in the world; dead while they live. How awful! Were we credibly informed by astronomers, that a comet from the confines of Creation was rapidly approaching our planet, and would certainly soon strike and destroy it, how intense an alarm would the intelligence occasion! How anxiously would all be looking out for the dreadful visitant, and preparing for their doom! And, yet, we have a more sure word of prophecy, that a far more terrible occurrence still, even the day of God's righteous vengeance and indignation: a day that shall burn to the lowest hell, and consume all the ungodly of the earth as dross, approacheth; but who appears concerned? Who converses of the direful catastrophe? Who would be found preparing for it? 66 Seeing then, that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy conversation and godliness; looking for, and hasting unto the coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens, and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent, that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless."1 "Let your moderation be known Lord is at hand." "Arise ye, unto all men: the 1 2 Pet. iii. 11-14 and depart for this is not your rest, for it is polluted." It will destroy you even with a sore destruction. Let us remove our treasures hence, as from an abode devoted to destruction. Let our treasure be in heaven; "for where our treasure is, there will our hearts be also." Let the Lord Jesus Christ be our treasure, as we are his. He calls his people, his " peculiar treasure,”1 his "jewels."? Let us not allow our lamps to expire, or our holy garments to drag in the dust, "but have our loins girded, and our lamps burning, and be ourselves like men that wait for their Lord, when he shall return from the wedding." Behold," he says, "I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame.” 3 66 The trees in a grove, or the plants in a garden, when limited for room below, shoot the more aloft. So should we, cramped and hindered in our earthly tendencies, grow the more in grace, and permit the vigour of our affections to expand toward heaven. Every living temple of God should resemble the temple of Ezekiel, in which there was "an enlarging upwards."4 Thus we shall live superior to the world; its sins and its sorrows, its smiles and its frowns; so we shall deprive earth of its power to hurt us, and realize even below, a kind of angelic felicity. Walking with GOD in faith and prayer, recogni 1 Exodus xix. 15. 3 Rev. xvi. 15. 2 Mal. iii. 17. 4 Ezek. xli. 7. zing his hand in every event, associating him with every lovely object; and yielding ourselves wholly to the motions of his good Spirit on our minds, we shall be favoured with continual sweet tokens of his favour; and eventually through grace, bc exalted to a never-fading inheritance with him in glory. AMEN. Help, O Lord!—thine arm put forth; By this badge were men to prove Even in those who seem thine own ? Zion! when shalt thou have peace Shield, O, shield me in thine arms, From a world of dire alarms : Taught his vanity to scan, I henceforth would cease from Man. Thou sufficient art alone; Altogether lovely ONE! All true good thou dost condense; Shew me thou, what I should see, APPENDIX. NOTE I. p. 1. "THROUGHOUT what is called the Christian world, there will be a contest between impiety and' religion; the former everywhere is gathering strength, and whenever it breaks loose, the foundations of human society will be shaken. Do not suppose that you are safe from this danger because you are blest with a pure creed, a reformed ritual, and a tolerant Church! Even here the standard of impiety has been set up, and the drummers who beat the march of intellect through your streets, lanes, and market-places, are enlisted under it. The struggle between Popery and Protestantism is renewed. And let no man deceive himself by a vain reliance upon the increased knowledge or improved humanity of the times! wickedness is ever the same: and you never were in so much danger from moral weakness. 'Co-existent with these struggles is that between the feudal system of society, as variously modified T |