pleasures. For with thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light shall we see light.”

The very justice of God becomes pleasant fruit to the taste of the believer. Mercy is no mercy apart from justice; and to deny the justice of God, is to deny God: a God all mercy is a God unjust that is, no God. But the glory of Christ is, that in him God is just, even when he justifieth the ungodly. Justice, associated with wisdom and grace, is the ground of our acceptance with God. The justice of God is in Christ become what is termed the righteousness of God unto the salvation of every one that believeth. Here, truly it may be said, "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness." On the Lamb of God, on the slain lion of the tribe of Judah, we feast, we feast upon the justice, the righteousness of God. This justice has become the matter of perpetual feasting, of perpetual joy to the believer, and he goes continually in the strength of it.

"Justice, to set us in his steps,
Shall go before his face."

"Blessed," therefore, "are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled."

Christ, in permitting us to have fellowship most intimate and endearing with himself through the Spirit, gives us most pleasant fruit. All the promises are spread out on the table before us, and he says, “Eat, O friends. Drink, O beloved." For here" the Lord hath made a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined." (Isaiah xxv.) Come, therefore, is the gospel invitation; come, eat of this bread, and drink of this wine; for how great is his goodness, and how great his beauty!

I shall not enter into further details. This tree bears all kinds of pleasant fruit, and all the fruit is free to every one who will repose, who will sit down under the shadow of this tree. "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," was the word respecting a tree in the garden of Eden. But with respect to this tree and the fruit of it, the word is, "Eat, and your soul shall live." "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt

N *

surely live." Blessed are they that do his commandments that they may have a right to the tree of life. And what are these his commandments? They are summed up in this word, "This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent."

Believers have at different periods, and in the varied circumstances of their spiritual life, varied experiences under the shadow of Christ, and in beholding his beauty and partaking of his fruit. Sometimes they have a feeling of bitterness in tasting of his fruit; but the bitterness is only temporary, it works abiding pleasantness. When under rebukes and chastisements the feeling often is anything but joyful and sweet, it is grievous; but afterwards there is the peaceable fruit of righteousness. Medicinal and corrective fruit grows on this apple tree, and this to the taste is not sweet, but it produces wholesome effects. This is generally followed by the comforting apples-when we are enabled to trace in our afflictions the will, the hand, the love of Jesus, who afflicteth not willingly any of the children of men; when we behold him weeping with us beside the grave where our dead lies buried out of sight. "In all their afflictions he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them." Sometimes, as when first after a long and dark and dreary night of law work, of convictions, hopelessness, and despair, the soul first gets sight of Jesus and is under his shadow and tastes his love, the joy is such that, as John Bunyan says, a man could call on the very crows on the field to rejoice with him. At other times, in waiting on the Lord under the shadow of his ordinances, the soul is surprised with joy, feels it good to be there, and can say in the retrospect, "This was none other than the house of God, the gate of heaven." "I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet unto my taste." There are times when this fruit is so sweet, felt, and known, that heaven seems to have come down to earth,-times when we almost forget that we are in the body. These are blessed seasons; they are, however, through our unbelief and waywardness, through our carnality of heart, transient and rare. Nevertheless they are foretastes of that joy and delight unspeakable

which shall be theirs who, after passing through this wilderness, shall at length sit beneath the shadow, and eat of the fruit of the tree of life in the paradise of God, where the Lamb shall lead them to living fountains of waters, and where God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. "When Christ and ye shall meet about the utmost march and borders of time, and the entry into eternity, ye shall see heaven in his face at the first look, and salvation and glory sitting in his countenance and betwixt his eyes. Faint not: the miles to heaven are but few and short; he is making a green bed (as the word speaketh, Cant. i.) of love for himself and you. There are many heads lying on Christ's bosom, but there is room for yours among the rest; and therefore go on, and let hope go before you. Sin not in your trials, and the victory is yours. Pray, wrestle, and believe, and ye shall overcome and prevail with God, as Jacob did. No windle straws, no bits of straw, no temptations, which are of no longer life than an hour, will then be able to withstand you, when once ye have prevailed with God." (Rutherford, Let. 88.) "Your strength even now is to sit still." "I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet unto my taste." Amen.

THE UNTRODDEN AND UNKNOWN WAY:

OR,

A SERMON FOR THE NEW YEAR.

Preached on the First Sabbath of January, 1866.*

"Ye have not passed this way heretofore."-Josh. iii. 4.

THESE words occur in the instructions given by the officers of Israel to the people, when they had arrived at the banks of the river Jordan, and before they had passed over to take possession of the promised land-the land of Canaan. The instructions given to the people were intended to prepare them for the passage across the river, that they might know the way by which they must go, for they had not passed this way heretofore. They were to be led in a way along which neither they nor their fathers had trodden,-a new, an untrodden way, which the Lord was about to open and cast up for them.

The Israelites had, at the time referred to in the context, entered on a period of marked and grave transition in their eventful history. For forty years they had wandered in the

* PREFATORY NOTE.-This sermon was preached on the first Sabbath of the Annus Mirabilis, 1866. In the light of events that have since transpired, that year,- -as the commencement of a new development of the providence of God, signalized to the world by the Seven Days' Campaign of Prussia, followed as it has been by the events of 1870, and of this year, 1871-events unparalleled in history for rapidity and grandeur of achievement,-will always mark the beginning of a grand epoch in the history of the church of God, and of the world. OLD KILPATRICK, December, 1871.

G. M.

wilderness, till all above twenty years of age who had come out of Egypt had died, except Joshua and Caleb. Moses also had died, after being permitted from the top of Pisgah to survey the good land of promise. But to him the Lord said, "I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither."

Under the leadership of Joshua, the successor of Moses, the people were now about to take possession of the long promised and long waited-for inheritance. And that the people might know that the Lord who dried up the waters of the Red Sea for their fathers was still with them and among them, that they might have confidence in Joshua their leader and appointed captain,—and that they might be filled with holy courage to fight bravely the enemies that should come against them, the Lord was about to give them a signal illustration of his grace and power. "To-morrow," said Joshua, "the Lord will do wonders among you." These words were designed to excite the minds of the people to expect a display of the glory of the Lord. And the words of the text were intended to quicken them to attend to the instructions given them with respect to their making due preparation for beholding the wonderful works of God; and also with respect to the manner and order of their conduct when the Lord should do wonders among them. "When ye see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests the Levites bearing it, then ye shall remove from your place, and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure: come not near unto it, that ye may know the way by which ye must go: for ye have not passed this way heretofore."

In addressing you on this occasion from the words before us, I shall, depending on the promised grace of the Spirit, consider, with special reference to our present position, as entering on the days of another and new year, the statement, "Ye have not passed this way heretofore." And I shall indicate what are some of the duties or lessons that may be learned from this statement, or that are in keeping with our circumstances, when it is said of us, "Ye have not passed this way heretofore."