The Spies penetrated to Hebron, the old capital of the country, the land where Abraham dwelt, the centre of ancient devotion, wisdom and worship. They came to the brook Eshcol, named so from the surprising bunch of grapes which was there obtained. They searched the land for forty days, and returned to Moses and said, "We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.' But they had also another report to give. They saw great difficulties. "The people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled and very great. Moreover we saw the children of Anak there. "There we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight."Num. xiii. 33. How descriptive is all this of those internal selfrevealings which come to all Christians at certain portions of their spiritual journey.

They admit that heaven is a beautiful and blessed state. The joys of its goodness and truth, the milk and honey of the land are rich and ineffable. The virtues of heaven are full of grace and glory, these are the fruits of it. Heaven in the abstract, goodness in the abstract, a state in which every motive and impulse spring from love to God and man, a state in which every energy shall be the operation of doing justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God, is the object of every sincere disciple of the Lord. But there are the difficulties. There are the lowlanders, the Canaanities, which dwell by the sea; and the highlanders, the Amorites, which dwell in the mountains.

There are numerous habits of every-day life which are opposed to our progress in divine things. We are doing constantly a multitude of small faults in our intercourse with others, which are not in harmony with entire heavenly mindedness, these are the inner lowlanders which dwell by the sea. Then, supposing these to be overcome, what a number of Amorites there are which dwell in the mountains;-dispositions to idolize our family, our class, our country, our prejudices, our customs. There are strong interior attachments to evil in a thousand forms which pervade our inner life, dwelling on the mountains of our being and forming inner secret repugnancies to an entrance of the kingdom of the Lord into the soul. Then there are Hittites and Jebusites; things partly good and partly bad, expediencies, accommodations, condescensions, doing as other people do, so far as indispensible conformity requires, and yet things not to be justified at the bar of real righteousness. All these constitute spiritual wickednesses

against which we have to wrestle. And some of them are terrible giants. There is the great giant of self-love, that terrible Anak, the father of a monstrous brood, and one who never dies but after many a severe campaign and an awful struggle. Then there are the great giants, which come of the giants hereditarily ;self-will, pride, and lusts of various kinds, which have grown up by indulgence until they shadow over our whole mind and life. There is the giant ignorance, the giant superstition, and a great ponderous creature, the giant apathy. Alas, we seem grasshoppers compared with these terrible phantoms which darken our way and threaten us. Our hearts fail within us, and we exclaim like the frightened Israelites, “We are not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we." And so long as this dismay, this unfortunate persuasion is with us, we are paralyzed. We even begin to look back, and talk of going again to Egypt. Let us, however, hear what those two noble souls, Caleb and Joshua say, who uttered, by Divine Inspiration, the words of our text, which they addressed to all the company of the children of Israel. "The land which we passed through to search it, is an exceeding good land. If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us: which floweth with milk and honey."

a land

Two leading points were expressed in these earnest words: the beauty and richness of the country they had seen, its value being worth all the hopes and efforts of the people; and secondly, that they were not left to themselves; the Lord was with them, and had promised to give them the land for a possession, if they were faithful, obedient and persevering. How true are these two assurances at the present day, when made to the disheartened pilgrim. The land which we go to possess is an exceedingly good land. It is the land of love, wisdom, order, joy, and peace.

Heaven is the land of conjunction with the Lord, and a constant reception from Him of the power of loving Him in return. It is the state of loving all that is His, in heaven and earth. It is a land of interior joys and of outward delights, by human language inexpressible in their fulness and extent. It is the land of high motives, of holiest sympathies, of sweet perennial desires to bless. It is a land where love and wisdom are effigied and pourtrayed in everything. It is the land of fountains of life, of rivers of life, of trees of life, that is, of love.

It is the land of Holy Wisdom, where each angel not only receives much wisdom from the Lord, because his love of wisdom gives him a great capacity to receive, but where communication of

thought as well as outward expression, and the representation in every object around, of whatever is the object of thought, make the conveyance of wisdom from one to another, far more perfect than earth can ever know.

Then all desire good to their fellow-angels: none envy, none trouble, or distress the rest: but each one increases the general bliss, by the possession from the Lord of peculiar gifts and talents, some great and some small, but according to all the requirements of order, and using these for the good of all the rest.

There is fulness of joy there. The plastic nature of spiritual substances, and the orderly character of the angelic minds, produced by regeneration, make the circumstances around them full of order, full of harmony, life, and grace; their forms, their dresses, their houses, their paradises, their objects of every kind are most lovely. All these things are faintly and feebly possessed by the good here, but in heaven they are wrought out to perfection. "It is an exceedingly good land."

"If the Lord delight in us, then he will bring us into this land, and give it us." That is, if we are obedient, so that the Divine Love can carry out its own gracious purposes in our creation. The Divine Joy is felt in us, when we obey the precepts of His Word. "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and your joy might be full." -John xv. 11.

If we obey the Lord's words, then, without doubt, He will carry out His gracious ends, and bring us into the state of heavenly order within, and finally into heaven. Has He not said, "O that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea." "If the Lord delight in us, then He will bring us into this land, and give it us." "Only rebel not ye against the Lord."

"Fear ye not the people of the land; for they are bread for us. How unnecessary it was for the Israelites, so long as they were true to their call and mission, to fear the corrupt and effete nations of Palestine, their history fully shewed. It is equally so with us. Our evils are strong when we are halfhearted. When we are resolute to live for heaven, lovingly trusting in the Lord, the formidable character of our lusts and passions falls away, their defence is departed. "The Lord is with us fear them not."

"The Lord is with us!" What a grand assurance is that! The Lord, the Omnipotent, is with us! The Lord, the Conqueror of

hell, is with us! The Lord who has assured us that He will give us power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and all the power of the enemy is with us! He who conquered all hell can surely conquer hell in us! The Lord, who built up all heaven, the mighty God, the Everlasting Father, and the Prince of Peace is with us! "Fear them not."

O! if this sad, distrust, and faintheartedness were done away with, what progress we should make! Our fears and hesitations alone give strength to evils. Look them boldly and steadily in the face and they die. How cowed and dismayed was Israel when the Giant of Gath day after day challenged any man of them to the fight, and defied the armies of the living God! But when a fearless youth stepped forth, and trusting in the Lord his Saviour, and the simple weapons he knew well to use, how soon did Israel's dread lie headless on the ground. So with our several sins. They are all impostures that live upon our terrors. With honest devotion to truth and goodness, trusting in God, their strength would be as weakness. "Fear them not." Pride says I am rooted in your nature, without me you will be insulted and trampled upon, you cannot command respect, you must retaliate and resent. Avaunt, foul spirit, Christian principles, a firm and quiet regard for right, always command respect. I will strive to overcome evil with good by my Saviour's help. Away, I fear thee not.

Covetousness says, Without me, you cannot obtain the comforts of life in this world of competition, I am a giant, and I say you must over-reach and lie, you must absorb your whole being in acquisitiveness to get more thousands, as though your existence depended upon it, although you can neither eat more, nor drink more, nor wear more, but only increase the figures in your bank-book, or obtain the hollow smiles of those who smirk upon the wealthy. Again, the true Christian can say, Away, false boaster, I fear thee not. I will steadily do my duty, using such talents as I uprightly can, and satisfied with what Providence gives, be it little or much.

All fears die beneath the faith of love, which rests upon the Saviour. The lowly spirit unfolds itself to Him, in holy trust, and He lays His right hand upon its head and says, "Fear not, I am the first and the last." "The Lord is with us: fear them not."

SERMON L.

THE PEOPLE BITTEN BY FIERY SERPENTS, AND HEALED BY THE BRAZEN SERPENT.

"And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people. And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live. And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived "—Num.

xxi. 6-9.

The serpent forms an object of frequent mention and interest in the Word of God, from Genesis to Revelation. The manner in which it is introduced in the early part of Divine Revelation, concerning the fall of man, is well known. It occurs also in the Book of Revelation. There we read of the devil and Satan, the "Old Serpent, that deceiveth the whole world." There are eleven different kinds of serpents mentioned in the Word, all having their distinct significations, corresponding to the qualities and habits of the serpents named.

In all ancient writings almost, and in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the serpent is very often used, and evidently with a symbolic meaning.

In nature, we know, serpents are very numerous, and of many kinds. There are those which produce their young alive, represented by our viper, and these are generally poisonous; and those which bring forth eggs, which are many of them harmless. There are small serpents, and large serpents, water serpents, and land serpents, tree serpents, and grass serpents, some that burrow in the sand, and some that fly in the air. There are serpents that go with a regular pace in their movements, and others that dart, and jerk, and spring as they pass along, or as they attack the objects of their prey.

Our Lord speaks in the Gospel of giving us power to tread upon serpents, to lift up serpents, and He denounces wicked