this river as proceeding " from under the threshold of the sanctuary, and from the side of the altar,'' where the sacrifices were offered. Being brought to it by the heavenly messenger who had been sent to instruct him, he was made to pass through its waters, which, in the first instance, rose only " to his ankles." On being brought to another place, he found the "waters up to his knees;" and, at another place, " up to his loins;" and then, a little further on, it was " out of the depth of any man^." Now this gives a most just and beautiful representation of the Gospel ; which, in our first approach to it, is so shallow, that the veriest child may walk in it with perfect ease : but, as we advance in it, we find yet deeper truths ; till, at last, its mysteries are unfathomable by any created intel- ligence; " so unsearchable are God's judgments, and his ways past finding out'." Nothing can be more simple than the great leading truth of salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ: a child that can but just " I'un, may read," and " a wayfaring-man, though a fool, may understand, it." But when we attempt to explore the love of Christ displayed in it, we find " a length and breadth and depth and height that infinitely surpass any finite comprehension'^."
But of its chief excellencies we must especially mark,]
IV. The salubrity of its waters —
[The Prophet Zechariah, especially referring to the Gospel, says, " It shall be in that day, that living waters shall go out from Jerusalem'." And in the passage before quoted from the Prophet Ezekiel, their efficacy is fully declared : " It shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live : and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither : for they shall be healed, and every thing shall live whither the river cometh™." Here then we see, that they give health to the diseased, and life to the dead. Verily, there is no disease which shall not be removed by the use of them. Naaman thought that " Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, might be as serviceable as the waters of Israel " : " and, in like manner, many vainly hope to heal themselves by the application of carnal remedies to their souls. But it is this river only that can purify us from our sins ; and the man that washes in it, how leprous soever he may have been, shall instantly experience its healing efficacy. Nor shall its virtue be confined to a single patient : none shall have cause to com- plain, like the man at Bethesda's pool, that one less indigent or more highly-favoured than himself has been beforehand
h Ezek. xlvii. 1—5. * Rom, xi. 33. ^ Eph. iii. 18, 19.
' Zech. xiv. 8. m Ezek. xlvii. 9. " 2 Kings v. 12.