in Revelations, and the house or church of the living God, in Timothy, to be so termed in contradistinction to the temples, or houses of all other objects of worship, and as applying to a spiritual temple, in contradistinction to the temple, or house, made with hands, at Jerusalem; which, even in Solomon's time, was but a type of that arrangement of truth by which, and in which, those that worship the Father, are enabled to worship in spirit and in truth, (John iv. 23,) or in a truly spiritual sense.

98. The worship of God is the service of God, and nothing can be done, strictly speaking, in his service, unless the motive of action be to serve him, (§§ 61, 76.) If a man's motive in performing an act of devotion, as it is commonly called, be to promote his own eternal well-being, he is, in this performance, only serving, or worshipping, himself: his own glory, his own happiness, are the ends which he has in view; and to his own merit he proposes to ascribe the successful result of his efforts. There may be different modes of exhibiting this service of self; from the long prayers, severe fastings, punctilious observance of days, and rites, and ordinances of the pharisaical devotee of every land, down to the self-immolation of the most unenlightened superstition; but in all, the character of the error is the same. A peculiarity of the gospel plan of salvation, on the other hand, is, that it not only secures the eternal happiness of the believer, while it gives the glory and praise of that happiness to God, but it likewise places the disciple in such a position of faith, that the performance of all his duties necessarily emanates from the pure motive alone, of serving his God-the God of his salvation. Believing himself placed, entirely by an act of sovereign grace, in such a position in Christ as to be dependent solely upon his Redeemer's merits for all that he needs in this life or in the life to come, he feels himself to have no motive of action left, but that of grateful love -a pure, unmixed desire to serve, and please, and glorify his divine benefactor-the only motive by which the blessed in heaven can be actuated throughout eternity. In this position in Christ, the disciple is set apartsanctified-by being, in a spiritual sense, in the temple, or house of God, as contradistinguished from all other positions or temples. Here, in Christ, all that he does is made an act of worship, not by his doing it, but by the position in which it is done. Christ is pre-eminently the temple-the disciple in Christ, is in the temple; and identified, or accounted, one with Christ, is also himself the temple-corresponding with the saying of the apostle, (1 Cor. iii. 17,) "The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

The patriarch, as we have noticed, according to the Septuagint, said, of the stone upon which he had rested, and resting upon which he had enjoyed his beatific vision, and which he set up as a memorial-" It shall be to me the house of God;" so Christ, the stone upon which the disciple rests, and which affords him the vision of heavenly communion, is to him the house,

or temple of God. To this stone he looks, as the Israelites of old looked to the temple in offering their petitions to the throne of grace, (2 Chron. vi. 21.) What the stone column is in the temple, the position of the believer in Christ is to the heavenly arrangement by which he is sanctified, or set apart; and as the patriarch, in all his wanderings, called to mind the memorial which he had set up in Bethel, (Gen. xxxi. 13,) the disciple, in every trial of his faith, looks to his position in Christ, as affording the assurance that he will conquer, and more than conquer, through him in whom he is able to do all things. So we may say, ó vizur, the conquering, or overcoming principle, is manifested to be the column in the spiritual temple of God: a column, in effect, identic with the temple; the promise corresponding with that of the giving of the white stone, (§§ 66, 67,) and of the gift of the morning star, ($83.)

§ 99. And he shall go no more out.'-As the disciple, once in Christ, never afterwards loses this position. The two brazen pillars in Solomon's temple, Jachin and Booz, were broken in pieces and taken to Babylon at the time of the captivity. Whatever they represented, it must have been something of a transitory character-something like the elements of the legal dispensation-to continue only for a time. But here is a pillar never to be moved. As the glory of this latter house, (Christ,) is to exceed the glory of the former, so the permanency of this position in Christ, or of this principle of identity with him, once manifested, is to continue, not merely for a time, but for eternity.

' And I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God-of the new Jerusalem-the coming down out of heaven from my God, and my new name.'-Here we are reminded of the new name to be written in, or upon, the white stone, Rev. ii. 17. Our remarks upon that stone applying, perhaps, even more directly here, (§§ 66, 67.)

Different reasons may be assigned for giving names to certain objects, such as showing proprietorship, or selection; but in placing an inscription upon a pillar, or column, in a public edifice, the usual design is that of making the pillar an instrument of magnifying and giving distinction to that which is put upon it. As edicts and laws were made public in ancient times by affixing them to a column in some public place of resort; and as Absalom erected a pillar, and gave his own name to it, to perpetuate, as he vainly supposed, his own glory; so the distinction given to this pillar in the temple of God is that of constituting it an instrument of proclaiming the glory of God as it was said to the favoured people of God, Ezek. xxxvi. 22 and 23, "Thus saith the Lord God: I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine own holy name's sake, which ye have profaned amongst the heathen whither ye went, and I will sanctify my great name."

On a first reading, we are inclined to suppose three several names to be alluded to here; but the whole tenor of Scripture teaches us that all glory, honour, and power, are to be ascribed to one name alone; and that whatever variety there may be in the instruments, by which this great name is held up for our contemplation, the employment of all of them must result in magnifying the one name of the sovereign God, Zech. xiv. 9. The name of my God, the name of the city of my God, and my new name,-must be in effect, therefore, one and the same name. The Supreme Being is called, and calls himself in Scripture, by different names; the holy city has also different names; and to the speaker in this revelation, Jesus Christ, several appellations are given, and this even in the same passage, (Is. ix. 6.) If, however, we can find a name applied, or predicted to be applied, in the sacred writings, to all three of these distinguished objects, we may suppose this to be the new name to be inscribed upon the pillar.

100. The essential and peculiar name of the Supreme Being is Jehovah ; it is rendered in a multitude of places in our common version by the term LORD, in capitals; and in the Septuagint, by Kúgios: (vid. Concord. Trom. Tom. I. 944, in Jehova, nomen Dei proprium; the number of places in which it occurs being so many, that only a few examples are there given: ex infinitis ferè locis aliquot hic speciminis ergò enotantur.) This name was held in so great reverence by the ancient Hebrews, as to have acquired for it the appellation of the ineffable, or unspeakable; and probably it was not at all expressed by the Jewish translators of the Septuagint, from an apprehension of literally profaning this sacred name amongst the heathen. The compilers of our common version appear to have been governed by the same apprehension, although they have ventured occasionally to introduce it,—as P3. lxxxiii. 18, "That men may know that thou whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the Most High for evermore." Many other passages, however, where the title LORD is used in capitals, would strike us much more forcibly, if this proper name were read, as it might be, with the greatest propriety, instead of that substituted for it-as, Is. xlii. 8, "I am JEHOVAH, that is my name ;" and Ps. xv. 5, "JEHOVAH is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup ;" and Ps. lxxi. 16, “I will go in the strength of the Lord JEHOVAH; I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only." The places in which this combination of the title with the proper name occurs in the Old Testament, rendered in the Septuagint by Kúgios xúpios, (Latin, dominus dominus-English, Lord God,) are so many, that of these only the chapter and verse are cited in the Concordance of Trommius. We can have no hesitation, therefore, in considering this name as particularly the revealed name of the Deity; that which he has chosen especially to apply to himself, with reference to the whole purport of Revelation.

Let us now compare with this the words of the same sovereign Being, Jeremiah xxiii. 5, 6, "Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely and this is his name whereby he shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS;" or, more properly, JEHOVAH our righteousness. There can be no question but that this is he of whom it is said, Zech. vi. 12, "Behold the man whose name is the BRANCH; and he shall grow up out of his place, and he shall build the temple of the Lord ;"-that is, the temple such as we have supposed it to be, in a spiritual sense that which affords a position for the true worship of God, and a virtual access to the throne of Grace. The Branch predicted to spring from the roots of Jesse, (Is. xi. 1-10,) being the beautiful and glorious Branch, the bearing of whose name alone is sufficient to take away every reproach, (Is. iv. 1, 2.) But it is so generally admitted that this "righteous Branch" is no other than Christ, that further quotation of text to establish this point appears unnecessary; there can be no question, therefore, but that to Christ also belongs this appellation of Jehovah.

We have now to compare with these a passage still more extraordinary, Jer. xxxiii. 15, 16, "In those days, and at that time, will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David, and he shall execute judgment and righteousness in the land. In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is the name wherewith she shall be called, the LORD our righteousness;" or, according to the Hebrew, as in the preceding case," Jehovah our righteousness."

Here Judah and Jerusalem are used as nearly convertible terms; the literal city, Jerusalem, being the capital of the literal kingdom of Judah,— one, the kingdom, comprehending the other, and one, the capital, being located in, and giving its character to the other: the house of Judah being put for the kingdom of Judea. So, in a spiritual sense, Judæa, Iovdaïa, signifying the praise of the Lord, (Leusden, O. S.,) and Jerusalem the vision of peace. We may say that the praise of the Lord comprehends the plan of his redeeming mercy, while that plan of mercy (vision of peace) gives its character to his praise; as his glory comprehends his goodness, and his goodness gives its peculiar character to his glory. In reference to this apparently it is said, Is. lxii. 6, 7, “Ye that make mention of the Lord keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth;" that is, until he so make the plan of redemption known that its development shall result in his praise. It is then of the plan, or economy, of redemption, under the figure of Judah, or Jerusalem, that the prophet here speaks; and to this vision of peace is to be given the august name, Jehovah our

righteousness, not the multitude of human beings commonly called the Church of Christ, but that which constitutes this multitude the Church of Christ, viz., the covenant, or testament of grace, spoken of, Gal. iv. 26, as the opposite of the covenant of works, and, figuratively, as the Jerusalem which is above, which is the mother of us all-the holy, or new Jerusalem, -the Lamb's wife, of the Apocalypse ;-the object seen by John to come down from heaven as a bride adorned for her husband, being that of which it is said, Is. liv. 5, "Thy Maker is thine husband, the Lord of hosts (Jehovah of hosts) is his name, and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel," So, as the wife bears the name of her husband; as the disciple is baptized into, and bears the name of his master; as the people of Judea were said to be called by the name of the Lord; as the seven women (seven churches) spoken of, Is. iv. 1, desire to be called by the name of one man (the Redeemer) to take away their reproach; the spiritual Church, or heavenly Jerusalem, is represented, also, as bearing the name of her Maker and Redeemer, her divine spouse, being with him also called JEHOVAH OUR righteousness. Corresponding with this, a city frequently bears the name of its founder, not to honour the city, but that the founder, or builder, may be honoured by the city, as Ezek. xlviii. 35, "And the name of the city from that day shall be JEHOVAH there.'

Here, then, we have one name applicable to three several objects, corresponding with that to be inscribed on the pillar, in the spiritual temple: the name of my God, the name of the city of my God, and my new name. The overcoming principle, o vxor, is to receive the name of Jehovah our righteousness, and this with peculiar propriety, as it is by virtue of this name, or of the element of truth involved in it, that the victory is gained, for the acquisition of which, he that overcometh is thus distinguished.

As it is said, Is. xlv. 22-25, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else;" "Surely, shall one say, In JEHOVAH have I righteousness and strength;" "In JEHOVAH shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.” 'He that hath an ear, let him hear,' &c. (§ 46.)

Epistle to the Angel of the Church of the Laodiceans.

V. 14. And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans (or of the church in Laodicea) write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true Witness, the beginning of the creation of God.

Καὶ τῷ ἀγγέλῳ τῆς ἐν Λαοδικείᾳ ἐκκλη σίας γράψον· τάδε λέγει ὁ ἀμήν, ὁ μάρτυς ὁ πιστὸς καὶ ἀληθινός, ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κτίσεως

τοῦ θεοῦ.

§ 101. The Amen.'-This appellation is said to signify the truth, expressed, as it is here, in the substantive form, (Rob. Lex. 29.) Truth is a peculiar attribute of Jesus Christ, as well as of the Holy Spirit; He was full of