namely, the banner of scepticism and heresy unfurled through all the several generations as they succeeded each other, and the Lord's chosen few selected from the throng, under Him whom Jehovah in His Trinity of Persons hath "given for a witness to the people, a leader and commander to the people." But as the Holy Ghost taught the Church to expect in the latter age more than ordinary opposition to the truth of the Gospel, so we find it. The atmosphere is now clouded with the thick columns of darkness, which the several systems of infidelity have raised up; and, like the locusts of Egypt, which obscured the face of the earth, none but the true Israel of God can see through the density. And that our land should be made the seat of war for the great enemy of souls to form his theatre upon, more than any other, scarce needs to be explained. Here is the meridian of the Gospel. Here, in the Scriptures of Eternal truth, God is truly known. Here, therefore, also, Satan will raise a fog to "blind the eyes of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious Gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them."* It is said by naturalists that the largest reptiles are found under the tropics. Whether this be so or not, I stay not to inquire; but certain it is, that the greatest foes of the Gospel are living where the Sun of Righteousness sheds His warmest and most beneficent beams. And as the Church was admonished that the adversary would come down with great wrath, because he knew that he hath but a short time, we may expect that his last efforts will be his greatest; and as it is in the natural world, so in the

* 2 Cor. iv. 4.

intellectual—the darkest part of the night will be before break of the Everlasting day.

And what is the security of the Lord's people? Nay, it is the Lord himself. They have no other. They need no other. "He is as an hiding-place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”* And when, under Divine unction, the Spiritual Church of Christ is enabled to persevere, in remembrance who and what Christ is ; the glories of His person, the greatness of His salvation, the Infinite fulness, suitableness, and all-sufficiency of Himself, and His finished work for His people; and their suitability for Him-they to get righteousness in Him, and He to get glory by them; under such spiritual views of Him, while, through grace, faith is in lively exercise in the believing enjoyment of them; His conquest over sin, death, hell, and the grave is felt in the soul; and the regenerated and redeemed child of God lives in the holy triumphs of his Lord, as though all things that offend were, and which in truth they are, taken out of Christ's Kingdom. The Apostle Paul blessedly expresses this, and so may every one like him when, having learnt the same, he prays to be brought more and more into the knowledge of Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings.

True it is, if we look around us, we behold a vast assemblage of things without any eye to Christ And even among many from whom, according to their religious profession, we might have hoped to have found

* Isaiah xxxii. 2.

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something better, we discover, no less, evangelical spirituality without Gospel; and the religion of the Bible without Christ. The day we live in is indeed a day of masquerade of godliness without its power. Under such existing circumstances, the Lord plainly speaks to His people of the present hour, as He did to His disciples of old, when in the prospect of their exercises, "In your patience possess ye your souls." For my own part, without aspiring to a greater insight into what is going on in the world than others, I see a needs-be for the state of things exactly as they are. The Lord hath said, "I will sift the house of Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve; yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth."* Here I rest with full assurance of faith; and am no more apprehensive for the blasphemies of one class and the contumely of another, than when the "blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall." Yea, I find the opposers of the faith not unfrequently the means of doing good, in calling forth into action the graces which might otherwise lie dormant. And as the Israelites went down to the Philistines to sharpen their weapons when fighting the Lord's battle, the same is now. It is well to brighten our armour by collision with the enemy's, when going forth in the strength of the Lord, and when that "strength is made perfect in our weakness."

* Amos ix. 9.

CHAPTER XIX.

Reference to Momentous Approaching Events-Not to be Over-Curious, but Suppress all Irreverent Curiosity-God's Designs competent to the Church's Welfare, which is Impregnable.

One inquiry remains to be considered, and in which no doubt the spiritual reader has followed me, in a general consent to my former statements; this will be as important as any, namely, What time of the night is it in the present hour? And how near are we to the completion of the prophecies which respect the killing of the two witnesses? Indeed, this is a question I have no ability to answer; neither do I believe that the Lord hath com-municated it to any one of His people. Carnal, unenlightened men there have been, who, from the presumptuous reasonings of the human mind, have formed their own conclusions, from the political hemisphere, and not from the state of the Church, and many of this complexion have confidently stated the exact period; yea, some of them, mistaking the form for the power of Godliness, and calculating from the general profession of the day, that this is the golden age of the Church, have leapt over the solemn event in the slaughter of the witnesses, as a matter of small moment, or already passed; and in the vanity of their mind, have declared that the Millennium is begun. But, blessed be God, those taught by Him have not so learned Christ. Very solemn events are declared in Holy Scripture to precede the Millennium, be that Millennium what it may. "And that day

of Christ shall not come," the Holy Ghost declared by the Apostle Paul, "except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."

From this statement, the spiritual reader, whom I now address, will perceive that, however gratifying it might be to us to be let into the arcanum of the Divine Counsel on this subject, our province of duty is to be distinguished from the carnal, by not presuming to be wise above what is written. In reference to what part of the night is the present hour of the Church, I shall only bring the prophecy of Daniel on the subject, explained in some measure as it is by corresponding passages in Ezekiel's prophecy, and the Revelation on the same; and then leave the reader to his solemn meditations thereon, under the grace of God.

The Prophet Daniel closes the eleventh chapter of his prophecy with describing some great earthly potentate, which shall go forth with great fury to destroy and utterly to make away many. "And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palaces between the seas, in the glorious holy mountain, yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him."t Nothing can be plainer than that it is the Church, and not any worldly power, that this prophecy refers to, when these events are to be accomplished. The glorious holy mountain is Zion (see the forty-eighth Psalm). And between the seas, as plainly defines the place of action. And the time when, had before been marked by Daniel, namely, in the end of years. And by a comparative statement of Daniel with the thirtyeighth chapter of Ezekiel, from the eighth to the sixteenth