You

be reconciled to God, means to acquiesce in the curse pronounced
on sin, in the propitiation he has made for us, in all that he has
said in his blessed gospel respecting himself and respecting us.
But the next means of being prepared is being born again.
may be the most distinguished Pharisee, or the most degraded
publican; you may be a nobleman, or you may be a plebeian; you
may be a senator in parliament; you may be a great philanthro-
pist, beloved by all connections, respected by your country, cle-
vated in your state-it does not matter; all these are circumstan-
tial and adventitious;-it is addressed to our queen, it is address-
ed to the highest and noblest that are around her throne; it is
addressed to the lord mayor, and all the magistrates about him;
to every tradesman, and merchant, and lawyer, and physician in
this city; to every good man, to every respected man, to every
rich man, to every learned man— "" Except ye be born again, ye
cannot see the kingdom of God."

Let me, then, ask you, Have you a new heart? If you have not, need I add that you cannot but be ashamed at Christ's coming? If there be truth in the Bible, you are unfit for heaven. But you ask, How can I have it? There is nothing to perform, promise, or pledge, but simply to pray to the God that made your heart holy at first, that he would remake it; that the God who alone can regenerate that heart, would regenerate it: and no man ever yet cried in his agony, "O God, give me a new heart by thy Holy Spirit, for Jesus' sake"-never did a man ask it truly, and go away without it. God waits to give, and delights to give. Do you ask when you are to prepare to meet God? The answer I have already given-Now. Every description of death I have read, every death I have witnessed, every promise in the word of God-the certainty of that day, the nearness of that day, the solemnity of that day-all proclaim, Prepare, now or never, to meet thy God.

My dear friends, I have always said, to be Christians is the greatest thing, to be with God the noblest privilege. I beseech you, take what interest you please in politics, in trade, in commerce, in arts, in literature, in science, but, I beseech you by the mercies of God, not separating myself from you, Prepare to meet God. You know not but that heart of yours, the frailest

thing in the world, may stop to-night. You cannot keep it going. And then what takes place? It is not an extinction of the man; it is only the soul leaping forth from its cold, dead tabernacle, and rushing into the presence of that God before whose face the heavens and the earth shall flee away: and for a soul to be so placed, unsanctified, unregenerated, unrenewed-language fails to embody what I feel, or what must follow. But if you can say, Christ's blood is my sacrifice, his finished righteousness is my title, his Holy Spirit is my sanctification, his Bible is my delight, and his promised advent is my hope-then happy is that mother's son that can say so. Who shall separate thee, my brother, from the love of God? I am persuaded that neither life, nor death, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate thee from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

381

LECTURE XXIX.

ORDER OF ADVENT.

"Behold, I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."-Revelation xxii. 20.

LAST Lord's-day evening I showed you how full the whole. New Testament is of what I called the second advent or coming of our Lord. You will recollect how many passages I quoted, each passage the nucleus of precious and edifying thought; and how I showed that, instead of being a doctrine that occurs only here and there, it is constantly preached by the apostles-predicted by our Lord-the hope of saints-the joy of the whole church of Christ. This evening I proceed to consider the order of this event. Last Sabbath evening, I showed you simply the fulness of Scripture in expressing the certainty of this event, but this evening I will try, in dependence on Divine aid, to lay open the order of this event; in other words, to ascertain whether, according to some, it shall precede the Millennium, or, according to others, succeed it. All sections of the church of Christ are perfectly agreed in this, that Christ will come personally to our world there is no dispute about this; there is no diversity of opinion whether Christ will personally come; the whole controversy is upon the order, or what precedes, and what immediately succeeds it. We have therefore no question about the fact whether Christ shall come or not. Again, there is no dispute in the Christian church if there will be a Millennium. You may call it what you like; a Millennium is derived from the Latin word "mille," a thousand, and "annus," a year, and signifies the space of a thousand years: it derives its origin from Rev. xx., where we read of a thousand years during which Satan shall be bound, and the whole church of Christ shall be holy and happy and perfect; but call it what you please, there is predicted in

:

Scripture an era which shall exceed any thing that has been realized on earth, in the holiness, in the happiness, in the joy that shall be enjoyed by the saints, in the fertility that shall be possessed by the earth, and in the communion that shall subsist between a reconciled God, and a reconciled and rejoicing family. There is no dispute, then, in the first place, whether Christ will personally come; that is settled, that is the fixed belief of us all secondly, there is no question or dispute that there will be a Millennium, an era of happiness, felicity, and joy, when earth shall close, as earth commenced, with paradise. About this there is no dispute. The first point of difference, then, is the order of these events. One class allege that the Millennium will come first, and Christ will come at its close: another class of Christians allege that Christ will come first, and the Millennium will instantly succeed him. The one class say the Millennium will usher in Christ; the other say Christ will usher in the Millennium. The one class say that missionary effort is to bring in the Millennium, and that Millennium is to have Christ for its close; the other say that all existing missionary effort is to select a people from the midst of the world for the Lord, and that Christ shall come himself, like the sun standing at his meridian, and that the Millennium will only be the sheen and splendour of that unsetting sun. The difference is this: the one class look forward to the Millennium as their hope, the other class look forward to the coming of Christ as their hope. The one class asserts, "Come quickly" means, Let the Millennium dawn speedily; the other class assert that "Come quickly" means, just what it naturally implies, "Come, Lord Jesus, personally, and begin the Millennium." The one class, therefore, is looking for expanding piety, increasing light, a growing church, and dying apostasy-a progressively advancing Millennium of beauty, holiness, and glory, and then Christ upon the judgment-throne. The other class are looking for increasing confusion, abounding errors, multiplying sins, a world turned upside-down, denser darkness, tremendous chaos, Christ interposing in the midst of it, and the Millennium bursting from the earth the moment that his footsteps touch it. These, then, are the two points of difference. Among these two classes, let me say, there is no difference about Christ's

great work upon the cross; that is settled.

It is not Christian

and the world that differ; it is Christian and Christian that differ, not about what is of the essence of faith, but about its outworks, its privileges, and its joys. There is no doubt that you will find, in every section of the church of Christ, that two men equally distinguished for piety, devotedness, and consistency, differ upon this point. I have met with some who are perfectly furious against what they call Millennarianism; I have met with others who are just as furious in defence of it; and the one is as much to be blamed as the other. They both agree that the righteousness of Christ is our only trust and title, and that Christ will come again; but they quarrel where they ought only to agree to differ till they have greater light, about the order and sequence of the events that are to characterize the future. Now I wish this evening to try if I can settle the order in your minds; and I ask you to lay aside all previous conceptions which you may have formed from your earliest days; I ask you to lay aside all prejudices that you may have taken up against those who are called by the nickname-if such I may pronounce it-Millennarians. I ask you simply to follow me through various passages of Scripture; and if my inferences do not commend themselves to your judgment as logical and legitimate, then the greatest justice you can do me, and the greatest justice you can do yourselves, is to reject them. But if the inferences I draw prove-and prove, I think, they irresistibly do-that Christ comes first, and that the Millennium comes next, then I am sure that Christian minds and cool judgments will lay aside their earliest prepossessions, and hear, not what man may plead for, but what God has said"Thus saith the Lord."

I will refer you to passages in the Old Testament, where I think this event is alluded to. The first passage I will quote is Isaiah xxiv. 19-21: "The earth is utterly broken down, the earth is clean dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly. The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage, and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it, and it shall fall, and not rise again. And it shall come to pass that in that day the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth."