tensions, although they may be baptized with the name of Christian, are in violation of that simple, and spiritual system, which distinguishes the present from the former economy; and which has its consummation in that eternal world of which John said, "And I saw no temple therein." Let us build houses of worship; let them be substantial, commodious, inviting; but "far rather would I find," as has been nobly said, "in the simplicity of the place of worship, a confession of its inadequacy to lead the mind up to God, than to find any beauty of architecture, or any gorgeousness of decoration that would lead me to admire the work of man, and draw the mind from God."*

What most we need, as worshippers, is the manifested presence-as real as when of old the cloud so filled the house that the priests could not stand to minister of that Great Being whom we profess to make the object of our homage. Rather would I worship in the humblest cabin with slaves, if the presence of the Lord were there, with Paul in the upper chamber of a private dwelling, or with prisoners in a dungeon, who make the grim walls re-echo to their praises, as did two Apostles of old, than beneath fretted domes, where incense ascends in fragrant clouds, but where God, by the renewing and sanctifying influences of His Holy Spirit, is never known.

*Pres. Hopkins.

A

IX.

SEEING GOD.

MONG the strongest expressions, employed in

the Scriptures, to describe the blessedness of heaven, are those which refer to God's presence, or speak of its inhabitants as enjoying the vision of HIS face. When our Lord declares that the pure in heart shall see God-when the apostle John declares that believers shall see Christ, at His appearing, that they shall see the face of God and the Lamb, they refer to the same thing,—to this blessed and glorious vision of God's face in heaven.*

We are not to suppose that there is any objective or sensible glory, which belongs to the being of God. HE is a pure Spirit. We are forbidden to form, even "inwardly in our mind," any likeness or image of God. There is nothing, beneath or above, that is like HIM. But a visible glory was often shown to men, in a former age, and under another dispen

* Rev. xxii. 4; 1 John iii. 2; Matt. v. 8.

sation. Such Theophanies were vouchsafed to the patriarchs, rulers, and priests,-nay, to the whole nation of Israel. They serve to teach us that seeing God is language which implies his peculiar presence, and such knowledge of HIM as we never can have, in the present imperfect state. Jehovah appeared unto Abraham, in the plains of Mamre.* Jacob, when he slept at Bethel, on his solitary journey to Mesopotamia, had a vision of a "ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of God, ascending and descending upon it. And behold the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the Lord God of Abraham, thy father, and the God of Isaac. * * * * * And Jacob awaked out of his sleep, and he said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not. And he was afraid and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”+ It is said he was afraid; but we are not to suppose that it was a base, slavish terror, that seized his mind. He stood awed, and felt his own littleness, in that august Presence. When he awaked, and the vision had passed away, he saw no ladder, no angels, no symbol of a higher presence. He looked up at the stars, or at the clouds which curtained them from his view, but never had the darkness been more sublime. He needed no dazzling throne to make * Gen. xviii. 1. † Gen. xxviii. 10-19.

him feel that God was there.

He felt that this dark

ness was His secret place, and the "thick clouds of the skies," "His pavilion round about HIM."* His exclamation, "This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!" proves that, mingled with his emotions of awe, were those of pleasing rapture. He had never been so near heaven-he had never been in such company

before; he stood, as it were, at the very portal of that blessed world. When God called Moses from those pastoral pursuits, in which he had been engaged for forty years, in the solitudes of the peninsula of Sinai, to send him back to Egypt as the deliverer of his oppressed brethren, HE "appeared to him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush." The burning bramble was an image of His enslaved, suffering people; the fire, of His consuming, purifying holiness. The bush burns, but is not consumed; the people of His covenant would be purified, by their trials, but could not be destroyed. When the Lord saw that His astonished servant turned aside to gaze upon this great sight, HE called and said, "Draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet; for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. And Moses hid his face; for he

*

*

*

was afraid to look upon God."+ He was a creature, he was in the flesh; and it was not permitted him to

*Ps. xviii. 11. † Ex. iii. 2-6.

draw any nearer, to subject to a closer examination this sensible manifestation of Deity. It made the very ground holy. It was on this spot, or near this very spot, that, at a subsequent period in his history, he was to hold high and sacred converse with Jehovah as the Law-giver of His people Israel, and of all the nations of the earth. When the covenantpeople took their departure, under his leadership, from the land of oppression, lo! another marvellous sight, a miracle which ceased not, during their wanderings of forty years in the wilderness. It is a pillar of cloud before them, pointing out their way, advancing when they are to march, and stationary where they are to encamp. As evening comes on and the light of day fades, that cloud grows luminous, brightens as the darkness increases, until it glistens, a pillar of fire, at the head of the advancing columns, or sheds its friendly illumination over the reposing encampment. When the tabernacle had been set up in the wilderness, a cloud, the symbol of Jehovah's presence, descended between the wings of the cherubim, above the mercy-seat. There it remained a perpetual Theophany; it never departed during the long period that passed, before the temple was built. When that great structure was completed, and the ark of the Lord was borne to its place, in the oracle of the house, the shekinah went with it, and never disappeared from between the cherubim, until the