most willingly towards his sepulchre. On death you will muse with most peaceful stillness; and the hope of resurrection will come near your souls, sweeter than the last rays of the departing sun, while you have near you, and contemplate, with the emotions and expectations it is given to produce, "the body of the Lord Jesus."

SERMON XLV.

ON THE COVENANT MERCIES OF GOD.

REVELATION, iv. 3.

"And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald."

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To penetrate the veil which separates heaven from our view, and look into its glories, pleasures, and pursuits, is the natural desire of the Christian mind. As the country to which our virtuous friends have, many of them departed, and to which our hopes and steps are directed by our faith, we cannot help feeling inquisitive about it; every instruction or description which relates to it deeply interests our thoughts.

In the beginning of the chapter, from which I have taken my text, St. John enters upon the relation of the most beatific vision of this country, which has been yet vouchsafed to any mortal being. Having had his visual strength perfected by the Spirit of God, "he looked, and behold, a door was opened in heaven." The state and majesty of the Deity in his high abode; the at tendants of his throne; their occupations and bliss; the economy of the celestial world; its furniture and glories, were unfolded to his sight. And when he sunk overwhelmed with the brightness of the display, an angel attended to strengthen and instruct him.

Among the objects in the glorious prospect which attracted his admiring view, he tells us in the text, "there was a rainbow round about the throne" of the Eternal, "in sight like unto an

emerald." An object this of singular grandeur and expression. Amidst all the glories of heaven he describes, it may worthily hold our consideration awhile, and to ascertain its significance, and pursue the reflections it suggests, shall be our employment of the passing hour.

Every one will perceive in the rainbow which St. John describes, an allusion to that beauteous offspring of divine power and goodness in the natural world, which bears the same name. This last, when the flood had executed the just vengeance of the Most High upon an irreclaimable world, was given to the few righteous persons who had been saved in the ark from perishing; as a token to them, and to their posterity forever, that the waters of a flood should no more destroy the earth. Awful was the destruction they had escaped! Great was the favour which their uprightness in the midst of "a crooked and perverse generation," had secured them! Anxious was their dread preserver to endear himself to them by mitigating their fears, and encouraging their confidence in him. When, therefore, the resentful waves had subsided, and they had passed in the ark to the Ararat of their safety, mercy, triumphing hand in hand with justice, thus addressed them: "I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud. And I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God, and every living creature of all flesh, that is upon the earth.” Such was the consecration of the rainbow, to be to the faithful a token of a covenant of mercy between God and man, whenever descending showers and a darkened sky recall his former vengeance on the ungodly, or excite terrific apprehensions of his power. Delighting the mind with its mild beauteous brightness, it seems when it appears in the murky cloud, to speak the covenant of which it is the token; to look the mercy which it was ordained to signify.

There is a harmony between all parts of the universal dominion of God; and from those which are known, emblems and

analogies are borrowed to furnish us with proper conceptions of those with which we have no natural acquaintance. Great systems and dispensations are dimly represented in small ones. Remote and spiritual objects by those which are more sensible. Thus the flood which once scourged the earth, was typical of the final conflagration, from which shall rise the "new heavens and new earth, in which dwelleth the righteous." Thus, too, the preservation of Noah and his family was emblematic of the salvation of the redeemed in the ark of Christ's Church. And thus, the significance of the rainbow, which surrounds the throne of the Eternal, is shadowed forth in the inferior one, to whose beauty and hallowed use we have just adverted.

We may consider it with respect to him whom it surrounds, and with respect to those by whom it is beheld.

As it respects the Deity, this emblem of mercy qualifies him, if I may use the expression, to be beheld by these who are admitted to the joys and honours of his abode, with perfect peace, composure and delight. The most excellent blessedness of his saints consists in the perpetual vision and fruition of his glory. It is in "his presence, that there is fulness of joy, and at his right hand only can pleasures be found for evermore." But in his full, unqualified glory to behold him, would be too much. for any created being. In his essential holiness, if he look unto "the moon, it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight,” and in the light of his unveiled wisdom, "his angels are chargeable with folly." His tremendous power, his transcendent purity, would be insupportable to the most perfect of the "spirits of the just," if they were not softened by the mild beams of mercy to their trembling perceptions. But while there is about him a lively emblem of his goodness towards them, while he is surrounded by the perpetual token of his covenant of mercy in Christ Jesus, with the children of men; they are not terrified by the greatness of his power, nor by his awful. justice, for he stands displayed as their protector and friend, and the garment of his appearance is the pledge of love. Oftentimes the Deity appears severe in his dispensations. Terrible

is he in the habiliments of judgment. Therefore, to St. John, he who sat upon the throne of heaven, "was to look upon like a jasper, and a sardine stone;" the former, in its unequalled strength, a fit emblem of his omnipotence; the latter, in its fiery redness, expressive of his terribleness in the day of his displeasure. But with the dismaying hue of the jasper and the sardine, are blended the emerald's mild beams. Of that agreeable green, which refreshes and protects the feeble sight, this precious stone was chosen to represent to us that tender mercy towards his children, which envelops all the perfections of the Most High. To them every affliction is tempered with mercy. "Though clouds and darkness are round about him," and its dispensations sometimes fill his most faithful servants with dismay, yet the token of his covenant with them is ever in his view, and he "doth not afflict nor grieve" them without regard to their final good. Amidst all the terrors of his resistless might, and severest dispensations of his providence, they may hold them still upon God; they may approach him with confidence; they may rely upon his goodness, safe and delighted in his presence, while there is a "rainbow round about his throne, in sight like unto an emerald."

Here the transition is natural from the Being whom it surrounds, to those who have an interest in the covenant of mercy, of which it is the significant token. While they continue pilgrims in this lower world, it is revealed to them as an object of faith, and an assurance to them of spiritual blessing and salvation. In this life, evil has a constant flood. Though, through the long-suffering of God, it does not rise to a deluge, yet its waves unceasingly flow, alarming both the virtuous and the vicious. But to the former, there arises light in the darkness. To the faithful servants of the Most High, who exert to the utmost the powers he has given them, he shall give his Spirit to aid and crown their exertions, and to bring them in safety out of every trouble. In the seasons of temptation, when nature's powers of resistance are feeble, he has promised the strength of his grace to support them against the powerful tide. In times of afflic