When they were few in number, and wandered as strangers from one nation to another, he suffered no man to hurt them; he reproved kings for their sakes; saying, Touch not mine anointed, and do my prophets no harm. In Egypt he saw their affliction, and came down to deliver them. Of Jerusalem the enemy said, Rase it, rase it to the foundation; but the Lord remembered it, and destroyed its destoyer. Under the Persian dominion, the captives were restored to their own land; yet even then the enemy intrigued against them; so that for one and twenty years the building of the temple was hindered, and the prayers of the prophet Daniel were unanswered. Thus it was, I conceive, that the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood the angel for one and twenty days: but lo, Michael the chief prince stood with him and helped him.*

Under the gospel dispensation, as the church became more spiritual, the hatred increased; and as religion was, from hence, more of a personal than a national concern, such was the opposition directed against it. But still the great Head of the church lived. The persecution which raged at the time of this prophecy was the second of ten cruel persecutions from the heathen emperors; and though, after this, the government became professedly Christian, yet such were the corruptions which entered in at this door, that in a little time that which was called the Christian church became an antichristian harlot, persecuting the servants of Jesus, with a cruelty, equal, if not superior, to that of beathens. These floods filled the breadth of Immanuel's land, reaching even

* Dan. x. 13. 21. Prideaux reckons, from the first interruption of the Jews in rebuilding the temple to the last sentence of Darius in their favour, only twenty years; namely, from the third year of Cyrus to the eighth of Darius Hystaspis; but from Dan. x. 1-4. it appears, that, though the opposition openly commenced in the third year, yet it had been at work in the second. It was within three days of the beginning of the third year, that the prophet began to mourn; if one cause of this mourning, therefore, was the obstruction to the work of God at Jerusalem, it must have begun in the second year; which makes it twenty-one years, corresponding with the three full weeks of the prophet's mourning, and with the one and twenty days of the angel's detention, according to the usual prophetic reckoning, a day for a year.

to the neck; but the church's Head being above water, she has survived them all.

Often have we seen, in our smaller circles, the cause of God reduced to a low condition; sometimes by the falling away of Characters who seemed to be pillars, and sometimes by the removal of great and good men by death. But under all this it is our comfort, the Lord liveth-the government is on his shoulder.

Finally The life of Christ involves not only the security of the church on earth, but its felicity in heaven. The members being united with the head, their life is bound up with his life. Even in the present world, if one says, I live, he must recollect himself, with the Apostle, and add, Yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: but if it be so in respect of spiritual life in this world, it will be so as to eternal life in the world to come. Every thing which our Lord did and suffered was for us; and every degree of glory that he possesses in reward of it is for us: for us he became incarnate, died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and liveth at the right hand of God. Your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory.

From the whole, we see, First; That the way to everlasting life is to believe in Jesus. The way of life, according to the tenor of the first covenant, was, The man which doeth these things shall live by them: but the way of life to a sinner is, If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shall be saved. It is as believing in the Son of God that we are interested in him, and having him, have everlasting life. We have, in the life of Christ, the greatest possible encouragement to believe in him and be saved; for it is as ever living to make intercession for us, that he is able to save to the uttermost all those that come unto God by him.

O my hearers! this is the hinge on which our salvation or damnation turns. To refuse him in favour of your own rgihteousness, or of any other idol, is to refuse life; and to hate him, is to love death. The question put to the house of Israel is no less applicable to you than it was to them, Why will ye die? Those who

believe not in him are as unwilling to come to him that they may have life, as the house of Israel were to cast away their transgressions. God has no more pleasure in the death of him that dieth eternally, than he had in the death of those who perished under some temporal calamity; nor is the one any more at variance with the doctrine of election than the other was with the doctrine of decrees in general, or of God's doing all things after the counsel of his own will.*

Secondly The same truth, like the cloud in the wilderness, wears a bright side to believers, and a dark side to unbelievers. The life of Christ will be the death of his enemies. To behold him coming in the clouds of heaven, invested with the keys of hell and of death, must fill their hearts with dismay. The same power that has so often shut the door of destruction against his servants, so as to forbid their entrance, will shut it upon his enemies, so as to leave no hope of escape.

*The doctrine of free will, as opposed to that of free grace, is not, that, in doing good, we act according to our choice, and require to be exhorted to it, and warned against the contrary; this is manifestly scriptural and proper : but that it is owing to our free will that we are disposed to choose the good and refuse the evil; if not to the exclusion of divine grace, yet to the rendering it effectual by properly improving it, and so to making ourselves to differ.

My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the right

eous,

WHEN Our Saviour ascended up on high, his disciples, who were looking steadfastly toward heaven after him, were thus accosted by the angels, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. It might seem, by this language, that whatever our Lord might do for us in the intermediate period, it was not for us to be made acquainted with it. And it has been suggested, that we are ignorant not only of" the place where he resides, but of the occupations in which he is engaged." There is, indeed, nothing revealed on these subjects to gratify curiosity; but much to satisfy faith. If we know not God, we may be expected to think lightly of sin, and meanly of the Saviour; and if, in consequence of this1

* Mr. Belsham's Review of Mr. Wilberforce's Treatise, p. 85. VOL. VII.

49

we disown his atonement, and perceive no need of his intercession and advocateship with the Father, there will be nothing surprising in it. With such a state of mind we might have lived at the time when God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles believed on in the world received up into glory, and have been no more interested by any of these events, than were the unbelieving part of the Jewish nation. But, if we entertain just sentiments of the moral character and government of God, we shall perceive the evil of sin and the need of a divine Saviour, shall consider his atonement as the only ground of a sinner's hope, and his intercession and advocateship with the Father as necessary to our being saved to the uttermost.

To satisfy ourselves that such were the sentiments of the apostles, it is sufficient candidly to read their writings. If their authority be rejected, so it must be; but it is vain to attempt to disguise their meaning. And, before we reject their authority, it will be well to consider the force of their testimony concerning themselves and their doctrine: We are of God: he that knoweth God, heareth us; he that is not of God, heareth not us. Hereby know we the spirit of truth, and the spirit of error. They were either what they professed to be, or presumptuous impostors; and what they said of hearing their doctrine as a test of being of God, was either true, or they were false witnesses of God; and as all that we know of Christ is from their writings and those of the evangelists, if theirs be false witness, Christianity itself has nothto authenticate it.

My little children, said the venerable Apostle, these things write 1 unto you that ye sin not. This is the bearing of all my writings, as well as of all my other labours. Yet, while I warn you against sin, knowing that there is not a just man upon earth that doeth

good, and sinneth not, let me remind you, that

cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

we have an advoSuch is the doc

trine of the Apostle, an antidote both to presumption and despair. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear it.

Let us observe,