the Services to serious men who come daily or frequently! Surely such attendance is a safeguard, such as amulets were said to be, a small thing to all appearance, but effectual. I say it with confidence, he who observes it, will grow in time a different man from what he was, God working in him. His heart will be more heavenly and aspiring; the world will lie under his feet; he will be proof against its opinions, threats, blandishments, ridicule. His very mode of viewing things, his very voice, his manner, gait, and countenance, will speak of Heaven to those who know him well, though the many see nothing in him.

The many understand him not, and even in St. Paul or St. John would see but ordinary men. Yet at times such a one will speak effectually even to the many. In seasons of unusual distress or alarm, when men's minds faint for fear, then he will have a natural power over the world, and will seem to speak, not as an individual, but as if in him was concentrated all the virtue and the grace of those many Saints who have been his life-long companions. He has lived with those who are dead, and he will seem to the world as one coming from the dead, speaking in the name of the dead, using the language of souls dead to things that are seen, revealing the mysteries of the heavenly world, and aweing and controlling those who are wedded to this. What slight account did the centurion and the crew make of St. Paul, till a tempest had long time "lain on them," and "all hope that they should be saved was then taken away!" But then, though he had done no miracle, "he stood forth in the midst," exhorted and

encouraged them, bade them take meat, acted as their priest, giving thanks to God and breaking bread in the presence of them all, and so made them " of good cheer." Such is the gift, deeply lodged and displayed at times, of those who have ascended into the third heaven. One living Saint, though there be but one, is a pledge of the whole Church Invisible. Let this thought console us as it ought to do; let it have its full influence in us and possess us. Let us "lift up our hearts," let us, "lift them up unto the Lord!"

SERMON XVIII.

THE GIFT OF THE SPIRIT.

2 COR. iii. 18.

"We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

MOSE

OSES prayed for this one thing, that he might see God's glory;" and he was allowed to behold it in such measure, that when he came down from the Mount, "the skin of his face shone," so that the people" were afraid to come nigh him." Only to him was this privilege vouchsafed in this intimate way, and that but once; but a promise was given, that at some future time it should be extended to the whole earth. God said to him, "As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord," that glory which the Israelites had seen in glimpses and had profaned. Afterwards the prophets Isaiah and Habakkuk foretold, in like manner, that the earth should be filled with the Lord's glory and the knowledge of it. When Christ came, these promises were fulfilled, for "we

beheld His glory," St. John says, "the glory as of the Only-begotten of the Father."1

In the chapter which ends with the text, St. Paul contrasts the shadows and earnests under the Law, of "the glory that should follow" Christ's coming, with that glory itself. He says that he and his brother Apostles are "not as Moses, who put a veil over his face." At length the glory of God in full measure was the privilege and birthright of all believers, who now, "in the unveiled face of Christ their Saviour, beheld the reflection of the Lord's glory," and were "changed into His likeness from one measure of glory to another." Our Saviour's words in His last prayer for His Apostles, and for all His disciples as included under them, convey to us the same gracious truth. He says, "The glory which Thou gavest Me, I have given them."2

This glorious Dispensation, under which the Church now exists, is called by St. Paul, in the same chapter, "the ministration of the Spirit;" and again in the text, we are said to be changed into the glorious image of Christ, "by the Spirit of the Lord."

And further, the Church, as being thus honoured and exalted by the presence of the Spirit of Christ, is called "the Kingdom of God," "the Kingdom of Heaven;" as, for instance, by our Lord Himself "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand:" "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God."3

1 Exod. xxxiv. 30; Numb. xiv. 21; Isa. xi. 9; Hab. ii. 14; John i. 14.

2 John xvii. 22.

3 Matt. x. 7; John iii. 5.

I propose now to make some remarks on this peculiar gift of the Gospel Dispensation, which, as in the foregoing passages, is spoken of as the gift of "the Spirit," the gift of "glory," and through which the Church has become what it was not before, the Kingdom of Heaven.

And here, before entering upon the subject, I would observe, that as there is a sense in which the grant of glory was made even under the Law, viz., in its miracles. (as when the Israelites are condemned for having "seen the glory of the Lord and His miracles," and yet "not having hearkened to His voice"1), so in another point of view it belongs exclusively to the promised blessedness hereafter. Still there is a peculiar and sufficient sense in which it is ascribed to the Christian Church, and what this is, is the question now before us.

1. In the first place, some insight is given into the force of the word "glory," as our present privilege, by considering the meaning of the title "Kingdom of Heaven," which, as has been just observed, has also belonged to the Church since Christ came. The Church is called by this name as being the court and domain of Almighty God, who retreated from the earth, as far as His kingly presence was concerned, when man fell. Not that He left Himself without witness in any age, but even in His most gracious manifestations, still He conducted Himself as if in an enemy's country, "as a stranger in the land, and as a wayfaring man that turneth aside to tarry for a night."2 But when Christ had reconciled Him to His fallen creatures, He returned according to the prophecy, "I will dwell in them, and