SERMON II.

THE HOLY HABITATION OF HEAVEN.

JOHN XIV. 2.

"IN MY FATHER'S HOUSE ARE MANY MANSIONS."

THE style of the Inspired Volume is singularly inartificial. Nature, fixed and simple, is the silent and perennial source from which its images and illustrations are derived. Even these are selected very cautiously, if not sparingly; and are used with a measured chasteness and an unambitious effect. The authority of Revelation is made to rest upon what it is, and what it discloses: manner it regards as most purely subsidiary and comparatively unimportant. It is, indeed, a storehouse of all that is sublime in thought and magnificent in expression: this, notwithstanding, is never its care and study, but something incidental, unavoidable, the escape of irrepressible brightness, the overflow of redundant fulness,-and then, after all, this involuntary excess and intensity is shaded and subdued.

But in the descriptions which the Bible unfolds of the heavenly state, it departs from its accustomed rule. Now it no longer maintains its jealousy of ornament, nor checks its hand. All from this time is scattered with a rich and lavish profusion. The gorgeous in art is added to the simplicity of nature: each scene of elaborate life is copied, and metaphor is amassed upon metaphor. It exhausts the resources of power and wealth, and lays the realms of imagination under its subserving control. Yet is it with unconscious loss and labour that it casts down its spoils, -the heap of opulence, the weight of glory. It ranges the universe of God and man unwearied, and returns with treasures and splendours from both. The spirits of the prophets seem no more

subject to the prophets. Theirs is an irresistible rapture. Whether in the body or out of the body, they cannot tell.

Sometimes that celestial region is represented as Paradise. One was lost, but in this it is far more than actually restored. The forfeiture and the desolation are infinitely retrieved. The withered flower blows again. The scathed plant revives. The wasted fountain wells with its ancient gush. The sered arbour is dressed in its pristine verdure. The air is redolent of fragrance, the garden mantles with bloom and teems with fertility. That holiness surpasses innocence. That calm exceeds all that the stainless conscience felt. Angels are more familiarly known than when they sung to unfallen man. The Lord God walketh in it with endearing condescensions, such as could not be exercised of old. We may freely eat of every tree. We shall be as gods. In the midst of it towers the mystic stem of an immortal life. We may put forth our hand and take of that incorruptible fruit and live for ever. Nothing can blight the scene. No evil can contaminate it. No tempter can invade it. It fadeth not away. It is no province of earth. Her rivers do not water it. Her odours do not refresh it. Her garlands do not embower it. New heavens bend over it. A new earth lends it grace and beauty. In those heavens, in that earth, there is undecaying purity, therein "dwelleth righteousness," as native to them and their richest glory.

Sometimes it is exhibited as a City. It is holy and royal. It is no mean city. It is the Divine residence. It is the city of the great King. Its architecture seems built up of massive light. It is not wrought of "things which do appear," like the rudiments of earth. It is a continuing city. It is crowded with the nations of the saved. All high and holy natures have their citizenship in it. They who shall go no more out are set as pillars there to illustrate it, columns living and commemorative, on which its name is imperishably inscribed. Its portals shall not be shut at all. What sounds float over it! What irradiations dart from it! It keeps its feasts. It celebrates its annals. Its walls are jasper, its gates are pearl, its foundations are crystal, its streets are gold. Glorious things are spoken of thee, 0 city of God !

At other times it is set forth as a Kingdom. Its epochs, its chronicles, its monuments, its trophies, its riches, are worthy of its fame. Crowns and thrones, robes of victory and palms of triumph, are among its common things. The kings of the earth do bring their glory and honour into it: they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations into it: that is, all kingly pomp and all national greatness furnish emblems of it, but only to be lost in its transcendence. A new song wafts its praise. Unlike the empires of the earth, it is fixed and everlasting. The throne of God and of the Lamb is in it. Sin and death have there no place. Every subject there is himself a king. We shall reign in life. We shall reign for ever and ever.

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But if in Heaven shall be found all that endears the human home, that stronghold of our affections, that refuge from our cares, can idea reach a nobler complexion, or feeling acquire a purer tenderness? If we can aspire to it and, in sacred phrase, sore long after" it, as our home, will it not more truly and bindingly attract than a Paradise with its sweets, a City with its immunities, a Kingdom with its grandeurs? Who has not known the heart of a stranger? Who has not felt it contract, and shut, and droop? Who has not known it to expand at sounds of kindness and amidst scenes of affection? Who has not felt the cheering spectacle of familiar faces and the animating music of familiar voices,-the home which goes with us,-the home which exists though we forsake every favoured, chosen, haunt,-kindred, the fellowship of blood, the intercommunion of mind, the indissolubleness of bond, undying connection, deathless confidence, heaven-pointing love? It is our tent, however frequently we strike it: it is our "company," whether we "lodge in it," or whether it be "sent over" while we are "left alone." The banishment from Eden divided not the guilty pair, nor forbade their broken hearts to blend their sudden woes. The mother of the crucified Jesus, grief-absorbed beneath that awful tragedy, has gained half her relief, and recovered all her composure, when the beloved disciple, the foster-son, is seen leading her to his own home. Blessed is the habitation of the just! Beautiful are the tabernacles of the righteous! Patriotism

cannot exist without its homestead! Religion dies without its altar-hearth! What survives the ruins of our fall, but this one shelter? What is left of all the trees which shaded and delighted our yet unsinning nature, but the vine by the sides of our house and the olive-plants round about our table?

Look, then, Dear Christians, this day to your Father's house. For therein are the many mansions, the happy resting-places, the safe retreats, where you shall for ever dwell!

But it is more. For the allusion, not improbably, is to the Hebrew Temple, which the Saviour had elsewhere denominated his Father's house. "Make not my Father's house a place of merchandise." In the Old Testament writings this phrase is of common recurrence: "My house." That house was "called by His name." It was foretold by prophecy concerning Messiah, that he "should be for a glorious throne to his Father's house." The temple contained numerous apartments for the courses of the priests and for the preparations of the worshippers. There were the chambers of the singers, and of the keepers of the charge of the house, and of the keepers of the charge of the altar. "There was an enlarging, and a winding about still upward to the side chambers: for the winding about of the house went still upward round about the house: therefore the breadth of the house was still upward, and so increased from the lowest chamber to the highest by the midst."* And in our Father's house are many mansions, the proper stations agreeing to the capacities and duties of all who are received into it. Endless is the celestial service, and each from his place beholds and adores the Majesty in the heavens. Thus the charm of the domestic precinct and the awfulness of the holy place are combined. It is a Household Sanctuary! It is a Temple

Home !

I. LET US, THEN, ENDEAVOUR TO CONCEIVE OF HEAVEN AS THE HOUSE OF OUR FATHER, UNITING IN IT ALL THE ASSOCIATIONS OF FILIAL HAPPINESS AND REVERENT DEVOTION.

Now the very relationship of family is supposed by the scheme of our redemption. Sin is alienating. It makes us "strangers

Ezek. xli. 7.

and foreigners." We sink from our rank and from the likeness of a holy nature into children of disobedience and children of wrath. "Our iniquities have separated between us and our God, and our sins have hid his face from us." There is a Mediator. We are made nigh by the blood of Christ. We are gathered together in one. We are reconciled to the reconciling God. We draw near. We have boldness and access with confidence. We enter into the holiest. It is of the nature of justification to bestow favour and acceptance, and to inspire the assurance of these super-additions to a mere pardon. It is of the essence of regeneration to awaken love and delight in the contemplation of the infinite excellence and goodness. Our consequent fellowship is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ. And the working out of this justified condition and this regenerate nature is, Adoption. It may, indeed, be considered an advancement upon them: a more defined type and beatification. Still it is most properly their exponent and security. A childlike title and a childlike temper are the results: "Now are we the sons of God." It is not only legal, federal, and moral, oneness: we "have power to become" these "sons." Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" Christ "is not ashamed to call us brethren." "The Spirit is sent forth into our hearts, crying Abba, Father." This is "the whole family of heaven and earth." Heaven is, therefore, an inheritance. We stand in affinity to its bliss. heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ." are brought unto glory:" here is their discipline and nonage, yonder is their maturity and consummation. Home is the abode of children their rights are acknowledged and their approaches are greeted under its shade: piety is learnt, the charities are cultivated, within its bound. Touching are the thoughts of home: what is the home of heaven?

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"We are Many sons

Quiet and Repose are connected with its sound. We are wanderers on earth. Without are fightings, within are fears. We are strangers and pilgrims. All are pilgrims hastening, however reluctantly, to an eternal world. For some are satisfied with this. They have their portion in this life. Christians are strangers as