ests of each rendered conducive to the happiness of all. Gold or silver I may not possess; then the simpler offering of brass will be accepted: dyes of ethereal blue or gorgeous red I may not be able to contribute; then let me give but a thread of undyed linen, and the Lord will not refuse my humbler service. Only let each adopt the words of Moses, The Lord is my strength and my song, and he is become my salvation: he is my God, and I will prepare him an habitation; my father's God, and I will exalt him, Ex. xv. 2; and we shall soon see the church in its universality of extent and of endowment rising into beautiful symmetry of proportion and gracious unity of spirit. That they all may be one, as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. John xvii. 21. Who would not wish to verify this prayer? Why need it to be said of any, Our brethren have discouraged our heart? Deut. i. 28.

The division of the tabernacle into several compartments by no means militates against the foregoing observations. The outer courts, the holy place, and the holiest of all, were but component parts of one sacred whole they were together the sanctuary of Jehovah's worship. St. Paul's description of the tabernacle in its separate yet combined arrangements in Heb. ch. ix., will be found an inspired commentary upon Ex. ch. xxvi. and following portions of that holy book. Ordinances of divine service were appropriated to each division of the tabernacle, while all in mutual subservience conducted the believing worshippers to the visible manifestation of the God of Israel as throned in a seat of ineffable and everlasting mercy. Eternal redemption, in the place of a transient deliverance like that of Israel out

of Egypt, is obtained for us. The blood of Christ in the stead of that of bulls and of goats, has been shed for us. The temporary possession of Canaan by Jacob's descendants under the first testament, yields to the promise of an everlasting portion and not in a holy place constructed by human hands does our High Priest appear, but in heaven itself; and thence do we look for him to come to consummate the hope his life and death and righteousness do inspire. Tit. ii. 13. All these things are in manifest allusion to the sanctuary of the Lord amidst the tribes of Israel; and we hereby see how truly, even in that earlier dispensation of mercy, the gospel was preached unto us as well as unto them. Heb. iv. 2. In fine, the church is indivisible, and the method of salvation has been the same in every age since the first transgression brought death into the world and all our woe. My dove, my undefiled, is but one; is the testimony of Jesus Christ respecting his beloved people, Cant. vi. 9: and forasmuch as he stands the Representative of his seed, therefore in saving them, he is said to deliver and to save himself: His own arm brought salvation unto him, and thus by gracious consequence it brings salvation also unto his body the church. Isa. lix. 16. So intimately blended are the interests of the church and of the church's Head and Lord, that the one cannot be affected and the other remain unmoved. As himself the form of the invisible God and the express image of the Father, so he renews his people in righteousness and true holiness, making them partakers of the Divine nature, and thereby qualifying them to pass from the outer courts of a professedly Christian community, into the spiritual sonship and adoption of God's dear family, and ultimately also into resurrection-being and eternal blessedness. Here again

we might exclaim with ardent longing, Oh that we did but more generally realize this privileged state of communion with each other and the Lord!-Moses made fifty taches of gold, and coupled the curtains of the tabernacle together; brazen tenons and silver sockets also retained the frame-work of the tabernacle in firm and befitting compact, Ex. xxxvi. 13; illustrating strikingly that beautiful consistency and intertwined affection which ought to characterize all the true followers of Jesus Christ. That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of Christ, in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Col. ii. 23. By these sacred joints and bands, having nourishment ministered, we should increase with the increase of God. Col. ii. 19. The church would, after this manner, prosper surpassingly: her peace would flow as a river; her righteousness would abound as the waves of the sea. Isa. xlviii. 18. Minor differences would sink into general principles. All holding the Head would be esteemed as brethren. The brightness of the Divine glory, radiating from a blood-besprinkled mercy-seat, would so overpower and fill our spiritual perception, that little differences of sentiment and of form would escape our observation. Then, and only then, shall we see eye to eye precisely, when the Lord shall bring again Zion. Isa. lii. 8. Meanwhile, let each individual member of God's believing household adopt the prayer of David, Peace be both to thee, and peace to thine house, and peace unto all that thou hast. 1 Sam. xxv. 6. Let every vibration of the believer's pulse beat, Grace, grace unto all who love our Lord sincerely. Eph. vi. 24.

III. The believer.

We regard the tabernacle as symbolizing the Christian believer in a twofold way: first, as it respects his present, and secondly, as it respects his future being the one with reference to the mortal body; the other with reference to the body redeemed and glorified. Both ideas are placed before us in the holy Word, and the one serves to afford bold and striking relief unto the other.

1. In Psalm cxxxix. the sacred psalmist remarks, My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth; ver. 15 : in which words it is believed there is a purposed allusion to the curiously wrought curtains of the Mosaic tabernacle. Day by day were they fashioned under the inspired direction of the Holy Ghost, until the holy tent stood forth in beautiful entireness amidst the tribes of Israel. After a like manner is the substance, that is, the strength or material body of the believer formed; the secret wonder-working power of God originating, arranging, and combining all its members, until eventually it stands forth the acknowledged tenement of an immortal soul. In all ages the devout consideration of the human frame has awakened admiration and delight, and surely no object in the visible creation is so calculated to demonstrate the being and perfection of an infinite Intelligence as the body in which we dwell. Job x. 11, 12; and Ps. cxxxix. 14. God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. Gen. i. 27. Man therefore was the predestinative form which the Creator himself would subsequently assume, and it is this perfect resemblance again to incarnate Deity that will constitute our blessedness in the world to come. Their Father's and their Redeemer's name

will be re-written in living imperishable characters upon the foreheads of all the redeemed. Rev. iii. 12. At present, however, the believer, high and large soever as his attainments in grace may be, is a weak and an imperfect creature. To this effect, St. Peter, addressing the scattered followers of his Master, says, I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up, by putting you in remembrance; knowing that shortly I must put off this my tabernacle, even as our Lord Jesus Christ himself hath showed me. The apostle moreover declares his intention and desire to provide for their spiritual edification after his decease in writing to them now a second time; evidently implying thereby that his departure from them in death would nearly resemble the temporary demolition of a tent or tabernacle used by a traveller on his pilgrim-way, until occasion or opportunity required its reconstruction. 2 Epis. i. 13, 14; and iii. 1. Peter's recollection of the words particularly addressed to him by Jesus Christ, was remarkable. John xxi. 18, 19. He would seem to have lived thenceforward in habitual preparation for a martyr's death, and at the same time in confident persuasion of the grace to be brought unto us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 1 Epis. i. 13. For, although temporally taken down, the believer's body is yet again to be raised up, and raised up for perpetual endurance and indwelling. This grace is therefore yet to be brought unto us, and then will our vile body be likened unto the glorious body of our exalted Lord when he shall build it anew from the dust of death. The tabernacle reared by Moses in the wilderness was ultimately transplanted to the high places of Gibeon: this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put