thee," the Lord Jesus said, "to buy of Me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich" (Rev. iii. 18). The street of the city of New Jerusalem was to be of gold (Rev, xxi. 18). Gold is the most valuable of the metals, and therefore properly represents love to the Lord, the most valuable of all principles. Gold is unaffected by acids. Gold can be drawn out and applied to all sorts of forms. It has been used from the remote times, long before history, for the ring, the emblem of indissoluble affection, which joins human beings in the closest and most self-sacrificing of all unions. The golden age was the age of pure love, that Eden state of the world, guileless, pure in heart, in all the gushing innocence of childhood. "Of such was the kingdom of heaven." The head of humanity was then this head of gold. This was the celestial church; the most ancient church.

The second age of humanity was the age of silver. The breast and arms were of silver. These simple words unfold before us another dispensation, the ancient church, the dispensation in which men chiefly delighted in spiritual truth, for this is heavenly silver. This ancient church is meant in Scripture by Noah and his family, and that dispensation lasted also a very long period. It was the age in which allegories and beautiful personifications had their rise, representing the attributes of God, and spiritual things in lovely natural forms, the degeneration of which gave rise to idolatry. Silver in Scripture corresponds to spiritual wisdom. Hence we read, "Ye shall

be as the wings of a dove covered with silver" (Ps. lxviii. 13). The words of the Lord are pure words, as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times (Ps. xii. 6). For iron I will bring silver, the Saviour said (Isa. lx. 17). And the age of silver was the age when men valued heavenly truth above all earthly good; it was the age of faith, corresponding to that time of early youth, when the young soul has not yet learned to doubt, but believes that things and persons are what they affirm themselves to be, and the eye glitters with truthful confidence. The breast and arms are said to have been of silver, for spiritual truth inspired all who lived then with charity, and what their hearts felt, they stretched out their arms to do.

The age of copper was that which the human race next realized. The good nature and genial integrity of the next succeeding age, the age of the Melchisedeks and patriarchs, when people lived simply and kindly in tents, was that which succeeded the age of silver, and was compared with the age of

celestial love and innocence, as copper in relation to gold. They lived lives of virtue, but not from motives and principles so pure, so high, and so heavenly as those which actuated the age of gold.

Then came the age of iron, when men were altogether ruled by force, by force of law, or force of hand. God's Word was still given to men, and still to a large extent obeyed, but it was the Word understood only in the very letter. Men were then ruled with a rod of iron. The iron Romans compelled order. This was the Jewish age, extending through the mercy of a loving Saviour and Redeemer, under Christianity, to barbaric peoples the knowledge of the law, the prophets, and the Gospel, throwing off what was peculiarly national in Judaism. The Gospel was only the enlarging of the sphere of the age of iron, and blending with the nations far and wide. It was not ruling the Jews only with a rod of iron, but ruling all nations. And when we look over the Christian centuries, and observe the wars, the persecutions, the controversies which have been waged among Christian nations, and the immense mass of impurity which has ever clung to Christian profession, we must humbly confess that, with the iron truth which has taught us our duty, there has still been found too much miry clay.

Miry clay means moral defilement (Ps. xl. 2, lxix. 2). But, at last a stone was seen, cut out of a mountain without hands, and it became a great mountain, and filled the whole earth. Stones correspond to doctrinal truths. In large blocks they make foundations on which to build, and in detail they furnish us with the means of erecting houses and building walls. Will the Stone cut out of the mountain without hands be any other than the head-stone of the corner, which the builders rejected, the true doctrine of the Lord Jesus, as the Only God, in whom is all the Trinity. "No other foundation," said the Apostle, "can any man lay, than that is laid, even Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. iii. 2).

When this truth is given to the world again, as we are assured in the Gospel it will be in fulness, from the Divine Love of the Lord, it is indeed the stone cut out of the mountain without hands. It is the foundation-stone, and the head-stone, the All in All. This will shew us plainly of the Father. This will reveal in the Glorified Redeemer Himself, the First and the Last, the Root and the Offspring of David, the Bright and the Morning Star, and the Sun of Righteousness. The Son of Man in Him will be brought near to the Ancient of Days, so near, that it will be seen that He and the Father are

one all things that the Father hath are His. He that seeth Him seeth the Father. A dominion will then be given to Him, and glory and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages shall serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that which shall not be destroyed (Dan. vii. 13, 14). This kingdom of the Lord Jesus, in His true character as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, in one unutterably Glorious Person, Divine Love and Wisdom embodied, the One King who shall be over all the earth (Zech. xvi. 9), is that which is further described by Daniel when he said, "And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, WHICH SHALL NEVER BE DESTROYED, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and IT SHALL Stand for ever (verse 44).

It

This kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ is now being realized. It is yet small and feeble, but it has manifestly begun, and its influences are already being felt throughout the world. Bibles are issuing forth in a broad stream which has never before been equalled. There is more of loving-kindness, less of sectarian separation, than any previous age has seen. There is more care for universal education for children, more true sympathy for others, incalculably more diffusion of good of every kind, more horror of war, and ardent thirst for the true progress of human ity, than any age has seen since the time of history began. is the age of hope. All seems young and progressive once again. There is evidently a fresh spring, the foretoken of a glorious summer, WHEN ALL SHALL KNOW THE LORD. Oh may the growth of this glorious stone from the mountain hasten and remove the rust of ages. Oh may the kingdom of God come, in which there shall be no tears, nor pain, nor death (of sin), but healthy, happy youth grow up to healthy, happy maturity, and useful, noble, spiritual, orderly, heavenly lives, announce that God's will is done on earth, as it is done in heaven.

It is written that the stone struck the image on its feet, that were of iron and miry clay, and brake them to pieces. The stone striking the feet signifies the manifestation by Divine truth of the worthlessness of the life produced by the decayed systems of the old dispensations. All interior things result in conduct, and rest upon daily life, as the body rests upon the feet. A man really is WHAT HE DOES. The deeds of the world are the result of the principles of the world. And, when it is palpable to all that national life is but little better than

national selfishness, commercial life grievously tainted in all its parts with fraud, domestic life largely soiled with domestic impurity, there can be no difficulty in admitting that the doctrine of a pure and loving Saviour will strike these feet. The superstitious remains of the grand old religions of ancient times, not the good things themselves, but the dead image of them; the lingering lifeless remains of glories, holy virtues, and bright truths, now old, worn out, and meaningless, must disappear, and the newly revealed truth make a new heaven and a new earth. Hasten, O Merciful Adorable Saviour, this pure, loving, bright, and blessed age. Let the weary shadows of wrong and misery disappear, and do Thou thyself arise amongst us, and Thy glory be seen upon us.

SERMON XLVIII.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S GOLDEN IMAGE.

"Then an herald cried aloud, To you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, that at what time ye hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up."-DANIEL iii. 4, 5.

IF experience had not assured us of multiplied facts of a similar kind, we could hardly have believed it possible that the same king, who had acknowledged his conviction of the Divine Sovereignty of the God of Daniel, had returned to his idolatrous inclinations, made a golden god, and commanded that all the subject peoples of his empire should fall down and worship it. Yet so it was. The Israelites furnished many instances of a similar kind. Though they had been brought out of Egypt through astonishing displays of Divine power; though they had witnessed with profound awe the sublime grandeurs of Sinai, yet forty days afterwards, when Moses did not reappear, they were worshipping and dancing about the golden calf, and exclaiming, These be thy gods, O Israel. Pharaoh, though often convinced for the moment, soon relapsed again, and finished his obstinacy in the Red Sea.

It

Miraculous impressions enter very slightly into the mind. They touch and pass away. Only that which enters into the soul through the understanding, by deep consideration, and then is accepted into the heart, and brought into the conduct of life, remains. Our Lord did no miracles to convince men of his truth, but only for purposes of benevolence and mercy. is written, "He did not many mighty works there, because of their unbelief" (Matt. xiii. 58). The soul that would come into the light must not ask for miracles to be convinced, but must think, consider, weigh, and meditate, from the love of truth. "He that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the Word, and UNDERSTANDETH it, who also beareth fruit, some a hundred fold, some sixty, some thirty" (Matt. xiii. 23). The