bands and wives, brothers and sisters, parents and children, do you reflect there is to be parting between you, everlasting parting-that unless like minded here, you do not go to a like home hereafter-that when Christ shall send forth his angels to gather together his elect from the four winds, they will take one and pass over the other?

Whether or not you realize the truth, it seems to be the very thing intended in that saying, "Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken and the other left."

Ponder it, Brethren. Are you pious? How can you bear the thought of sundering, sundering forever, the tie which binds you to some unrepentant associate or relation? How is it you can be easy, without putting forth every allowable and proper effort to bring him to godliness? Why are you not instant in prayer, instant in endeavour, to have your wife, your husband, your sister, like minded with yourself? Think what it will be-the one taken, the other

left, by those angels who at the sounding of the trump go forth to gather God's chosen.

Unrepentant fellow men! Take to your bosoms this solemn warning of the text. Think what it will be, to be left, to be overpassed, by the angels of God-to see your friends owned, welcomed, admitted to the New Jerusalem, and be yourselves shut out-away from Christ, away from the pious, away eternally. In vain your prayers! In vain In vain your frenzied cry for the intercession of your beloved! In that day no man may deliver his brother or make agreement unto God for him. It cost more to redeem the soul! The blood of Jesus Christ was the ransom price. If that has been trodden under foot-unused-neglected, what can avail then the intercession of mere fellow men? "Though those fellow men were Noah, Daniel, and Job, they should deliver neither son nor daughter. They should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness."

81

LECTURE IV.

MATTHEW Xxiv. 42—xxv. 13.

"Watch, therefore; for ye know not what hour Lord

your

doth come. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh.

"Who then is a faithful and wise servant, whom his lord

hath made ruler over his household, to give them meat in due season? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, that he shall make him ruler over all his goods. But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that

he is not aware of, and shall cut him asunder, and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

“Then shall the kingdom of Heaven be likened unto ten virgins, which took their lamps, and went forth to meet the bridegroom. And five of them were wise,

and five were foolish. They that were foolish took their lamps, and took no oil with them: but the wise took oil in their vessels with their lamps. While the bridegroom tarried, they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him. Then all those virgins arose, and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves. And while they went to buy, the bridegroom came; and they that were ready went in with him to the marriage [supper]: and the door was shut. Afterward came also the other virgins, saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not. Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh.

In the great prophecy spoken on the Mount

of Olives, our Lord seems to have had in view two principal points. It was his object to keep the minds of his disciples from excessive agitation on occasions, and yet to keep them in a state of habitual expectancy. He would not, that their hopes should be raised and their souls lose their balance, at every new outbreak in the world-as though this were the signal for their Master's reappearing. And on the other hand, he was not willing that they should know how far off, the day of his second coming really was. He wished their minds to be constantly on the watch; their loins girded; their lamps trimmed; as men who knew not how soon their master might return.

With view to the former of these objects, Christ named various occurrences which must transpire before the end came. With view to the latter-the keeping his people expectant, he not only declared that the end of all things would come, like the deluge, on a sudden; but -it is the matter we have now to considercompared his hearers to a man whose house was to be attacked, to persons in the capacity of