SERMON II.

THE BELIEVER'S SANCTUARY.

JEREMIAH xvii. 12.

A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary.

THAT God should be pleased to hold any intercourse with his creatures here on earth, is an act of unspeakable condescension. Our natural distance from him, and unfitness for this intercourse, forbid us to judge of this act of goodness as we ought. That he who has a throne in heaven, surrounded by angels and archangels, principalities and powers, of pure and active natures, fitted to show forth his praise and to perform his works— that he should have a throne on earth, on which he delights to sit and dispense his favour, may well excite our wonder, and ought to fill us with the deepest self-abasement, and reverence. We should never enter his house without thinking of him as enthroned in majesty and glory. We should remember his power and authority, and that these are displayed for the purpose of setting forth the glory of his other attributes. It is in his gospel, and by the worship of him, that God is known; but this knowledge, as it advances, lifts us up to more and more exalted and becoming views of him whom we serve. He is on a throne,

and we are at his footstool, that we may contemplate and admire and adore him.

But while this view of God claims our reverence, it ensures our benefit: we draw near in worship, that we may learn to look to him, to perform for us all our desires, and that we may have more exalted ideas of the grace he bestows. It would be well if all men entertained just conceptions of the privilege of drawing near to God in his house; that they would remember that they enter his presence-that they come to receive from him such views of his greatness and glory, as their present state can endure to have communicated to them-that his glory rests upon them, while they perform acceptable worshipthat in holding communion with him, they are changed to the same image from glory to glory— and that whilst enjoying his favour, they are receiving gifts, royal gifts, such as it becomes him to dispense from a throne of glory.

The words of my text will lead me, I. To inquire, what is that throne of which the prophet speaks. II. To show how it is the place of our sanctuary.

I. "A glorious high throne from the beginning." In these words the prophet seems to have had in view the temple, where God is said to have dwelt between the cherubims. The mercy-seat was his throne, on which he was seated as the king of Israel. He had chosen this nation above

all others to be his people; he led them out of Egypt by his power and might, and fought for them; in all their journeyings he vouchsafed his presence to them in a pillar of a cloud by day, and of fire by night. And in the same gracious emblem, after he had brought them into the promised land, he took up his abode in the temple; where the schechinah or divine glory was constantly seen over the mercy-seat, as often as the high priest entered the holy of holies. As a king who had finished his conquests, he retires now to his palace, and from the mercy-seat, as his throne, he exercises the duties of a sovereign over his people.

These circumstances were the tokens of a spiritual kingdom, to be more clearly manifested under the gospel dispensation. His presence with his church is now a spiritual presence, and by grace he reigns over them who are members of it. Nor is that presence confined to one place or nation; but wherever men call on the name of Jesus Christ, there is God on his throne, ready to receive them-to own them as his subjectsand to do for them to the full extent of that promise: "I will be their God, and they shall be my people." How important and interesting to us this relation! Surely to feel the full import of it, and to know our privilege in this respect is better than all the honours and emoluments of the world; and worthy the pursuit of a faithful and constant attendance on the means of grace. By receiving the gospel we enter the kingdom of

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heaven, and own God to be our king. By its means of instruction we come to understand the nature and privileges of that kingdom. And because the power and authority and glory of God are known to none but those who serve him in the gospel of his Son, and who constitute the members of his church here on earth; therefore it is they have cause to say, and are privileged to say, "A glorious high throne from the beginning is the place of our sanctuary."

These words express the privilege of every true believer in his full access to God by spiritual worship, because, 1. He sees him on a throne of glory. Not that he can judge of this glory, or approach unto it, for he "dwelleth in light that no man can approach unto; whom no man hath seen, nor can see." But he has glimpses of this glory, which mere natural men know nothing of; and he owns him to be terrible in majesty. They are but novices in religion, who know not in their experience, how overwhelming the views and thoughts of God's majesty and glory are, when he gives but some transitory view of his throne. "I remembered God and was troubled," says the Psalmist. "I am troubled at his presence," says Job. "We shall surely die because we have seen God," says Manoah to his wife. And John, who was accustomed to lean on the bosom of Jesus, when on earth, yet when a view of his heavenly glory was vouchsafed to him, fell down at his feet as one dead, so overpowering to mortal nature was the sight.

2. The believer sees God seated on a throne of judgment, where he has power over all created things; from which he knows all the actions and purposes of men; and from which he dispenses by secret and unobserved means judgment and justice in the world. To the true christian this is a point of faith, and it adds not a little to his comfort to know and to be assured, that the God whom men despise, and for whose service he is exposed to scorn-that he is the sovereign ruler of every thing, the judge of all the earth. But more especially it is his comfort to know, that he is so in that very character in which he is revealed in the gospel; yea, that Jesus Christ himself is now exalted as God-man to be a prince aş well as a saviour. "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son." Were God really such in nature, as wicked men judge him to be, there would be no consolation in the contemplation of him. The ideas natural men entertain of God, are but so many different modifications of those horrific deities recognised by heathen nations. But the God of all the earth is the God, not of a heathen, not of a mere moralist, not of a formalist, not of a perverter of divine truth-none of these have any correct notion of the God of revelation-but he is the God of him that believes in Jesus, of the spiritual worshipper, of the humble penitent.

This throne is a throne of judgment, from which he declares his justice, ready to avenge the insults done to the holiness and purity of his name.