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ners 'David felt and acknowledged, in a spirit of becoming humility, that his kingdom was erected on a lower stage and was adjusted to a less stable framework of society, than the king. dom which Christ should set up in the latter day. As a ruler, he was a type of Christ. And the Philistines, the enemies of Israel, were but the Jews themselves in their hatred of the Messiah when He appeared in the flesh.

It was 'amidst sore trials and persecutions that David reigned. Saul tracked his fugitive steps in quest of his life. In proportion as the son of Jesse reared his throne above or beyond the hopes which his countrymen entertained, in that same proportion did he meet with hostil ity against himself in the conduct of Saul. That which exceeded, and, in fact, disappointed Saul's sanguine expectations, was calculated in the same degree to incur his strongest displeasure And the deadly enmity which was arrayed against the Saviour was by so much the greater than that experienced by David-by how much Christ's everlasting and spiritual kingdom towered above all preceding dispensations of men -in the immutability and perfect purity of its

truth, the grandeur of its principles, and the glory and perpetuity it was destined to inherit. If the merely human head of the kingdom, in its comparatively earthly form, had to endure sorrow and trouble, much more than this had the Divine Head to undergo, when the kingdom of heaven was being set up among sinful men, Gradually as the good rose to its highest mani. festation of perfection, precisely did the anta gonist evil put forth its keenest and most malignant opposition. The part which Saul acted against the claims of David was repeated by Judas against the Messiah, — - but in the latter case with more concealed wickedness and for a more paltry bribe; for Saul, if a blood-thirsty and revengeful foe, was from the first open and unwavering at least, in his violent persecution of the king of Israel. But both were characters that were to be witnessed in the coming ages of the Church. Saul, the pattern in the lower kingdom, must have Judas as his counterpart in the higher.The Scripture must be fulfilled.

D. M.

Notices of Books.

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THIS Treatise is systematically divided into ten chapters, treating of " the necessity"" importance and nature of justification"-"the imputation of Christ's righteousness"-the "difference between justification and sanctification”. "the nature of justifying faith". "faith the instrument of justification"-" harmony between the views of Paul and James"-" the connection between justification and holiness"-" on good works after justification"-and, finally, " grace the source of justification." There has been judiciously separated and attached, an Appendix on the more abstruse portions of the subject, so that the more unlearned reader may not be interrupted in his plain course of reading by any subject above the summit level of ordinary understandings.

We agree with the learned author, that the subject treated by him "is not a mere dispute about words, for the Romish Church regard their sanctification or inherent righteousness in the room of the perfect righteousness of Christ." And it is evident, that this error is by no means confined to the Church of Rome. It is extremely prevalent among all professing Christians. It is the offspring of the natural heart. Man is naturally selfrighteous, and he tries every expedient rather than renounce his own. holiness and submit himself entirely to the right

eousness of Christ. He would fain share the glory of his salvation with Christ, and thus he endeavours to mix up his own works in some way or other with Christ's merits, as the ground of acceptance with God.

'No one can read Mr. Gloag's Treatise without discovering that the author is conversant with the best theological writers. He avails himself of time-worn and massive volumes, and has compressed, with an able hand, their lengthened argumentation, and skilfully stripping their works of the scholastic and, to the uneducated, obscure if not unintelligible language, he presents the whole points and principles connected with this vital foundation of protestant, because scriptural, faith in clear and well considered language.

Concordance to the Metrical Psalms and Paraphrases. Edinburgh: Paton and Ritchie, 1856.

THIS ingenious publication is designed to supply a want felt much by ministers and others in conducting public and private worship. It is of great importance to find psalms or paraphrases suitable to the discourse preached, or the chapter read, and this is often a matter of difficulty. We believe, that all who are annoyed by the want referred to will here find it supplied. We commend the book to all, more especially to young ministers, and also, we may add, to Sabbath School Teachers.

Sermon.

By the REV. JOHN COLVIN, Minister of Maryhill.

And the king commanded, and they brought great stones, costly stones, and hewed stones, to lay the foundation of the house. And Solomon's builders and Hiram's builders did hew them, and the stone-squarers: so they prepared timber and stones to build the house. . . . And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer, nor axe, nor any tool of iron, heard in the house while it was in building.' -1 KINGS v. 17, 18; vi. 7.

ear of a David could discriminate and detect the accents of a voice of praise—if to the ear of faith there arise from

"THEREFORE," saith John, “are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple." There is, then, a temple in heaven. But the dis-battle-fields sounds as if the multitudes closures of the Word of God are not limited to this fact. Amongst the many brilliant revelations vouchsafed therein, one-like the moon amidst the planetsstands conspicuous. It is this, that in some mystic, perhaps at present only partially appreciable sense, earth may be regarded as the type of heaven, and the divine procedure towards men the shadow at once of the spiritual life and the future state. This principle of interpretation, intensely interesting in general, is vitally involved in the lessons suggested by the text.

It appears to be perspicuously declared in diverse parts of the Word of God, that just as the Tabernacle was the shadow of the Temple of Solomon, so the latter was designed to form a type of the Church militant and the Church triumphant. The Epistle to the Hebrews, for example, is an elaborate Divinely authorised illustration and exposition of the typical principle. It demonstrates that the singular system of discipline and worship promulgated from Sinai and established throughout Palestine, and the sacred places, things, and persons which appear and figure in the course of its exercise and development, were designed to constitute a foreshadowing typical picture, in whose light and shade the supernaturally enlightened eye of faith might discover the features and lineaments of the future both of earth and heaven. It clearly establishes the principle, that if in the heaven and the earth the 6.-VIII.

of armed dead stirred in their heavy slumber "—so in like manner to the same ear-the ear of faith—the dispensations of God towards the Old Testament Church, when viewed in their typical aspect, utter strange and otherwise unthought of things pertaining to Grace and Glory. For the time then present they were adequate; with the Future they were pregnant. Of such a typical character was the Hebrew Temple.

From the many typical and symbolic characteristics associated with the Temple, let one now be selected as the subject of present meditation, viz., the Hebrew Temple the type of the Christian Church, and, through the latter medium, of the Church triumphant.

I. The first point of analogy suggested by the text consists in the preparation made for the laying of the foundation stone. It is related here that Solomon " commanded and they brought great, costly, and hewed stones to lay the foundation of the house." They were prepared ere they were brought to the site of the future temple; and, by a reference to the sacred history, it is manifest that for a long period anterior David and Solomon had, as it were, been gathering their strength and accumulating their resources to realise the truly noble aspiration of building a structure whose magnificence might, even to the carnal eye, speak forth the majesty of Him whose name it bore. Nothing was overlooked that wealth or art could achieve. The cedars of Leban

on, the quarries and mines of Palestine | ing presence of the Prince of Peace, as and the East, the gold of Ophir, the royal the stormy winds and the billowy waves treasury and the skill of Tyre, were lavished upon it. Hence the affirmation of the text, that the materials were costly and precious-prepared ere they were brought to the summit of Moriah.

afterwards were by His voice, then were the solitudes of the wilderness startled by the repentance watch-cry of the Baptist, summoning mankind to prepare to meet their God, and to behold the placing of the Foundation Stone of that all-glorious temple, beneath whose gorgeous roof Jew and Greek, Barbarian and Scythian, bond and free, shall yet on earth serve and laud Him that liveth for evermore.

And who is the foundation of the spiritual temple-the Church? The Lord Jesus Christ. Isaiah places this beyond the pale of doubt, when he says: "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation." Nor was the preparaII. The second point of analogy is this, tion made for the laying of the foundation that as Solomon presided at the placing of of the temple which crowned Moriah an the foundation stone of his temple, so God unworthy representation and type of that when that of the Church was laid. The which ushered in, prepared the way for, pomp and circumstance usually attendand heralded the placing of the first and ant upon such transactions warrant the foundation stone of the temple of the assumption that the resources of PalesChurch. Without presuming to allude to tine would be exhausted to grace the the transactions of that eternity which pre- ceremony. That which Nebuchadnezzar ceded the creation of man, it was necessary offered to his golden image would not be that, ere the advent of Christ, Philosophy, refused by Solomon to the temple of his Heathendom,and Judaism should be taught God. To the Jews, with their deep relithe necessity of looking away from them-gious sentiments, there cannot be conselves to God; and this was accomplished ceived to have been an event fraught with by the experience of four thousand years. greater interest than the placing of the The prophecies uttered over Babylon, foundation of their sacred temple. With Tyre, Egypt, and other monarchies, had what intensity, therefore, does it shadow to be fulfilled, and this was done during forth that dread presence which, with all the era preparatory to the advent of its invisible yet manifested glory, conseChrist. The diadem and the crown had crated the laying of the foundation stone to be removed from the brow of royal of the spiritual temple of the Church! Judah, and the very glory of that Temple, If we regard the entire life of the Rethe laying of whose foundations excited deemer as included in this, then is it so profound and thrilling an interest requisite only to point to the nocturnal amongst the Jews, was doomed to wax scene on Bethlehem's plains, when "such old and vanish away. Man, from the music sweet" greeted the ears of the refined Grecian, the stern Roman, the awe-subdued shepherds "as never was sumptuous Chaldean, the luxurious Per- by mortal fingers struck;" for the angels sian, and the haughty Hebrew, to the were the ambassadors, or, as it were, the poor unwitting worshipper of a sun or a voice of God. We might guide you onstone, had to be convinced experimentally wards to the omens, and sights, and words of the impossibility of finding for them- which signalized the Baptism, to the selves a fit temple in which they might, ministry of angels in the wilderness and with tranquillity of conscience and full in the Garden of Agony, or to the Voice satiety of heart, worship the God of which imparted yet loftier grandeur to heaven and earth. This preparatory the Transfiguration mount. But if His work was achieved ere the Redeemer death be regarded as the act typified in came; and at length, when the prophetic the text, then how vivid there were the days and years had elapsed, and the revelations of the Presence and the Presitumults of the nations seemed hushed and dency of God. That supernatural darksoothed by the influences of the approach-ness excluded not the viewless light of

the essence of Deity. The foundation mount, as it thundered forth the words, stones of the temple on Moriah were "This is my well-beloved Son, hear "great, costly, and hewn." In the pre- Him." He who controls nature, and by sence of the majesty of the greatest and whose resistless command its elements wisest of earth's princes, and amid the kindle into war, or sink into slumber, affectionate benedictions of the chosen condescended to employ these phenorace, they were laid in their place of mena as the expression of His will, so honour; but, like earth when beheld by that whatever truths they unveilthe spiritual light or from the altitudes of truths magnified by the unparalleled heaven, or like an immense orb, the majesty and state of their annunciation centre of the system, but when seen from-they appeal to all with a directness earth seeming as a spark of fire, or a immediate as that of the words inscribed rent in the cloudy abyss, well-nigh im- by the finger of God upon the tablets of perceptible, but yet enough to permit stone, or as the audible thunderings of the egress of one ray of the burning the voice of heaven. If the presence of light beyond, the pageantry narrated in Solomon graced the laying of the foundathe text melts away into airy nothing tion stone of the temple on Moriah-that when beheld from the base of Calvary's of the King of kings presided over the cross. It seemed as if all nature had like ceremonial in the erection of the become momentarily vocal the sun temple not made with hands. from amid his darkness, the earth from amid the quivering of her elements, and the grave from its sepulchral charnel halls. And if to the acute sensitive ear of devotion, as it listens to the sounds unheard by the profane-that arise from the ruins of a once happy hamlet that stood by the sea-shore, it seems as if "Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voic'd

neighbouring ocean

Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest,"

III. We mention as the third and last point of analogy, the circumstances of the erection of the temple itself. "And the house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither." The materials were prepared ere they were brought to the mount, and were put together in solemn silence. Day after day the exquisite structure proceeded, until at length the Temple, with its spire-crowned Porch, supporting pillars profusely ornamented with carved representations-its Sanctuary, and, separated from it by a veil, its Holy of Holies, emerged into view, with its walls of cedar-wood and hewn stones, or marble overlaid with gold. No discordant sound of human instrument destroyed the music of the work. Amid that silence with which God's established laws operate, His house was erected, and Moriah crownedwith its glory. Does not this strikingly typify the erection of the Church spiritually, and of the temple in heaven? It had, indeed, an immediate purpose; for therein, during many centuries, there was found a resting-place for the Ark of God, and the bright Shechinah-cloud, the glory of the temple; and therein, age after age, the sacrifice was offered, the hymn of praise sung to the music of psaltery and harp, and the prayer incense-like

what were the phenomena that signalised the last moments of the Saviour and the Friend of man, save the voice of God uttered in the dread harmonies of a moved and awe-struck universe? Harmonies they were, and the most fearful to which earth ere hearkened; for one and all they were the annunciations of heaven from a scene of woe of which the dying Saviour was the central theme-the manyvoiced prophets of the living God to man. In that fear-moving eclipse of the sun, in the severance of the veil, in the quaking of | the earth, in the rending of the rocks, in the bursting of the bands of the grave, and the resurrection of departed saints, the voice of the Omnipotent was not less audible and distinct than when it made known to the leader of the Hebrew hosts the ever-incommunicable name, "I AM," or startled and laid prostrate the chosen ascended upwards-earth's counterpart three on the isolated transfiguration to the Temple-service of Heaven.

ary, philosophical and scientific pursuits, who, by their disquisitions and investigations illustrate the procedure, the laws and attributes of God have their counterpart in the skilful Tyrian artists. And to complete the picture: the bond-slaves the hewers of wood and drawers of

But it also had a typical aspect. Nothing could disclose with deeper truth the process by which the Church spiritually is upbuilt, and the celestial temple erected. Observe the accuracy with which the type reveals the antitype. (1.) The materials of the terrestrial temple were prepared at a distance upon the mountains, and at water-indicate the universal class of the proper period were transferred to unbelievers-the enemies of God, and Moriah. Thus it is especially with the celestial temple. Earth is to heaven what the mountains were to Moriahthe scene of preparation for the future; and no one, be his position amongst men what it may, can ever become a part of that glorious superstructure now being raised in heaven, upon Christ the foundation-stone, chosen and precious, unless his nature be formed and modelled by Divine power in this the probation-period of existence. It is one of the fixed and determinate laws of God, which not even Omnipotence can alter or amend, that unless "a man be born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." Nothing impure shall participate in heaven's blessedness; and, therefore, unless these natures of ours, which have lost their pristine forms of beauty and holiness, and become rude and unsightly in the eye of heaven, as stones newly taken from the quarry to that of the sculptor, are regenerated and made new, never can we by any possibility become an integral part of the living temple beyond the stars; but, on the contrary, a dark and repulsive element in the rude, misshapen structure, built on the foundation of the author of sin.

(2.) Look at the typical character of the artists employed in the work. These were the true Hebrews, the workmen of Tyre, and the slaves, the hewers of wood and the drawers of water. Is not this a faithful outline of the method by which the Almighty Architect accomplishes his purposes on earth? It is the will of God that many shall become stones, polished and perfect, in the living temple. How is this realised? So far at least by human instrumentality. The professed ambassadors of the Cross-the officebearers in the Church, are represented by the Hebrew workmen. Men of liter

aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; men toiling against their inclination and intention for purposes which in their hearts they despise; for it is one of the matchless perfections of God to overrule the wrath and hostility of men for His own glory—a fact which shall be triumphantly demonstrated at the judgment day. Is not this a solemn thought? The influence of every one is now operating in some way, either for good or evil; nor is it in our power to restrain or imprison this influence. Either for or against God we are now working; and if,--not less than unconcealed, unblushing animosity, -our indolence, coldness, or indifference shall be overruled for the promotion of the glory of God, as they assuredly shall, this cannot add aught to our eternal weal. Christian brethren! ponder with deliberation upon this. Think not that the officebearers in the Church are alone the ambassadors of Christ. Imagine not that their labours shall excuse your indolence. Oh, no! There is no salvation by proxy. The command is universal: it is addressed to the Church,―ministers, elders, and people: "Go ye and teach all nations : bear the cross." If opportunities for furthering the holy cause of God are presented to you, shrink not from embracing them. It is a glorious work; for what is it, save the preparation of immortal souls for a position in the living temple above?

(3.) The axe is used in Scripture as the symbol of human instrumentality, and therefore the specialty of emphasis with which it is related that no such instrument of art was employed in the erection, strictly speaking, of the temple of Solomon-in other words, that no human instrument whatever was brought into requisition-suggests the thought, that, in the work of Regeneration

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