ing-place of the soul! Here is the service of a constant Sabbath in the calm sanctuary of the heart; here is the gleam of hope in the uplifted eye, even when all without is darkness; even then, yea then, most of all, when the sound of the last trump shall break upon our graves with the joyful summons, "Go forth, and stand on the heavenly mount before the Lord."

IV. THE MANIFESTATION ON HOREB.

The children of God in this world stand in a very close and wonderful connexion with Christ their Lord, and with each other. This connexion consists not merely in unity of sentiment, of faith, and of practice; the communion of saints is a deep and blessed mystery, and is justly placed in the creed as one of the articles of the Christian faith.

The Saviour has assured us that believers are one, even as He and the Father are one. They are elsewhere represented as forming one body, united to the one glorious Head in heaven. Thus Paul says, 1 Cor. xii. 27, "Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." "If one member suffer, all the members suffer with it;" or 66 one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." In other passages he carries this image still farther, and expressly calls the union thereby represented, a mystery.

Now, all to whom this mystery is unfolded, find in it a rich and exhaustless treasure. That all of us, who believe the truth, form one body; O, this is one of the most consoling and refreshing truths of the whole gospel! But how far does this extend? you ask. I shall shortly endeavour to make this manifest. We often hear you complaining thus, 66 I certainly cannot deny that God has drawn me to himself; but I dare not appropriate this or that particular consolation or promise. It may belong to others, but not to me." These are foolish ideas, my friends. You speak as if every Christian stood alone and could possess some

thing in which other Christians had no part whatever; whereas, according to Scripture, every Christian is an inseparable part of the whole; and the promises are made, not to this or that individual member, but to the whole body, that spiritual body of Christ, to which the weakest Christian belongs as really as the strongest. Ask no longer then. Am I a beginner in the Christian course, or an advanced and experienced pilgrim? Am I strong in the inward man, or weak and infirm? The divine inheritance does not depend on the measure of our grace, or the degree of sanctification we have attained. Ask no other question but this, "Dare I reckon myself among the little flock of Israel?" and if thou canst answer this question in the affirmative, then, whether thou art the greatest in the kingdom of heaven or the least, the first or the last, thou hast equally the right to apply to thyself, without scruple, all that is promised anywhere in the Bible to the people of God. If you read, for example, that the Lord declares of his church that the gates of hell shall not prevail against her, do not hesitate to include yourself in the promise, and to say, "I am invincible;" for what is said of the whole applies also to you the part. If you read of the city of God, that "God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved: the Lord shall help her, and that right early;" then think, "God is with me, I shall not be moved; he shall help me early;" for thor art a citizen of Zion, as truly as ever Abraham, or John, or Paul was. Thus, my friends, we must acquire the habit of contemplating ourselves, not as isolated individuals standing alone, but as parts of one whole, as members of one body. And when you read of a brother in the Lord being heard in prayer, wonderfully delivered, or favoured with some signal display of grace, you must not say, "Ah, that fell to his lot, but he is quite unconnected with me." No, my brethren, we must then rejoice and think, "This benefit has accrued at the same time to me, the Lord has equally showed his grace and nearness to me. I also have received, in what has been bestowed upon my brother, a new seal and pledge of the loving-kindness of my God towards me;

for I and my brother are one, we belong to one and the same indivisible body, and if one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it."

You see then, my friends, what abounding consolation lies in the doctrine, that we are all one body; and O, what a new and blessed significance do the histories of all the saints of God thereby acquire for us! May a deep sense then of this mysterious unity and fellowship accompany us to the scene which we are about to contemplate, and enable us to rejoice in the glorious and gracious manifestation vouchsafed to Elijah on Horeb, as an exhibition of kindness, not to him only, but to us also as members with him of the one body in Christ.

1 KINGS xix. 11-13.

"And he said, Go forth and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake In pieces the rocks, before the Lord: but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake: but the Lord was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out, and stood in the entering in of the cave: and, behold, there came a voice unto him, and said, What doest thou here, Elijah ?"

It is a majestic scene, my friends, to which we now draw near in the stillness of devotion. It is a narrative as grand, as deep in meaning, and as rich in consolation, as we anywhere meet with in the lives of the saints of God. May it then disclose to us its depths of wonder, and impress us a* strongly as if it had been repeated in our own experience. We shall consider the event, I. In its historical course. II. In its immediate object.

I. "Go forth," it had been said to Elijah, "and stand upon the mount before the Lord." The prophet hears and forth, than signs occur

obeys. And no sooner is he gone which proclaim the approach of the Almighty, and what awful signs! A constant thrill of terror and of awe passes through the prophet's mind. The first sign is a tremendous storm. Till now, the deepest silence had reigned over the

The sandy desert rises

Deep resounds unto The rocks are rent Up every steep and chasm

dreary waste. Suddenly all about him is in fearful uproar. What a crashing of the elements on every side! What a struggle of howling blasts and hollow thunders from the depths of the mountains, as if the four winds had in a moment burst their prison to fight in wild wrath together. Whole forests are swept from their rocky seats as with the besom of destruction. The clouds career over the sky like squadrons rushing to the conflict. in curling billows like a raging sea. deep with the crash of falling cliffs. and threaten to sink in ruin. there sounds as the whirling haste and fiery rage of an invisible army hurrying on the foe; and from every central depth there rise the groans, and shrieks, and murderous din of unearthly combat. Sinai quakes to its summit as of old, and as if the terrors of the law-giving were renewing around it. The prophet stands at the entrance of the cave, and gazes in consternation on the tremendous scene. His soul trembles at the majesty of Jehovah, and is ready to sink under the weight of terror. It is, alas! no sense of peace or nearness to God, with which the awful tumult inspires him; rather a feeling of distressing distance. "A strong wind went before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind."

And as the storm abates, behold a new and alarming portent! The earth reels to its lowest depths, and the foundations of the hills are moved; shock follows after shock; the solid ground quivers all about him. The prophet feels the quick rise and staggering fall, and hears on every side a mingled rending, and bursting, and shattering of elements, as if the solid globe would fall asunder. The mountains and rocks, which the storm had torn and scattered, are now hurled upon each other by the earthquake. Heights sink and valleys rise; chasms yawn and horrible depths unfold, as if the earth would perish in its own abysses. The prophet looks forth upon the wreck of nature, and feels more than ever the terrible majesty of Him, who but looketh upon the earth and it trembleth. But here,

too, there is no trace of a gracious presence or message of peace. The earthquake was only a second herald of the approaching God. It went before the Lord, "but the Lord was not in the earthquake."

And no sooner is the earthquake over, than, wonder upon wonder! a new amazement fills his soul. Jets of fire dart forth on all sides with horrid hissing sound; and in the twinkling of an eye the deepest midnight is turned into lurid and unearthly day. The whole heaven is one sheet of flame, one ocean of fire, that dashes its spiry billows over the mountain-summits, fed by a subterraneous tide from every rent and cavern in the rock, and devours, in the wide waste, tree and bush, and stone, and licks up the water in the springs. It is as if the day of the last conflagration were come, in which heaven and earth shall be cast into the furnace, that the soiled and wasted hull of time may sink in dross, and the holy splendours of a new heaven and a new earth may rise in eternal beauty on the view. Elijah is lost in adoring awe. The flames play harmless about him;

but the Lord does not descend to him in a chariot of fire. His heart is still mastered by consternation and dread, and feels nothing of the presence of a reconciled God. The fire went before the Lord; "but the Lord was not in the fire."

The fire dies away; the rolling waves of flame have spent their rage. A deep tranquillity, like the stillness of a sanctuary, settles again over all nature; and it seems as if every hill and dale, nay, the whole earth and skies, lay in silent homage at the footstool of the eternal Majesty. The very mountains seem to worship; their silent tops to be lost in adoration. Not a leaf is heard to rustle; the firmament is once more clear and cloudless, and the stars of God look down bright and peaceful from their calm heights; and lo! "a still small voice," or "the voice of a gentle whisper," falls on the prophet's ear, and the Lord is there; Elijah feels it, and his heart now sinks in deeper awe: but his dread is gone. He wraps his face in his mantle, goes forth in adoring wonder, and stands at the entrance of the cave.