which is law, and holiness, and happiness and peace. Thus man's restoration consists in his return to God, that is in his return to law, law in principle, and law in practice. Law in principle is love, law in practice is love, and God is love. I deeply feel that this is an important principle, going as it does, not in the way of captious controversy, but in a deep and fundamental way to settle the question about law as the rule of law. It is just because fallen man is flung out of the region of law that he is unhappy, like as if you could imagine one of the planets flung out of the attraction of gravitation, and sent adrift as a wanderer through the immensity of space, without any object or direction. How can regularity be restored to that wandering globe? Only by bringing it back again within the attraction of gravitation. And what gravitation is to the planet, the love of God is to the souls of men. Fallen man is driven away from holy attraction, and it is only when man is born of God, born again, born from above, created anew, that he is restored within the range of that attraction; and in proportion as the consequences of his wanderings are removed from him, and the lingering resistance within him to the orbit of holiness is overcome, in the same proportion he is at home, at home with God, in holy, happy love.

This will further teach us the true value of expository preaching. Sanctification is by the truth: God's word is truth,-all of it. Holiness is not to be attained by any direct effort of the mind, arising out of appeals to the feelings, or judgment, or conscience. Such appeals may awaken the careless worldling, or reawaken the slumbering affections of the Christian; but the excitement produced by them must not be

mistaken for holiness. Holiness is attainable only by a process of assimilation to God. In communion enjoyed, conformity is cultivated. How is this communion to be enjoyed, but in meditation upon sanctifying subjects? And what are those subjects, but the facts, principles, and prophecies of holy scripture; all of them? But they are all founded in Christ, who in himself comprises the facts, the principles, and the prophecies of holy scripture ; all of it-all of it. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of the prophecy; whatsoever the letter may be, whether the letter of prophecy rests on David, or Solomon, on Hezekiah, or Ahaz, or whether it goes beyond the pale of the favoured people, and rests on Darius, on Shalmanezer, or Sennacherib, still the spirit of the matter rests on Jesus, who is the predestinated David to the church, and to the people of God; the predestinated Sennacherib who will break his enemies in pieces; so that, whether we read in the outward letter, patriarchal narrative, or Mosaic type, whether it be a strain of seraphic psalmody, or a burst of prophetic poetry, whether it be evangelical parable, or the close logical deductions of an apostolical epistle; still the heart, and soul, and life of every part is Jesus. The expository exhibition of this is, I fear, grievously neglected.

Books of God's sacred word are left unstudied and unexpounded. Texts may occasionally be selected from them as mottoes, and spiritual adaptations made of those texts to the experience of Christians or the doctrines of the gospel; but the mind of the Spirit of God in the context is not sought after, the primary application of the language as a whole is not elucidated. Hence, in the midst of the riches of

evangelical piety, there is a deplorable poverty of scriptural information. The legitimate consequence is intermittent excitement, rather than progressive holiness. It may readily be admitted that there are many parts of scripture, a knowledge of which is not essential to a mere escape from wrath; but who will venture to say, that any portion of truth in the word of God is not essential to progress in sanctification? For what purpose, then, is it written? And for what purpose do we combine to circulate it far and wide? Why do we protest against extracts, if we after all practically confine ourselves to extracts? Why would we refuse, for ourselves or our people, bibles from which Hosea, Micah, Zechariah, the Apocalypse, were suppressed, when we practically suppress, from ourselves and our people, those books? I do venture, with all singleness of heart, to counsel you to a wide course of study; for I fear exceedingly that in the midst of outward activity there is comparatively little real scriptural ballast. It is on this account that those who attempt to expound the scripture are charged with advancing new things, charged with novelties, because they attempt to examine the hitherto unexplored mines of the sacred prophetic volume. It is not because these things are new, but because they have not been attended to, that they appear new, and therefore we would earnestly deprecate the charge of novelty against those who are aiming at the redemption of these neglected portions of the Word of God, and are bringing them forth to the observation and faith of the church. It is, I believe, my reverend brethren, on this very account that certain subjects of prophecy have met with so much opposition. It was felt at first sight to be a

departure from the simplicity of the gospel; and often while elucidating a chapter of Isaiah or Jeremiah, we have been told that we were not preaching the gospel. Surely, if sanctification be by the truth, and all the word of God be truth, it becomes our imperative duty, by whatever difficulties we may be impeded, honestly and strenuously to aim at the exposition of it all. Why do we hear such general complaining of the want of progressive sanctification in the church, but because there exists a general deficiency in the detailed exposition of the Bible? The materials have not been supplied, and consequently the fire has not burned bright. I would, therefore, with affectionate freedom, exhort my brethren to the study of the prophetic portions of scripture, and to the observation of the large field occupied in those books by the Jewish nation. A corresponding field is occupied in the history of the world by that same nation-held aloof from all the nations of the world-kept to this day as a witness for God.

The Jewish nation is the most efficient, we might perhaps say the only, external evidence of Christianity, which can be made to bear upon uneducated men. The past and present state of that nation, compared with the language of prophecies already fulfilled, supplies us with a key to the right interpretation of prophecies as yet unfulfilled. The importance of this will be felt by all who consider the prominence which the Jewish subject occupies in the sacred volume. Wherever the rapturous song commences, the harp never ceases its vibrations until it has gone over the Lord's purpose concerning Judah and Jerusalem-the sun of the system. The prophets never seem to be at home but when dilating on this

subject: other matters are but a prelude to this; while those holy men, speaking as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, rest with complacency, and enlarge with rapture, on the glories of the restored Jerusalem. The highest feature in these predicted glories is her returning King-He who is born King of the Jews-He who was written "King of the Jews" in that emphatic manner which caused Pilate to say (scarcely knowing what he said), "What I have written, I have written." The King of the Jews, who still lives, is predicted to return and meet that Jewish nation, still kept waiting for their King-the same Jesus, who shall come again as he went awayhis feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, " And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end."

THE waterman in the boat, that with his hook takes hold of the shore, doth not thereby pull the shore to the boat, but the boat to the shore; so in prayer we do not inform God, and so draw the mercy to ourselves, but ourselves to the mercy.-Matthew Henry.