receiving the spiritual things revealed. "Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things which are freely given to us of God; for the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." Spiritual recipiency and affinity between the mind and the object, between the heart and the glory of the Lord, result from the grace and efficacious operation of the Holy Spirit. Yet once more, if faith exercises itself on its object by evoking all the activities and graces of the soul, so that the Word of God is, as it were, chemically mixed with the inner being, faculties, feelings, and affections of the hidden man of the heart, and the very likeness of the glory of the Lord is not merely photographed on the surface of the mind, but actually wrought into the very texture and moral tissues of our nature, so as to become an ineradicable and indestructible part of our inner life; then this operation of faith, by which the heart is progressively purified, sin purged out, and the soul inwardly transfigured into the likeness of Christ, is of the Spirit of God. "For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life." And "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance;" and in these graces, and such as these, consists the image of the glory of the Lord. Have ye then, brethren, yet received the Holy Ghost? or are ye yet sensual, or carnal, or natural? I ask not, Are ye living in known sin, more secret and hidden, or more manifest and public? I ask not if you wear before men a character of acknowledged probity, integrity, and honour, as distinguished from a reputation for double dealing, unreliableness, profaneness, or sensuality? I ask not whether your name is on the communion roll of the church of Christ? or whether you are regular in discharging the outward duties of piety? But this I ask, Do you know aught of godliness beyond the mere form of it? Do you know the practical and transforming power of the truth as it is in Jesus? Have you or have you not the mind and Spirit of Christ? If not, no matter what you have, or what reputation among men and in the visible church you enjoy, in the sight of God you are yet in

your sins, a stranger and an alien from the commonwealth of his true Israel and the household of God. For he is not a Christian who is one outwardly, neither is that Christian baptism which is outward in the putting away of bodily pollution; but he is a Christian who is one inwardly, and that is Christian baptism which is the washing away of sin, by the grace and blood of Christ in the heart and in the spirit, with the answer of a good conscience toward God, through the sprinkling of the blood of Christ, effectually dispensed and administered by the Holy Ghost. Whatever be our condition, experience, character, or prospects, let us unite in the prayer of the apostle, when he prays "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; the eyes of your understanding (in the original, "the eyes of your heart") being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to usward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but in that which is to come; and hath put all things under his feet, and gave him, the head over all things, to the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Amen.

THE BEAUTY, SHADOW, AND FRUIT OF CHRIST:

OR,

THE ROSE OF SHARON; THE LILY OF THE VALLEYS: THE

APPLE TREE AMONG THE TREES OF THE WOOD.

"I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valleys. As the lily among thorns, so is my love among the daughters. As the apple tree among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste."-Cantls. ii. 1-3.

WRITINGS AND CHARACTER OF SOLOMON.

SOLOMON Wrote three books of Scripture, the book of Proverbs, the book of Ecclesiastes, and the book of the Song of Songs. These three are so diverse from each other that many a battle has been fought over their authenticity. But they are not more diverse from each other than were the phases and aspects of Solomon's own life and character. To him might the word be applied that he was "the wisest and yet the weakest of men." He surpassed his fellow-men in wisdom, and he fell beneath multitudes in weakness and in sin. Yet through his whole life there ran a thread, a vein of real godliness. At times that was conspicuous and visible to the eyes of all men,-as when he presided and prayed at the opening and consecration of the temple. At other times, such were his infirmities and sins, so far and so grievously did he depart from the good ways of the Lord, that his character was not only liable to suspicion, but his conduct, like that of David, his father, on one occasion, gave great cause to the enemy to reproach and blaspheme the name

of the Lord, and to the friends of godliness to mourn sore and weep. His sins are not to be palliated; yet is he not to be sweepingly condemned, as if there was not the root of wisdom in him. His splendid endowments and splendid graces were set over against most flagrant sins. Yet grace ultimately prevailed. The flesh lusted against the Spirit, but the Spirit triumphed over the opposition of the flesh.

His character verged to opposite extremes. In one direction it reached to the confines of angelic sanctity, rapture, and elevation; in another, it touched almost the borders of all evil. Hence the apparently contradictory style and character of the books which Solomon wrote. The book of the Song of Songs is of so sublimely spiritual an order that, misinterpreting its mystic contents, not a few have rejected its title to a place in the canon of inspired Scripture. The book of Ecclesiastes, on the other hand, wears an aspect so secular, and speaks so much according to the wisdom of this world, that many interpreters, taking particular statements in it apart from the grand scope of the whole book, the grand conclusion of the whole matter, have displaced it from the canon of Scripture, and have even affirmed that it was written by a free thinker or sceptic. Intermediate between these is the book of Proverbs,—a book which may be regarded as a treasure store of wisdom-of wisdom from above, pure, peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits. That book may be taken as by the Spirit giving expression to what may be said to have been the normal state and character of Solomon. does not descend to the low level indicated by some parts of Ecclesiastes, nor does it throughout-and only occasionallyrise to the heights of spiritual contemplation and converse that mark the Song of Songs.

It

These observations having been made respecting Solomon and his three books, it may here, as our text occurs in the book of the Songs, be added that three orders of mind are in peculiar danger of erring in the study of this book: the merely rationalistic mind, the sensual mind, and the merely poetic and sentimental mind are each and all peculiarly liable to misconstrue and misinterpret the statements and contents of this

book of sacred mysteries. That we may understand this Scripture, as indeed all other Scripture, we need the unction of the Holy One. "For the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, neither can he know them, for they are spiritually discerned."

The book consists of a collection of songs,-songs of love, expressive of the love of Christ to the church, and of the love of the church to Christ. It is throughout the utterance of mutual and reciprocal admiration, desire, delight, and love. In the passage before us Christ compares himself to the rose of Sharon and the lily of the valleys. And compares his bride, the church, to the lily among thorns. Then the church says of Christ the Lord, "As the apple tree among the trees of the woods, so is my beloved among the sons. I sat down under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was sweet to my taste."

THE BEAUTY OF CHRIST JESUS.

1. We have here an assertion or declaration of the beauty of Christ. He is the Rose of Sharon. He is the Lily of the valleys. Corresponding with this, there is on the part of the church, his bride, the exercise towards him of admiration and love.

Such is the manifold excellency of Christ that it is set forth in Scripture by similitudes taken from natural objects of the most varied and diversified kind. Heaven and earth are laid under contribution to declare the glory of Immanuel. If we look upward at the dawning of day, he is the bright and morning star; if we look again when the orb of light has risen, -he is the Sun of righteousness risen upon us with healing in his wings. If we welcome the light after the darkness,-he is the light of the world. If a cloud covers us from the direct beams of the burning sun,-he is as the shadow of a cloud; and if, in the day of rain, we rejoice when we see the bow of many colours with graceful span athwart the sky,—he is the bow set in the cloud, or, there is a rainbow round about his throne. If we admire the stable and majestic mountains and

M