give relief to the suffering conscience, without lowering the high standard of God's most holy law to our necessities, in despair that we could ever reach its requirements; without detracting from the holy character of Him with whom we have do, "making Him such a one as ourselves," lest the knowwithout ledge of Him as He is should annihilate us; trying to cloak and hide our sins from his sight, and "make the best of ourselves" as a late writer advises, but looking our sin in the face, in all its exceeding sinfulness, regarding God in his true light as the hater and avenger of it, and owning our just desert of the extremest punishment his law denounces against transgressors; we, on grounds which can stand the test of the most searching examination by the light of God's word, the most careful scrutiny of our own anxious misgivings, and the most earnest investigation of every honest mind that asks us for "a reason of the hope that is in us," possess a foundation of peace and comfort we can challenge the whole world to equal in extent, and defy its utmost efforts and power to shake. "For I am persuaded," says one who had long possessed it, and well knew its value," that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus."

"Acquaint thyself with God, then, and be at peace," is the Scripture's invitation and promise: and we have only to examine it, to ascertain it has given us no pledge it is unable to redeem to the uttermost extent of our expectations.

We should, perhaps, be better able to bear the full effulgence of "the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ," which bursts upon us in the Gospel, if we were to begin by examining and analysing, first, some of those separate rays which singly visited the church under the Old Testament dispensation, before "the Sun of Righteousness had arisen with healing under its wings," above the spiritual horizon; and which, "like the morning spread upon the mountains," "had, as it were, no glory, by reason of the glory which excelleth ;" and then proceed to gather up the scattered particles of light, and present them in their one grand whole, "Jesus Christ and him crucified," to whom all the prophets and the law bore witness, and to which all the events in the history of God's chosen and typical people had a reference; till we find the opening leaves of type and prophecy unfold by degrees, and expand into the full revealed glory "of the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ :" and in comparing the indistinct intimations they convey, and the dim information they afford to the mind, of "the revelation of the mystery, which had

been hid in God in former generations, but was now made known to the church," we may better understand our present privileges, and our Lord's expressive words, "Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear; for I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see the things that ye see, and saw them not, and to hear the words that ye hear, and heard them not." These rays of light are spread over such an extent of surface, and amplified by such a variety of illustration, that it will only be possible, in a brief work like this, to select a few of the most striking and important of them: let us, then, open our Bible at the first chapters of Leviticus, and carefully observe what a Jew, convicted of sin, and so shut out from the services of the sanctuary and the society of God's people, was ordered to do under the Mosaic economy, to obtain forgiveness, peace of conscience, restoration to all his forfeited privileges, besides averting all those penal inflictions which were brought upon the sinner then by an infraction of God's commandments. He is desired to bring an animal of a particular kind, appointed by the law, expressly selected to denote, by its freedom from a ferocious nature and unoffending habits, its fitness for the purpose; and upon the head of an animal thus emblematic of innocence and usefulness he was commanded "to lay his hands," con

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fessing over it his sins," and was then to kill it "before the Lord;" and, after certain ceremonies and distribution of the parts, the priest officiating was to burn the flesh in the fire; and he was then told "it was accepted for him," to make an atonement for him, and that in consequence his sin was forgiven him. (4th and 5th chapters.) Thus, by an impressive and significant ceremony, was he taught the meaning of the mysterious clause in the gracious attributes of the Almighty vouchsafed to Moses, that though "he was a God merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness and truth keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin, yet will by no means clear the guilty," (Exod. xxxiv. 11,) (the insertion of which seemed to nullify all the rest, and to deprive the sinner of the benefit of them ;) for here they see that "He had given them the blood of these victims, to make an atonement for their souls ;" (Levit. xvii. 11;) which they might understand faintly by seeing another suffer in their stead; and their guilt thus figuratively transferred to another head, guiltless of their crime, yet accepted by God in their place, and suffering the death on their account they had deserved; the burning of whose flesh in the fire, too, set forth before their eyes, in a lively and striking manner, the fire which never should be quenched, that must have been their portion had they died un

pardoned, "for after death comes the judgment," had not God provided a substitute, and had not One, able and willing to undertake the office, said, "Deliver from going down into the pit, for I have found a ransom for him," and their forgiveness procured for them by the divine interposition and mercy, which had rescued them from irretrievable ruin, showed them sin pardoned indeed, but not unavenged-forgiven but not unexpiated, but their salvation purchased at the cost of another's blood, which was poured on the earth for their salvation; and on whose head the blow they had deserved had fallen, which otherwise would have sunk their soul into the pit of perdition. Forgiveness obtained by such means, must have given them an awful idea of the nature of sin which could only be expiated by such a sacrifice, and would tend to make them think anything but lightly of the transgression of a law which demanded such a reparation for its breach; so that their thankfulness for the pardon must have been mingled with a deep sense of humiliation at observing the means used for their absolution, and much self-abhorrence and self-loathing of the sin which required such a process for its cleansing. It must, too, have solemnised their minds, and filled them with a holy awe of that blessed Being who could only be approached by sinful man through such a blood-stained way, and propitiated by such offerings