which the inheritance before alluded to, was but a faint and imperfect prototype.

Shall we not then, as we have ample cause, exult with religious joy in the consciousness of these great and unmerited privileges? privileges of which it is evidently the object of the Whitsuntide festival, connected as it is with the recollection of the first promulgation of the Gospel, to revive the remembrance. But here let me suggest a caution. No Jew labouring under corporeal defilement, no uncircumcised person was permitted to rejoice before the Lord his God, in the celebration of the festival of Pentecost. In like manner no impure Christian, no man labouring under the guilt of as yet unrepented and unforsaken sin, can with safety or propriety, encourage those joyous emotions, of which we are speaking. Before we can indulge such feelings, we must take care that ours is not the shell and the shadow, but the substance of Christianity. So then let us turn to God as true disciples of Jesus Christ, with all our heart, with all our mind, and with all our strength, and so let us endeavour to act in the various stations and relations of life, that we may become meet partakers of that joy and comfort in believing, which the sincere Christian feels to be the source of his greatest happiness in the present state of being; a joy and a comfort, which be our circumstances in life what they may, whether pros

perous or adverse, will render us therewith contented, will contribute to spiritualize and refine our affections; but above all, which will console and support us then, when we shall most stand in need of support and consolation; viz. when a voice from heaven, heard in the call of some fatal malady, shall say, "Christian, prepare to meet thy "God!"

DISCOURSE THE NINTH.

On the times appointed in the Levitical Calendar to be solemnized as sacred-Of the Feast of Tabernacles.

THE last of those solemn occasions, which the Jews were commanded to observe, was the feast of Tabernacles. With regard to the time fixed for its commencement, it was the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when, as the ritual specifies, they should have gathered in all the fruit of their land; i. e. not merely their wheat and their barley, but likewise their grapes and olives and figs, and whatever fruits of this description the soil and climate of Judæa were fitted to produce; which circumstance explains the reason why this festival is called, among its other names," the "feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year a a;" viz. when they had gathered in their labours out of the field.

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In treating of this feast, it is my intention to observe the same order as in my preceding Discourses; viz. to explain first the primary or immediate import of the institution; secondly, its mysterious or figurative character.

a Exod. xxiii. 16.

With regard to the former of these considerations, the very name of Tabernacles, by which the festival is distinguished, in some measure ascertains what its immediate use and purpose were ; viz. to commemorate the dwelling of the children of Israel in tents or booths, for so long a period, during their sojourn in the wilderness; the occasion of this event being as follows:

About one year and six months after the departure from Egypt, Moses, at the command of God, sent spies into the land of Canaan. After an absence of forty days, these messengers returned, and brought back the following report; "We

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came into the land whither thou sentest us, "and surely it floweth with milk and honeyb. And as a specimen of its productions, they exhibited three varieties of fruits; one of grapes, which they had gathered at a certain brook called Eshcol, one of figs, and another of pomegranates. But to this favourable account they added a very alarming one of the character of the inhabitants, whom they represented to be warlike and powerful.

Nevertheless the people," said they, "be strong "that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, "and very great: and moreover," they added, we saw the children of Anak there; ... and we "were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so

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we were in their sight."

b Numb. xiii. 27.

c Verse 28, 33.