tain terminus of our earthly pilgrimage, and the state of happy departed saints all that is looked to or looked for beyond, the only hope remaining for the church, corporately considered, is, the false delusive hope entertained by multitudes, that as generations succeed one another and the course of time rolls on, christianity will gradually spread, and the church increase in numbers and in influence, until the world becomes the church,-until all nations are converted to christianity. Dear reader, is this the vision of futurity as to the church and the world which thou art accustomed to cherish? Whence has it been derived? Is thy answer- -"from the word of God?" Let me entreat thee, then, to read that word once more. Soberly, earnestly, and prayerfully search the sacred pages from beginning to end, and see if they afford the least shadow of a pretext for such a hope. Once, dear reader, I was of thy mind. I too, looked for christianity's universal spread, and for the world's gradual conversion. Awakened by circumstances to inquire after a scriptural foundation for this hope, I searched the sacred volume from Genesis to Revelation. Whatever may be the result of thy inquiries, I avow to thee that the result of mine-a result which cost me no small astonishment-was, a most profound conviction, which has deepened and strengthened to this day, that there is no such doctrine in scripture-that there is nothing which bears the slightest resemblance to such a doctrine :→ nay, more, that the doctrine of scripture throughout is as contrary to this as can possibly be. The doctrine I found in scripture was, that throughout its continuance here below the true church is distinguished from the world, as sheep or lambs are distinguished from the wolves which devour them; as an exile is distinguished from the nations among whom he spends his dreary sojourn; as a virgin, espoused to another but not married, would be distinguished from the murderous population of a city or country whose hands are yet red with the blood of him to whom she had been betrothed. The church is that desolate one," espoused as a chaste virgin to Christ:" Christ is the bridegroom to whom her heart with all its affections, and desires, and expectations, has been given; the world she knows only as the place where he has been slain, and its teeming millions she recognises as the people on whom rests the solemn responsibility of having put her Lord, her Saviour, her Bridegroom, to a cruel, shameful death. God has taught her indeed that by his death her sins have been expiated, and her salvation secured. God has shewn her also that he has raised Jesus from the dead, and placed him at his own right hand, where by faith she knows him, as the source and spring of her life, her peace, her joy, her strength, her comfort; and as the alone Object of her hopes. Jesus, whom as yet she has not seen, has assured her that his desire is that she should be with him,* and that ere long he will come and receive her to himself. Does all this tend in any wise to reconcile her to the world? Quite the contrary. She knows that to be the friend of the world, she must be false to Christ, and an enemy to God. True, that as the vessel of Christ's sympathies, and the herald and messenger of the Father's love, as well as its fair and bright expression, she regards not the world with enmity, but weeps over it in compassion, as Jesus did over the city of his choice, and rejoices to fulfil the ministry of reconciliation, beseeching men to be reconciled to God. She knows this to be the object for which she is left here, as well as the appointed means for her own completion. But what does she look for as the result? The joyful reception of her message, and the accession of all nations to her ranks? No, she bears in mind what her Lord has said, "Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you: if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But all these things will they do unto you for my name's sake, because they know not him that sent me." John xv, 20, 21. She finds true what the beloved disciple says "Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not." 1 John iii, 1. She knows from God's word that the world's character will remain unchanged to the end of this dispensation :-nay, that at its very close it will assume an aspect and take an attitude of more open and daring defiance and revolt than ever, and be visited by the outpouring of the vials of God's wrath, and receive its complete, everlasting overthrow by the coming of the Son of man from heaven. She looks for him, however, in a previous stage of his return. She looks for him, not as the Son of man who comes to execute judgment on the ungodly, but as the Son of God, the head and Bridegroom of his church, who comes to receive to nuptial joys and heavenly glory, the church which has known and * See John xvii, 24, " Father, I will that they also whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory." confessed him, in whatever weakness, during his rejection by a proud and unbelieving world. She knows that when he comes in judgment, she shall be the companion of his triumphs and the sharer in his glories. And this, too, she knows as the epoch of creation's deliverance, and the world's conversion. The world is to be converted-Israel is to be restored-creation is to be delivered-righteousness and peace are to prevail from shore to shore, and from the rivers to the ends of the earth. But this is not to be brought about by the present evangelic labours of the church; much less by the cumbrous and worldly machinery, and carnal, earthly influences, with which these labours are hindered and clogged. Judgment is to clear the scene of earth's corrupters and destroyers. Christ's coming to the earth will bring the judgments which accomplish this. Multitudes will indeed be spared by sovereign grace, and these multitudes, converted and saved, will form the nucleus, the commencement, of the population of the millennial earth. The enemy will be bound. Christ and his saints will reign. Then, and thus, shall be fulfilled the unnumbered predictions of universal peace and righteousness and joy, which christians have vainly supposed were to be fulfilled by the success of their own labours and the gradual spread of the truth. But before the crisis of man's consummated iniquity; before the judgments by which his proud vauntings are silenced, or rather changed to weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; and surely before the reign of Christ in righteousness and peace, Christ himself shall come; his saints who are alive and waiting for him shall be changed into his glorious image; the sleeping saints, the righteous dead, shall be raised; both together shall be caught up to meet the Lord in the air: so shall we ever be with the Lord. This is the church's, even as it is the christian's hope. When the saints have thus been caught up, iniquity will ripen on the earth; the marriage of the Lamb will take place in heaven; the maddened and infatuated nations will gather together against God and against the Lamb: patience, long-tried, will give place to righteous retribution; Christ will come forth, attended by his saints: the lake of fire will receive the chiefs in iniquity, who shall be cast alive therein; their armies shall be slain: judgment upon judgment shall overtake and extirpate all but those whom grace shall spare; and then shall the earth rest from its six thousand years of toil and wretchedness under the usurper's sway : He is rest beneath the peaceful sceptre of earth's long rejected, despised, and insulted Lord. And when he thus triumphs, my brethren, we shall triumph. When he reigns, we shall reign. When his sceptre diffuses liberty and joy throughout creation's vast extent, we shall be honoured and privileged to be the vessels for the display of his glory, the channels for the distribution of his royal munificence, the agents in the application of his healing and gentle influences. But beyond all this official dignity and external glory-yea, beyond the benevolent satisfaction of dispensing blessings to the inhabitants of a renewed and happy earth-shall be the joy of the presence of him who has made his home our home, his portion our portion, his joy our joy! From the moment we meet him, this shall be, in its fulness, and without alloy or hindrance, ours. our hope. Earth is a wilderness, not merely, no, nor chiefly, because of its trials and its hardships, its sorrows and its pangs, its disappointments and reverses,-but be→ cause he is not here. Heaven would not be heaven to the saint, if Jesus were not there. He, his presence, and as that which introduces us to it, his coming, is our hope ;the hope of the christian, the hope of the church. May our hearts cherish it as we have never done. May its brightness so attract us, that earth's fairest, loveliest, most enchanting scenes may be weariness itself to our hearts, as detaining us from the object of our hopes. May that object so animate us that earth's heaviest afflictions-the narrowest, most rugged, and most thorny portions of the narrow way-may be welcome to us, as the path that leads us onward to the goal of our expectations, the home of our hearts, the Jesus whose presence makes it what it is, whose love made him tread a narrower and a darker path than this, and whose smile of ineffable satisfaction shall crown the faith that has trusted him, the love that has followed him, and the patience of hope which has waited for him, throughout this dreary journey, along this narrow way, amid the darkness and solitude of this long and dismal night. Space forbids the insertion here of proofs from scripture of many things which in the latter part of this paper have been stated. The illustration and proof of these, as well as of many other topics of equal interest, will form the object of ensuing papers. LONDON: PARTRIDGE AND OAKEY, Paternoster-Row. (Price One Penny.) No. 2.] Plain Papers on Prophetic [Feb. 1853. and other Subjects. APPROACHING JUDGMENTS. It is possible, that a few years ago these words would have secured more instant and earnest attention than at present. When famine was stalking through the sister kingdom, and pestilence following at its heels; when, even in this country, the trading part of the community were beset with embarassments, and the working classes suffering from want; when, on the continent, thrones were overturned, and sceptres broken, more rapidly almost than the intelligence could be conveyed; when all who had any stake in society were trembling to think what the end of these disasters and commotions might be; then, to have written of "approaching judgments," would have been to secure the terrified attention of many whose "hearts were failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which seemed to be coming upon the earth." The voice of warning would have had many an echo then, from the depths of troubled and trembling hearts. But now, that the storm seems to have past by, and the elements are hushed to rest; now, that plenty smiles, and prosperity abounds on every hand; now, that order seems everywhere the more firmly established for the temporary anarchy by which it was threatened, while mines of untold wealth are opening golden prospects to the myriads who resort thither in pursuit of gain; now, to lift the warning voice, and speak of judgments at the door, will seem to many, a strange and uncalled for thing. I can well imagine many a one exclaiming, "Judgments! Approaching Judgments! Why, when did there seem less occasion for fear? When was the air so calm? the horizon so clear? the prospect so enchanting?" Dear reader, it is not by appearances we have to judge, but by the word of God. And know you not what that word records in the history of the past, C |