is no waiting to ascertain the issue of an experiment; for He makes no experiments. There is no change of plan in consequence of actual occurrences; for He is of one mind. And though we often speak of time protracted, and dwell with emphasis on the duration of an age, it is to be remembered that before Him "it is nothing." Uninterrupted as the perennial spring, and sure as the polar influence, the majestic plan of redemption proceeds towards its wonderful issue. "He stilleth the noise of the seas, the noise of their waves, and the tumults of the people." Those who have faith in Him need not therefore fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, and though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof." It is theirs to take up the song:

"We have a strong city:

66

Salvation shall God appoint for walls and bulwarks.
Open ye the gates and let the righteous nation enter;
Constant in the truth, stayed in mind:

Thou shalt preserve them in perpetual peace,

Because they have trusted in Thee."

And the utterance of His gracious purpose towards His people, together with His challenge to all opposing powers, may be expressed in the inspired words:

"In that day shall Jehovah punish with His sword,
His well-tempered, and great, and strong sword;
Leviathan, that fleet serpent,

Even Leviathan, the winding serpent;

Yea, He will slay the monster that is in the sea.
In that day sing unto the vineyard a responsive song.
I Jehovah am its keeper;
Every moment I water it;
Lest any one should assault lt,
Day and night do I guard it.

I will be angry with it no more.

But let me reach the briers and thorns,
And I will go against them in battle,
And I will burn them up together." *

Provision was
The strength
And though

The wall may be built in troublous times, but its completion is certain. Every kind of opposition was foreseen. made against all that the world calls contingency. of every adversary was measured from eternity. nothing has been done either to check the free agency of man, or to suspend the connection between cause and effect, either to set aside the accountability attaching to voluntary action, or to change the essential nature of guilt, yet as the light rushes from its source irrespective of the body on which it may fall, and as the stream flows from its fountain irrespective of the substance over which it may roll in its course, so has the eternal purpose of the

* Isa. xxvii. 1-4.

God of Salvation been unfolding itself through the ages and the generations that are past, and so will it continue until all opposition shall be either merged into compliance, or bound into chains, that it may "deceive the nations no more!"

Against innumerable enemies has Christianity maintained its position, and thus far made its way. Persecution, open, undisguised, and professedly hostile to the very name of Jesus of Nazareth, has brought forth its resources, plied its strength, grown weary of its toil, and failed. Heresy, poisonous, serpentlike, has coiled and trailed amongst the trees of the garden of life, until its very existence has become a burden to itself. Antichrists in many a form have urged their doctrines on the attention of men, but the evangelic code still claims pre-eminence, and brings forth in many a spot the vouchers for its claim in its Divine spirituality and purity. Popery-that monstrous composition of paganism, worldliness, and Christianity-has for many ages usurped the name of the Church, spread its veil over the nations, and multiplied its abominations by the aid of secular governments; but even it has had to withdraw its pretensions when the Word of the Lord had free course, and to quail before a light too intense for its earthly eye. And the literal Antichrist, the man of sin-the wicked onethe son of perdition-for whose manifestation this fell apostasy has been preparing the way through dreary centuries, has yet to appear on the earth, the most fearful enemy that ever has confronted, or ever will confront the glorious Christ. But even he-though the concentration of all apostasies, and the incarnation of Satan-shall come in contact with a power that will ensure his speedy and signal overthrow. For it is he "whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of His mouth, and shall DESTROY WITH THE BRIGHTNESS OF HIS COMING.' "'*

But we may not pass from the past to the future without noticing the intermediate present. To a mind deeply imbued with Christian principle, and moved by the benevolence which the Gospel inspires, the present state of the world and of the Church presents much that is suggestive, much that is painful, and, but for firm faith in the accomplishment of God's purposes, much that is alarming. There are few spots on which the eye can look with unmingled complacency, few redeeming points in the general derangement, and few places on which the sole of the foot can securely rest. And were it not that change, religious indifference, intellectual scepticism, national revolutions, famines and pestilence, are the predicted heralds of the second coming of the Great Healer and Restorer, the believer in the Gospel and the earnest friend of man might sit in sackcloth and ashes, with folded hands and downcast eye.

What are the facts?

The world is fearfully agitated. It rocks

* 2 Thess. ii. 8.

from its centre. Commotion is universal. There is no visible check. "The wisdom of the ancients" is gone. It commands no attention, it stills no tempest, it arrests no ear, it sheathes no sword. Experience has been recorded in vain. Her admonitions are like the curling smoke, her folios are piled dust, her philosophy is "vain jangling," her oracles are impracticable enigmas. Politics have ceased to be a science. The ancient landmarks are lost. The polar star is quenched. Precedent is forgotten in the passion for change; or, if named, it is but to awake the banter and provoke the sneer of political scepticism. This passion for change is universal; and "it has its reward!" It unsettles everything, and composes nothing. It undermines the ancient structures, and rapidly raises others in their places, to be undermined with equal rapidity. Its work of yesterday it destroys to-day. It builds beacons on the sand, which the next tide of its own passion engulfs. It proclaims constitutions, which, ere the ink be dry upon the parchment, it tears to shreds. It denounces tyranny, and acts the despot. It condemns war, and unsheathes the sword. It proclaims fraternity, and severs the most tender ties of brotherhood. It preaches kindness, and practises oppression. It proscribes superstition, and cherishes the apostasy. It pretends to reconstruct society, but its work is that of the destroyer. It points to a new disposition of the materials of society, which shall be harmonious as the colours of the covenant-bow, but judging from the specimens it has exhibited, the most indulgent spectator of its great experiment is compelled to say, "The old is better!"

Are we the apologists of hereditary despotism, of crowned injustice, or sceptred tyranny? believers in the infallibility of ancestral wisdom? vouchers for the perfection of human thrones? weepers over the destiny of fugitive absolutism? enemies of the people, or foes of liberty? No! We would not thus apostatise from principles which draw their vitality from a holier spring than ever welled from beneath an earthly throne! But there is no theory propounded in these statements. Is the brief description—purposely and necessarily very brief--of the actual state of things correct?

Is the state of philosophy better? Shall we obtain relief from the learned, and quaff repose from the streams of literature? Shall we sit at the feet of sages, and find a refuge from the storm and tempest? "Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?" As surely as in the days of Paul! Philosophy has spread out no covering for the exposed, has paved no highway for the pilgrim, has arched no bridge across the yawning chasm. She is not " a guide of the blind," for she herself is confessedly lost in the mazes of doubt and uncertainty. Her voice is many-tongued; her directions are contradictory; her theorems are guesses; her facts hypothetical. Her inductions of yesterday are

set aside to-day, and those of to-day will be exploded to-morrow. Her labour is in the fires, and the light she yields, whilst discoloured and unsteady, is effectual only to the extent of making darkness visible. She has evidently received no new commission, except it be once again to certify to humanity that she cannot help it. Her first principles require antecedents. Her deepest researches scratch but the surface of the soil which is supposed to conceal the remedy for human woe. Her experiments tend only to irritate the sufferer. Her prescriptions, couched in modern phrase, are but the ancient compounds which partially conceal the symptoms, whilst they undermine the system. Her mental worship is but the avatar of an old idolatry. And her modern pantheism is but the resurrection of rabble deities which have been buried in oblivion for two thousand years; a resurrection which would not have taken place but for the groanings of humanity for something which it has not yet learned to name, to soothe its anguish, and to alleviate its woe. But still "creation travails in pain," and philosophy can work no deliverance in the earth! It abounds in sectaries. It has no common centre. Every new candidate for its honours brings a new light destined to be eclipsed by that of his immediate successor. Its transcendentalism is impalpable, its doctrines incoherent, its precepts impracticable. We may admire its industry, and allow the excellence of its motives, and place upon its brow the laurel of ability; but here we stop; for it has not justified its pretensions. It has not infused new life into a paralysed world; it has not redeemed mind from either ignorance or superstition; it has not removed the huge deformities of society; it has not cemented the rents and fissures of the social fabric; it has not healed the breach, nor leaped into the gulf, nor stayed the plague; and we are sure it never can. As a commentator upon existing phenomena, it has done some service; as a teacher its office is at an end! When it enters into the temple, and offers sacrifice with strange fire, and changes the place of the shekinah, and prescribes laws for inspiration, and casts doubt upon miracle, and questions the appositeness of Christian doctrine to "the advanced state" of humanity, it is time to protest, and cry, "Take it hence!" It neither understands nor can it meet the case of man. His complaint baffles its resources. He needs inspection by the eye, and redemption by the hand, that were employed in his creation. Knowledge less complete cannot determine his disease; inferior power cannot effect his cure!

The state of the churches must not be overlooked. At home there are few conversions; abroad, little progress. The most serious and earnest spirits are the most anxious. Men are wondering what is coming on the earth. In established and dissenting churches alike, a crisis is deemed at hand. Great changes are expected; but their character, shape, and form, no one ventures to prophesy. The general belief, or more properly the general hope,

is that these commotions will issue in the long-promised period of universal Christianity; the rapid extension of the Gospel over the whole earth; the destruction of idolatry, both in its pagan and nominally Christian forms; the dawning of the world's jubilee, the evening-time of light, the sabbatic year, the blessed millennium. That such will be the issue is certain as "the sure word of prophecy" can make it; but, with great deference to those who think otherwise, we submit that it does not appear to us to be the doctrine of Scripture, that the earth will be "filled with the knowledge of the Lord" until after His second coming to our world, "without sin unto salvation,"—"to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe."

All Christians believe in the second advent of their Redeemer. The only question that divides them on this subject is, When? Will His return be pre-millennial or post-millennial? Will He come to judge the world, as that term is generally understood, to wind up the affairs of time, to put an end to the mediatorial system, and then return to heaven? or will He come to set up His glorious kingdom, to claim the earth as His possession, to redeem creation from its groanings, to banish the curse which sin introduced, and to restore paradise to more than its primitive glory as the dwellingplace of His saints for a period sufficiently long to vindicate all His claims, and to fulfil all those glowing promises to His Church which confessedly have this earth as the scene of their fulfilment ? These are the questions. It will be admitted that, instead of a series of arguments as to the comparative advantages or disadvantages of these opinions respectively, the duty of every Christian is to ascertain what is written, and to bow implicitly to that. Without entering, therefore, on a vindication of the conclusion to which the study of the subject has brought us, we may state in a few words that the thick veil which is purposely cast over the "day and hour" of His return, together with "the signs" which are to precede it, many of which are remarkably similar to those characteristics of the present state of the world and the Church which have just been noted, and the fact that the sublime things which are spoken of the latter day seem dependent upon His return, while in no case are they introduced among the preceding signs, have led us to the conclusion that that wonderful event may take place at no very distant day. May it be so!

DIVINE PEACE IN HUMAN HEARTS.*

"Let the peace of God rule in your hearts."-Col. iii. 15.

PEACE! What a charm this word has! It needs no formal introduction, no letter of commendation, no grammatical defi

* A Sermon. By the Editor.