then, had it been our duty, benevolently to invite our friends to go along with us, how much more then, when it is the Paradise of God which is our destination, away from pain and disaster of every mortal name? How shall we dare speak of our benevolence and friendship, if we are not instant and earnest in our persuasions here?

But this is not the half of the strength of the appeal of Moses. He saw the possibility of Hobab being involved in destruction in his native land; and ah although there were no heaven in it to be gained, since there is a hell in it from which to be saved, how will not the solicitudes of every genuine believer be awakened on behalf of his friend! On returning home to Midian, Hobab might have escaped the general destruction with which his country was visited, but how shall they escape, who neglect the great salvation?

Impressed by these truths, the Christian will employ all means within his power to have the whole of the human race brought to the knowledge of the Redeemer. The prosperity of those institutions, which have for their object the translating and disseminating of the Scriptures, the providing of missionaries for the heathen, the evangelizing of the destitute poor at home, and the education of their children, will form a principal concern of his life. Unquestionably, however, the greater part of his attention, and the highest degree of his solicitude will be directed to the conversion or the cherishing of the faith of his kindred and friends. Christianity inculcates no fantastic benevolence. It makes no demand on us to overlook the claims' of private friendship and blood relationship. Christ himself had special friends to whom he was specially attentive, and the Gospel was first pressed on the acceptance of the kindred of the apostles. Let any man assure me that he takes no anxious interest in the religion of his own household, and of his other relatives, and, as Moses did, in that of the relatives of his wife, and in the spiritual state of his acquaintance, and fellow-citizens, and fellow-countrymen; then, although I would not be warranted to exculpate him entirely, yet I would allow him a great mitigation of censure, though his contributions were small to the funds of our missions to foreign lands. Is there any such person to be found? Ah, I know it to be a lamentable fact, that there are some who concern themselves much with the foreign field of missions, who neglect the culture of their own vineyards of home. But reversing the case,-Is there one instance mentionable, of a man seriously concerned about the spiritual state of his own family (I say not the moral and decent and respectable state of it, but its spiritual state, in reference to God and eternity), who is yet careless

about the missionary cause? There neither is, nor can be such a person. Such charity as this only begins at home. It cannot terminate there.

In drawing the parallel betwixt the cases of Moses with Hobab, and the Christian with his friends, it only remains that I observe, there is no envy in the Christian profession-no grudging that our neighbours should be made sharers of our happiness. If Moses so generously offered Hobab a part of that comparatively narrow inheritance which God had bestowed on Israel, how much more ought not we to welcome our neighbours, to a participation along with us of the boundless inheritance of the heavenly kingdom? How deserving therefore of rebuke, is that spirit of bigotry which will be filled with envy, to hear that the work of grace proceeds successfully in some communion or church other than its own! Wherever there is a soul duly inspired by Christian principle, it will pray not merely for a show of liberality, but with godly sincerity, that wherever, and by whomsoever, Christ's name is preached, it should be glorified in the conversion of sinners; even though it should be at the cost of casting itself into the background of worldly consequence. And yet, brethren, that is doctrine which I am persuaded you as a church are very able to bear. So have I conducted my ministry among you, that by the designed offence which I have given to all sectarianism, I am persuaded there is no people in our city so thoroughly purged of sectarianism and bigotry. That you should rejoice to hear of the prosperity, either temporal or spiritual, of any of our United Presbyterian Churches, would be little or nothing, as an evidence of you having attained to that character. But it is not my fault, notwithstanding all my testimonies, against what I regard their peculiar small errors, if any one of you would not rejoice to hear of a great work of revival and conversion proceeding among the Baptists, or Methodists, or Congregationalists, or Free Church, or Established Church-as for Popery, or Socinianism, there can by no possibility be any revival or conversion to God there, against want of sympathy with which it was my duty to guard your

minds.

But, when shall we have done with that miserable qualifying but? Here is a case; it is an exemplification of many. As a young man you at present enjoy great and deserved preeminence among your associates at prayer meetings, mutual instruction societies, in the Sabbath class institution, missionary committees, and everything of that name. You have an acquaintance, of a sceptical state of mind; but his native talents, his education, his powers of address, his winning man

ners, are such-oh, if he were converted, what an agent of the Spirit of God he would make! but then, he would displace you from your pre-eminence, to be consigned to a second place, little thought of, as you once were. "I don't care for that, provided souls are saved, the church is profited, and Christ glorified, and I will labour more than ever for his conversion." Good, rare, great young man! And yet how should I praise you? Moses would have pled with Hobab to join Israel though he had had the anticipation of being superseded by his superior ability. Such was his patriotism and piety; but there was more than that, he was a prudent calculating man Moses for his own interests. He had respect to the recompense of reward; and so I judge of you. You are anticipating in acknowledgment of your self-denial an advancement to a principality of ten cities in the kingdom of God. Nothing less than that will quell envy. Even the grateful love of Christ needs its aid. I admit it is a secondary motive, but its help is needful, at least, to high degrees of righteousness.

In conclusion, brethren, first, let me call on you to reflect, what is the state of your conduct towards your kindred, in respect of your concern for their eternal welfare. Especially, you parents, I know already you are concerned about your children's moral decency and propriety, both for your own worldly interests and theirs; but what, I inquire, is the state of your anxiety, and counsellings, and labours, for their spirituality-the securing for them through faith, piety, and loving kindness, an inheritance in the kingdom of God? Ah, me that delusion! that a parent should think he or she is doing well, when he or she reproves or chastises a child for telling lies. Art thou teaching thy child the love of God-not making him an object of fear and aversion, and frightening thy child with the image of him-but an object of love, as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ whom he has sent to save a sinful world?

Secondly, to all present, who have no religious parents, brothers, sisters, or acquaintances to counsel them, do I, in the name of all the saints present, say, "Come with us, I know you are ill at ease where you at present are, come then, with us, and we will do you good." Christian brethren, let us take heed, so that when they witness our sincerity, our joyfulness, and excellence of behaviour, they may be the better induced to receive our welcome.

"EACH man's life is a strange emblem of every man's; and human portraits, faithfully drawn, are, of all pictures, the welcomest on human walls."-Carlyle.

108

THE BRAZEN SERPENT.

ENCOURAGED by the favourable reception which our article on Naaman the Leper in our last issue has met with, we add yet another paper this quarter, of our series of Gospel illustra

tions.

The figure of the Brazen Serpent has one notable advantage above all the other similes by which we may endeavour to set off to advantage the Gospel of the grace of God. It was used by the Master himself. Truth, important evangelical truth, lurks and was intended to lurk, in the Old Testament types of the cities of refuge, the year of jubilee, the rainbow in the cloud, and other memorable facts and incidents; but in this case the parallel was drawn out by the Great Teacher himself in the precious words, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." (John iii, 14, 15.) It seems plain to us that the Saviour did not merely make a happy allusion, or felicitous passing reference, to a well known event in Jewish history, but that the marvellous uplifting of the brazen serpent in the wilderness was intended by Jehovah to be a typical preaching of the coming Christ and his soul saving Gospel. Dimly perceived at first it might be; but it was destined to be touched off into distinct and vivid foreshadowing, both by the words and the work of the Lamb whom the incident emblemed forth. Here do we thus find a remarkable testimony to the heavenly origin of the Holy Scriptures, and especially of that mediatorial scheme which it is their chief glory to

reveal.

Even from the apocryphal Book of Wisdom, do we learn that the Jews themselves, before Christ's day, recognized that a sacred meaning lay hid in that wondrous sign: "Thy wrath endured not for ever; but they were troubled for a small season, that they might be admonished, having a sign of salvation, (opßolov σornpías) to put them in remembrance of the commandment of thy law. For he that turned himself toward it was not saved by the thing that he saw, but by thee: thou art the Saviour of all. For it was neither herb nor mollifying plaister that restored them to health, but thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things." (Chap. xvi, 5-12.) The Targum of Jonathan, too, adds this explanatory condition concerning the promise of cure to him who looked, "if he shall have directed his heart unto the name of the word of the Lord."

Of course the first point to be taken up is the parallel between the Israelites as bitten by the fiery serpents of the

desert, and mankind sinners as bitten by the old serpent, the Adversary of God and man. In all probability the epithet "fiery" was given to the nahash of the desert not merely on account of that incandescent glow that played about its scales, when the bright eastern sun shone upon them, but also because its bite was fiery, and that virus burning which it left in its hapless victim's veins. Now we need not make any effort to show that sin works like fire in the human heart. Does not anger burn, and envy and malice, hatred, and lust, and all the brood that own Satan as their inspiring author and father? How fiery also is intemperance, our national vice, in its effects, both upon man's body and soul! Death, too, was the consequence of both bites. "In the day thou art bitten thereof thou shalt surely die," is the warning that suits both serpent invasions that of Eden and that of Edom-that of the garden and that of the wilderness. The Hebrew camp resounded with groans; and the wounded people lay dying all around. And what is this world but a great city of the plague, in which men are perishing spiritually as well as corporeally, through that moral disharmony which sin has introduced into the relations that subsist between them and their God.

But I am chiefly concerned in this paper with the most prominent points of resemblance which obtain between the brazen serpent viewed as a means of cure, and Jesus Christ the Saviour of the world. I shall put down all the points of likeness that occur to me, even although I should lay myself open to the charge of redundancy, lifting up my heart as I write for the blessing of the Spirit of God upon the successive topics, however briefly they may be stated. I shall not employ any arithmetical enumeration, but shall only assign to each fresh thought a separate paragraph.

In both cases the cure was God-devised. It was not Moses, the mediator of the wilderness, nor Aaron, the eloquent orator, who proposed the uplifting of the serpent of brass. Neither did the young men Joshua and Caleb first come into prominence by originating the happy thought. And although Bezaleel and Aholiab were skilful in their handiwork among the furniture of the tabernacle, they were not cunning enough to devise the means of cure through the exalted serpent of brass. We find the true origin of the marvellous remedy in these words, "And God said unto Moses." Neither was salvation by the cross a creature-devised scheme. Gabriel did not dare to propose it as he bowed before the celestial throne. Nor did the felicitous idea enter the mind of any of the philosophic leaders or teachers of the race. We cannot trace it to the study in which Solon drew up his code of law, or