely to external objects. Then comes the important question-To what do they refer? Not only to what do they generally refer, but to what do they refer specifically? Are we to understand that these specific promises are only vague and tautological repetitions of the same general blessings,-that a part might be left out without injury to the signification, or that other things might have been added without increasing their force or enlarging their meaning? We naturally revolt from such a jumble of ambiguity as unworthy of man and impossible to God! No, all the promise must have a rational spiritual signification, and every clause of the promise must have its specific meaning and definite importance; to add to which, or to take away from which, must mar the sense and destroy the intention of the whole. They must, as a whole, contain lessons of life to the man who is becoming regenerate, and a distinct spiritual lesson and a definite spiritual promise must be contained in each of them.

But, secondly, if we suppose, as many presume, that these promises were intended for the children of Israel exclusively,—that having been accomplished in them, they are designed for no one else,—of what possible utility can the comprehension of their real meaning be to you or me? If they be shown to contain lessons of spiritual life, then, unless these be of universal application, they are valueless to us. They are even worse than valueless; for, like giving to a starving man a bill of fare enjoyed a long time ago by some other person, they

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only exasperate his hunger and increase his despair. They could only embitter our want with the thought that God was a respecter of persons, and had favoured the Jews at the expense of all the world. No, my friends we also " hunger and thirst after righteousness," we pant

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as does a thirsty hart for water" after spiritual drink, we also desire to make the pilgrimage of regeneration, we feel our spiritual ignorance, and demand lessons of spiritual life. It is a God-implanted want that pants and yearns within us, and we require that the children of Israel shall only have been representative of all those who are in a like spiritual condition, and that the bread of life, and the water of life, and the blessings of life bestowed on them, shall only have been given through them as mediums, but really designed for all mankind. Children of the same great universal Father, we feel that the instructions bestowed upon elder sons must have been intended for us all, and that they were only the mediums and instruments through whom the Word came, by whom the Word has been preserved, and that from its first bestowal it was designed for all. As the sunshine beams glowingly and vivifyingly down on all men, without respect to any party or individual, so the sunshine of divine truth contained in the sacred Word beams lovingly and cheeringly for all mankind, both gifts of the same august Eternal, and both equally impartial in beneficence and universal in application, and on the broad front of both of which stands inscribed-" God is no respecter of persons."

We have, therefore, attained to the conviction of these two important facts, first, that our text must have a spiritual signification, and second, that this spiritual signification is designed for, and applicable to all men; and, consequently, we have arrived at the proper point for commencing an inquiry as to what is that exact signification.

Men are all sunk into the lowest degree of goodness and truth, because of the evil hereditary to their nature inducing them to the commission of actual transgression or sin. "The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint," says the prophet. This is true, not only of the whole of mankind, but of every individual man. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." The genesis of every man is in evil; and to become saved all must be regenerated into righteousness. As the fall of man has been caused by the gradual but complete and foul marriage of evil and falsity in every degree of his nature, so regeneration must be consummated by the gradual but complete and blessed marriage of good. ness and truth in every degree of his being. Evil must be supplanted by good, and falsity by truth, in every particular and in every degree. Not only must men "cease to do evil," which is only negative goodness,

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but they must "learn to do well." In order that they may do well, they must LEARN first, before they can do; that is, their knowledge must ever exceed their goodness. Now to the signification of our text. "To ride on the high places of the earth." Height, in the Word, ever refers to the state of love or goodness in the will of man. Hills represent a lower state of goodness than mountains, but a higher state of goodness than plains or valleys. As says the psalmist-"Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill ?” (xv. l.) and again-"O send out thy light and thy truth; let them bring me unto thy holy hill; (xliii. 3.) and again-"The hill of God is as the hill of Bashan, a high hill as the hill of Bashan. Why leap ye, ye high hills? the hill God desireth to dwell in, yea the Lord will dwell in it for ever;" (lxviii. 15, 16.) and as says Isaiah (lvii. 15.)—" Thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy, I dwell in the high and holy place, with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones." Here the high and holy place is in the spirit of the contrite and humble man, evidently showing that the high places refer to the high state of goodness in the wills of the humble. This high place in the text refers, however, to the earth of man's nature; and by earth, we are to understand the lowest degree of man's spiritual nature. The first possession bestowed on the regenerating man is “to ride in the high places of the earth;" that is, to attain to natural goodness by the appropriation of spiritual truth; his lowest, the natural degree of life, is to be purified from evil first. It must enter into marriage union with a higher truth, the truth of the spiritual degree, and having learned to do well, he must do well in natural things; and then will he have attained to the first result of regeneration,—" to ride on the high places of the earth."

There is a further blessing attached to this condition of goodness"That he might eat of the increase of the fields." Fields are the cultivated parts of the earth that bring forth fruit; and fields, therefore, correspond to the fruitful and productive portions of the earth of man's nature, where good fruit grows. To eat of this fruit signifies appropriation of good of this degree till it becomes a part of the man's living system, a part of himself. When a man has attained to high states of goodness in his natural degree, it brings forth fruit abundantly of goodness, which, by "patient continuance in well-doing," he makes his own; and then he may be said to "eat of the increase of the fields." 'He made him suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock." The grand signification of Rock throughout the Word, is the

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Lord as to His divine truth. "We have all drunk of the spiritual rock, which is Christ," says the apostle. "The rock, the Redeemer of Israel." "I am the God of Israel, and a rock." The Lord is rock and my fortress," says the psalmist, "He only is my rock and my salvation." "God is the rock of my refuge;" and so on in many places. Rock, therefore, refers generally to truth. Honey corresponds to the delight of the exterior natural principle of man; it is a delight and a joy experienced in the earlier stage of the grand process of regeneration. "A land flowing with milk and honey" was promised to the representative Israelites, which was true in the natural sense, but also more widely true in the representative signification, meaning that the heavenly Canaan was flowing with spiritual and also natural delights and enjoyments. Honey was forbidden to be offered as a sacrifice, meaning that as honey represented the delights of sense, or of the natural degree of life, although it was intended for the enjoyment of man, yet the Lord required a higher goodness at the hands of his worshippers. "To suck honey out of the rock," therefore, signifies that when a man has become purified in the natural degree, or "rides on the high places of the earth," he experiences from the truths he has learned far more delight and enjoyment, even in natural affections, than ever he did or could have done before. He finds that the law of the Lord detracts nothing from his natural enjoyments, but enhances and augments them all; that the sun would shine on him with greater splendour; that the flowers would smile upon him with more charming beauty; that his family would become dearer to him; that food would become more delicate, labour more delightsome, rest more delicious; that he could better hear the harmony of the spheres, because his natural man was in harmony with his higher natures; that he could walk up and down in this garden world of ours, and drink in rich enjoyment at every step, all things seeming beautiful, because all seeming good; that confiding in divine love and wisdom, he might realise in his natural experience even, that

"Religion never was designed

To make our pleasures less."

For every sense would become a wide and ever-pure avenue, through which unalloyed felicity might gush in upon him,-avenues to become as channels where the bright stream of happiness should splash to the music within, and dance on under the sunshine that should never fade away. Honey should come out of the rock" to him, indeed, when his natural degree of life should harmoniously chime in the grand chorus of regeneration.

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