and not here, is our home and our citizenship. If ye Col. 3. 1. then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are

above.

Ps. 78. 25.

He Ps. 105.38.

4. But, yet again, though we have here no con- He. 13. 14. tinuing city but seek one to come, let us not forget the comforting and inspiriting assurance that God Himself has here provided for us not only a sojourn but a nurture. That they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days. Alas for that ingratitude which makes light of God's provision for us! For Israel of old, during its sojourn in the wilderness, He provided bread from heaven to eat-angels' food Joh. 6. 31. He calls it-and a supply of water from the hard barren rock. He provided a cloud to go before them, and fire to give them light in the night season. gave them also His statutes and ordinances, speaking to them by man's voice, and revealing to them His righteous and loving will. Has He done less than this for the Church of Christ in her exile? could have been done more that He has not done for us? He has given His holy Word to be a lamp Ps. 119. to our feet, and a light to our path. He has given us His voice within, the voice of an instructed and enlightened conscience, saying, This is the way, walk ye Is. 30.21. in it, when we are turning aside to the right hand or to the left. He has given us ordinances of a pure and spiritual worship; words of prayer, sound and fervent; sacraments, to teach the soul through

What Is. 5. 4.

105.

the senses, and to be the link between the life that is seen and the life that is unseen. He has promised to Mat.18.20. hear when we pray, and wherever but two or three are gathered together in His name, there to be in the midst of them. He has given us, above all, His Holy Spirit, to be the light and the guide, to be the Comforter and the Sanctifier, of all who believe. If for the present He has denied us sight, He has given us in its stead that which for us at present is far better; Heb. II. 1. that faith which is the assurance of things hoped for, that faith which is the evidence of things not seen. If with these things given we are still thankless and careless; if we despise His ordinances, if we turn away from His table; if we leave His Word unch. 10. 29. read, His gift of conscience unheeded; if we count the blood of the covenant wherewith we were sanctified

an unholy thing, and do despite even unto the Spirit Lu. 16. 31. of grace; neither should we be persuaded, neither should we be convinced, neither should we be converted, though the sight of Christ Himself in heaven were flashed upon our eye, or the yawning gulf of hell revealed suddenly beneath our feet!

Heb. 2. 3.

How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvach. 12. 25. tion, or turn away from Him that speaketh from heaven?

TWENTY-THIRD SUNDAY AFTER TRINITY,

November 3, 1861.

LECTURE XXI.

REVELATION XII. 7-9.

AND there became a war in the heaven; Michael and 7 his angels to war with the dragon: and the dragon warred, and his angels; and they availed not, nor was place of 8 them found any longer in the heaven. And he was thrown, 9 the great dragon, the ancient serpent, he that is called slanderer, and Satan (the adversary,) he who leads astray the whole world, he was thrown upon the earth, and his angels were thrown with him.

LECTURE XXI.

REVELATION XII. 7.

There was war in heaven.

THE child is caught up to God and to His throne, and his mother flees into the wilderness to escape from the disappointed fury of the dragon. That was the parable which we sought to interpret two Sundays ago. Nor was the interpretation, by the help of Scripture, difficult. The woman clothed with the sun and crowned with twelve stars bore the infallible tokens of the Church of God. The child destined to rule all nations with a rod of iron could be no other than He to whom it was said in the Ps. 2. 8, 9. language of prophecy in the 2nd Psalm, Ask of me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession: Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron : Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. The Saviour born to the Church is also, in another point of view, born of her. And He whom the

dragon had been standing ready to devour, is caught away out of his reach, even to the throne of God in heaven. The point of time which we have thus reached, in the retrospect presented in the early verses of the chapter, is the Ascension of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. We have seen Him safely housed in heaven, placed beyond the assaults alike of suffering and of temptation, restored to the glory which He had Joh. 17. 5. with the Father before the world was; and we were called to rejoice in the thought of that safety which He has already attained, and which contains within it the very pledge and promise of our own. Meanwhile the Church remains below; remains in the wilderness, where she has a place and a nurture provided for her of God, and where at a future time we shall read something more of her perils, her safeguards, and her consolations.

But to-night our eyes are taught to follow the track of the ascending Son, and to notice that which accompanies His return into the presence of God and into the glory which for our sakes He had deserted. I will first read to you the whole passage, and then go back to comment upon so much of it as may fall within the space and time allotted to us this evening.

And there became (arose) a war in the heaven ; Verse 7. Michael and his angels to war with the dragon: and the dragon warred, and his angels; and they Verse 8.

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