become haughty, and lording it over the heritage of the Lord. She must be divided. She is already. She must be scattered, shaken like grain in the winnowing fan, that that which cannot be shaken may remain. She will be delivered when her Lord returns to the wedding, and sends forth his angels to gather his elect from the four winds of heaven, where they have been scattered in the dark and cloudy day. Then will he destroy the man of sin by the brightness of his coming. Then, too, will the little horn cease making war with the saints, and no longer prevail against them. The Ancient of days will come, and judgment will be given to the saints of the Most High; and the time will have come when the saints in union with their spiritual Joshua, will enter into that eternal Sabbath of rest which remains for the people of God.

Nothing can be more clear, or self evident, than that the church is combating the great natural and moral evils which men in this state of sin are prone to commit. What shall we make of all these societies which the church have instituted since she came out of the wilderness, but so many attacks upon the enemies of the land.

The Bible society, instituted since 1798. This has proved a powerful weapon to expel the moral darkness from the mind of the unenlightened, to open the prison of the votaries of superstition, and to knock off the shackles of bigotry. We have seen in our day, Deism humbled from a haughty tyrant, to a cringing sycophant. We have seen Romanism from a monarch, ruling over the souls and bodies of men, with an absolute sway, become a slave, a follower in the wake of protestants, in publishing and circulating the scriptures. The deists a few years since had the control of nine-tenths of all Europe; now, not a petty kingdom under their control. Roman catholics for centuries past the mistress of most of the kings of Europe, now a poor dependent on the breath of kings.

Our missionary societies have carried the banners of the cross, where hope never smiled before, nor faith never lighted the cheerless sky of the heathen's land. And we have seen nations hearing the word of God, and islands converted to the faith of the gospel of Christ.

Temperance societies. We have seen the attack upon intemperance, the Anakim of our world, and we have heard the shout of triumph from every quarter of the globe; rapid indeed, was the march to victory. Again, our moral reform societies, our Sabbath schools, Bible classes, &c., &c., are all so many attacks on moral evil, which have produced in many cases, wonderful effects, so much so, that it has astonished and confounded even the projectors themselves.

These aggravated sins are falling before the all conquering weapon of God's word. Like the blast of the ram's horn around Jericho, and it will go on conquering and to conquer, until tyranny, oppression and slavery in every form shall be destroyed. Perhaps nothing at the present time impedes the progress of these things so much as the popular spirit, the pride, and arrogance of the church herself. She is more or less courting the applause of the world. She is mingling her holy religion with the opinions and principles of men. She is proud and self sufficient, doting upon her own works, and forgeting her dependence on God. If this should be the true state of the church, God may suffer tyrants to remain as a scourge to the church," as a rod for the fool's back."

This was literally the case with the Jewish church after she came out of the wilderness; and every appearance seems to betoken the like spirit in the church at the present day. Oh, that we could be wise, and learn by the example set us by the Jews, that pride and self-sufficiency are always before a fall.

I know the objector will say, how can it be true, that the church is spreading her banners over a large portion of the world, sending her missionaries and the Bible into. every nook and corner of the habitable globe, conquering and to conquer; and at the same time growing more and more impure herself, becoming haughty, self righteous, and ungrateful, corrupt and lukewarm, in her faith and practice, idolatrous in her worship, and cold and indifferent to her first love. This, say they, is paradoxical.

I answer, paradoxical as it may seem, it is no less true. Have I not shown that the Jews were thus paradoxical,

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when they entered the promised land? Doth not the description Solomon hath given us of the church in his Songs, the epistles of Paul to the Corinthians and Gallatians, and the history of the church in the days of Constantine,-all goes to show that when the church has been most prospered in her worldly standing with the nations with whom she may come in contact, she has the more deeply corrupted herself.

This does not argue that she ought not to spread her banners, send her missionaries, translate and circulate Bibles, educate the rising generation, establish her moral societies, and do all, and every work which God in his word has commanded; but it argues, that the church is imperfect, and that in times of prosperity, she ought to consider,

1st. Her proneness to idolatry, her liability to self righteousness, her excessive love for the world, the temptations on every hand.

2dly. She ought to consider that adversity is set over against prosperity, that her faith may be tried, her motives sifted, the body purified, and the sanctuary cleansed.

3d. She ought to consider that the designs of God will be accomplished, that the work must be executed, that all power centres in him, and although the church may be proud, self righteous, and deeply corrupted by unbelief and sin, yet God will eventually be glorified, his kingdom established, his will done in earth as in heaven; and the time is at hand when the saints will possess the kingdom forever even forever and ever. Amen.

LECTURE XVIII.

MATT. XVI. 3. But can ye not discern the signs of the times?

OUR text is a question proposed by Christ to the Pharisees and Sadducees, at a time when they came to him, tempting him for a sign from heaven; and is a reproof upon them for their unbelief in the signs already given by the Old Testament writers, which they professed to believe, and which were actually fulfilling before their eyes, yet disregarded. The Pharisees and Sadducees were two of the most learned and popular sects among the Jews; many of them were scribes, lawyers, doctors and teachers of the law; yet so perfectly blinded, that they could not or would not apply the most simple rules of interpretation to the law or prophets. They would apply the rules of common observation and common sense to the weather; but neither the one or the other were used in understanding the scriptures. They were well versed in the skill to tell the weather for the morrow, but had no skill in the promises, prophecies, and word of God. "When it is evening, ye say it will be fair weather, for the sky is red: and in the morning, it will be foul weather to-day, for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky, but can ye not (by the same simple rule) discern the signs of the times ?"

All the signs given in the word of God concerning the first coming and person of the Messiah, were fulfilling before their eyes; yet they were demanding more and greater signs from heaven. Christ had and was then performing miracles which no man on earth could perform, and they ascribed it to the power of Beelzebub. No evidence had or could be presented, which they were not ready to evade or deny; and yet they claimed all the learning, all the wisdom, and all the piety of that day. This was the character of those whom Christ calls hypocrites, and to whom he addresses the question, "But can ye not discern

the signs of the times?" And happy would it have been for us who live in this day of gospel light, when the gospel shines with greater effulgence than at any other period of time since the world began, if hypocrisy had died with the Pharisees and Sadducees, but it was not so. Any man of common capacity of mind, who can divest himself of prejudice, or who will try to see the character of man as developed at the present day in matters of faith, will discover the same unbelief, the same disregard, the same taunting, tempting spirit concerning the second coming of the Messiah, as the Pharisees and Sadducees manifested in their conduct and conversation with our blessed Redeemer. And the question may, with equal propriety, and I fear with tenfold force, be put to us at this day, if Christ was here, as then. And I have much reason to fear that many may be found among our great, learned, and teachers of divine things, who would receive from our divine Master the same reproof, were he as then a teacher among us. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." I shall, then, in treating on this subject, use my text as a reproof to us.

I. I shall show a number of signs which the Jews had in that day, as evidences of Jesus being the true Messiah. II. Show the signs that Jesus Christ, the prophets and apostles have given us of his second coming, now fulfilling in this day in which we live.

Under my first head, the signs of Jesus being the true Messiah, were,

1. The universal peace at his birth. Of this Isaiah ii. 3, 4, had prophecied 760 years before, "And many people shall go and say, come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways and we will walk in his paths: For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." This prophecy was accomplished at his birth. For the