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strongest appetites within. Bright and beauteous is the ideal world of the "pure in heart."

III. IT IS AN ILLUSORY VISION. The hungry man eateth in his dream; "but he awaketh, and his soul is empty :" the thirsty man drinketh; "but he awaketh, and, behold, he is faint, and his soul hath appetite." The food and water were a mirage in the visionary desert, dissipated into air as his eye opened. All the ideas of happiness entertained by the sinner are mental illusions. There are many theories or notions of happiness practically entertained by men that are as manifestly illusive as the wildest dream. First. Every notion of happiness is delusive that has not to do more with the soul than with the senses. The senses are our instruments, not ourselves the inlets and outlets of the soul. Through them the outward universe comes flowing into us, and out of them issues the inner and higher world of sympathy and thought. But is the pleasurable titillation experienced in their receptive and impartive function the happiness of man? By no means: this is corporeal, not spiritual--that which is common to brutes, not that which is peculiar to man. It is transitory, not permanent. It may co-exist with man-wretchedness. Real happiness springs from within, not from without. No man is happy that is not satisfied from himself. Secondly. Every notion of happiness is delusive that has not more to do with the character than the circumstances. A man's happiness consisteth not in what he has, but in what he is; not in outward possessions and splendour, but in inward principle and state. It wells up from a generous spirit, a grateful heart, an approving conscience, a soul buoyant with noble hopes and aims. Men have sung in prisons, and sighed in palaces; felt heaven on the flaming stake, and hell on the luxurious couch. Thirdly. Every notion is delusive that has not more to do with the present than with the future. He that is preparing intentionally for happiness is not happy, nor cannot be: the selfish motive renders it impossible. "He that seeketh his life shall lose it." Heaven does not come as the

reward of earthly merit, but as the perfection of earthly joy. It comes as the bloom and cluster to the young plantas the noontide to the morning dawn. Heaven is for the man that is now "blessed in his deeds," and for him only. The present is everything to us, because God is in it, and out of it starts the future. Our all is in the Now. Duty and destiny are here. Fourthly. Every notion is delusive that has not more to do with the absolute than the contingent. The senses soon wear out: age renders them incapable of pleasure, and reduces them to dust. Outward circumstances shift and change as the fantastic clouds before the winds. If we are to survive this mortal state, then manifestly our happiness cannot be in those contingencies. It must be found in the fixed and the absolute in that word which is "settled in heaven; in that righteousness which is " from generation to generation.; " in that God who ever liveth, and who changeth not.

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All these notions of happiness we proclaim delusive: and are they not the popular notions? Do not the "millions" seek happiness in the senses, rather than in the soul; in circumstances, rather than in character; in an imaginative future, rather than in the actual present; in passing contingencies, rather than in the absolute realities? Hence, like the oriental dreamer before us, men, hungering and thirsting for happiness, eat, but the soul is empty; drink, but they are still "faint," and still their "soul hath appetite."

IV. IT IS A TRANSITORY VISION. In the text, the supposed dreamer was led to feel the illusion which his wayward imagination had practised upon him. "He awaketh, and his soul is empty." Every moral sleeper must awake either here or hereafter here by disciplinary voices, or hereafter by retributive thunders.

My brother, look at the scene before thee: an exhausted traveller on the hot desert, with a craving hunger and a burning thirst, lies down to sleep. Before his imagination there rolls the refreshing stream, and there is outspread the bread of life. He slakes his thirst in those waters, and allays

his hunger with that food. He feels himself in elysian fields, and bright visions flit before him; but some sound-issuing, perhaps, from the lair of some wild beast, or floating from the orchestra of nature-falls on his ear, and starts him from his slumbers. "He awakes, and his soul has appetite." The vision hath but given edge to his hunger, and heat to his thirst. He stands up, vexed with his delusions, trembling with his weakness, and burning with his appetites, to pursue his weary way. He sees nothing within his whole horizon to meet his wants; but, with the hot sands beneath his feet, the melting beams of the sun upon him, and the air breathing the breath of flame, he moves amidst the elements of destruction. Will this be a picture of thyself, my friend, when thou shalt start up from the dream of life amidst the scorching scenes of retribution?

Analysis of Homily the Fifty-seventh.

"Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore? And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first."-Matt. xix. 27-30. "For the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which went out early in the morning to hire labourers into his vineyard," &c.-Matt. xx. 1–19.

SUBJECT:- The Reward of Piety.

WHAT SHALL WE HAVE THEREFORE? This question, thus started by Peter, and eternally echoed by selfish religionists, is the key to the interpretation of the entire passage.

* The word "for," with which the 20th chapter begins, plainly shows its connexion with what goes before; nor can the parable given in the first nineteen verses of the 20th chapter be fully understood, unless it be looked at as a reply to Peter's interrogation.

Although piety, in its highest moods, disdains such a mercenary inquiry as this, is too full of gratitude to think of gain-too absorbed in the delights of present engagements to feel aught of solicitude about future joys; still Jesus deems it proper to reply, and, in responding to the inquiry, he propounds certain great truths in relation to its rewards; and to these truths, as here developed, we shall give our present attention.

I. THAT THE REWARD OF PIETY, IN RELATION TO THE APOSTLES, WAS ASSOCIATED WITH MUCH THAT WAS PECULIAR.

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Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel."* There are two general thoughts contained in this passage, which will develop what was peculiar to the apostles in the reward of piety :-First. That they had a special connexion with this great work of spiritual reformation: they followed Christ "in the regeneration." They were his immediate successors. They caught the world-regenerative words from his lips, and inbreathed the reformation-spirit from his life; they witnessed those wonderful

* The word "regeneration" we regard as designed to designate that great spiritual reformation which Christ came into the world to promote amongst men, and which, through his system, has been slowly proceeding ever since, and will continue to progress from age to age until the moral "restoration of all things." The period alluded to in the expression, "when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory," seems to us to refer unquestionably to his ascension to heaven, when he became invested with authority; and when, in consequence of his dispensation of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost, the "regeneration" received an impulse that should gain new force and influence from that moment to the last hour. The promise here made to the disciples to "sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel," contains a spiritual and Christian idea enrobed in material and Jewish costume. As "the twelve tribes" comprehended the whole of the Jewish people, the expression is here used to designate the whole Christian Church. James, in the first verse of his epistle, uses it in this sense; and the "twelve thrones" evidently mean, that each of the apostles should be invested with a ruling authority in that Church.

facts of his history on which the doctrines of his renovating system are based, and by which they are illustrated and enforced. In the "upper room" at Jerusalem, they waited for that spirit which he promised, and which descended on them, giving them "tongues of fire" to proclaim his truths, and powers of miracle to enforce the same. They first conveyed his glorious message of mercy "in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth." Thus, in a special sense, they "followed" him "in the regeneration." Secondly. That, in consequence of the special connexion which they had with this great work of spiritual reformation, they were invested with peculiar authority. "Ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones." Each shall have authority amongst "the twelve tribes"-the general Church.

Has not this promise been fulfilled? Have not the apostles ever since sat on moral thrones in the Church? Have not their speeches and writings ever been regarded as of unquestionable authority? Have not all the succeeding disciples of Jesus bowed reverentially to their words? Are they not judges in all the tribes of our Israel? They are, indeed, the greatest moral sovereigns, Christ excepted, ever born of men. No sympathies of thought, however venerable with age or radiant with genius; no scheme of government, however advocated by eloquence or defended by arms; can stand long if they oppose these monarchs of Israel. They fade and melt away before the brightness of apostolic dicta. These apostles are enthroned in the hearts of the good: side by side they sit down with Jesus on the throne of redeemed souls. Their empire survives the ruins of time, and will one day encompass the wide world.

This authority, then, is an element in the reward of the apostles' piety peculiar to themselves. From the nature of the position they occupied in the system of Jesus, no others will ever participate of this honour. We infer, from this passage

II. THAT THE REWARD OF PIETY, IN THE CASE OF ALL, IS

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