the gates of Zion, and render her more lovely in your eyes than all the palaces in the universe !]
3. As an emblem of heaven itself — [Such it really is : for all who are born in her " are come unto Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jeru- salem1." Though she is a spiritual edifice, she has her foun- dations, her walls, her gates ; all of which are found also in that heavenly Zion which St. John saw, even in " that great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God, and having the glory of GodV And both the one city and the other " are of pure gold1." Each of them too, amongst the many distinctions which they enjoy above all earthly cities, have a light peculiar to themselves. Of our Zion it is said, " The sun is no more her light by day, neither for brightness does the moon give light unto her ; but the Lord is unto her an everlasting light, and her God her glory m." And thus it is also in the heavenly Zion : " The city has no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it : for the glory of God does lighten it ; and the Lamb is the light thereof"." It is but one family that is in- habiting both the one city and the other, " even the family of our Lord Jesus Christ0;" and their employments are altogether the same : for whilst the one are " rejoicing in the Lord always" here below p, the other are incessantly engaged in singing praises to him above, even " to Him, who loved them, and washed them from their sins in his own blood, and made them kings and priests unto their God ; to him, I say, do they ascribe all glory and dominion for ever and everi."]
II. The effect which these testimonies should have upon us —
Surely, when the Church is so high in the esti- mation of God,
1. We should inquire what place she holds in our esteem —
[Never has she had, at least in a spiritual view, any visible glory. In the days of the prophets, her limits were contracted, and her members poor, despised, persecuted. In the days of Christ and his Apostles, though her limits were enlarged, she, like her Lord himself, had " no beauty nor comeliness for which she was to be desired1." She has been in a wilderness state even to this present hours, an object of hatred and derision to all that were round about her. Yet to the eye of faith she is most
1 Heb. xii. 22. k Rev. xxi, 10) n> 14j 21.
1 Rev. xxi. 18. ™ Isai. lx. 19. n Rev. xxi. 23.
° Eph. iii. 14, 15. p Phil. iv. 4. i Rev. i. 5, 6.
1 Isai. liii. 2. s Rev. xii. 6.