saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch." "But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall: and ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be as ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts." And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked; between him that serveth God, and him that serveth him not." The Almighty Lord is revealed as the most effulgent light. "His countenance was as the Rev. i. 16. sun shineth in his strength, and his feet like unto Rev. i. 15. fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and Rev. i. 17. when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead." St. Paul also fell down to the ground, and those who journeyed with him, when the Lord appeared Acts, xxvi. 13. to him "as a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun." And when Moses Ex. xxxiii. 18. said, "I beseech thee, show me thy glory? the shall no beholding the purity of his glory: for the 1 John ii. 17. spirit of this world, we are assured, "will pass away." St. John and St. Paul were raised again by the Holy Spirit, Rey. i. 15. Now to be in the pure Spirit of the Lord, as St. John describes himself to have been, his soul must be as the union of a ray of light, with the whole effulgence of the sun: or similar to the smallest particle of water, in union with the whole ocean: and in that purity of spirit, the impure spirit of evil, that pervades and surrounds the material creation, must appear as a troubled sea, or "Like unto fine brass burning in a furnace," as it is represented by St. John:-but whether the body of that power be what we call electricity or not, sure we are, that when it shall please the Almighty Lord to give it motion as would be the case at his coming, by the rushing in of his Holy Spiritthis material world, and all which surround us, must be disolved in the twinkling of an eye! So that the elements which surround us, are consistent, and in accordance with the description given us in the prophetic revelations. But, as these prophetic revelations, assure us, "That unto you that fear my name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings, and ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall: and ye shall tread down the wicked; for they shall be as ashes under the soles of your feet in the day that I shall do this, saith the Lord of Hosts;" our important business is to illustrate the subject from the Scriptures, to give that confidence and comfort they certainly inspire. Among the parables our Saviour used to illustrate the final redemption, he likened the progressive growth, and strength of our souls in the Holy Spirit, to a plant breaking through the ground from a seed into the light of day: and by the words spoken by the prophets, as the progressive growth of a child in the womb until its birth:-and also, as being in the snare of a fowler whose net is broken-when all, of the Spirit of the Lord, unite face to face in the effulgence of his glory. We have already noticed, that the two veils before the altar, under the Mosaic law, represented the dark state of mankind in regard to their knowledge of God-of heaven-and of themselves: that the first veil was upon the heart in the unregenerate or natural state, asis the case of those who expect justification by the Mosaic law. The second veil is yet over all the christian world, formed by the malignant passions, and called by IsaiahIsaiah xxv. 7. "The covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations"-which Heb. x. 19, gross spirit of darkness, or of the flesh, separates from the light of heaven: and called the flesh in the words of St. Paul-he says, "Having, therefore, boldness (or liberty) brethren, to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath con secrated for us through the veil; that is to say, through the flesh" (by overcoming the spirit of it,); "which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil, whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of Melchisedec." 4 A To illustrate, however, the subject progres sively from the scriptures. The bodies of christians are called the Temple of God. Jesus said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days John ii. 19. I will raise it again; but he spake of the temple of his body." And St. Paul, addressing his disciples, says, "Your body is the temple 1 Cor. vi. 19. of the Holy Spirit:" and that Holy Spirit, forming the soul and mind, has the veil before it, which separates from the light of heaven: for "God is light, and in Him is no darkness 1 John i. 5, at all." And that the disciples of the Lord might know His purity, and the ultimate state of theirs-he said, "If thy whole body, Luke xi. 36. therefore, be full of light, having no part dark," (by the spirit of malignity,) "the whole shall be full of light, as when a candle by its I |