second time, and to wait for it with a holy hope and joy.

Happy, indeed, are you, if you can do this now; if, when you think of that day, you can "look up" in faith to Him as your merciful Saviour, rather than fearfully, as your righteous Judge. if you can "lift up your heads "" with a well-grounded confidence in Him that " your redemption draweth nigh." Then happy indeed are you even now; for then, the darkest distress and perplexity, when even "the foundations of the earth" seem "out of course'," shall remind you only that a time of deliverance,-yea, of reward,-is near. The signs of the Saviour's approach, are, to the eyes of His faithful servants, in their sufferings, like the rainbow,-that sign of old, shining out of a black cloud to tell that joy and sunshine quickly come. O! who can sufficiently admire the goodness of our God, in filling even the darkest distress with beams of light and comfort? Who will not confess, when the awful signs of judgment-distress of nations, failing of men's hearts-are seen to be signs of glorious redemption, that every where, even in things most terrible and perplexing, "His tender mercies are over all His works 8?"

Indeed, it is His mercy that has delayed His coming hitherto. "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise . . . but is long-suffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance"." See, brethren, Christ's love for souls! Pity on our poor souls has

6 St. Luke xxi. 28.

9 Ps. cxlv. 9.

7 Ps. lxxxii. 5. 92 St. Pet. iii. 9.

1

made Him put off even the end of the world to a time still future, that we might be gathered into His eternal fold. O despise not, then, "the riches of His goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering1;" but let them lead you to repentance and holy living for the day of wrath shall surely come! The signs of Christ's appearing to be our Judge are happening even in the ordinary course of things; so let your watching for it bear fruit in your common life. They are also being continuously fulfilled; so let your mindfulness and expectation of it be continuous too. When Daniel saw in a vision "one like the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven," and "the judgment was set, and the books opened," he "kept the matter in" his "heart"." So, brethren, do you. Keep these thoughts of judgment in your hearts. Take them with you into your private retirement, and there meditate on them seriously. Open the book of conscience, and read what account you will have to give. "Judge yourselves" now, "brethren, that ye be not" then

66

judged (and condemned) of the Lord"." Doubtless you will find much to trouble you: you will see many sins ready to rise up against you then: you will find enough to make you tremble indeed, if you shall have to stand alone before your Judge, and alone to face the terrors of that day. Seek, then, betimes, a refuge from the "fire" that "shall devour before Him," and a strong defence from His fierce anger. And where will you find it? Will

1 Rom. ii. 4.

2 Dan. vii. 13. 10. 28.

3 Exhortation in Communion Service.

4 Ps. 1. 3.

See 1 Cor. xi. 31.

you call "to the mountains" to "fall upon" you, and "to the hills" to "cover" you? They cannot save you they cannot save themselves, for then they shall all melt away. Go not, then, with proud self-trust, "into the tops of the ragged rocks" of this life: go not "into the clefts of the rocks" of earth, to hide yourselves: but go to the sinner's only Saviour and sure "Refuge from the storm":" hide yourselves in "the Rock of ages," which has been "cleft" and pierced for you. And that you may be sheltered beneath His wings, and be able to plead before His throne the merits of His own most precious death, trust now in Him alone; live to Him, obey Him, serve Him even now, "with reverence and godly fear; for our God is a consuming fire," and you are hastening on to the day of wrath. Amidst all its countless objects of unspeakable fear, look stedfastly in faith to Him, who is the great central Object in that dreadful scene; and "let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread "." However awful, however far beyond our utmost thought, may be the terrors of that day, in which He shall come to judgment, fear HIM!—and you have nothing else to fear.

SERMON VII.

THE KING IN HIS BEAUTY.

66 Thine eyes

ISAIAH XXXiii. 17.

shall see the king in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off."

A GLORIOUS vision of the eternal beauty of the far distant land breaks upon the pilgrim's longing gaze; his weary eyes are gladdened with a sight of the coming glory, and his heart, trembling with doubtfulness and fear, is filled with peace when he listens to the certain promise, that, in God's own good time, he shall look no longer upon barren deserts and leafless trees, and storms of the mighty ocean, witnessing by its fearful strife to the far more fearful struggle that is being wrestled out in the spirit of the regenerate man; shall look no longer upon sin, and sorrow, and fainting hearts, and feeble hands, and trembling knees, and pain, and grief, and the darkness of an evil world, but on the light, and glory, and blessedness of the world of the Redeemed;-shall see the King in His beauty, and behold the land that is very far off.

This is the glorious vision of perfect beauty and

all-satisfying love, on which true hearts are ever fixed; kindled, and enlightened, and sanctified by the love of Jesus, who is ever watching in His deep compassion and almighty love and tenderness for the most wilful and rebellious soul. This is the one reward for which saints of God are waiting in towns and villages, in poverty and riches, in cloisters and the crowded streets; waiting with the clear intense anxiety of longing hope, which deepens as the end draws near, and one more token of God's love after another is fixed in the deepest life of the converted soul, which it does not live in itself, but in Christ crucified, buried, risen, glorified for ever and ever with the unapproachable glory of the Most High ; waiting with thoughts unnumbered, and musing hearts, and hidden lives, known only to God, AllSeeing and All-Just, till the time appointed for the vision shall have come, and the determinate counsel shall be finished, and the great throne of eternity shall be set up for the Son of man in its almightiness of beauty, and strength, and power; and the terrible doom shall be fulfilled on the impenitent, cast out into the darkness and ceaseless anguish far beyond the walls of New Jerusalem, and the adoration of saints and angels, and the crown of Incarnate God; beyond the glory of the mystic bridal, and the living temple of the Lamb slain and alive for evermore, and the home of the redeemed; till the season of probation shall have passed, and the agony of spiritual warfare shall have ceased for ever, in the gathering of the election and the fulfilment of the crowns; till the bitterness of the waters of earth shall be lost in the sweetness of the crystal River,

H