things that are actually had : and this Church was therefore taught to believe that she was as sure of that crown, if she held fast, as if it were actually wreathed about her brow. Now, says our Lord, "Hold it fast," that sin may not blast it by its poison-that Satan may not wither it by his touch-that no foe may be able to unwreath it, and to take it from thy brow. Hold fast your dignity as a king, your glory as a priest, your relationship as a son; "for now are we the sons of God." Part not with your glorious investiture; part with your coat, and let him who takes it have thy cloak also, but part not with that hope of glory which the world cannot give, but which the world often watches to take away. "Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take thy crown."

LECTURE XXVI.

GLORIOUS PROMISES.

"Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee. Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.... Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, which is new Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God: and I will write upon him my new name. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches.”—REV. iii. 9, 10, 12, 13.

THERE are two classes that are here specified, the one, to all appearances, the fac-simile of the other; so that the outward eye cannot distinguish them—those who are Jews, i.e. Christians in deed, and those who are Christians in semblance only and in form. Both have the outward aspect-one only has the inward power of the Gospel. One seems to be a Christian, the other is a Christian. The one is a hypocrite, having the outward form, but destitute of the inward life; the other has the inward life developed in the outward form, and showing itself in "whatsoever things are pure, and just, and lovely, and of good report." The one is the fruit that grows and ripens to maturity; the other is the picture of it which remains as it is for ever: the one is

the painted bird, which ceases to look like the goldfinch when the shower falls upon it; the other is the living bird, which grows in beauty and in plumage as it grows in years, and is the same in the sunshine and in the storm. The one is the Jew outwardly-" And he is not a Jew," the apostle tells us, "who is one outwardly; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly," whose is the life as well as the power of real religion. This teaches us that there is a distinction between outward and true Christianity. It is possible to be baptized in the most canonical form, and like the Prince of Wales, to be sprinkled with water from the most consecrated of rivers, and yet like many not to be a Christian. It is possible to belong to the most venerated communion in Christendom-to be able to trace, or fancy that we are able to trace the succession of its ministers through apostolic times and ages and countries, and yet not to be a Christian. It is possible to be the severest dissenter or the highest Churchman, and in neither case to be a Jew inwardly, whose praise is not of men, but of God."

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Such seems to me to be the idea stated in this verse. "They that say they are Jews," or assume to be Christians," and are not." At the same time, I may notice that some commentators think that the allusion is to the Jews nationally. If so, it holds equally true. I do not believe that there is such a thing in Christendom as a thorough Jew. They "say they are Jews;" and according to the flesh it is their lineage. According to prophecy it is their doom and destiny to be so: but no man can remain one day solemnly and seriously a Jew, without the next day taking the step that necessarily follows, and becoming a Christian. You never meet with an honest Jew, who does not in the end become an earnest Christian. Moses so directly leads to Jesus -the type so plainly points to the antitype-prophecy in the Old Testament points so plainly to performance in the New, that the Old and New Testaments, like the twin lips of an ancient oracle, utter but one voice, and that voice the olden, the beautiful, the glorious one,

"Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world." "Now," says our Lord to this Church, "those who are mere pretenders-those who say they are Jews and are not, shall be made to come and worship," not thy foot, but "before thy foot ;" i.e. those who have the form and appearance of Christianity only, will yet be made to see the excellency and the beauty of the reality; and bitterly, perhaps hopelessly, regret that they had it not. For what is implied in having the form of Christianity? certainly the under-lying impression that Christianity is a right thing-a beautiful thinga valuable thing: hypocrisy has been defined, "the homage that vice pays to virtue." Hypocrisy means wearing a mask ;" to assume the mask of a king in order to commend yourself to others, implies that you value the dignity and the honour of a king, and would have it if you could: so, to have the form of religion, implies your acquiescence in the value of that religion; and so far it is the homage that the natural man pays to the child of God. " 'Now," says our Lord, "the day comes when those who have only the form shall not only feel its emptiness, but shall, in the presence of those who have the reality, worship that God whose word they have despised, and the form only of whose worship they have put on for their own convenient purposes.'

We have an illustration of this in the case of Joseph's brethren, who, when they saw that their father was dead, said, "Joseph will peradventure hate us, and will certainly requite us all the evil that we did unto him. And they sent a messenger unto Joseph, saying, Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive, I pray thee now, the trespass of thy brethren, and their sin; for they did unto thee evil and now, we pray thee, forgive the trespass of the servants of the God of thy father. And Joseph wept when they spake unto him. And his brethren also went and fell down before his face; and said, Behold, we be thy servants." They were thus made to come and worship before him, and to acknowledge that God whose commandments they had broken, and whose law

they had disobeyed. And so it is predicted very beautifully in Isaiah concerning the Jews :-"Thou shalt suck the milk of the Gentiles, and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob.

"The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and they also that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet; and they shall call thee, The city of the Lord, The Zion of Holy One of Israel.

“Whereas thou hast been forsaken and hated, so that no man went through thee, thou shalt be called an eternal excellency, a joy of many generations."-Such are passages illustrative of this prediction, that those who hated the people of God, or who assumed the form of their religion for their own expedient purposes, shall be made to acknowledge the sin of which they had been guilty, and to admit the excellency and the wisdom of those who have the life as well as the form of real religion.

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Then adds our blessed Lord, "Behold, I come quickly." If this was true eighteen centuries ago, it is surely more so now that eighteen centuries have rolled away. All the judgments that come are the harbingers of his approach. Those voices and cries that are sounding through the nations of Europe are indications of his advent. All things are preparing the way for him. The voice that sounds in every ear, and comes home to every heart with greater emphasis at the present day than ever is, Behold, I come quickly;" and it is the Church that cries in dutiful and grateful response, "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." It is very remarkable, that throughout the whole New Testament it is Christ's coming, not our death, to which we are taught to look. I think a Christian, when he rises to the highest point of dignity and enjoyment, should never think of death at all. We have nothing to do with it. It is the most humbling, the most degrading, the most horrible thing. It is that to which we are not to look forward. We are merely to believe this, that we shall