1. They desired one who should dispense the spiritual blessings with which Christ the Lord visited a fallen world.

For it was impossible that the reflecting and serious among the heathen, should be insensible to the degeneracy and misery of human nature, and of the need of more powerful means to purify and restore it than human reason could supply, and of more efficacious consolations than the world could offer.

Where could they ascertain the tremendous act which brought sin into the world, and all their woe? Where could they find a light which, amidst the superstition, the ignorance, and corruption that had divided the empire of the world among numberless deities, and invested with divine attributes the most licentious of their fellow mortals, and the basest and vilest of inanimate creation, would lead them to the pure and glorious presence of the one living and true God, the maker and ruler of all in Heaven and in earth? Where, amidst the imperfect and discordant laws of morals that issued from the schools, destitute of those superior sanctions which alone can give efficacy to the sentiment of duty in the human heart, and control the solicitations of depraved appetite, could they listen to the voice of a teacher, who, speaking as never man spake, should disclose laws of duty, full, simple, and perspicuous, and enforce them by sanctions more to be desired than pre

sent pleasure, and more to be dreaded than present pain? Where, when conscience, rousing the sentiment of guilt, filled them with the apprehension of the vengeance of the just tribunal to which conscience pointed, could they find a propitiation more efficacious, than those "thousands of rams, and ten thousands of rivers of oil, even than the fruit of the body," which could not take away the sin of the soul? Where, when "the fond desire, the longing after immortality," directed their eager view beyond the grave, could they find the Almighty and compassionate guide, who would conduct them through the dark domains of death, and disclose to them the glories of eternal day? Where could they find a teacher and Saviour, so indispensable to their virtue and their peace? They sought on the earth; there was no arm to save. They implored heaven; no deliverer came.

But they were not wholly without hope. For tradition had excited the expectation that this deliverer, who was the object of their earnest desire, would come, in the Messiah of the Jews.

It was an opinion generally current among them, that some, coming from Judea, should obtain supreme power and dominion. The Son to be born to the Roman people, the Roman poet celebrated with epithets, bearing a singular resemblance to those, with which the evangelical prophet announced the birth of the Messiah, the Son of the Highest. And the glorious period of universal

peace, sung in Roman verse, "when the herds should not be afraid of the lions, and no venomous serpent, nor any poisonous nor deadly thing should remain," reminds us of the evangelical prophet celebrating the peaceful dominion of the King of righteousness and peace. "The cow and the bear shall feed, their young ones shall lie down together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox; and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice den; they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain "."

Nor was this coincidence extraordinary. For, in their dispersion among the Gentiles, the Jews spread the prophecies concerning that deliverer who was the object of their earnest desire, and excited a vague expectation of his coming among the heathen world.

And," in the fulness of time," the Lord "shook the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land; the Lord shook all nations-and the desire of all nations came 66 a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of his people Israel.

III. The splendid and interesting consequences of His coming, as expressed in this prediction, are last to be noticed.

1. The glory of God was to be manifested in His temple. "I will fill this house with my

P Isaiah xi. 7-9.

glory." Not the material glory, overshadowing the mercy seat, the symbol of the divine presence in the former temple, but the more illustrious glory of the Messiah's presence, in whom "dwelt the fulness of the Godhead." And "this house was thus filled with glory." For "the Lord came to his temple." Jesus Christ, the Evangelists have recorded, went into the temple. There, he manifested forth his glory-there, "he spake as never man spake ¶"—his " speech dropped as the rain, his doctrine distilled as the dew."

2. And, in this respect, the latter temple was exalted above the former.

"The silver, and the gold," were the Lord's. With these the former temple was profusely adorned. And with these, how easy would it have been for the Lord of heaven and earth to have decorated the latter temple, devoted to his name. But these things were of light estimation, compared with the spiritual lustre which shone forth in Jesus Christ, "the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person "." In the presence of the Messiah alone was the prediction fulfilled, that "the glory of this latter house should exceed that of the former." For all that constituted the glory of the former temple, were wanting in the latter. No high priest, vested with the Urim and Thummim, was miraculously instructed in the will

of God-no mercy-seat over the ark of the covenant, sent forth the voice of the Most High-no fire from heaven consuming the sacrifice on the altar, was the pledge of pardon-no Shechinah, no material glory was the symbol of the divine presence-and the voice of inspiration was no more heard in the holy place. The glory had departed. And well might the ancient men who had seen the glory of the former temple, weep at the view of the faded lustre of the latter. Yet they were comforted with the prediction, that "the glory of the latter house should exceed that of the former." And the ages that came after beheld the prediction verified, in the presence of the Messiah in this temple. An oracle greater than the high priest of their law, revealing the will of God; the true propitiation for sin, of which the mercy-seat of the ark was only a type; baptising with the Holy Ghost and with fire, the glory of God shining forth in him, in whom dwelt the fulness of the Godhead, the fulness of inspiration and of grace; in the presence of this illustrious Messiah, this light of the Gentiles, and this hope of Israel, "the glory of this latter house was greater than that of the former."

3. And "in this place, the Lord gave peace." The Prince of peace here commenced his everlasting reign; proclaiming peace, by the merits of his blood, to the guilty conscience-peace, by the power of his grace, to the soul agitated by guilty passions-peace, by the consolations of his love,