June 18

ple of God themselves. How prone are they to forget their privileges and principles; and to imagine they are left of God in particular situations and difficulties. But they cannot be left, especially in their afflictions; for he has not only said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee—but “I will be with thee in trouble”—“When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee.” Yet after all this, divine manifestations often surprise us; and we wonder, where we should only praise.

JUNE 18.—“And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”—Genesis 28:17.

SUCH was the exclamation of Jacob after his pleasing dream; when he awoke from sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.

It shows us that intercourse with God, instead of favouring levity of mind, produces the most serious impressions. The man that felt no apprehension in the evening at lying down in the open air, enveloped in darkness and surrounded with danger, is afraid in the morning—at what? The thought of a present Deity. This was not indeed a slavish, terrifying dread, like that of Belshazzar, when he saw the handwriting upon the wall, when the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another: but it was reverence and godly fear; such as Peter and Isaiah and Job felt, at the manifestations of the divine glory; and such as the angels feel when they veil their faces before him. Let this rectify the mistake of those who imagine that the doctrines of grace and the work of the Spirit lead people to a kind of careless and presumptuous freedom with God. The experience of every believer gives the lie to this. The nearer he draws to God’s seat, and the more intimately he deals with him, the more he sees of his perfections, and the more he feels his own vanity and vileness. And the Scripture assures us that God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be had in reverence of all them that are about him.

Wherever God meets with his people, that place deserves to be considered as his house. This is conformable to his own language: “The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor, and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.” Observe also our Saviour’s conversation with the woman of Samaria. Her countrymen supposed that God must be preferably, if not exclusively, worshipped on Gerizim; while the Jews thought the same of Jerusalem: but he reminded her that the worship of God did not derive its excellency or acceptableness from locality: “Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.”

God seldom receives any thing but formality from those worship-

pers, whose bigoted attachment to any particular mode or building leads them to say, "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord are we." Nothing makes a people dear to God but their resemblance of him; and nothing makes any place sacred but the divine presence—There can be no sanctity in wood and stone—"This," says Jacob, of the bare ground on which he had been lying, having seen and heard God there; "this is none other than the house of God." Our Lord prayed and preached in private dwellings; in the open air; on the side of a mountain; by the way side; and from a fishing-boat, as well as in the synagogue and temple. So did his Apostles. It was not till the end of the third century that Christians had edifices expressly reared for their public worship. In three cases this remark may encourage us. First, when by accident, disease, relative affliction, or civil engagement, we are detained from the courts of the Lord. If the heart be there, and we are unavoidably prevented, the Lord will make up the loss, and we shall see his power and glory as we have seen him in the sanctuary. Secondly, if Providence should fix our station where we have little or no advantage from the privileges of God's house. John was in the Spirit on the Lord's day, though in exile, and far from the usual appendages of the Sabbath. "I will be," says God, "a little sanctuary to them in the midst of the heathen." Thirdly, in the intervals of public worship. We cannot be always, or very frequently, in the temple; but we may render every object and every event a preacher; and—

"Where'er we seek him he is found,

Again. The experience of good men even here sometimes approximates them to the world of glory. Jacob saw that he was not in heaven, but in such communion and with such manifestations, he thought it could not be far off—"This," says he, "is none other than the gate of heaven." Carnal men think of heaven (if ever they think of it at all) as a place far off, and to be reached by ascending up thousands of miles through the skies. But, says our Saviour, "the kingdom of God is nigh you. The kingdom of heaven is within you." And the believer's present acquaintance with it and participations of it convince him that heaven is a state rather than a place—He is the first-fruits of the Spirit, the earnest of inheritance—He has come to the heavenly Jerusalem, and has everlasting life. And we confine not this to some extraordinary enjoyments in his private and public devotional engagements—in tribulation we have seen him "joyful in glory;" and have heard him "shout aloud upon his bed" of painful sickness, and dying anguish.

Finally, the house of God and the gate of heaven are related to each other; and therefore they are well mentioned together. Not that the connexion between them is inseparable; or that all those who attend the one will enter the other—Far from it. To some the house of God will be the gate of hell, and open to them a passage into greater misery; and the preaching of the Word will prove the savour of death unto death. But this is the effect of perversion or misimprovement. The means of grace are designed and adapted to awaken and secure our attention to the things which belong to our peace. In the house of God many of his people are converted; and