was most tangible. It was most related to their bodily wants. Here by not a few everything else was lost sight of. The one object of their hope was the inheritance beyond Jordan in the land of Caanan. This part of the promise is also referred to in chap. xv. 1-18, and xvii. 1-8. In the latter passage God also promises that he would be a God to Abraham and to his seed; thus giving us to understand that the promise was not confined to temporal things, but that it ineluded that which is spiritual in its nature. This has sometimes Deen overlooked. The reader will perceive that this thought, 'A God to Abraham and to his seed,' is capable of great expansion.

Observe, too, the reference to the extent of the dominion to be ruled over by the SEED of Abraham. This is also brought before our notice in chap. xxii. 16, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is on the sea hore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.' This passage gives the arrangement a world-wide application. Through Abraham, not only the Jewish nation, but all the nations were to be blessed.

Paul, doubtless, had this view before his mind when he styles him the 'Father of many nations,' and the Heir of the world.' The essing coming through him constituted him the former, and its world-wide application the latter.

That the Jews uuderstood the promise in this universal sense there can be no doubt. Paul, in the passage referred to, spoke of it as a thing commonly believed. See also the 37th Psalm, But

those that wait upon the Lord, they shall inherit the earth. But the meek shall inherit the earth.' This latter clause is made more prominent and significant, from its being quoted by Messiah imself in His sermon on the mount.

Here, then, in the covenant given to Abraham, we have, as it mere, the source of all those ideas of universal conquest which have ternately animated the bosoms of both Jews and Christians.

With this thought before us, we can better understand those tenlencies ever and anon manifesting themselves among Christians, ometimes called millenarian. It gives us clearly to perceive that bey are not wholly wrong, but, in the main, right. They naturally rise out of God's covenant with Abraham. The objects toward which they tend constitute part of that arrangement; and as the ther part has been fulfilled, so have we reason to believe will they e in their season. Were this kept in mind and suitably reflected n, it would very much modify those despairing notions which many ntertain regarding the world's future. The Scriptures leave us no som for doubt on this point. The world is Christ's. It belongs to Him (not to speak of His essential right) as being the SEED of Abraham. It was to HIM that the promise was made. Abraham was only the medium. Christ is the end of the promise as well as of the law. This is not seen in our translation of Gal. iii. 17. It says, a Christ. It should be toward, or with a view to Christ. Hence, in Fer. 19 we read, '. until the SEED should come to whom the romise was made.' See also Ps. ii., 'Thou art My Son. . . . I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.'

Who that rightly estimates the constitution of things here hinted at, need wonder at the millenarian tendencies, even when manifested in such things as crusades and state churches? These are but premonitions of a great event which is yet in the future; attempts on man's part to bring about that which God alone can; labour-pangs of a birth which, though delayed, is yet certain. The Son must come a second time; not, indeed, as man to suffer, but as God to reign, having taken the kingdom to himself. The world shall not always be owned and reigned over by usurpers. HE shall come whose RIGHT it is to reign, and to Him it shall be given. Jehovah's promise and purpose in order to this stand sure. No opposing power, either in earth or hell, can change them. Earthly kings and princes may, indeed, take counsel together to thwart them, but He who sits in heaven laughs and has them in derision. He has anointed his King in Zion; and whatever king, or prince, or people, or nation, yields not to His sway, must perish. This is the great law according to which the administration of affairs is carried on. Christ himself, exalted on his Father's right hand, having all power, both in earth and heaven, committed to him, is conducting things to this grand consummation. From his throne on high he is expecting till his foes be made his footstool.'

Nei

Be encouraged, then, ye despairing ones, and you who are enduring the world's scorn, or bowed down beneath the oppression of its ty rannies! A time is in the future when the world shall be yours; when instead of being ruled over, ye shall be the rulers. With Christ your King ye shall reign. Why be cast down with such a prospect in view Nought can snatch it from you. Earth cannot. Hell cannot. ther life nor death can. If only you be loyal to your King, which ever way, it is yours! Therefore let no man glory in men, for al things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours. And how much, think you, is this? So much of houses and of lands It may include something of this sort, but it certainly includes more The New Testament writers speak of it as not merely something earthly, but heavenly. Our inheritance is reserved for us in heaven.

The millenarian in his zeal sometimes overlooks this. Some, in deed, are so carnal and earthly in their aspirations, that they would limit their inheritance to a thing of earth; while others are so ethe rial and heavenly, that theirs is all heavenly. But why may not both be right? Why may not one chief glory of the saints' inheri tance be the removal of the great gulf which, since the fall, has been placed between earth and heaven ?—the restoration of our world to its place in the society of the universe? Is there any reason why it should not consist in a state of things in which, though on earth, we should feel in heaven? In short, a state in which the earthly would be in harmony with the heavenly, and the material with the spiritual? Have we not an indication, rather an illustration, of this in the spiritual body of Christ?

Catch up and amplify the thought, ye mystic spiritualists, and thou millenarian enthusiast; and, burning it into the minds of your followers, let us hear no more of the earth being essentially bad, on the one hand, or of the monstrous delusion of being re-baptized into the faith of the coming kingdom on the other.

Reader, I show thee a more excellent way. If thou hast given thy whole heart to Christ, and hast been baptized INTO HIM, thou hast been baptized into the faith of the come and the coming kingdom, empire and all. Were our inheritance limited either to what, with our present powers, we know or think it to be, it would be but small. I know no view at once so truthful, so comprehensive and encouraging as we get by looking to CHRIST,-and this is the Scripture way. Believe, then, on Him. Be baptized into Him. Serve him. Wait for Him. He will come and restore all things. Be not troubled about the inheritance, as if participation in it depended on an intimate knowledge of it in all its parts. This is not revealed. It is not the object of the book to reveal this, bnt Christ; and to this object it ever true. Rightly read, we see nought in it but Him, and Him in every page. HE, then, is the import of the covenant given to Abraham, the spirit and substance of all its blessings, the 'yes' and the shall be' of its promises. He now offers himself, reader, to thee. Wilt thou have him? Say in thy heart, I take Him; I am His; and He is ine. Having chosen Him as thy portion, no good can be wanting, Thy whole being shall be satisfied, all its wants supplied. Thou wilt find enough in Him to satisfy the deepest craving and the highest and holiest ambition that can stir thy soul. Make Him thy study, thy model, thy hope, thy all; and in return all things are THINE.

O. F.

ADDRESS ON THE FIFTEENTH PSALM.
PART FIRST.

Dear BRETHREN,-Among the many sweet songs of the inspired poet, you will remember one in which he says, 'One thing have I desired of the Lord; that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple; for in the time of trouble shall he hide me in his pavilion, in the secret of his tabernacle shall he bide me.' And in another place, communing with his own heavenSoaring spirit, he soliloquises: Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? who shall stand in his holy place?' and his reply is, ' He that hath clean hands and a pure heart, who hath not lifted up his soul anto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.' Of a somewhat like nature are the questions asked in the first verse of this psalm: Lord who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?' The qualifications are enumerated in the suceeeding verses, and are eminently worthy of our notice. Let us mark them. They are of two kinds, positive and negative; the former are contained in the 21 and 4th verses, the latter in the 3d and 5th. Let us examine, first, the specifications of the 2d and 4th verses; 'He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart; in whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord.' 'He that sweareth to his own hurt and changeth not.'

Upright walk stands first in this enumeration. Motion is a sign of life, and all things in creation are either progressing or retrogressing. So far as we know, there is not anything in existence formed

to be strictly motionless. From the impalpable dust which is seen in the sunbeam to the worlds immeasurable which float in circumambient ether; in the smallest and largest, the meanest and mightiest works of God, there is motion everywhere. There is not, there cannot be such a thing as righteous idleness; consequently, he who would dwell with God must be moving; but though there must be motion with the Christian, every kind of motion is not right. It is not right for the Christian to walk backward, nor sideward, nor downward; it is not right to walk bending to earth and earth's plea sures. Just as man, in his physical formation, was made to walk erect, so he who has been born again in spirit, made a new man in Christ Jesus, is formed to walk uprightly, looking upward to God and to heaven, walking uprightly before angels and perfected spirits, before his Saviour and his God. In the writings of the wise king are these two remarks: He that walketh uprightly walketh surely, and he that walketh uprightly shall be saved.' Since the fear of the Lord is wisdom, let us more and still more reverence God, and a safe, sure, and upright walk shall be ours, and we shall have the first qualification for being guests in God's tabernacle.

Righteous work. God's tabernacle is a righteous institution; it is built upon a foundation called Jesus Christ the Righteous. Except for His righteousness, this tabernacle could never have been built on earth. Everything is righteous within it; nothing that defiles can abide in it; only righteous habitants are formed in it; only righteous thoughts must those righteous dwellers have, and righteous words and righteous works. Not self-righteousness, but the true righteousness,' that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is from God on account of this faith.' And let us remember that there is an external tabernacle, an everlasting holy hill, even the new Jerusalem; and if our works are not right here we cannot enter there.

Speaking truth in the heart. You recollect the exhortation of the apostle to the Ephesians: Wherefore, putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour;' and his argument is,For we are members one of another.' If our ears were to deceive our eyes, our feet lie to our hands, or any member of our body to act untruthfully one to another, what confusion and disaster would ensue. Is there one among us who could bear the thought of being separate from the body of Christ? Not one, I am sure. Is there one among us who acts inconsistently with his or her profession? If so, that member does not speak the truth in his or her heart. Is there one among us whose sympathies are only partly with the brethren! That member is partly dead. Some degrees more in that unsympa. thetic direction, and that branch will become leafless, fruitless, withered, altogether dead, and only fit to be cut off and cast away. Branches of the Vine Tree, see that you are all drawing your sus tenance from the Root! Members of Christ's body, look that, when you say, 'Jesus is our Head,' you are speaking the truth in your hearts; for if you do not obey him in all things, if all your sympathies meet not in him, there is a want of truth somewhere, either in word or in action. Who is he that is called Faithful and True?' He is our God. Then let us follow the Master, let us also be faithful and true; let us not merely have the truth in our hearts,

and speak the truth with our lips, but let us act the truth also every moment of our lives. Let us not to try to deceive ourselves. Let us shrink from deceiving our fellows. And if we are dwellers in God's tabernacle, we would not for all the wealth of the universe dare attempt to deceive God.

Contempt for villany. Are we sure that we fully and clearly realise the altitude of our position? Just let us think for a moment of cur relationship. Is there one here who does not feel within him God's Spirit witnessing with his that he is a child of God? Is there Que here who cannot look up to God, and, speaking truth in his heart, say, Father?' Is there one here who cannot gladly think and speak of heaven as his eternal home? Any in this assembly who can read or hear the story of the life and death of the blessed Jesus And not be able to say, humbly yet rapturously, He is my brother, aviour, Priest, and King?' there should not be. This is not the house of a stranger. It is our Father's house, and we are his sons and daughters. Think of that transcendantly glorious position to which we have been raised through the blood of the Lamb-the children of God! His peculiar people! His royal priesthood! JointSeirs with Christ Jesus! How high our standing! If such is our elationship, what should our conduct be? Should we not have nyal sentiments, noble actions, heavenly bearing, Christ-like charcter? Should not the perfection of our Father and our elder Brother influence us? Let our regard be for righteousness, truthlness, and justice; but let us hold all uncleanness and all villany contempt. The children of the world will worship mammon, and bey will honour the favourites of their god though they be vilsinous; but our minds have been changed by the living, loving Jesus, our sight is renewed, and it is expected that we shall see the tter loathsomeness of all vileness, though it should be covered with urple and embellished with gold; and that seeing it we shall rerove it, contemn it, abhor it, avoid it.

Honour to the god-fearing. The command of God is, 'Honour thy ther and thy mother,' and there is a sweet promise attached to the eping of it. But there is a fearful denunciation against him who mocketh at his father and despiseth to obey his mother. Well, if nu desire to enjoy the blessings promised to those that keep God's mmandments, make yourselves worthy of them; and if you would bide in the tabernacle of the Lord, and dwell in his holy hill, you tust honour those that fear God. Wise men in all ages, and in all untries, have been and are counted the most worthy of honour. We have seen that true wisdom is the fear of the Lord, therefore, be God-fearing have a just and righteous claim to be honoured. Promise-keeping. In Bible history there is, as you will remember, paragraph specially illustrative of this beautiful principle. We Lave Jephtha, captain of Israel, vowing to the Lord. It was on the ve of a battle, before he should lead his war hosts in array against enemies, the Ammonites. The vow was: Whatsoever cometh rth of the doors of my house to meet me when I return in peace om the children of Ammon shall surely be the Lord's, and I will fer it up for a burnt-offering.' It seems a rash vow, and it cerinly becomes a very painful one, when, on Jephthah's return in peace, the first to meet him was his only child, his beloved daughter;