thing which had snapped every link which bound it to what was holy and happy in creation : and as it bore along the lost children of Adam, they might have gazed wistfully on lands just visible in the firmament, and which they knew to be radiant with the presence of their Maker; but where was the way across the vast expanse, where the mechanism by which they might scale the inaccessible heights?

And, undoubtedly, if it be a just representation of our race in its fallen estate that it is cut off from all intercourse with God, and all access to heaven, it must be a just representation of the Mediator that He is the channel through which the lost communion may be renewed, the way through which the lost Paradise may be re-entered. The world has not been left in its solitariness: for God "hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son ;"1 and through Him we have "access to the Father."2 We are not forced to remain in our exile and wretchedness ; for Christ hath declared, "By me, if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture."3 Yea, we can now thank the "Lord of heaven and earth"4 that the broken links have been repaired, so that the severed parts of creation may be again bound into one household; that a highway has been thrown up, along which the weary and heavy-laden may pass to that rest which remaineth for the people of God. But it is only telling you truths, with which we may hope that the very youngest are acquainted, to tell you that it is Christ alone by whom all this has been effected, Christ alone through whom we can approach God, Christ alone through whom we can enter the kingdom of Heaven. And what then more accurate than a delineation which should represent the Mediator under the image of a ladder, based on earth, 1 Heb. i. 20. 2 Eph. ii. 18. 3 John x. 9. 4 Matt. xi. 25.

but reaching to Heaven, and thus affording a medium of communication between God and man? Oh, as Jacob lay upon the ground, an exile from his father's house, and without a friend or companion, he was not an inappropriate figure of the human race, forced away by sin from the presence of their Maker, and with no associates to aid by their counsel and cheer by their sympathy. And when,

in visions of the night, there rose before the patriarch the appearance as of a ladder, planted on the earth but its top resting on the firmament, then may we affirm was there given to the wanderer the strongest assurance, that God would yet provide means for raising the ruined from degradation, and gathering into His own dwelling-place the banished and fallen. When, moreover, this expressive emblem of renewed intercourse between earth and heaven was accompanied by the voice of the living God, making mention of the Deliverer in whom the world should be blessed, then might it be declared that the revelation was complete, and that through the mystic ladder was the Gospel preached to Jacob; for in this figure he could read that the seed of the woman would be the Mediator between God and man, "the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in," and who, as the way, the truth, and the life,"2 would "open the kingdom of heaven to all believers."

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But it is necessary that we go somewhat more into particulars hitherto we have only spoken of Christ in His mediatorial office, without referring to the mysteries of His person. The emblem, however, of the ladder is accurate in regard of the person, as well as the work, of the Redeemer. As the ladder stretched into the heavens, and the very Deity occupied its summit, so Christ, in His 1 Isa. lviii. 12. 2 John xiv. 6.

divine nature, penetrated immensity, and was one with the Father. And as the ladder, though its top was on the sky, was set upon the earth, so Christ, though essentially God, took upon Him flesh, and was "found in fashion as a man."1 The ladder would be useless if it rested not on the ground, or if it reached not to the sky: and thus, had not Christ been both earthly and heavenly, both human and divine, He could not have been the Mediator through whom the sinful may approach and be reconciled to their Maker. As God appeared standing above the ladder, looking down with complacency on His servant, and addressing him in gracious and encouraging words, so it is only in and through Christ that the Father beholds us with favour and speaks to us the language of forgiveness and friendship. In respect moreover of the angels who were seen ascending and descending on the ladder, we cannot doubt that these celestial beings, though they now attend us as ministering spirits, would have held no communication with our race had it remained unredeemed. We know that God is spoken of by St. Paul in his Epistle to the Ephesians as "gathering together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth, even in Him;" 2 and again, in his Epistle to the Colossians as "by Him reconciling all things to Himself, whether they be things in earth or things in heaven."3 And it is evidently the drift of such expressions that by and through the mediation of Christ the fellowship of the human race with other orders of being was to be restored, and men and angels were to be brought into association. Indeed we know ourselves indebted to the Mediator for every blessing: if, therefore, we regard angels as "the ministers of God which do His pleasure," 4 and through 1 Phil. ii. 8. 2 Eph. i. 10. 3 Col. i. 20. 4 Psa. ciii. 21.

whose instrumentality He carries on designs, whether of Providence or of grace, we must feel sure that we owe it exclusively to Christ, that these glorious creatures are busied with promoting our welfare. And if then the continued descent and ascent of the angels mark, as we suppose it must, their coming down on commissions in which men have interest, and their returning to receive fresh instructions, there is peculiar fitness in the representation of their ascending and descending by a ladder which is figurative of Christ: it is a direct result of Christ's mediation that angels are sent forth as "ministering spirits to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation;" "1 and 'if then a ladder reaching from earth to heaven be a just emblem of the Saviour, it is in the nicest keeping with this emblem that up and down the ladder should be rapidly passing the cherubim and the seraphim.

We would further observe that some writers appear anxious to prove that the appearance which the patriarch saw was not precisely that of a ladder, but probably that of a pyramid or pillar. There is a want of dignity, they think, in the image of a ladder, and they would therefore substitute a more imposing. But though many of the same truths might be taught, if there were the supposed change in the emblem, we are no ways affected by the homeliness of the figure, but think on the contrary that it adds to its fitness. It was the declaration of prophecy in regard to the Christ, "He hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him."2 And therefore if He is to be delineated as connecting earth and heaven we should expect the image to be that of a ladder, a common instrument with nothing of the grand and attractive, rather than 1 Heb. i. 14.

2 Isa. liii. 2.

1

of a splendid tower such as that of Babel, which men themselves would delight to rear, and when reared to admire. Besides, however we would avoid the straining a type, we own that the representation of Christ, under the figure of a ladder, appears to us to include the most exact references to the appointed mode of salvation. How do I look to be saved? by clinging to Christ. How do I expect to ascend up to heaven? by mounting step by step the whole height of Christ's work, so that He is made unto me of God, "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." It is no easy thing the gaining eternal life through the finished work of the Mediator. It is a vast deal more than the sitting with the prophet in his car of fire, and being borne aloft without effort to an incorruptible inheritance. "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force." There must be, if we may thus express it, a holding fast to Christ and a climbing up by Christ: to look back is to grow dizzy, to let go is to perish. And that we are to mount by the Mediator, and all the while to keep hold on the Mediator; that we are in short to ascend by successive stages, stretching the hand to one line after another in the work of the Redeemer, and planting the foot on one step after another in the covenant made with us in Christ— what can more aptly exhibit this than the exhibiting Christ as a ladder set upon the earth that men may scale the heavens? The necessity for our own striving, and yet the uselessness of that striving, if not exerted in the right manner; the impossibility of our entering heaven except through Christ, and the equal impossibility of our entering it without effort and toil; the fearful peril of our relaxing for an instant our spiritual vigilance and earnestness, see2 Matt. xi. 12.

1 1 Cor. i. 30.