and the handfuls found springing up in the corn-fields of themselves; but this they might do just as need required. There was to be none of the toils of harvest or of vintage; "the Sabbath of the land," that is, (chap. xxiii. 38,) what the Sabbath of the land furnishes and presents, shall be sufficient.

It was during this year also that every Israelite remitted debts due to him by his brother Israelite; and every Hebrew slave might leave his servitude (Exod. xxi., &c.), at least, if this to him were the seventh year of his bondage. There must be a full' picture of rest. For this is the type of what the earth shall be under Christ, the Prince of Peace. Of Him it is said, "His rest shall be glorious" (Isa. xi. 10); and of that final rest it is written, "There remaineth a rest for the people of God"—(σaßßatiouos, Heb. iv. 9), a time combining in itself all that was prefigured by the seventh day, and in the seventh month, and during the seventh year. Walk through Israel's land at such a time, and, lo! every one sits under his vine and under his fig-tree in peace. No sound of the oxen treading out the corn, no shouting from the vineyard; a strange stillness over all the land, while its summer-days are as bright as ever, and its people as happy as a nation on earth could be found. Amid this rest-which in a nation of agriculturists would be nearly equivalent to universal cessation from toilhow continually do the godly sing the praises of Jehovah! The whole year round, they use their leisure for God. "His servants serve him." They rest not from this; and so they make this outward rest more truly a type of the heavenly. No sweat upon their brow (as if anticipating those days in Ezek. xliv. 18) from tilling the ground; and yet what with last year's plentiful and

superabundant supply (ver. 20), and what with the supplement yielded by this year's self-produce, each man has sufficiency. "So giveth he his beloved sleep❞—and they rest in his love. And the beasts of the field rest; "creation itself" seems to share in this liberty of the sons of God, anticipating its season of deliverance from corruption. (Rom. viii. 21.) The very soil on which their harvest grew was improved by this rest, as if to shadow forth the time when it should no more yield less than it did in Paradise. And, besides all this, no man appropriated to himself anything that the land then produced; all was common, to the rich, to the poor, to the Hebrew, to the stranger,-a token of the restoration of mutual love. Rest on the ground, among the beasts of the field, in the dwellings of men with praise and worship unceasingly ascending from harp and psaltery and gracious lips, while every man partook of earth's produce as freely as his neighbor in token of established good-will, was not all this a scene of true, real peace? Might not Israel say, "Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad, let the sea roar and the fulness thereof; let the field be joyful and all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord." xcvi. 11, 12.)

(Ps.

So much did God love these blessed shadows of the rest to come, that Israel's neglect of them is reckoned. one of the causes of their being carried away to Babylon. Shall not, then, the neglect of any among us to realize that "rest that remaineth," be also displeasing to the Lord? It is true, their neglect arose rather from present eagerness about the world, than from dislike of the season of rest; but, from whatever cause, the duty was left undone. And yet, after all, a true longing for the rest

would have helped much to free them from worldly attractions, and their contentedness with present scenes showed at least that they were not over fond of the future. Is it not so still? There is little of the pilgrimspirit in those who never long for "the rest that remaineth.” There is too little weariness of sin-little of

Brainerd's cry, "O that my soul were holy as He is holy! O that it were pure as Christ is pure, and perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect! These are the sweetest commands in God's book, comprising all others. And shall I break them? Must I break them? Am I under a necessity of it as long as I live in the world? O my soul! woe, woe is me that I am a sinner." There is much groaning under human misery, but there is little groaning under a sense of deep dishonor done to God. There is, too, now and then, a longing to be at rest ourselves; but rarely do you find souls who are groaning in sympathy with all creation. A Jeremiah. may be found, weeping, not for himself, but for "the slain of the daughter of his people;" but where shall we find a heart so large as Paul describes, "Not they only, but we ourselves also, who have the first-fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves," through excessive longing for a world's deliverance! Oh, to hear earth's hills and valleys ringing with hallelujahs that come from souls reposing with true Sabbatic rest on their God, while all creation listens in Sabbatic peace and serenity! One of our own poets has sung of this expected time, when the praise of Him who giveth rest to the weary, and who then himself enters fully on his glorious rest, shall be the daily employment of nations in every land.

"The time of rest, the promised Sabbath comes!

And clothe all climes with beauty. The reproach

Of barrenness is past. The fruitful field

Laughs with abundance; and the land, once lean,
Or fertile only in its own disgrace,
Exults to see its thirsty curse repealed.

The various seasons woven into one,

And that one season an eternal spring,

The garden feels no blight; and needs no fence,
For there is none to covet-all are full.
The lion, and the leopard, and the bear
Graze with the fearless flocks.

One song employs all nations; and all cry
'Worthy the Lamb, for he was slain for us!'
The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks
Shout to each other, and the mountain tops
From distant mountains catch the flying joy;
Till, nation after nation taught the strain,

Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round."-CoWPER.

THE YEAR OF JUBILEE.

Vers. 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13. "And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, in the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all your land. And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof: it shall be a jubilee unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family. A jubilee shall that fiftieth year be unto you ye shall not sow, neither reap that which groweth of itself in it, nor gather the grapes in it of thy vine undressed. For it is the jubilee; it shall be holy unto you; ye shall eat the increase thereof out of the field. In the year of this jubilee ye shall return every man unto his possession."

Like the striking of a clock from the turret of some cathedral, announcing that the season of labor for the

day is closed, so sounded the notes of the silver trumpet from the sanctuary, announcing that a year of cessation from all toil was come, and a year of redemption from all burdens. It is this that Isaiah seems to mean when, in chap. xxvii. 13, he speaks of "The great trumpet being blown," and instantly Israel, in all lands, hear and flow together.

This year was a most peculiar time. The very name ()," Jobel," seems invented for the occasion, and is used onward, from this time, whenever the trumpets were to sound joyfully. It is probable that the word is derived from the root n (Hiphil of 5), meaning "to restore or bring back;"* because on this day the silver trumpet proclaimed release and restoration throughout all Israel.

Does the Jubilee represent the preaching of the Gospel? Some argue that it does, because Isa. lxi. 1, 2, as used by Jesus, at Nazareth, seems to be clothed in the language of the jubilee. The true answer to this is, that Jesus was the High Priest who blew the jubilee trumpet throughout all the land of Israel, when he proclaimed, "The kingdom of heaven is at hand!" That kingdom which he preached brought in its train "the opening of the prison door to the bound, deliverance to the captive,” as well as "glad tidings to the poor." But then Jesus seems to have intended to proclaim, at that time only, that the rights and privileges of the jubilee-year should

* Some Jewish commentators derive it from the supposed signification, 'a ram," which they say it has in Arabic. But even they are evidently only throwing out conjectures. So are those who derive it from Jubal, the inventor of musical instruments. The Septuagint have "dpeois," and Josephus has "Xɛv0ɛpta," both pointing to the sense of "restoring." Some think that "the times of the restitution of all things," anоkaraoraσis, refers to this very word. (Acts iii. 21.)