blessings do not extend: for "all flesh shall see the salvation of God." The high and the low, the rich and the poor, shall equally he partakers of them ; for " all shall know the Lord, from the least to the greatest." " Kings will be the nursing- fathers of the Church, and queens her nursing-mothers : " and with "the lofty firs and pines shall be united the humble box, to glorify the house of God's glory, and to make the place of his feet gloriousV So universal shall be the reign of Christ on earth, that " holiness to the Lord shall be written upon the bells of the horses" which the peasants use in agriculture: the smallest vessel in the sanctuary shall be as highly sanctified as the largest; and " there shall no more be the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts0." "All in that day will be righteous ;" and so righteous as to need no addition to their happiness from any creature-comforts : " The sun shall be no more their light by day, neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto them; but the Lord shall be unto them an everlasting light, and their God their glory d." It is not in re- spect of universality only that " the knowledge of the glory of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea," but of depth also; for " the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun seven-fold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the Lord bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound e."
O glorious period! " May the Lord hasten it, in His time !"
Whilst we behold such a period predicted, it be- comes us to consider,
II. Our duty in the prospect of it —
This is doubtless,
1. To help it forward by all possible means —
[God works by means : and, however fixed the times and the seasons may be in the Divine mind, it is by the use of means that he will accomplish these most glorious events. The first advent of Christ was proclaimed by his Forerunner, John the Baptist, who by his ministrations " made ready a jjeople prepared for the Lord." And we in like manner are to act as heralds and harbingers of the Messiah's second advent. As pioneers, we are to prepare his way. By us must his path be levelled, to facilitate his march : we must go before him, to " prepare his way, to make strait in the desert a highway for our God." Through the instrumentality of men " shall every valley be exalted, and every mountain and hill be made low ; and the crooked be made straight, and the rough places plain ;
b Isai. Ix. 13. c Zech. xiv. 20, 21.
d Isai. Ix. 19 — 22. e Isai. xxx. 26.