like theirs, rests upon incontestable facts: but the foundations of our belief are laid on the building which they helped to raise, and to the completion of which they looked onward in hope. The massive work upon which, from the beginning of the world, the structure has rested, still stands firm and unshaken beneath; but the head-stone has now been laid on the corner, and the symmetry of the temple is rising before us, fitly framed together. Who will now be persuaded to guide his eye downward to that which is rough and unsightly, or half hidden by the heaps of ages? Yet if our dependence upon the everlasting security of our building is to be an enlightened and reasonable trust, and not a mere prejudice, we must "go about Zion, mark well her bulwarks, and trace the setting up of her towers," even till we are convinced that our house shall not fall, for it is founded on a rock: that "this God will be our God for ever and ever; he will be our guide unto death."

Nor should I forget, before I let you depart, that the leading fact of our redemption is this day presented to our meditations; viz. that resurrection of Christ, without which our faith and preaching are in vain, and we are yet in our sins. This day most of us have joined in the great sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, by

5 Ps. xlviii. 12-14.

6 This Lecture was delivered on Easter day.

which that resurrection has, from the very time of its taking place, been typified and celebrated. We have seen the blood shed for our deliverance, and have spiritually partaken of the body given and glorified for us. Never was chain of testimony so firm and continuous as that to which we have this day added one more link: never was fact supported by evidence so incontestable as that whereof we this day are witnesses. The Lord is risen indeed. Life and immortality are brought to light. The Lord hath remembered his covenant; and he will receive us graciously, and love us freely. If the Lord had been pleased to destroy us, he would not have received this offering at our hands. and hoped, so must we. Church are yet to come.

But as they of old waited

The glories of God's We wait for the adop

tion, even the redemption of the body. We look for the Lord Jesus Christ to appear, that we may awake after his likeness.

And pray ye that we may be prepared when He shall call with our reason satisfied and convinced by the evidences of our faith; our understandings adequately apprehending, and our judgments rightly dividing, the word of truth; our affections set upon things above; our thoughts pure and holy; and the light of our good works so shining, that men glorify God on our behalf.

LECTURE III.

THE METHOD OF RECONCILIATION.

HEBREWS xi. 3.

By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh.

I AM contending that the foundation doctrines of the Gospel of Christ were revealed to the Old Testament Churches with clearness sufficient to render their faith a well-grounded and reasonable conviction.

In my first lecture, I endeavoured to shew you that the great preliminary doctrine of man's unworthiness to approach the Divine majesty, was continually set forth before them: in the second, I maintained that the fact of a reconciliation between God and man having been effected, was also clearly announced.

Now if this had been all; if the consuming fire of the Divine purity had shewn them their

own uncleanness, and yet the Lord had invited them to seek his face, and had poured on them his mercies; the faith of the ancient worshipper might indeed have ruled his actions, but could not have satisfied his reason: the power within him might have governed with despotic sway, but could not have brought into its service, persuaded and willing, those faculties whereby God has exalted man, and enabled him to reach out unto knowledge. For the aspect of the Divine economy would have been anomalous and enigmatical. On the one side, they saw a just and holy God, unable to tolerate impurity and sin; on the other, sinning and sentenced man,-but, notwithstanding, the sentence not performed, the purity bearing and dwelling with the uncleanness, the angry Judge inviting the sinner to come and partake of the blessings which he had forfeited. And though uninformed humility, and unquestioning self-devotion, might have overlooked these difficulties, and presumed that all this might take place by some way possible to God, but inscrutable to man; yet I see not how such presumption, however it may actually have influenced many good men of old, could form a reasonable or satisfied faith, worthy to be held up as a pattern to Christians. And yet we know, by the multiplied assertions of the chapter from whence our text is taken, that such faith was possessed by the Old Testament saints.

The question then this day before us is, how God was pleased to reveal to his ancient people the method by which this reconciliation had been effected in his eternal purposes? The solution of this question will be found in a consideration of the leading ordinance which prevailed throughout the ancient worship-viz. Sacrifice. And here let me remind you, that I am not now concerned with its prophetic import, properly so called, but reserve this for future consideration; viewing sacrifice at present as something inserted between the terms of the contradiction which I have mentioned, and dwelling upon that fact in the accomplishment of the Divine purposes, to which this ordinance bore witness. As in the manifestation of God's presence we read, Man is guilty; and in the very subsistence of the material world, and the dwelling of God among his creatures, we read, Man is pardoned; so in the ordinance of Sacrifice we shall read, Sin is punished-justice is done.

Let us recur to the transaction on which our text is a comment. We have seen God's tabernacle set up over against Eden: we now see with what intent. The two first descendants of Adam and Eve approach, at the end of the days—that is, most probably, on some seventh day of rest and worship-to offer gifts unto the Lord. Before we enter on the circumstances, let us look back a while and see what has been happening, while