from the dungeon is life, but to advance him to a palace and a throne is life more abundantly. More abundantly 1. Than the life which Adam enjoyed before the fall. It is placed on a firmer foundation; that depended on the sandy foundation of man's obedience; this on the firm rock of Christ's atonement. That was entrusted to the conditions of a covenant, of which finite and feeble men formed one party; this is established by a covenant taken solely into the charge of infinite wisdom and power. Our representative in that life was of the earth earthy; our representative here is the Lord from heaven. In the first Adam, we bore the image of the earthy; in the second Adam, we bare the image of the heavenly. Had Adam continued in his innocency, it would have been necessary that he should undergo some material change (though not death) in order that he might enjoy a heavenly paradise, for "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Here there is no change, but an eternal expansion of the same principle in glory. Adam's paradise, however beautiful and glorious, was not to be compared to the paradise which awaits the poorest of God's people. Man's creation was glorious, but his redemption exceeds in glory. The righteousness of even a perfect creature is infinitely beneath the righteousness of an eternal God. More abundantly 2. Than it was revealed in the Jewish Church. The saints under the Mosaic economy obtained life from the same source as ourselves; but we have it more abundantly in respect to knowledge, freedom, and enjoyment. Our Lord declared to His disciples, "Verily I say unto you, that many prophets and righteous men have desired to see these things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them." They had the shadow, we have the substance; they had the type, we have the antitype; they saw the Messiah and the glories of His kingdom, through a veil darkly, "but we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord;" they had the dawn, we have the sun risen from on high they received the Spirit of bondage which causeth fear, we the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry Abba, Father; they had not liberty to enter into the holy of holies but once in the year, and then the privilege was confined to the high priest, but we can enter into the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus through a new and living way; they came to the "mountain that might be touched, and that burned with fire, and unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest; and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words; which voice they that heard entreated that the words should not be spoken to them any more." "But we are come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the firstborn which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel." righteous shines There is life in There is life in 3. That they might have life more abundantly than they at first possess it. Religion is progressive in the soul of the Christian. He goes from strength to strength, and is renewed day by day. For "the path of the brighter and brighter unto the perfect day." the seed, but more abundantly in the tree. the blade, but more abundantly in the full ear. in the infant, but more abundantly in the man. in the soul when it is regenerated by the Holy Ghost, but more abundantly when arriving in the "unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." There is life How wonderful, brethren, is the condescension of Christ, that He should come unto the world to die, that we dead sinners might live! To us, even to us is the word of this salvation sent. Oh! what importance does this give to the preaching of the Gospel, to the reading of the Scriptures, and to all divine ordinances. Are we possessed of this life? If we are, it is a life of comfort to which we are called, for being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is a satisfaction and a pleasure here to which all but the Christian are strangers. Believers delight in God's word, in God's ways, in God's people, in God's service. They find a day in His courts better than a thousand, and they had rather be doorkeepers in the house of God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness. "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." 136 The Eighth Sunday after Trinity. EVENING SERVICE.-First Lesson: 1 Kings xvii. Verse 16.-" And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which he spake by Elijah." GOD seems to have had His special favourites amongst men in the world, nearly in every age until the advent of our Saviour. To them He declared His will and revealed His designs. Before the deluge Enoch and Noah were His favourites. Between the deluge and the giving of the law, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph were His favourites. Then Moses at the institution of the Jewish economy, and under that economy they became more frequent as the exigencies of the times required. We have amongst them some kings, some priests, and a great number of prophets. Those favourites, as far as we know, were not naturally possessed of superior virtues and powers more than other men : but God endowed them with special qualities, because He wanted them for special purposes, at special times. Elijah was one of those special favourites, and his history commences so abruptly in this chapter as if he had been an angel come down from heaven. Some indeed have considered him to be an angel, as nothing whatever is known of his tribe and parentage. But that he was not an angel we are assured by the apostle James, who tells us that "Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are." Perhaps he was a man of stronger passions than most men, as his peculiar circumstances required that he should be of a determined will, and unflinching boldness. God had marked him out for a great work, which was the reformation of Israel. It was a Just as rough service that needed a rough spirit to perform. the reformation from Popery needed such a man as Martin Luther to break the ice, so did the reformation in Israel. Elijah was the very man to meet the circumstances of the times in which he lived. Never was a king so bold to sin as Ahab, never was a prophet so bold to reprove as Elijah. His story is full of the most remarkable circumstances. He lived, he acted, and no part of the Old Testament history shines brighter than this of "the spirit and power of Elias." His mission seems to have been exclusively to the king of Israel. Ahab "did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him," therefore he required a stronger hand to curb his propensities, and a stronger messenger to warn and to threaten him than any of his predecessors. Such a one was Elijah, whose story begins and continues with a series of remarkable miracles sufficient to terrify into submission any other man than Ahab who had sold himself to work evil. For the wickedness of this king and his wife Jezebel God punished the country with a famine consequent upon a drought of three years and a half duration, of which Elijah warns Ahab in the commencement of this chapter. During the whole of this time the prophet was miraculously supported, first by ravens at the brook Cherith, and then by a poor widow woman at Zarephath of Zidon. When Elijah came to her in obedience to the instructions which he had received from God, she was in the act of collecting fuel to cook her last meal she had in prospect for herself and child before death. Elijah asking her to supply him with a "morsel of bread," she said, "As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse; and behold I am gathering two sticks that I may go and cook it for me and my son, that we may eat it and die." Upon this the prophet assured her that if she attended to his request her barrel and cruse should be inexhaustible as long as the necessity called for the supply. In the sequel we find that after he, and she, and her house had eaten many days," the barrel of meal had wasted not, |