If the Spirit strives with the lost in hell, then it was not true that he ceased to strive with the antediluvians. But the misery which the lost shall undergo, will exercise upon them, it is alleged, a purifying power, and after a lengthened period their souls shall be completely purged by suffering and purgatorial fire, and made fit for heaven. There is no evidence, I reply, that punishment can purify the heart. No man was ever made a Christian by suffering; that change can be effected by the Holy Spirit of God alone. Sufferings may show what sin is, not what the beauty of holiness is: if any amount of suffering on our part could save a soul, why did the Saviour bleed and die? Is it at all likely that so great a sacrifice as God Incarnate would have been offered if man could have been saved by suffering without it? Besides, the intense appeals of the gospel imply there is no hope hereafter. "Why will ye die?" "Ye will not come to me that ye might have life." "Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest." "Ho! every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters." day, if ye will hear his voice, harden not your hearts." guage seems to exhaust all its force in entreating sinners to be saved; its very intensity indicates the awfulness of the state from. which Christ would snatch us. The views that the lost in hell will finally be saved, seem to detract from the power of the gospel. If hell can be the birthplace of glorified spirits, why was Calvary ever heard of, or that innocent, spotless Lamb made a victim for sin? My dear friends, heaven endures for ever, and hell endures for ever; but here is the unspeakable comfort, that this night the Lord Jesus invites you in loving accents, Believe on me, trust in the sacrifice I have once offered for the sins of the world, and ye shall be saved from the unutterable wo of the one, and shall enjoy with angels the inconceivable bliss of the otherye shall reign with me eternally in glory.

"To

Lan

This great idea, eternity, is the weightiest word in human speech; it changes mightily whatever it is attached to. Suffering which is eternal suffering, and joy which is eternal joy, are states of infinite moment. Sin that is not productive of eternal torment would seem not to necessitate an interposition of Infinite Worth. A love without retribution would be connivance at sin.

Given any one vital doctrine of Christianity, and the everlasting suffering of the wicked is a corollary plainly deducible from it. I can come to no other conclusion than that to which our Reformers came-which apostles taught-which the Holy Spirit inspired-viz. that heaven and hell are eternal states-the one endless joy, and the other endless misery and wo and suffering.

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LECTURE IX.

THE BRIDE.

"And there came unto me one of the seven angels which had the seven vials full of the seven last plagues, and talked with me, saying, Come hither, I will show thee the bride, the Lamb's wife."-Revelation xxi. 9.

"And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude, and as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia: for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth. Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted, that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the linen is the righteousness of saints. And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriagesupper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God."-Revelation xix. 6.

THIS relationship, viz. of bridegroom and bride, is so frequently employed by the sacred penmen to illustrate the great spiritual truth of the believer's union to Christ, that we cannot but conclude it is not only appropriate, but replete with instructive. meaning. It occurs in the following among other passages:—

"For thy Maker is thy Husband, (the Lord of Hosts is his name;) and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall he be called." Isa. liv. 5.

"He that hath the bride is the bridegroom." John iii. 29. "I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ." 2 Cor. xi. 2.

"Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Eph. v. 25-27.

"Blessed are they which are called to the marriage-supper of the Lamb." Rev. xix. 9.

"The holy city. . . prepared as a bride adorned for her husband." Rev. xxi. 2.

This, and other analogies, so common in Scripture, show us that Creation and Providence are full of meaning, and cast light on the relationship of the higher world-a light that will one day reveal the common origin and end of both. Even now creation is perpetually striving to express its inner and glorious truths; it is big with divine and mysterious doctrines; it groans and travails in pain, waiting to be delivered. In its present disordered state, creation bodies forth majestic shadows of the superior world; and they who deal with it, if spiritually unenlightened on eternal things, hold in their hands a valuable casket, full of precious gems, which they are unable to unlock, much less appreciate; they are the admirers of the mere typography, but have no conception of its inner meaning; they study and understand the mechanism of the instrument, but neither hear nor believe in its sleeping tones of heavenly music. It is, I admit, mutilated and marred by sin; it is covered with dark spots of plague, and breaks forth at times in terrific struggles, in volcanos, and earthquakes, and thunder, as if in agony to speak out all its eloquent burden. During the millennial day, the earth, like the snake in spring, will cast off its old and wrinkled skin, and appear beautiful and peaceful like a restored angel. Nature, which means "coming to the birth," will then be born, and the New Earth will be the fair and beautiful offspring, radiant with immortal youth, and eloquent as the evangelists and apostles of spiritual truths. The week-day and soiled garments will be consumed in the last fire, and the new and glorious robes that become its everlasting Sabbath shall be worn, ever new and ever beautiful, by all creation, which as a holy Levite shall minister before the Lord perpetually. It shall then be seen that our sweetest joys were but imperfect and diluted foretastes of higher and purer, and that they were meant to lift us far above themselves to those sublime and unalloyed pleasures which our eyes have not yet seen, nor our natures yet tasted. So this holy relationship of bridegroom and bride is the type and shadow of a kindred but more glorious.

In this relationship, there is first of all the privilege of selection, which is peculiar to the bridegroom. So it is in the spiritual;

the first movement is toward us, not by us; from Christ to us, not from us to Christ. Our love is the reflection of his, our response is the result of his attraction; we are deaf till he speak, dead till he quicken, disinclined till he draw us, and destitute till he enrich us.

In the experience of this world, the affection of the bridegroom is created by some excellence or beauty which he perceives in the bride; in other words, ours is a created love, contingent on something external to itself, and fed from that external influence perpetually. But Christ's love is essentially sovereign; it is created by, and dependent on, nothing external to itself. We love, because we see something beautiful or good in the object loved: Christ loves the unlovely by nature, to make them lovely by grace. We love the object because it is beautiful: Christ loves the object to make it so. We love as creatures, he loves as God; deity is in his love, humanity in ours; his is the fountain, ours is the heart filled from it.

Deuteronomy vii. 7 is the just exposition of the love of Christ, and of the reason of our interest in it: "The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people, (for ye were the fewest of all people,) but because the Lord loved you." And again in Ezekiel xvi. 8, "Now when I passed by thee, and looked upon thee, behold, thy time was the time of love, and I spread my skirt over thee, and covered thy nakedness; yea, I sware unto thee, and entered into covenant with thee, saith the Lord God, and thou becamest mine. I washed thee with water, and I anointed thee with oil. decked thee with ornaments, and I put bracelets upon thine hands, and a chain on thy neck. And thy renown went forth among the heathen for thy beauty; for it was perfect through my comeliness which I had put upon thee, saith the Lord God."

I

But the intensity of this love is not sufficiently seen in its lighting upon us in our misery. We must estimate it by the greatness of the Saviour's sacrifice, by endeavouring to gauge the humiliation, and sorrow, and sense of wo he sank into, in order to redeem the bride from her ruin, and raise her to her forfeited inheritance. We must see him leave the throne of glory and the realms of blessedness, and, borne on the wings of a love which