but then, on the eve of the sabbath, did He enter into His rest.

2. AND ON THE SEVENTH DAY GOD ENDED HIS WORK WHICH HE HAD MADE; AND HE RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORK WHICH HE HAD MADE.

If mysteries be connected with the number six, still more awful and more sublime, if we may so speak, are those connected with the number seven; as six is the emblem of completeness, and therefore taken to represent the entire frame of things and order of times, which belong to the visible creation, so does seven, formed by the combination of that number with unity, shadow out something beyond it; or rather something containing it and uncontained itself by any thing. Six, as we have seen, is made up of the aliquot parts into which it is divisible; and of it, with some of those parts, either added to it or subtracted from it, are all

the numbers of the first decad formed. But seven, in striking contrast to this, is divisible by no number but that by which all numbers are necessarily divisible, namely, by one. No addition therefore, or multiplication, of aliquot parts differing from each other, can possibly produce it; its only aliquot part, on the contrary, is such, that it may be multiplied by itself for an indefinite number of times without ever attaining to, or even approaching, the whole. Hence, in the language of heathen philosophy, the number seven has been styled a virgin number, without a mother, as born of none, and giving to none their birth. And, hence we may reverently suppose that we see a fitness in the sacred imagery, in which, while six stands for the creation as completed here, and as put, so to speak, within man's ken, and subjected to his powers of apprehension and appreciation, for the

scheme of things which we see and hear of, and feel, and after a fashion understand; seven is the mystical representative of that creation as it is in ineffable and unimaginable connexion with the unseen ; in other words, as it is in God, and in that Church, which is His body, "the fulness of Him that filleth all in all.”

Wisdom," we are told, "hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillarsa," the house being that in which her guests are to eat of her bread, and drink of the wine which she has mingled. Seven lights burnt on that branched candlestick of the temple which was made after a pattern shewed to Moses in the mount; and the beloved disciple was admitted to see, as it were, its antitype, "seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven spirits of God." To him did his glorified Lord

a Prov. ix. 1.

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reveal Himself as "He that holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, Who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks." And to him it was given to see the Lamb open the book that was shut with seven seals, to hear the seven Angels sound the seven trumpets of God's wrath, and to listen to the seven thunders as, with articulate voices, they uttered things which he was forbidden to write. It is striking that the mystery connected with this number, obscurely pointed at in the first page of Holy Scripture, should be thus vividly illustrated in the last; being most fully revealed to him, to whom, above all others, it was given to soar, as with eagle's wings, into the heaven of Divine love and Divine contemplation.

Though the last act, therefore, of creation was performed on the sixth day; it was, we are told, on the seventh day that "God ended His work which He had

made." The six days were incomplete without the seventh; the finite work, typified by the former number, would, if we may reverently say it, have been frustrate, had it not been developed into that infinity which is symbolized by the latter. The visible heavens might indeed have declared the glory of God, and the firmament outwardly manifested His handy-work; but the great end of their creation would have been unaccomplished. For they and all things, the Apostle tells us, were created "to the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known, by the Church, the manifold wisdom of God"."

2. AND HE RESTED ON THE SEVENTH DAY FROM ALL HIS WORK WHICH HE HAD MADE.

3. AND GOD BLESSED THE SEVENTH DAY, AND SANCTIFIED IT: BECAUSE THAT IN IT HE HAD RESTED FROM ALL HIS WORK WHICH GOD CREATED AND MADE.

b Ephes. iii. 10.