context, to describe the Temple of the Lord erected on a very high mountain, and the glory of Jehovah, visibly displayed, entering therein, and occupying the holy place. From under the threshold of the eastern gate, the prophet observed the mystical stream to issue; which, at first rare and scanty, gradually swelled into a mighty river, and, going down into the desert, passed into the sea, and the waters thereof were healed.

On a subject involved in so much obscurity as this vision, and one on which such varied learning and research have been employed, it would ill become me to venture an opinion. Whether the prophet intended, in his description of the sacred edifice, merely to give to the returning Children of Israel a plan of their ancient Temple; whether it has a mystical connection with the glories promised to that now-rejected, but still beloved people, when they shall again be turned to their God and their King; or whether it symbolizes the progress and completion of the spiritual Church of the Living God, whose foundation is laid on the Apostles and Prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the chief Corner-stone, and whose circuit will contain all the Redeemed of God, whether Jew or Gentile; it would be presumption for me to determine. The apparent identity of the structure with the Apocalyptic city of St. John; the name given to it from that time forth-Jehovah-Shammah, The Lord is there; the goings in and out of the Lord of Glory; and the mystical waters, whose course is described in the text, but which never

did, nor could have existed in the literal Jerusalem; may perhaps lead us to conclude, that, as part of the prophet's imagery is figurative, and symbolizes spiritual objects, so other parts, whose meaning and introduction are less obvious, may likewise have a spiritual significancy, to be developed by time-perhaps the best interpreter of prophecy. It is not my object to discuss these interesting topics: they lie beyond the limits of our present assembling, and perhaps of addresses from this place. Let me rather draw your attention to the spiritual tendency of that portion of the vision which I have selected for my text. And may that God, in whose presence we stand, impress, by His Holy Spirit on our hearts, the lesson which they contain !

Having made, under the direction of his Angelic guide, the circuit of the walls of the Temple, Ezekiel is represented as returning to the eastern entrance; a gate which, it is declared, shall be shut, and no man shall enter in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it: it is for the Prince; the Prince shall enter by the way of the porch of that gate, and shall go out by the way of the same. This gate, thus consecrated to the use of the Prince and God of Israel, is the scene of this part of the prophet's vision from its lofty height he is enabled to view the cheerless prospect that stretched before him; and from its threshold welled forth the healing waters of the Sanctuary. Cheerless indeed the prospect that presented itself to the prophet's eye-the desert that extended eastward between the city and the

dreary shore of the Dead Sea, whose sluggish and pestilential waters bounded his horizon! Under what awful and impressive images does he represent the state of corrupted human nature! a desert, gloomy in aspect, and sterile in its soil; unknowing and incapable of cultivation from human hands; affording no hiding-place from the wind, no covert from the tempest; one picture of desolation and distress, whose smiles were the deceitful mirage that brings disappointment to the traveller; whose fruits were bitterness to the taste, and destruction to the frame:-nay more, the lake emphatically called the Dead Sea, whose waters, covering the accursed Cities of the Plain, exhibit, in their appearance and their quality, the impress of the wrath of an offended God; whose shores are clothed with no verdure; which remains, and ever will remain, a gloomy monument of the guilt of rebellious man, and the vengeance of the just Jehovah! Such are the awful images by which the prophet pourtrays our nature; and it is in strict accordance with the uniform declaration of the Word of God: nor do his figures, though gloomy and terrific, mark with more awful distinctness the state of man in relation to his God, than the more literal testimonies of Scripture; bearing witness, that the thoughts of man's heart are only evil continually; that man, who drinketh in iniquity like water, is abominable and filthy in the sight of God; that all naturally are dead in trespasses and sins— foolish, disobedient, deceived; serving divers lusts and pleasures; living in malice and envy; hateful, and hating one another—and at enmity with God.

Tremendous declaration! and yet fully justified by our knowledge of the Heathen World, and our experience of ourselves. Tremendous declaration! which, while it is in sad consistency with all that the unfolded annals of time contain, is invested with deeper gloom, by the inability of the world that lieth in wickedness, either to perceive its state of destitution, or, perceiving, to change it:-as well might the desert feel its own sterility, and call to the clouds to rain down upon it their fatness; as well might the asphaltic lake, by innate energy, dispel its own sulphureous exhalations, and clothe its rugged shores with verdure and beauty. True it is, that the sun of God's providence shines upon that desert, and His rains descend, but they confer no moral fertility: true it is, that His winds breathe along the surface of the stagnant waters; but those waters are unconscious of their influence: true, that the east front of the Temple is turned toward this land of desolation; the very gate, at which the Prince of Mercy has entered, is ever directed towards its wretchedness; but the Desert and the Dead Sea know it not, and feel it not, and experience not its glories and its beneficence.

Such may have been the emotions of the prophet, while contemplating the scene before him; where every thing reminded him of the Majesty of God, and the ruin and misery of man. In the splendor of the Temple he saw the glory, in its extent the power, in its sanctity the holiness of God; while the hardness of the human heart, its hostility to God, and the tremendous consequences

of sin, were visible, in the barren desert and the accursed lake, in the gloomy wilderness, and the sullen and cheerless aspect of the sea. Even as when, in the Valley of Vision, he knew not how to make the dry bones live, but by an appeal to Jehovah's power; so, from the depressing prospect before him, he turned to the Sanctuary of the Lord;-and he turned not in vain. Divine wisdom had provided a means for the exercise of divine mercy; and the prophet witnessed its symbolical success. He beheld—what had at first escaped his notice a little stream issuing from beneath the eastern gate of the Temple: and, at the distance of a thousand cubits from its fountain, it reached to the ancles; at another thousand, to the knees; at another thousand, to the loins; and, at the same distance repeated, it became a great river, that could not be passed over. How descriptive of the origin and progress of the Gospel kingdom!—at first so small and insignificant, that it escapes the notice of the world; but by degrees enlarging and spreading, until the whole earth is filled with its influence; at first the cloud no bigger than a man's hand, it gradually overspreads the heavens, and affords the grateful assurance of shade and refreshment: the mustard-seed, which becomes a great tree, in whose spreading branches the fowls of the air seek refuge;-the leaven, which gradually leavens the mass;-the stone, cut out without hands, which is despised and rejected by the builders, but becomes a great mountain, and fills the whole earth; —such are the emblems employed by the Spirit to represent the rise and progress of the Redeemer's