ass Lamb, wore our tainted fleece; and now we, the sinful and stray sheep, return wearing his holy fleece. They who are thus renewed, receive, and apply to the Bible, as the only source of belief and authority in Divine things. Some accept the Bible as an excellent book, and admit certain doctrines which are the same as those of natural religion to be true; but they not only reject soulhumiliating and self-renouncing doctrines, but become indignant and exasperated that such truths are pressed upon them. Every doctrine contained in the whole Bible is true, divine, obligatory. A Christian's inquiry is, What is in the Bible? and what is meant by what is in it? His creed is, not what Augustiné says, or Bernard thinks, or Luther writes, nor what the best men, or most men say, but what God has said. We must answer to God for accepting any word but His. No commentary of church or priest, or father or divine, may supersede it. Like Abraham, we must tell all these our servants to remain at the foot of the mount, while we ascend and see God, face to face, and hear, not an echo, but the grand original. It is the renewed mind that proves what is the will of God. To understand the Bible we need no pope, nor council, but a new heart. The reason of the differences among Protestants is, not that the Bible is so dark, but because all are not truly regenerate. Then to be transformed, or to be a Christian, is not merely an outward change or party adhesion it is a heart and treasure in heaven it is to be raised above this world, and to look at all things in the light of the gospel. No real or imaginary severity in what God says or requires may modify our acquiescence. Has God said it? is the only question. Many, in every age, have had to try themselves, Do I love Christ? — am I a Christian? and then have marched to torture, rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer for "His Name's sake." We

have no such ordeal at present on earth, but there is a yet more searching ordeal at the judgment-seat; and if we shrink from the scrutiny of the Bible now, how shall we shrink from the scrutiny of its Author hereafter? What a necessity is there for honest dealing with our souls! The merchant is not satisfied till he knows he is solvent. The landholder is ill at ease till he is sure there is no flaw in his lease. The sick man is anxious till he has ascertained if his disease be fatal or not. How inconsistent are we, if on that point on which should be concentrated the 'intensest anxiety- the destiny of souls-nothing but indifference should be felt! Brethren, we must know the worst of our case before we ever know the best.

Do not excuse yourselves by pleading the inconsistency of professors of the gospel. They may be hypocrites, but this is no reason why you should be unbelievers. They are perishing in the church; this is no reason why you should perish in the world. You are answerable to God, not for them, but for yourselves. "If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" "Search me, O God, and know my thoughts." There is no time to lose or spare; we are rushing towards Eternity, and Eternity is rushing towards us, and our meeting place is the judgment-seat.

CHAPTER XII.

THE TIME-HAZE.

"Here all our gifts imperfect are,

But better days draw nigh,

When perfect light shall pour its rays,
And all these shadows fly."

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.” 1 COR. xiii. 12.

THERE is much, even in prophecy, clear enough to refresh us with its glorious prospects; there is much dark enough to make us humble in our ignorance, and to put confidence in Him who has promised to make the obscurest things plain. It may be said, not merely of prophecy, but of all that we know of the doctrines of the gospel of Christ, that we see through a glass, darkly. It is true, no doubt, that the Bible is a revelation of that which is hidden; it is no less true, that it reveals, with great perspicuity and plainness, the leading, essential, and fundamental doctrines of the gospel of Christ. But beyond the principles it clearly reveals, there is a dark and extensive region of the unknown, into which scarcely a ray penetrates, and of which we can only form a conception by the dim and scattered hints of its nature which are spread over the sacred page. It is true, therefore, of all revelation, not only of inspired Scripture, but of all God has made, that the more we actually know, the more we find remains still

to be known. Each great truth that God brings within the horizon of our view, seems to bring behind it a train of deeper and more mysterious truths. As each new day brings after it a new night, so each new truth that we find in the Bible, brings after it another dark and mysterious truth, which we are unable to penetrate. In the future, when we shall have no need of the sun nor of the moon, when we shall no more see through a glass, darkly, when the veil shall be rent and we shall see God and all things face to face; even then, I believe, the unknown will be far greater than the known. If we only recollect that there is an infinite panorama to be revealed, and only finite beings to see it, we can easily suppose that our state in heaven will at no stage be stationary, but ever and ever progressive, and that as we learn what we knew not before, we shall see there is more still to be learned - our horizon widening as we move to each new height of that lofty mount which we shall ascend, revealing, at each height we attain, new heights that are still to be reached, ever upward and ever onward, light and joy increasing as the cycles of eternity go round and the new horizon spreads before, behind, and around us. And thus, then, it will be, that even in that future state where we shall see face to face, we shall see much unknown beyond that which is fully known the very brilliancy of what we do know, making more apparent the darkness of that which is beyond us, and which we shall afterwards know in succession.

I may apply the passage very briefly, and only very briefly, to creation itself. The most enlightened and scientific men will tell you, that the more they know of nature and of the things of the created world, the more they feel remains to be known. It is always the greatest philosopher who is most convinced of his own ignorance. Sir Isaac Newton, when congratulated on his vast discoveries, re

marked: "I am but like a child gathering shells and pebbles round the sea-shore, that are just kissed by the waves, while the great unsounded depths of the mighty ocean lie unapproachable beyond me." He who has made himself most profoundly acquainted with all the mysteries in the height and depth of this created earth, is the very man who will own how little he does know, and how vast is that region that remains yet to be known. What little the mathematics, or chemistry, or geology, for instance, teach respecting creation, leads us to infer, that without these we should have very imperfect apprehensions indeed of God's works of creation. Nobody can be ignorant, who has a smattering of any of these sciences, that they show traces of wisdom, foot prints of benevolence, which are perfectly undiscoverable to the person who is not instructed in them. And yet these sciences, which have now risen to so great a perfection, are, even in their best state, but dark glasses through which we now see very darkly; and when these dark and dim glasses shall be removed, or when the range of the telescope shall be extended, and the power of the microscope increased, we shall see, I doubt not, in the firmament above, and in the earth beneath, in all that is magnificently great, in all that is elegantly small, such traces of the wisdom, the power, and glory of God, as will overwhelm and astonish

us.

Even now in this world, by the aid of art and science, which increase one degree our natural focus, we can see overwhelming proofs of the greatness of Deity. For instance, on a starry night, I look up into the sky, and notice those stars that, like altar candles, burn perpetually about the throne of God; I borrow the aid of the telescope, and see that these are not mere lights, sparkling as I have described, but that they are worlds, and that the very remotest of these are not the limits, but the thin suburbs of creation, that those that I see farthest off by the aid of