space. Be careful when the word "vengeance" occurs from the lips of God, to remember it means pure justice, the manifestation of transcendental rectitude, consummate holiness, abstracted from all the vehemence and frenzy and violence which you see in human passion when men are actuated by revenge. We come to the last thing: when the Lord shall come to execute his justice FAITH WILL BE AT A LOW EBB ON THE EARTH. "Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh shall he find faith on the earth?" when he cometh to execute justice. It is very observable that in almost every great and signal instance in which God has remarkably come for a purpose specified in the passage, it has been suddenly, in a moment, and when there is no belief of it. It was so in the days of Noah: nothing could equal their mockery, contempt, and scorn. It was so in the destruction of Sodom: on as fair a morning as ever shone from heaven, suddenly a tempest of lightning and brimstone and fire did descend. It was so in the deliverance from Egypt: the Israelites were in the deepest distress and dismay; and "at midnight," it is said, respecting the justice on Pharaoh and his people, "at midnight," suddenly there was a cry heard in every dwelling that the first-born was dead. I might go on to show that when the deliverance from the bondage o Babylon was about to transpire, neither enemies nor friends of Zion had the slenderest anticipation of it. They were just beginning, on the one part, to be disheartened, supposing that the time had expired, and the deliverance had not come; and on the other side to ask scornfully, "Where is the promise of his coming?" And when Christ came, though he was in the world, and the world that was made by him, yet the world rejected him. And when he came in judgment on Jerusalem, his sign was in heaven, his providential appearances were abroad; but they did not know it, and many even in these days do not understand that there was a coming in those days of vengeance: but so it was; and the Jews upon whom the vengeance came did not believe; there was no faith in their hearts. I might come on to later times. Christ came undoubtedly in the great days of reformation. His truth and his Spirit were every where all abroad; and nothing could equal the darkness, and guilty revelry of those, who, calling themselves by his name, had outraged every principle of his holiness. At the time when the great change took place in our own land by the ministrations of Wesley and Whitfield, how dark was our country antecedent to that bright rising of the truth! And how are things now? If Christ should come nowI mean in splendid manifestation of his power and grace, in wonderful effusion of his Spirit, causing his truth to triumph and his kingdom to spread-I wonder how much faith there would be; I wonder how much faith there would be in this metropolis (as I may fairly call it) of the Christian world; how many believers in comparison with those who are asleep and believe not; and among those believers, what proportion of feeble-minded, faint-hearted, half believers. Whether things will grow dimmer and dimmer I do not know, I undertake not to say; possibly it may be so before the introduction of the great glories of the millenniai day, inasmuch as it seems uniformly to have been the case, that prior to any great advent of the Son of God there has been a decay of doctrine, iniquity has abounded, and the love of many has waxed cold. Even the millennial day will have its sun-set: will it not? What mean Gog and Magog? What means the scornful language adverted to by the apostle Peter? What means Jude when he talks of the "hard speeches" which ungodly men do utter? "When the Son of man shall come, will he find faith on the earth?" Let me bring the subject to a practical end. It all goes to show the importance and the necessity of continual and persevering prayer. Therefore whatever things may seem to you mysterious, forget not to pray. One of my earliest and most venerated friends in the ministry, the last time I called on him, had the Bible opened before him at the epistle of Peter; and he said to me, "This is right—this is right." And as I left the room he said, " Pray; pray; pray be a man of prayer:" and I never heard his voice any more; and shall see him no more till I see him in glory. Men ought always to pray, and not to faint. May our loins be girt; and let the Lord come when he will how he may, in personal advent or by manifestation of his Spirit, may we be found with our loins girt, and our lamps burning. I only add, "Give all diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things ye shall never fall: for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ." BLUNT, H., A.M......... The Valley of Vision..... 231 The Right of Private Judgment in Matters of Religion.... 285 Camberwell. Entering into the Sanctuaries of God The Christian Conflict The Holy Spirit as an Instructor 67 The Son of Man the Saviour of the Lost 167 The Visit of Barnabas to the Church of Antioch.......... 375 ... 18% 237 ......... The Advent of Christ... 465 EVANS, J. H., A.M................. The Knowledge of God... 157 GODWIN, B. The Gospel Harvest Bradford. 21 HAMBLETON, J., A.M..... God in Covenant with his People Times of Refreshing from the Presence of the Lord...... 249 146 The Axe laid at the Root.. MAYOR, A., LL.D....... The Bible the Treasury of Knowledge MELVILL, H., A.M....... The Glory to God from the Confession of Sin....... 408 349 45 The Bible the Word of God and the Sword of the Spirit.. 294 PAGE 257 437 462 Motives for the Cultivation of a Christian Deportment.... 124 The Nature of Saivation and the Means of attaining it.... 195 The Errors of the Romish Church SANDFORD, J., A.M. .... Christ's Application of his Work to Believers..... Reading. SPRING, G., D.D.. New York. STRATTEN, J. SUMMERS, S... Bristol. 327 117 357 The Unalterable Nature of the Decisions of the Judgment. 11 The Accepted Time 221 The Importunate Widow a Type of God's Elect People.... 477 57 |