miserable comfort which he received from his earthly advisers: "My friends," he says, "scorn me: but mine eye poureth out tears unto God." And St. James writes, "Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.'

In the appearance of God to Moses, and in his dwelling among the tribes of Israel in the wilderness, the same truth was represented. A fire burnt in the midst of the bush, but it was not consumed: the fire of God's presence dwells and journeys in the midst of Israel, a sinful and rebellious people: occasionally it breaks forth on the bold and hardened sinner; sometimes the plague goes out from the Lord, and the work of destruction begins: but on all occasions the judgment is stayed; a full end is not made. An abiding and unchanging purpose of mercy and love is repeatedly asserted: the inheritance of the Lord is not to be cast off, nor his cove nant to fail. And at the same time Israel's unworthiness of God's favour is strongly insisted on. They are reminded that it was not for any thing in them that God set his love upon them, but for the sake of his covenant; i.e. of his gracious purpose of redemption. In contemplating then the state of his nation, the Jew could not but see a standing proof of the reconciliation 8 James v. 11.

7 Job xvi. 20.

between God and man, at the same time that he was convinced of the unworthiness of himself and his people to appear before Jehovah.

You will observe, that it is my present purpose to shew you the evidence which the ancient Churches possessed, for believing that a way had been provided for the sinner to live before God. I am not therefore so much concerned with their hopes for the future, as with their convictions of what had been by some means or other effected. I lay aside them for the present prophecy,properly so called. I lay aside the mass of testimony to the future manifestation of this truth, furnished us by typical ordinances: I wish to illustrate the existence of faith in a redemption effected. And I conceive that there yet remains on this point, much vagueness in men's conceptions respecting the early Fathers of God's Church. We are accustomed to view them as anxiously looking down the stream of time, and gaining by faith the sight of a Redeemer to come. So no doubt they did; but it was as the manifestation, open and palpable, on the stage of the world, and in man's flesh, of a great truth on which, as its foundation, their faith rested. "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth," is an avowal of faith in redemption present and actual, as well as in God's promise of manifesting that redemption in the fulness of time. And I see an

important purpose served by thus viewing the faith of the Old Testament saints, as resting on facts, of which the evidence was continually before them. I see that it takes from them the disadvantage and imputed weakness of being even in expectancy of the promise, and ever disappointed that it raises our estimate of the consistency and reasonableness of their devoted obedience that it binds together them and ourselves, in common dependence on the God who from before the foundation of the world hath commanded redemption for his people.

And if I further search psalm and prophecy, I find that the great truths which underprop the spiritual temple are ever spoken of as fixed, and past change in the decrees of the Eternal; while the upper building is avowedly in progress, and its future glories are foretold. "Other foundation can no man lay than that is laid," is their unvarying testimony: while from saint and prophet, from people and priest, the prayer which still goes up from Israel in their blindness and dejection, then went up in the clearness of their faith and the yearnings of their joy, "Build, O Lord; build thy temple." When the sweet Psalmist of Israel in his last words is prophesying of Christ, his sense of the incompleteness of his own house and times with reference to the promise, is borne down by his fixed reliance on ? 2 Sam. xxiii. 5.

8

the purposes of God: " Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure; for this is all my salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow." When the mournful prophet is bewailing the desolation of his city and people, he is enabled to gather strength and comfort from the assurance, "It is good that a man should both hope and wait for the salvation of the Lord.' And another Prophet pleads with God in a dark and dreary time, and says, "O Jehovah, keep alive thy work in the midst of the years, in the midst of the years make it known: in wrath remember mercy." But he passes on to the glory and majesty of the Lord in his designs for the salvation of his people, and ends his song in triumphant faith: "Although the figtree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vine; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls: yet I will rejoice in Jehovah, I will joy in the God of my salvation.'

993

Doubtless such faith required continual prompting and refreshing. Doubtless then, as in the latter days, scoffers would arise, saying, "Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things are as they were

1 Lam, iii. 26.

2 Habak. iii. 2.

3 Ib. 17.

The very

from the beginning of the creation." continuance of nature and man, was to the faithful a standing proof of Redemption: "It is of the Lord's mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not: they are new every morning.' But even in their minds it was necessary that this conviction should be ever and anon refreshed by open visions, and the sound of the Divine voice, aiding that testimony which had gone out into all lands, but which mankind seeing would not perceive, and hearing would not hear. For this purpose the Lord chose a city wherein to place his name, his covenant appellation, Jehovah the God of Israel: there, while the wasting fire of his anger dwelt, and the light of his presence was not to be approached, his people might ever seek him in ordinances of his own appointing; and though trembling at his majesty, and shrinking from his purity, might from every fresh festival and sacrifice return persuaded, that "If the Lord had been pleased to kill them, he would not have accepted these offerings at their hands."

And we have obtained like precious faith with them in degree differing widely, but the same in kind. The redemption which universal nature and the Divine presence certified to them generally, has been accomplished in detail to us by the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Our faith,

4 Lam. iii. 22.