HOMILETICS. Vera. 1-14.-The first worship in the finished temple. The homiletic matter of this chapter may be said to be one. For we are, in fact, brought face to face with the cent,·al interest-the my8tic presence, and veiled glory of the tabernacle or temple, in connection with the outer worship-the whole form of the outer worship of the Church visible of God's ancient people. This central interest means the ark-the ark of the covenant; the ark, with its two Divine autograph tables of stone; the ark, with the mercy-seat upon it, and its overshadowing guardian cherubim. This ark is now to be installed in the place of long" rest "-long, though indeed it ought to have been so much longer. We may notice- !. In the first place, THE SOLEMN, SEDULOUS OABE with which "the king, and all the heads of the tribes, and the chief of the fathers of the children of Israel," drawing upon their chastened memories of former error, neglect, irreverence, and consequent disastrous punishment, brought up from the city of David, even Zion, that ark by the hands a.od uoder the strict escort of its proper conservers, viz. "tbe priests, the Levites." II. That the occasion was one observed and celebrated with UNTOLD, UNNUMBERED SACRIFIOES. III. Looking into the real significance of the ark, so far as we can determine it, we are called to notice the TREMENDOUS SANCTION implied in THE COVENA?.""T. The heads of a complete moral law for all the world, world without end, are surely what is to be understood to be written, in the handwriting of God, graven on those tables. The covenant of mercy rests, and is based upon, these "observed and done." From the moment that the da,wning impossibility of observing these takes any shape (however diru to the merely self-trustful and self-confident), the prefigured form of the cross, however dim it also be, begins to take shape. There are countless sacrifices "before the king, before the ark "-they are all speaking the" of necessity" (Heb. viii. 3) that arises out of the significance of that ark, or rather of that which is embodied in it. No wonder, then, that its ordained symbolizing of the Divine presence should be so mysterious, so deep, yet ever, as a fact, so reverently asserted and fenced. It is within the veil; it is in the most holy place; it is unseen, unvisited except "once a year;" the cloud of awe and of glory, of darkness and of radiancy, is its visitant; it is the consecrate site of the Shechinah, before which a marvelli:::ig and adoring people wait, gaze, bow down, "as seeing the invisible" One I IV. Lastly, THE DEEP SATISFACTION that results to the Church of God from a genuinely deep impression of his presence abiding in and with it. It was when the full chorus of adoring praise and joyful devotion, because of "the Lord and the ark of his strength having arisen into their rest" (Ps. cxxxii. 8), resounded:-mth leaping tumult of holy gladness, that "the cloud filled the house," and that "the glory of the Lord filled the house." All [this was but ;the sensible projecting, for the earlier Church, of the greater spiritual facts and realities with which the Church of modern day is well acquainted, although it ought to be so much better acquainted with them than it is.
HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS. Ver. 1.-0onclusion. "Thus all the work that Solomon made ... was finished." Better is the end of some things than the beginning, though there are other things in which the bcginnina is better than the end, It is matters of achievement in which the end is so honoura"ble and so desirable. I. IT IS GROUND FOR CONGRATULATION. We may congratulate ourselves and receive the felicitation of our friends that we have been spared long enough in health and strength; that we have had patience to endure all the vexations, skill and determination to surmount all the difficulties, resolution to proceed in spite of all the di$appointments that we have been called to confront ; that we have had the steadfastness of soul that 56 THE SECOND BOOK OF THE CHRONICLES. [en. v. 1~14.