that the Spirit comes, removes the vail from the heart, illuminates our minds, opens the eyes of our understandings, instructs us in the mysteries of the gospel, gives us faith, and by this faith He enables us to look unto Him whom we have pierced, reveals Christ crucified unto our souls, and applies the benefits thereof unto us. The starry heavens, like the vail of the temple that intercepts our sight from beholding Christ with our bodily eyes, will be rent by his second coming; when every eye will behold Him, and they also which pierced Him. The saints shall behold Him with admiration, for He will come to fetch them home, to give them the kingdom prepared for them; and the ungodly will behold Him with dread and terror to receive their final sentence. Our sinful bodies is another vail which hinders the living soul from the vision of God. So long as we are in the body, we are absent from Christ; but at death this vail is rent, and the soul is immediately with Christ-"Therefore we are always confident, knowing that whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord. For we walk by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord." And our being present with the Lord is also through Christ crucified, for by it He has done the will of His Father, opened the way to heaven, removed every obstruction that was in the way, sat down at His Father's right hand, to receive all the redeemed. What is this life to a living soul? it is an earth polluted by the sin of man, wherein we every day hear the name of God blasphemed, and our souls are vexed with the filthy talk of the wicked. But Christ by His death has provided a better place than this, yea, a place more glorious than Adam's paradise; a place not only built by God, but cemented and prepared by the blood of Christ. By the law against sin, our bodies were to return to dust, and our souls lie under the sentence of the wrath of God; but through the merits of a crucified Saviour our bodies are to be redeemed by a glorious resurrection, "waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body" (Rom. viii. 23,) and our souls are secured in a place of bliss. a place of bliss. As Adam brought in death, so Christ hath brought in eternal life"For if by one man's offence death reigned by one, much more they which receive abundance of grace, and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ." Christ hath not merited for us a paradisaical life, or restored as the mutable state wherein Adam was created; but He hath merited for us an eternal life, and prepared for us eternal mansions, not only to have the company of the spirits of just men made perfect, or the society of the blessed angels; but to be blessed with the vision of God, to reside in the same place where Christ is glorified, and adored by men and angels, to live with Him a life wherein our understanding shall be freed from clouds, our wills from spots, and our affections from disorder. We lost a paradise by sin, and we have gained a heaven by the cross. The grave is another vail which hinders the body of believers from enjoying glory. This vail also will be actually destroyed in the first resurrection-" Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first ressurrection; on such the second death hath no power: but they shall be priests of God, and of Christ, and they shall reign with Him a thousand years." And this victory over the grave is through the cross of Christ. As by His death He vanquished the power of death, so in His resurrection He has opened the grave for His dear redeemed "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." "Hark! the voice of love and mercy, See, it rends the rocks asunder, Hear the dying Saviour cry! "Finished all the types and shadows Finished all that God had promised, Saints, from hence your comforts draw. "Tune your harps anew, ye seraphs, Join to sing the pleasing theme; Glory to the bleeding Lamb. CHAPTER XXX. WE have seen the triumph of Christ as God-man displayed in the removal of the ceremonial law and the bringing in of the everlasting gospel, signified by the rending of the vail, and by His public declaration on the cross, "It is finished." We will now speak, the Lord helping us, on the earthquake, and the rending of the rocks, which took place when Christ as our High Priest expired on the cross. Christ's power as God-man was thus exhibited over inanimate things. He can rend rocks and earth at his pleasure. It was Christ that divided the Red Sea for the Israelites to pass through. It was He that cleft the rock in the wilderness. He was the Angel of the Lord's presence, who went before them before whose presence "The everlasting mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did bow. The mountains saw thee and they trembled, the overflowing of the water passed; the deep uttered his voice, and lifted up his hands on high;" as it were, trembling before His presence. This infinite Being when expiring on the cross, caused these creatures to tremble before their Maker, and as it were, rend their garments at His death, reproving the stupidity of the Jews, who were not shocked by their heinous crimes. The rending of the rocks was an emblem of the future conversion of sinners, through the powerful preaching of Christ, and Him crucified; when hearts as hard as rocks were rent to pieces, stony hearts taken away, and hearts of flesh given : of which the three thousand being pricked to the heart under Peter's sermon were an instance. The hearts of graceless souls are compared in the word of God to stones-"I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh." If there were no such thing, it could not be taken away. It is compared to an adamant "Yea, they made their hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which the Lord of hosts hath sent in His Spirit by the former prophets-" Because I know that thou art obstinate, and thy neck is an iron sinew, and thy brow brass." What a picture of a natural man! What a deplorable state is he in! The heart of a man is compared to a stone. Why? There is a five-fold resemblance. 1st. Insensibility. 2nd. Inflexible3rd. Resistance. 4th. Heaviness. 5th. Unfruitfulness. ness. 1st. It is insensible. What sense of feeling is there in a stone. Hence a sinner is said to be past feeling-" Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness" (Eph. iv. 19.) Though he may have as many sins upon his soul, as would make the very creation groan, yet he neither complains, nor feels; he goes on in his sin, drinks up iniquity as water, and says, what evil have I done? Though the anger of the Lord is upon him, encompassed with his wrath, yet he lays it not to heart. Like Ephraim, strangers have devoured his strength and he knoweth it not; yea, grey hairs are here and there upon him, yet he knoweth it not." Such is the insensibility of a graceless heart. 2nd. Inflexibleness. We may bend wood and iron, melt brass -not so a stone. We may break it to pieces, it still remains stone, it will not bend or yield. Such is the natural man; he will not hearken or obey: he will not receive instruction, advice, or counsel. God speaks in His word, thunders threatenings in His law, holds forth a free salvation in his gospel, and His ministers preach it, yet the heart still remains the same until the word is applied by the power of God the Holy Ghost. Pharaoh receives a message from God through Moses and Aaron, accompanied with miracles and plagues; his heart remains the same and asks, "Who is the Lord, that I should obey His voice?" (Read 2 Chron. xxxv., 15, 16; Amos iv. 16-11.) These will demonstrate the hardness of man's heart-neither mercy nor judgment will affect it. 3rd. Resistance. A stony heart, not only does it not receive impression, but it resists and opposes the word "As for the word that thou hast spoken unto us in the name of the Lord, we will not hearken unto thee. But we will certainly do whatsoever thing goeth forth out of our own mouth." "Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost," Hence sinners are said to despise, reject, and blaspheme the word. 4th. Heaviness. It may be compared to a stone for its heaviness, and tending downward. If you would find a stone you must look downward. You may cast it upward, it will descend; the earth is its centre: thither it inclines, and there it rests. So is the heart of man; it is earthly, and delights in earthly things. 5th. Unfruitfulness. What fruit can be gathered from a stone? We may cast a seed on it, yet it will remain fruitless ; rain and dew may descend, the sun shine on it, it still remains barren. Thus it is with the heart. It may have the means of grace, and many other blessed privileges; and for all this it receives no benefit. How are men brought into this deplorable state? Through the fall. All the faculties of the soul partake of this hardness; judgment, will, affection, and conscience, each of these resists and opposes the truth. The heart becomes harder too through habitual sinning against light, with delight and a continuation therein. Then there is a judicial hardness, the consequence of God leaving a man to himself, which will be sure to sink him into eternal perdition if God come not to the rescue. This hardness is universal in all the sons and daughters of fallen Adam; like the deluge which covered every part of the earth, leaving not so much as a piece of ground for Noah's dove to rest upon. This we will demonstrate. Mark the readiness of man to sin. If a temptation is presented to the natural man, he readily complies. If the world and Satan do not tempt, the heart will, and the sinner is led away with it. Not so with a gracious soul-"How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God ?" is its exclamation. Observe the quietude of conscience in sinning. The natural man will commit all kinds of wickedness, oppose all that is good and feel no condemnation ! A broken-hearted sinner under a sense of sin, will weep bitterly, and water his couch with tears. He is afraid of the Lord whom he has provoked. Not so with a hardened sinner; though he knows that he offends God, and that He has destroyed thousands for the same sin, yet he goes on in his sinful practices! Notice the little effect that God's word has upon man. The word is compared to the sun, which enlightens and quickens; to water, that softens and cleanses; to a hammer that breaks; to fire that melts and refines the heart. Yet it is totally without effect until the Holy Ghost brings it to the heart with almighty power. Surely man's heart is hard. CHAPTER XXXI. THE removing of the stubbornness or softening the hardness of the heart is a work of God,-"I will take away the |