1. Your condition is uncomfortable. How sad was the condition of Egypt when plagued with a darkness that might be felt! But thine is worse in the nature, and worse in the continuance; their darkness lasted but for three days, but thine will last to the days of eternity, unless infinite mercy prevent.

2. Your condition is dangerous: Prov. iv. 19: "The way of the wicked is as darkness.' You know not your way: you are walking on the ridge of eternal destruction.

3. Your condition is full of horror. We read of the "horror of darkness," Gen. xv. 12. Thou art compassed with terrors on every side; the terrors of the law, the terrors of conscience, the terrors of the Almighty, the terrors of eternal miseries are all round about thee, though perhaps thou art asleep, and dost not perceive them, &c. But yet I would not leave you in this hopeless condition, but offer you a word of advice.

1. Be really convinced of your miserable case, and your own utter inability to relieve yourselves. You can no more create this divine light than you can make a sun in the firmament to arise at midnight. But, say you, to what purpose do you tell us of our impotency, for that quite discourages us from the use of means? Answ. We tell you of your impotency not to discourage you to use the means, but that in the use of means you may be driven out of yourselves to the Lord of light, life, and strength.

2. My advice to you is, to come to the light of the dayspring that has visited you in a gospel dispensation, look to that, till light spring in upon thy soul. This is the advice of God himself; 2 Pet. i. 19: "We have a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn and the day-star arise in your hearts." Take heed to it, let all your thoughts and conceptions of God, and of the things of God, be moulded in a suitableness to that revelation; be ever looking to the Sun shining through the glass of the word, for it is through this glass that the rays of God's glory are darted or transmitted into the mind of man. We receive the Spirit of wisdom and revelation "by the hearing of faith."

3. Look to Christ, and you shall be enlightened and saved, Psal. xxxiv. 5: Is. xlv. 22. Object. But I am blind. Answ. He that opens the eyes of the blind, commands you to look; and in attempting to obey his command, light and sight come in to the soul.

The second sort of persons are those on whom the day-spring from on high has broken up. And these are of two sorts. 1. Some who have once in a day been visited with the day

spring are walking in darkness. 2. Some at present enjoy the visits of the day-spring.

As to the first. O, may some be saying, I thought the day did once spring up in my soul, and I saw the light of the Lord; but, alas! now I "walk in darkness, and can see no light." "O that it were with me as in months past!" I thought to have got a visit of the day-spring on this occasion; but, alas! I am going away as I came; the darkness of temptation, affliction, desertion, and despondency, overspread my soul, and I think I am cast out of his sight. I shall only say two or three things:

1. Bless God that ever the day-spring did visit thee. Thou knowest the difference between light and darkness, between absence and presence. One visit of this day-spring from on high secures thy state for ever.

2. When once the Sun of righteousness arises on a soul, though he may suffer eclipses, yet he will never set again; and therefore the Sun is in the firmament, and it is day with thee, although thou dost not see it, by reason of interposing clouds. "Ye are not of the night, but of the day."

3. My advice to you is, to "hope in God: for you shall yet praise him for the light of his countenance." It is his command, "Let Israel hope in the Lord." See God's command to you, Is. L. 10: "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of his servant, that walketh in darkness, and hath no light? let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay upon his God." And, to encourage you to hope and trust, see what the Lord says, Is. liv. 7, 8: “ For a small moment have I forsaken thee, but with great mercies will I gather thee. In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord, thy Redeemer."

As to the second sort of believers, who have the spring of day on them, have got a visit of the day-spring. Thy condition, believer, is safe; for "the Lord will be thy everlasting light." It is glorious and comfortable: "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart." My advice to you is,

1. Bless God who has made the day-spring to visit you, while others are left in darkness. Remember thy former darkness, and bless the Lord that has delivered thee from it, translated thee "out of darkness into his marvellous light."

2. Walk in the light of this day that has dawned on thy soul: Is. ii. 5: "O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord." This is Christ's counsel, John xii. 35; Eph. v. 8. Walk in the light of Christ's example, and in the light of his commandment; let them be a light to your

feet, and a lamp to your path. And "let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

3. Beware of every thing that may eclipse the light of the Sun from thy soul; beware of pride, carnality, worldliness, unbelief and all untenderness in your walk, otherwise you may bring yourselves under as great darkness to your own feeling, as though the sun had never arisen on you.

4. Long for the break of the everlasting day of glory, when the sun shall never any more suffer an eclipse. The Old Testament church longed for the break of the New Testament day; and we that are under the New Testament day, should long for the break of the day of glory, saying, "Make haste, my beloved, and be thou like to a roe, or to a young hart upon the mountains of spices."

Now, because there are some young persons that have been at the Lord's table, who never were at it before, therefore I conclude with a word or two to them.

1. "Keep yourselves from idols." Let nothing usurp God's room in your heart, &c.

2. Keep and "save yourselves from a present evil world," that you be not seduced or entangled with snares, &c.

3. Be on your guard; for the devil will be on you, he will seek to sift and winnow you, and to draw you back to his service, &c.

4. "Put on the whole armour of God," and be often proving it, "the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit," &c.

5. Keep Christ, the Captain of salvation, ever in your eye, that you may be supplied, strengthened, and enlightened,

&c.

6. Be much on your knees at a throne of grace, "for grace and mercy to help you in time of need."

7. Lastly, Be much in studying your own emptiness, and Christ's fulness, and travel continually betwixt these two.

443

SERMON XV.

THE RAINBOW OF THE COVENANT SURROUNDING THE THRONE OF

GRACE.*

And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.-REV. Iv. 3.

Nor to stand in the entry, we may notice here three things which John saw in a vision. 1. A throne set in heaven, in the close of the 2d verse. 2. The glorious Majesty that sat on the throne, who was like a jasper, and a sardine stone, for brightness. 3. The canopy of the throne, a rainbow round about it, in colour like unto an emerald. I understand the whole of this to have a respect immediately to the church militant here upon earth, and the glorious dispensation of the grace of God under the New Testament economy. And that which inclines me to understand it in this view, is, because this vision is prophetical, and has a respect to things that were to be done afterward, as you see in the 1st verse, "Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter;" that is, things which are to be transacted in the church in the suc ceeding ages and generations of the world. And therefore by the throne here that was set in heaven, I understand the throne of grace, to which we are invited to "come with boldness, for grace and mercy to help in time of need," Heb. iv. 16; the throne which has justice satisfied, and judgment executed upon the Son of God, for its basis and foundation, Psal. lxxxix. 14; the throne of God, and of the Lamb, from which proceeds "a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal," Rev. xxii. 1. And this throne is said to be "set in heaven." as if God's throne of grace were only in heaven properly so called; for we find the church militant on earth frequently expressed by heaven in scripture: Heb. xii. 22. She is called "the Heavenly Jerusalem," to wit, the church, 1 Pet. ii. 9; the "heavenly nation." And therefore by heaven here we may understand the church of God in general. And it is so called, to show that the hearts of believers, even while here. upon earth, are in heaven, they are "desiring a better country, that is, a heavenly;" and when they address a throne

Not

Being the substance of several Sermons, preached at the sacrament, at Muckhart, June 23, 1728; and enlarged upon at Abernethy, on Saturday and Sabbath, July 5, and 6.

of grace, they have their eyes upon an exalted Christ, who is "set down at the right hand of the Majesty on high," and his ministry in the heavenly sanctuary. By him that sits on the throne, I understand Christ, or God in our nature, not excluding the Father and the Holy Ghost; for it is "the throne of God, and of the Lamb." Ezek. i. 26. We have the same description of a throne in a vision, and we are told, that "above upon the throne was the appearance of a man," which can be applied to none other than the man Christ Jesus; and there is no doubt but it is the same throne, and the same person sitting on it, that was seen both by Ezekiel, and the apostle John. As for his posture, he is represented as "sitting upon the throne." This points at the perpetuity of his government; that he is in quiet possession of it, it being for ever out of the power of his enemies to disturb his adminis tration. We are told here, farther, that his appearance upon the throne was "like a jasper and a sardine stone." These stones being unknown to us, we shall not take up time in telling you what is said about them by naturalists, and some curious interpreters; only we are told, in short, the jasper is a bright transparent stone, representing to the eye a variety of the most vivid or lively colours; the sardine is said to be red. The scope is plainly this, to point out the admirable and inconceivable glory and excellency of an exalted Christ. Such is the brightness of the Father's glory shining in him, now when he is upon the throne, that all the precious things on earth put together are but faint shadows and representations of his divine glory and excellency. The brightness of the jasper, and the redness of the sardine stone, are put together, to show that he is white and ruddy; white in his divine, ruddy in his human nature; white in his holiness, red in his suffering: the bright and glorious perfections of God, shining through the rent veil of his human nature, do as it were receive a tincture of red from the veil through which they are transmitted. In Is. lxiii. 1, 2, he is said to be glorious, and yet "red in his apparel;" and his appearance in the midst of the throne, is, as it were, of a Lamb slain, having the sprinkling of his blood about him, which was shed upon Mount Calvary, and which cries for "better things than the blood of Abel."

But now I come to that part of John's vision, which I have principally in view, and that is the canopy of state which covers the throne, and him that sat on it, in the close of the 3d verse: "And there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.”

Where, again, notice, 1. The covering of the throne; it was very stately, like a rainbow. 2. The circuit of this co