power is committed unto him." And the eternal Father says, "thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever, a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom." What a wonder is here; a man is so exalted! The God-man is "on the throne," and is "Lord of all." He who was on earth "a man of sorrows," in heaven is "the Lord of Glory."

As on earth the humanity of our Lord was most prominent, so that the Godhead was veiled in it, so now in heaven the Godhead is most manifest, -the glorified manhood serving only to give visibility to the Divine glory. But as on earth the Godhead gave efficiency to the volitions of the man, so in heaven the manhood gives sympathy to the Godhead, rendering the offices of Christ, as our prince, and priest, and friend, most endearing and attractive. Though Christ is now glorified, the union of the two natures in him, on the throne, is as real as when he tabernacled among men. How great then, is the mystery of Christ.

Once more let us contemplate this mystery through the medium of the revealed word. There are yet great works which he will perform in the accomplishment of his will. He who vanquished Satan in his own person, will" bruize him" effectually so as to destroy his works. He will reign until "all his enemies become his footstool." How wonderful and mysterious the change on this earth, when "all shall know the Lord." The wilderness then will become as the garden of the Lord. Then all will praise and serve him, all virtues and graces will flourish, and "iniquity stop her mouth." Contrast his earthly kingdom, then, with what it was when he was upon earth, followed only by a few poor fishermen. How great the change! How blessed the transformation!

But the end will come. Christ will appear. He will raise the dead,

and change the living, and bring all to judgment; and himself presiding will consign all to their eternal state. How wonderful this act! How glorious this day! How mysterious the display then given of the power of Christ, who does this: of his wisdom, truth, holiness, and grace! That day, called pre-eminently "the day of Christ," will shew forth his glory, and "vindicate the ways of God to men.'

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When Christ shall have given to every man according to his works," the mystery and wonder involved in his great name will not come to an end. The mediatorial dispensation will cease. "Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority, and power-and when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all." But he will live :- live, as God and man: live, as the visible representation of Deity live, as the object of adoration and love, of wonder and praise. To angels he will ever be wonderful. Higher and lower than they. Essential Godhead, united with real manhood, the object of their adoration and praise. Το the redeemed he will ever be a mystery. How will his love, his incarnation, his work, his grace, for ever excite their admiration. They will know these things better then, than they ever did on earth; but they will never comprehend them. Throughout all eternity there will be in the person and work, in the love and grace of Christ, that which "passes knowledge." The sentiments of love and adoration which they cherish and feel, will ever be mingled with those of wonder and admiration.

Millions of years their wondering eyes,
Shall o'er his beauties rove;
And endless ages they'll adore
The glories of his love,

"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot. So then, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."-Rev. iii. 15, 16.

It is a common and not less true remark that, "if religion is anything it is everything." If it is true it deserves what it claims-the chief place in our affections: but if it is false it ought to be abandoned altogether. Religious lukewarmness is consummate inconsistency, most dishonourable and dishonest.

Hence the abhorrence and disgust which the Lord Jesus expressed with regard to the state of the church in Laodicea. John is commanded to write to the "angel" of this church as follows," These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God." The characters in which the Saviour thus introduces himself are a pungent rebuke of the hollowness of the lukewarm. But how soul stirring is the denunciation of them in the words under consideration; upon which, let us consider the subject of earnestness in religion.

Perhaps it may be well to notice what is necessary to this earnestness, or in what it consists, and its vast importance.

In order to ascertain the former we cannot do better than to learn, as far as possible the causes of lukewarmness in the Laodiceans. The chief and most obvious one was, their ignorance of their real state in the sight of God. and their consequent pride, self-conceit and self-righteousness. The Lord Jesus exposes this self-delusion and pride in the plainest language in the seventeenth verse.

Be

He says, 66 cause thou sayest I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Be assured that the higher opinion we have of

ourselves, the lower is Christ's esti

mate of us; the more deluded we are concerning our real character, and the farther we are from real religion. True piety is essentially and increasingly, humility. Phil. ii. 3-5. Now is there not painful proof that there prevails among religious professors now a likeness, in this respect, to the Laodiceans. How is it, my brethren, that we entertain so mean an opinion of others, are so prone to censoriousness and depreciation ! Could this be without self-conceit, and the assumption of superior excellence? Why are we so fond of praise and flattery? Why have we so great a dislike to faithfulness and seasonable reproof? Ah, friends, do we see our hearts to be desperately prone to almost every imaginable sin? Do we repent and abhor ourselves" before God, and often in broken accents, with broken hearts, cry, God be merciful to us sinners? These were the feelings of the great and holy Paul. "For I know," he says, "that in me, (that is in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing." "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?”

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The powerful tendency of a selfignorant, unhumbled state to produce lukewarmness is most obvious. The awful delusion that we 'have need" of little or "nothing," necessarily precludes anxiety and diligent exertion to obtain salvation and holiness. Can the man who is "wise in his own eyes, and prudent in his own sight," eagerly and thankfully catch moments to read his Bible and hear it expounded? Will the individual who says

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I am rich," and knows not that he is "poor and wretched," prompted by the cravings of hunger after righteousness, be often expressing these cravings in closet prayer, at the family altar, and in the social and public means of grace? He cannot. Only

the hungry and starving soul seeks by all means the bread of life, and feels the necessity of holding it forth to others. Be assured, brethren, then, that without a proper sense of the "plague of our hearts," of our "spiritual emptiness and poverty, there can be no earnestness in religion, except the temporary one prompted by carnal earthly motives. Is not a want of this one chief cause of the languor of our churches? Let us put forth special efforts and prayers to remove the cause that the effect may cease. Let us earnestly adopt of Job,-"How many are prayer mine iniquities and sins? make me to know my transgression and my sin."-Job xiii. 23.

the

Experience of the preciousness of Christ is essential to earnestness in religion. Of this the Laodiceans were destitute, and hence also their lukewarmness. They had no delight in Christ, no enjoyment of the rich spiritual blessings experienced by a living faith in him. On this account the Saviour counselled them to "buy of him "gold tried in the fire," that they might be "rich," and white raiment that they might be clothed," &c., verse 18. We have two striking examples of the powerful tendency of a sense of the preciousness of Christ to earnestness on the one hand, and a want of this experience to lukewarmness on the other, recorded in Luke vii. 36-48. The poor woman who felt how unutterably vile she was, that she owed her all to Christ, and that he was all in all, "brought an alabaster box of ointment, and stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears and did wipe them with the hair of her head, and kissed his feet, and annointed them with the ointment." But how different the feelings and conduct of Simon the Pharisee, at whose house these things occurred. He despised the woman, and from these circumstances, entertained a mean opinion of the adorable Re

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deemer. But how worthy of the Searcher of hearts is our Lord's closing address to Simon, and the exposition of the whole matter. "Simon seest thou this woman? I entered thine house, thou gavest me no water for my feet, thou gavest ine no kiss, my head with oil thou didst not anoint. Wherefore I say unto thee, her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much but to whom little is forgiven the same loveth little. Here we see most clearly that our love and zeal for Christ and his cause will be in proportion to our experimental sense of his glory and blessings. If we feel that our forgiveness is a little" matter, if we do not live on Jesus as the Bread of Life," if he is not to us the "fairest among ten thousand, altogether lovely," then is it possible that our great solicitude should be that Christ may be magnified in us, "whether it be by life or by death ?" Brethren are we not all woefully wanting in experience of Christ's preciousness? In the heart in which Christ dwells there must be light, life, and power, therefore earnestness. Let us then obey the counsel of verse 18. Let us give up all that bars him from our hearts. Let us become "dead to the law" and live by faith in Him. Hear his call to us in verse 20, "Behold I stand at the door," &e.

Earnestness cannot be attained without a watchful, diligent discharge of all our christian duties. "Be zealous," our Lord says to the Laodiceans," and repent. Giving all diligence." Every duty rightly performed, whether it relate to God, our fellow men, or ourselves, has the effect of increasing, as well as manifesting grace in the soul. Hence we are commanded to work -out our own salvation with fear and trembling, "for," it is added, "it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure."

Would we fix on a model of earnestness in religion let us study the character of the apostle Paul. How

cious of the doctrines of grace, how precious was Christ to him. How concentrated and decided were all his energies to promote salvation, by preaching the gospel. How he denied himself, kept under his body and brought it into subjection, lest he should become a castaway. How prudent, consistent, charitable, and upright he was in all the relations, transactions, and circumstances of life. Religion with him was everything, and governed and imbued his whole character. We might mention many, who had not his inspiration, who attained much of his earnestness, as Bunyan and Baxter. Let us follow these so far as they followed Christ.

The importance of this earnestness must strike every one from the expressions of our Lord's abhorrence of lukewarmness. He plainly expresses his preference of coldness to this state. Thou art neither cold nor hot; I would thou wert cold or hot." I would prefer either of these states to that which now exists. Anything better than this condition, where love is professed, but where it does not exist; where vows have been assumed which have not been fulfilled. Why he would prefer that they should be hot is clear enough; but why would he prefer coldness, or no profession of friendship whatever to him and his cause to a profession without a warm loving heart?

Coldness is less injurious to Christ and his cause than lukewarmness. A proud, worldly, indifferent professor of religion is infinitely more inimical and really detrimental to the interests of the Redeemer than one who openly avows no sympathy with them at all. Such professors have ever been a chief source of the greatest pain and discouragement to the faithful servants of Christ. "For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their

A state of open professed coldness is more honest and honourable than that of the lukewarm professor. There is no disguise, no concealment, no pretence. We know where one in this state " may be found," we know with whom we are dealing, we know what to expect. Sad as the case is, it is at least honest, and all prefer such a character to one where professions are made never to be realized, to a state of insincerity and hypocrisy. Such a state is more honourable. It is a more elevated condition of mind, and marks a higher character. Of a man who is false to his engagement, who makes professions and promises never to be realized, we can make nothing. There is essential meanness in such a character, and there is nothing in it which we can respect. In the character of Saul of Tarsus there were always the elements of true greatness; in that of Judas Iscariot these were never. The one was capable of becoming one of the noblest men that has ever lived on earth, the other, even under the personal teaching of the Redeemer for years, was nothing but a traitor-a man of essential meanness.

Thus coldness, whilst more honest and honourable, is a more hopeful state than lukewarmness. "The most hopeless of all persons in regard to salvation are those who are members of the church without any true religion. The essential character of any one who will allow him to do this is eminently unfavourable to true religion." The seed of the word must have honest hearts, to be fruitful. Truth applied to the impenitent he will not apply to himself, because he does not regard himself in this state. Nor will he by

one.

appeals made to the insincere choose to act on the presumption that he is Thus of all men he is least likely to profit by any kind of appeal or means of grace.

Finally, the Lord Jesus does and will cast off all such. " Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."

| Nothing, therefore, can be more preposterous and vain than to regard ourselves in this state, in the enjoyment of Christ's favour or the hope of heaven. Let us, therefore, "from carnal sloth arise, before the threatening thunders roll to rouse us with surprise." Be zealous and repent." Wirksworth. R. S.

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THE capability of independent thought is at once a characteristic and a glory of man; and an individual being willing and determined to think for himself, is an exercise which no man, or body of men, has power to prevent. But apart from such willingness and determination, its exercise may be prevented by indisposition to think, by long-cherished habit, or prevalent custom; or it may be discouraged by the external authority of laws, the force of public opinion, and other obstacles.

From some cause or causes it so happens, that generally, during the whole period of history, we find that the real thinkers of the human family have been but a small proportion to the mass; and especially has this been the case in matters pertaining to religion.

In the old world this may be accounted for, by a reference on the one hand to the existing combination of priestly dominancy over ignorant people, with the wrong ideas held by both of divine claims and human dependence, and on the other to the impassable gulf which the philosophic theories of ontology then prevalent, placed between man and the Creator, and the want of sympathy between the refined and the vulgar, caused by the idea of one system of religion for the unlearned, and another for the initiated. In the middle ages, it

arose from confidence in an infallible priesthood, and a church from which there was no appeal; and from that faith in nere externals, which was fatal to clear conceptions of individual human responsibility. At the present time it may be traced mainly to three things:-indisposition to think, arising from carelessness and ignorance; fear to think, arising from dread of parting with hereditary beliefs or preconceived opinions; and that sensitive, though mistaken and often bigoted conscientiousness, which shrinks from the exercise of independent thought, with the idea that it is somehow or other opposed to the authority of the Bible, and the interests of christianity.

With respect to the first cause, those who are under its influence claim from us our pity, our instruction, and our prayers, for they truly are in a pitiable condition, who, from mental inertness, or sheer idleness, neglect to bring into play, reason, judgment, and conscience, the highest faculties of their mind, in the exercise of free independent thought, the highest prerogative of their nature. The man who does not think for himself in ordinary affairs, must necessarily to a great extent be the sport of circumstances; and he who neglects it in the important matter of religion, must have an insecure basis for his faith, and an inefficient motive for his