THE SECOND ADVENT OF CHRIST,

promises of deliverance upon which the faith of God's servants has been fixed, and upon which their hopes have been stayed, from the first moment that sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so created the necessity for so wonderful an act of love and kindness.

But we are also reminded, that although Jesus Christ undertook to fulfil all the promises which had been given to the church, and to complete the deliverance of mankind from the dominion of sin and Satan; and, although by his death upon the cross he secured the accomplishment of his undertaking, yet still the actual accomplishment of the work which he came to do, in all its features and dimensions, still remains to be achieved, and is a fit object of anxious expectation, and of earnest prayer, to the members of his church. The kingdom of Satan, although its foundations are effectually loosened, and its downfall decreed, is not yet overthrown. The great adversary of mankind knows perfectly well that he has been conquered, and that he must at last be carried into captivity, and thrust down into chains and darkness; but he is on In the that very account the more malignant and active in opposing the progress of the Gospel, and the establishment of Christ's kingdom upon earth. guise of friendship, or of open enmity, he is continually labouring in his evil vocation; and he is too effectually seconded by the corrupt affections and perverse reason of man in thwarting the gracious purposes of God, and in retarding its accomplishment. It is, therefore, still necessary for the faithful servants of Jesus Christ, to wait for his coming in power to establish his kingdom upon "the face of the covering cast over all people, and the earth, and to destroy veil that is spread over all nations" of the world; and it is still their duty-a duty, alas, too much neglected-to pray for the more abundant effusion of the Holy Spirit, and the more rapid and extensive enlargement of the elect of Christ's fold. That he will, in due time, take the work in hand, and execute it completely to the discomfiture of all opponents, we are perfectly sure, for we have his recorded promise: "He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly." Our aspirations then should be, "Amen; even so come Lord Jesus,"

It was for the furtherance of that work-the work of establishing and building up the church, of which he had himself laid the foundation upon a rockthat our blessed Lord ordained a ministry, and gave an especial commission to the Apostles, and through them to their successors, to go into all nations, and baptize them, and to feed them with the bread of life, and to bless them in his name, to declare the terms of pardon and acceptance, to reprove, to rebuke, to exhort, to console and to minister the sacraments of his blessed body and blood. A work not less varied in its features than awful in its responsibilities; a work, my brethren, in the performance of which we claim for ourselves-under a deep sense of the solemn obligation laid upon us by such a claim-peculiar rights and advantages which we consider to belong to us, as having been ordained into the ministry in unbroken succession from the Apostles, and therefore from the Great Head of the church himself. We say, therefore, and we say it not in the spirit of pride and vain glory, but with an anxious concern for the unity of the church, and for the edification of its members in sound doctrine, "Let a man so account of us as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God;" and we say under a serious conviction of the truth with which St. Paul immediately follows up that sentence-" Moreover it is required of stewards that a man be found faithful."

nances.

I have thought it not unsuitable to interpose these remarks on the nature of our ministry, as the appointed means of preparing the world for the Second Advent of Christ, for which the church is waiting, on an occasion like the present, of more than common interest. The liberality which you, my Christian friends of this parish, have evinced in repairing and beautifying this place of solemn assembly, I trust may be regarded as bespeaking the value you set upon your privileges as members of a true branch of the Apostolical church of Christ, of the privileges which you enjoy in her ministry, her discipline, aud her ordiFor more than twenty years past you have enjoyed those privileges under the pastoral care of one, whose heart, I firmly believe to have been in his Master's cause, who conciliated your regards by his kind and charitable disposition, and who is now gone, followed, no doubt, by your regrets, to wait for his final recompense at the hands of the Great Shepherd of the sheep. The spiritual charge over you is now entrusted to another*, whose services already rendered to the cause of Gospel truth are a sufficient pledge of the faithfulness with which he may be expected to feed that portion of the family of God which is entrusted to his care. May the Lord prosper and bless the work which he is now taking on him-make him an instrument to build up his church, and fill him with an abundant measure of that Holy Ghost, which has been promised to that church, an abiding and sanctifying Spirit, even unto the end; that both by his life and doctrine he may set forth the glory of God, and set forward the salvation of man.

But I would further call upon you to improve the Scripture which I have selected as my text, by learning from it the duty incumbent upon us individually to wait for Jesus Christ, with a view to deliverance from particular sins. There is no other quarter to which we can look for effectual aid. Here we are invited and assured" Come unto me all ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will refresh you."

But how are we to wait for him? Not surely in a state of listless inactivity, of dreamy abstraction, but with anxious enquiring eyes; not with folded hands and sluggard feet, but with most earnest and unremitting endeavours on our own part to qualify ourselves for his reception and indwelling, striving, according to his injunction, to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect; conscious that for effectual strength to complete the task we must look to Him who worketh in us both to will and to do of his own good pleasure. The diligent looking for Christ, which will be practised by him who believes him to be a Saviour, is well described in that comparison of the Psalmist—“Behold, as the eyes of servants look unto the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress-so our eyes wait upon the Lord our God, until he have mercy upon us." But the eyes of the servant look to the hands of the master, and the eyes of the maiden to her mistress-for recompense, indeed, but first for direction and employment; for work, and afterwards for wages. Let us, therefore, wait for the Lord, in the diligent use of all the means he has already placed within our reach, for working out our own salvation.

If we are really waiting for him, we shall wait upon him in his word, his house, his ordinances, and his providence, seeking for and acknowledging him in all the means of grace, and in all those dispensations, either of temporal good or evil, by which he reminds us of our entire dependence upon him. Are we, for instance, struck down with sudden calamity, or worn away by lingering

The Rev. T. Hartwell Horne, B. D.

pain and sorrow? Let our language be that of Eli, "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good." Are we delivered from impending danger, or raised from the gates of the grave? Still more, if we are brought to a sense of sin, and our thoughts sweetly turn to our eternal interest, then let us with the people of God say, "This is the Lord: we have waited for him, we will be glad andrejoice in his salvation."

We must also be found doing the Lord's work-the work of charity, especially that of bringing others to the knowledge of their Saviour. There lies upon ministers first, but also upon every member of Christ's church, a sacred injunction to impart to others the knowledge of Christ, which we ourselves have received, "As ye have received the gift, even so minister the same one to another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." If you are Christians, we need not say another word on behalf of those institutions which now require your aid. Yet there is one other argument in which all the motives of charity are centered and summed up: "Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

Yet once more: we are admonished by the Church that there is a Second Coming of Christ, for which the Church is waiting, and for which we, with every member of the church, ought to be looking with earnest and anxious expectation. The past fulfilment of prophecy is a sure pledge of the future accomplishment of all the rest. Is our language, "How long, O Lord?" Our answer is, How long the final triumph of the Saviour may be deferred, how long a period may elapse before the world is ripe for judgment, is one of those secrets which God has reserved to himself. "Of that day, and that hour, knoweth no man; no not the Son, but the Father only." All things are in progress to that consummation; the counsels of Jehovah are silently but surely maturing for execution; the course of events marches on in foreknown and pre-determined order; and the end of all things, if it be not in the literal sense of the word at hand, is every year, and every day, and every moment, drawing nearer to each of us. We are all, my brethren, in silent but unceasing movement towards the judgment-hall of Christ. In the meantime, at different points in the duration of that period which is to terminate in the annihilation of the visible universe, we are grasped one by one in the iron hand of death, arrested in our career, and fixed in the very state and position in which our souls are surprised, so to remain till the second coming of our Lord. In this point of view, the moment of our death may be regarded as placing us at once before his awful tribunal; for the space between the two, as it affects our eternal destination, will be to us as nothing. When the judgment is set, and the books shall be opened, we shall suddenly stand before the Judge, precisely in that state of preparation in which we were found at the inoment of our departure out of life. Those who lived as children of God, as servants of Jesus Christ, under the solemn, yet not fearful expectation of that day, will then be able to lift up their heads, and raise the song of joyful recognition, "Lo, this is our God; we have waited for him, and he will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for him, we will be glad and rejoice in his salvation." But, as for those who, instead of waiting for him have derided his claims, and set at nought his authority; or who have shut their eyes against his warnings; or who have never thought of him as a Saviour from the sins to which they remain willing and contented captives; what will be their language, when they shall witness the final triumph of Him whom they opposed-the irresistible

authority of Him whom they disobeyed-the supreme majesty of Him whom they derided and despised-the eternal truth of his Gospel in the fulfilment of his prophecies? Why, they will say to the mountains and the rocks—but they will say it in vain-" Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?"

My brethren, why is it, that we do not more diligently and fully realize this picture to ourselves by meditation and serious, solemn inquiry? If ever there was a great practical truth, this is one. If the Scriptures be the Word of God, it is perfectly certain-forget or elude the certainty as we may-that if we do not wait for the great day of the Lord in such a spirit of carefulness and circumspection, as to refer to it all our actions, words, and thoughts, I say, it is perfectly certain that we shall be surprised at its coming, and taken utterly unprepared. It will come on us as a thief in the night, and we shall sink into everlasting perdition; not for the want of means and opportunities of being saved, but for want of common prudence and forethought in the most momentous of all concerns.

What, then, is the conclusion? Live like men who are waiting for their Lord; that when he arrives, he may be welcomed. Accustom yourselves to his presence in his sanctuary, at his table, in his Word, in secret communings with him in the temple of a purified heart. Learn to appreciate the vastness of his love towards yourselves, that you may be drawn closer to him by the bonds of gratitude and affection, and that you may be animated by something of the same affection towards your brethren. Look upon that which he has already done by his ministers, as establishing the certainty of all those sublime truths that he will yet realize to his creatures-the Last Judgment, with its glorious or tremendous issues. Habitual thoughts like these, guided and made effectual by prayer, will weaken the ties which bind us to the world, and strengthen all our good resolves. We shall find in them the secret of moderation in prosperity, and of patience under calamity and distress; of christian charity and love; of right judgments on doubtful questions of duty; and godly resolutions, when the path is plain. To whom, then, shall we accustom ourselves to look? for whom shall we continually wait? on whom shall our confidence and hope be fixed? The Spirit answers us by the mouth of his Prophet, "Trust ye in the Lord for ever; for in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength."

HEAVEN AND HELL

"NOT one of the long train of diseases and calamities, introduced into the world by sin, can find an entrance into heaven. The glorious body of the saints will not be subject to sickness, or weakness, or weariness, or decay. The inhabitant shall not say, I am sick;' it shall bear the bloom of an immortal youth; and when myriads of ages, beyond the power of angelic calculation, shall have passed away, it shall be strong and vigorous as ever. The trembling limb, the shattered frame, the quivering lip, the emaciated countenance, the wasted form, the furrowed cheek, the hoary head, the deep-sunk eye, and the faltering voice; the throbbing heart and the aching head; the rheum and paralysis, and palsy, and fever, and all the fell diseases that prey upon the vitals, and strike this clay tenement with a sudden blow that shakes it to its foundation, or that bring it down to the dust of death by a slow and almost imperceptible decay;-all those maladies, that fill our families with gloom, our streets with mourners, and all our places of sepulture with the ashes of our friends, will be banished from that new heaven and new earth which the redeemed are destined to inhabit. There every eye sparkles with delight, every countenance beams with the smile of complacency, every tongue drops manna, every pulse beats high with immortality, and every frame is built to sustain, without weariness, an eternal weight of glory. 'God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and the day of their mourning shall be ended.' There shall be no bitter regrets, no sad recollections, no anxious desires, no harassing fears; for theirs is an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away.' Theirs is a sun that never sets; a river of pleasure that ever flows; an ocean of felicity that cannot be exhausted; a day without night; a spring without winter-pure, spiritual, unmingled, never-ending felicity! Every thing in their blest inheritance affords them satisfaction, so that they have not a wish ungratified."

"Who shall say that God is unjust in punishing the sinner, so long as he remains a sinner? If his rebellion endure for ever, it is but right that his punishment endure as long. And what evidence have we, that the rebellion of the finally impenitent will not endure for ever? What Scripture do you bring to prove that it will not? In what portion of Holy Writ are we told of the repentance of the lost in hell, and their ultimate return to God? Here, then, for a moment pause; fill your imagination with ages, and myriads of ages, till they equal in number the atoms that compose the universe; and even this mighty calculation, could you make it, would not measure the duration of the torments of the damned. Oh! eternity, eternity! 'tis an awful word, even amid the advantages and opportunities afforded us in time; but no knell that ever struck to the heart of a criminal, on the morning of his execution, was half so dreadful as that word must be to him, the duration of whose misery it too well expresses. The hireling watches with joy the lengthening of the shadow, and retires to lose he toils of the day in the bosom of his family and the slumbers of the night;