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black, the prisoner was condemned; if white, he was acquitted; the custom, in this respect, corresponding with that of Scotland, where the opinion of the majority of the jury decides the question; a plan which I think superior to the English method, which requires the jury to be unanimous. Now here our Lord says, "I will give you a white stone," not a black one: when you stand at the judgment bar, when the thrones shall be set and the books opened, your name shall be written upon a white stone, you shall not come into condemnation, but I will accept, and justify, and glorify you at that day of trial, and of searching, and of confusion to the guilty.

There is, however, another and a very beautiful explanation given, by some commentators, of this promise; though I do not think it is so correct as that which I have just now offered. In ancient times there were no such things as hotels. Such places are strong evidences of a civilization, which is the result of Christianity. When one travelled, he was therefore obliged to lodge with friends; hence the great value, in those days, of hospitality. But after you had been hospitably entertained by any one, and you had partaken of his salt (as it was called), or eaten of his bread, it was understood that you had made a permanent friendship with him; and it was customary for the host to take a white stone, called a "tessera," which he split into two parts, one of which he gave to his guest, while he himself retained the other. The guest and the host then each wrote their names on their respective halves: and thus a league of hospitality was formed between them; and if, in after life, either of them should be journeying near the abode of the other, and should stand in need of his hospitable entertainment, he was entitled, upon presenting his half of the divided stone, to receive it. It is then as if Christ said, I have given you hidden manna from my hospitable board, I have admitted you to the rights of that glorious hospitality which earth cannot parallel; and I will give you now, as evidence that I have so admitted you, "a white stone with a new name written," which shall be a pledge to you that you walk the earth as my friend, and shall be received into heaven to enjoy the hospitality of that far better and more glorious home, from which you never shall withdraw.

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The " new name may allude to the ancient custom of changing the name of a person who had been raised to a new official rank. Thus the names of the three Hebrew youths in Babylon were changed; thus Joseph's was changed; and we, too, are no more aliens and strangers, but fellow-citizens with saints. This "new name" was on a white stone. Justification carries adoption in its bosom; a change of state is followed by change of character. The justified sinner is not merely an acquitted criminal, tolerated by the new society into which he enters, but a converted son, beloved and welcome.

The world knows not the believer. His whole life and joy are a mystery to the world. Nor does the world approve of him. "Marvel not if the world hate you." "The world knoweth us not." "The carnal mind is enmity." Yet Christ knows us, and will openly receive and bless us.

Are we candidates, my brethren, for these glorious hopes? Do these promises sound in our hearts deep and lasting and full of melody as voices from the better land? Do we pray that the real and enduring blessings which they announce may be our perpetual inheritance? They are the utterance of a Father's voice, significant of the depth and intensity of his love to us, and his desire to have us. They are written by the Spirit of God, the Amanuensis who never errs, in that precious blood which never perishes. "He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?"

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And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass; I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first."-REV. ii. 18, 19.

THE letter I have read describes the duties, the dangers, the excellences of the Church in Thyatira. The address is introduced by our Lord, in a character suitable to the body of the epistle. He proclaims himself to be the Son of God; this the epithet he assumes, the Jews construed to be a prerogative of Deity. He thus demonstrates himself to be, what we know he is, the first and the last, the beginning and the end, the Almighty. He next introduces himself under the characteristic attribute of Omniscience, "whose eyes are like a flame of fire." The flame dissolves the diamond into charcoal, subdues the strongest things, penetrates the closest, and finds access where every other element is interdicted. Our Lord has " eyes like a flame of fire," penetrating all things, removing every obstruction, consuming every opposition, and searching the deepest recesses and most hidden corners of the human heart. But not only has he " eyes like a flame of fire;" but it is added here, "he had feet like unto fine brass." The oxen which, in ancient times, were used for treading out the corn, had brass-shod hoofs, designed to enable them more effectually to separate the wheat from the chaff. The idea conveyed in this hieroglyphic symbol is, that our Lord has not only an omniscient eye to see all, but also the omnipotent power to distinguish, to divide, to separate all. Christ the Omniscient

One! what a solemn thought! In close contact with your heart, the very holiest, or the least so in this assembly, is the omniscient eye of the Son of God! We call certain thoughts secret thoughts; we pronounce some feelings to be hidden. They are so, relatively to man; but not so relatively to the Lord Jesus Christ. Those latent propensities to evil, which the holiest occasionally feel those folded buds that develop themselves into covetousness, pride, ambition, held in abeyance for a time, ripened by circumstances into terrible maturity-Christ sees in their commencement and in their consummation. Those unholy thoughts that spring from the depths of our hearts, detected by none, Christ's eye clearly and distinctly sees,-those evil habits, the remains of which we yet feel; for it is the penalty of late conversion that we have to encounter a fiercer struggle with the evil within than those have who are early converted to the Lord. The young who have loved the Saviour, gloried in his cross, and held communion with him from their earliest days, have a less hard battle to fight, because the power and the habit of grace within them are mightier and stronger by time; but those who have been turned from the evil of their ways late in life, have the remains of past habits, and the obduracy of inveterate feelings to contend with, and are destined therefore to a fiercer and intenser conflict with evil within than those who in their earliest years were brought to love the Lord. It is a strong reason for early piety, that it will always be followed by the greatest happiness here: the field of conflict will be softest: the progress will be easiest. "Remember, therefore, thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come," which will be increased and aggravated by late conversion, "when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them." Those habits, then, Christ sees; those schemes of evil which circumstances repress-those sympathies which our condition enables us to conceal those passions which are not developed, because God's Providence restrains them-Christ sees and registers above. All those crimes committed in secret - those deeds whose brand is "deeds of darkness"- those sins which no tribunal can register, no jury pronounce on, no judge condemn Christ sees and enters in his records. How dark must this earth appear to the bright, burning, holy eye that rests upon it per

petually! how sovereign must be that mercy that spares the purest of us all even for a single day!

There are other secret thoughts which man hides from man, but which Christ's omniscient eye penetrates and sees through. Man's power to conceal the evil that is within him is far greater than we suppose. God meant us originally to be the exponents outwardly of what we inwardly are; and hence, in our fallen condition, the blush upon the face, the averted eye, the tremulous hand, are designed to be the exponents of conscious guilt. On the other hand, the serene brow, the bright and forward eye, the firm and unfaltering footstep, are meant to be the characteristics and the indices of conscious innocence; but man so trains the eye, that it looks innocence while evil is behind it; and he so disciplines the muscles of the face, that it seems the picture of all that is beautiful, whilst it is but the blind of all that is bad; and he so invigorates his footsteps with a new and an artificial elasticity, that when it ought to tremble beneath the weight of conscious sin, he walks as if the universe were his home, and the sun and moon and stars looked down only to applaud him. So we may deceive our fellow-man; but the eye of flame sees within, and the foot of brass will separate between the wheat and the chaff. Man may conceal his thoughts from many an eye by the refinement and polish of human society. Christianity tries to eradicate the evil that is within man, but fashionable life has for its great effort to conceal, to cover, and to make it appear the very reverse of what it is. The refinements of life try to hide that which Christianity seeks to extirpate. What is this but elegant hypocrisy? It is covering guilt with smiles, iniquity with circumlocution, and bad morals with fascinating and attractive. manners. We are told that hypocrisy is peculiar to the Church : -the Church has no monopoly of it; there is plenty of hypocrisy in the world; wherever there is the most exquisite exterior, finish, and refinement, it is often, (though not always God for hid that it should be so!) merely the effort to make enmity appear love, to make misery appear happiness, and to make hatred and jealousy and all that is deformed look as if it were affection, and sympathy, and love, and all that is beautiful. And therefore, when you are told that religion makes men hypocrites, you an

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