Before Aaron could enter into the Holy of holies, and present himself before the Mercy Seat, he was commanded to wash, and robe himself suitably, offering incense by fire, and sprinkling the blood of the goat chosen by the Lord for sacrifice, seven times, to hallow and and to reconcile the holy place.-Lev. xvi. 4—19. The Saviour purified His manhood, and prepared it for full union with His eternal divine love, the Father. "I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how am I straightened until it be accomplished."-Luke xii. 50. "For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they may be sanctified by the truth."-John xvii. 19. Thus He embodied in Himself the eternal Mercy Seat. In Him is the Father. He and the Father are one. Whosoever sees Him sees the Father. He is the First and the Last, the Root and the Offspring of David, the bright and the Morning Star.

Go at his command and wash. This is the first duty. Repent and renounce what God and conscience teach you to be evil in life. Whatever offence against the Lord's commandments you perceive in your conduct must be washed away, or it is vain to approach the Mercy Seat. The Lord saves a man from his sins, not in his sins. Renounce evil so far as you know it, and pray to the Lord for zeal to live a good life; then draw near to the Great Saviour and beseech Him to form within you His blessed kingdom. Then will you find a welcome from Him. He will give you to eat of the hidden man, and impart to you a white stone. You will feel a witness within, of wisdom, joy, and peace unspeakable, which will diffuse through the soul a present heaven, and because heaven has come to you, an undoubting confidence will fill you that you will enter it.

Approach, O my soul, to this Merciful Saviour; thou wilt not be cast out. But first wash thyself by repentance; "wash thine heart from wickedness, and thou shalt be saved."—Jer. iv. 14. Clothe thyself with the fine linen which is the righteousness of the saints. Let the wisdom of a true faith quicken and purify thee even to fulness, like the blood of the goat sprinkled seven times, and then go in and commune with thy Saviour God. The Mercy Seat will glow with a Divine Light, and thou shalt have answers of peace. The Lord will make His abode with thee and bless thee; He will appear on the little golden Mercy Seat within thee; the cherubs will not repel, but invite thee, and never leave thee more.

SERMON XXIX.

THE TABLE OF SHEWBREAD.

"Thou shalt also make a table of shittim wood: two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make thereto a crown of gold round about. And thou shalt make unto it a border of a hand breadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about. And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof. Over against the border shall the rings be for places of the staves to bear the table. And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be borne with them. And thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and spoons thereof, and covers thereof, and bowls thereof, to cover withal: of pure gold shalt thou make them. And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me alway."-Exodus xxv. 23-30.

Religion is usually regarded as a balm for sorrow, a defence against sin, and a comfort in death. It is all these, and more than these it is a supply of daily bread. Hence there was placed in the sanctuary the Table of Shewbread. This fact is often overlooked to our serious detriment. We need daily bread for the soul, as we need daily bread for the body, and we cannot forego without loss of strength, either the one or the other. "Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth from the mouth of the Lord doth man live."-Deut. viii. 3.

The ordinary condition of life should undoubtedly be cheerful usefulness, and enjoyment. We have so many sources of blessing, such wondrous faculties, and such wondrous supplies for them that we might fairly be expected to walk through life rejoicingly, with only now and then a trouble or a struggle, as is the case with the body of one whose ordinary condition is good health. It is not so. The life of religious people generally is by no means of that hearty kindliness, that loving goodness, that cheerful contentedness and ready delight in duty, which surround a man with an atmosphere of happiness, and flow from interior ease. On the contrary, there is too much shrinking from duty, too much of the spirit of complaint, too much of the spirit of the bewailing lackadaisical miserable-sinner religion in the world to suit those who worship a God of Love, and feel themselves in a

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glorious world, which He had made, in which to train them for a still more glorious one,-for heaven. Our duties, ought to be our delight; our steps in life, those of vigorous travellers who are each day certainly nearing home; our service, that of subjects who love their King, feel sure of His protection, are charmed with the employment He affords them; and while they bless Him for His goodness now, look forward with confident hope and heartfelt joy at the prospect before them. Wherever this is not the abiding temper of the Christian, it indicates a weak and unhealthy state. On one occasion, when the disciples of our Lord took a voyage across the sea of Galilee, it is significantly said of them they had forgotten to take bread.-Matt. xvi. 5. And, this is assuredly a foretoken of what has often happened in Christian experience since. Too often the disciples in all ages have forgotten to take that inward food of heavenly goodness which satisfies the hungry soul and makes it strong. They are fretful, uneasy, and weak. They mourn and complain, and weary all about them. Why is it? They have forgotten to take bread. To guard us against this neglect, and to teach us that whatever we know, or whatever we think of heavenly truth, we must not neglect the bread of heavenly goodness; there was a Table in the sanctuary, on which, every Sabbath, were placed twelve loaves of bread, sprinkled with frankincense.-Lev. xxiv. 5-9. These twelve loaves were to supply the priests with food; but they also represent that true and living bread which comes down from heaven and of which it is written, "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."— Matt. v. 6.

That heavenly bread is heavenly goodness, we are abundantly taught in the Word. "He satisfieth the longing (thirsty) soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness," (Ps. cvii. 9,) gives the correspondence in the very term itself-goodness. In like manner it is written in Isaiah, "Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not hearken diligently unto me and eat ye that which is GOOD, and let your soul delight itself with fatness."lv. 2. Divine goodness in the Lord accommodated to human reception is called "The bread of God, which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world."-John vi. 33. And when the disciples exclaimed, Lord evermore give us this bread, the Lord rejoined, "I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE; he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."-John vi. 35. "I am the living bread which came

down from heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live for ever."-John vi. 51.

The twelve loaves represented a full supply of heavenly goodness for every state, for every individual, and for the whole Church. There were twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve loaves of shew bread. The number twelve is always used when a full and complete state of things in the Church is described. There were twelve apostles chosen; there are twelve foundations to the New Jerusalem, and twelve gates of entrance. To teach then the divine bounty in celestial things, the Table of Shewbread was supplied with these twelve loaves, the symbols of abundance of heavenly goodness.

The Divine Creator has supplied us, in our creation, with appetites for heavenly things, corresponding with hunger and thirst. His intention manifestly is, that we should yearn after food for the soul as earnestly as we do for food to supply the body and that the supply should be as regular for one as for the other. There being food prepared for the soul, and appetites desiring such holy nourishment, with all collateral circumstances implying these, illustrate the complete correspondence of the worlds of matter and of mind.

The affections yearn for their objects, and for loveable goodness in these objects, as truly as the body yearns for food. Heart-hunger panting for sympathy is a feeling admitted to be universal. How tender a sentiment was awakened in the public mind a few years ago when the dying Judge Talfourd gave his affecting exhortation to all classes of mankind to lay aside coldness and scorn, and give free play to loving sympathy with one another.

The child yearns for the kind word of his father, the smile of his mother. The youth pants for fellow hearts, to beat in harmony with his own, and then for one pure counterpart that shall beat responsive to his. He craves for talent, for excellence, for success, and for fame. And, when his spiritual nature has opened its germs, he craves to be good, to be better, to have close communion with the Lord. The aspirations of the heart after its eternal good, utter themselves as we find them expressed in the Psalms, "Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none that I desire on earth beside thee,"-Ps. lxxiii. 25; "My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God."-Ps. lxxxiv. 2. These hungerings after goodness are never satisfied until they finally rest on the Lord Jesus Christ. In Him they are filled

with peace. He Himself says, "He that cometh unto me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."John vi. 35.

In the New Testament the Lord describes the divine gift of heavenly goodness to the soul by a wedding dinner (Matt. xxii. 4) and a supper: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him, and sup with him, and he with me."-Rev. iii. 20. It is called eating "of the hidden manna.”—Rev. ii. 17; all terms which imply the surpassing worth of the divine things imparted. Goodness filled with sweetness and with indescribable peace, forms a treasure above all price, a meat which endures to everlasting life.

The loaves on the Table of the Shewbread were made each of two tenth-deals or omers of flour, equal to three quarts of flour in each, a tolerably substantial supply. There were in the various offerings of the Israelitish worship three forms of bread used the loaves as here on the Table of Shewbread, the cake of oiled bread, and the wafer of unleavened bread (Ex. xxix. 23); because these three represent the relative proportions of heavenly food which can be received by the three grand classes of Christians the men of obedience, the men of truth, and the men of love. The good of obedience received by those who obey the precepts of the Lord in the letter only, is the good represented by the wafer; pure and sound, but not deep. The good of truth is like the cake in comparison, and is received by those who have advanced out of the lowest class into the second; who delight to understand the truth as well as to do what they are commanded; who follow the truth, and by the truth are made free. The men of love, they who have passed on through the states of the two former, and live in love, find the loaves, twelve loaves, for them on the golden table, good of the deepest, fullest kind, and in the greatest abundance. The meat of the Lord's table is to them never wanting, and always rich and delightful. They receive that perfect love in which there is no fear. They have meat to eat, of which the world knows nothing.

The Table was made, like the ark, of the sacred cedar of Shittim, and was covered with gold. The wood of this fragrant cedar, which was the only wood used in the tabernacle, and subsequently in the temple, was the symbol, as we have recently shewn, of the righteousnes derived from the Divine Humanity of the Lord Jesus. He is called a divine cedar, because of the protecting shadow of His Divine Human virtues under which we can rest. His nature imparted to us, enables Him to tabernacle