heaven, that your heart may be there also.. Again

How essentially necessary is the influence of God's Spirit, and grace, to enable us to possess so vast a treasure, and hold so invaluable a possession. Heaven, may one say, is too great a prize for me to seize so it is, if you are possessed of mere mortal power; but, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me," is language which becomes the most weak and humble christian. True it is, that unless we are "strengthened with all might by his Spirit in the inner man," the hand of faith will become palsied, so that we shall not be able to lay hold on eternal life; but if the same glorious Being who says, Stretch forth thy hand, at the same time gives us power to apprehend the blessing, we may rejoice that heaven and all its glory properly and inalienably belong to

us.

Men and brethren, suffer the word of exhortation: those of you who have yet never heard the heavenly voice of Wisdom, nor entered the society of believers, let me faithfully tell you, that you are daily making the wrath of God, which is the second death, more and more certain; you are advancing rapidly to hell, the mouth of which is open to receive you. Ah! you may wish to lay hold on eternal life, when it will for ever shrink from your touch.

O, let those of us who have a good hope through grace, endure unto the end, so shall we

be saved: let us persevere, in hope of understanding more of the heights, and depths, and breadths, and lengths of this subject in the kingdom of glory.

To all of you, sinners or saints, professors or profane, young or old, I would say, The voice of God's ministers, of dying friends, of opening graves, of the Holy Scriptures, and of Jehovah himself is, "LAY HOLD ON Eternal life.'

H

SERMON X.

PREACHED MARCH 19, 1809.

REVELATION IV. 3.

66 AND THERE WAS A RAINBOW ROUND ABOUT THE THRONE, IN SIGHT LIKE UNTO AN EMERALD."

AMIDST the chequered scenes of life, the insignificance of the pursuits in which mankind in general are engaged, and the prospects of mortality and death, which must sometimes strike our minds, it is the privilege and happiness of the real christian to look beyond the grave; to summon all the powers of his mind to contemplate the glories of a future world; to bid farewell to earth; and inspect, yea, anticipate for himself, the happiness of the glorified in heaven. The vanity of the creature is made use of as an impulse to drive him elsewhere to seek for solid joy; and finding that beneath the skies there is no proper satisfaction for the vast desires of an immortal soul, he looks beyond; above them he soars within the veil; beholds his ever-loving Saviour scattering the best of blessings on all the happy tribes; hears them recounting the

wonders of his grace; and feels that animation in his mind which the sight of the joys of heaven evermore inspires.

O, my brethren, let us aim to do this: the things of time and sense have engaged by far too much of our attention through the week; on God's own day then, let us rise "to the general assembly and church of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven:" let us, in spirit at least, join the spirits of the just made perfect, in their admiration of Jesus, in the homage which they pay him.

The highly favoured apostle John shows, in the chapter before us, how, in vision, a door was opened in heaven, and a voice calling him, promised to show him things that must be hereafter; immediately, he says, he was in the Spirit; his mind was supernaturally impressed with those ideas which he had to reveal to us: the objects which he beheld must not be thought by us to have a real existence in the world of spirits, for the language is altogether metaphorical; and we are presented with hieroglyphics, the meaning of which may be developed, and will instruct us much in our views of the kingdom. Like Paul, then, not knowing whether he was in the body or out of the body, in his own apprehension; he was admitted into the presence of God, and he was favoured with a vision of a glorious throne, on which sat One whom it was utterly impossible for him fully to describe: for glory, to look upon, he was like a jasper and a sardine stone; the throne itself, however, was sur

rounded by a phenomenon, which may well attract our notice at this time; for, says our text, "There was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald."

You ask, what this rainbow is? The bow which God set in the clouds after the flood, was a token of the covenant he had made with man, that he would never destroy the earth any more by water; and there is no doubt, brethren, that the rainbow spoken of in my text, is the better covenant, the covenant of grace, far exceeding any other covenant whatever. The manner in which a rainbow illustrates this well-ordered covenant, and the several other ideas of it contained in our text will now come under our notice; and let us, my brethren, all pray earnestly, that the God of creation, providence, and grace, would give us to see how one part of his works illustrates another; and how they all show forth his eternal power and Godhead, while they are calculated to excite our admiration, joy, and praise.

Permit me then, my friends, to ask you

I. Is the rainbow a reflection of the rays of the sun upon a thin watery cloud? The covenant of grace owes all its excellences to Jesus Christ, the "Sun of righteousness."

That beautiful appearance in nature, the rainbow, is never seen but when the sun shines, and is evidently formed by a refraction of his rays on a watery cloud. It has often been asked, whether