church, and particularly those that are designed for the use of the priesthood: and from those accredited documents, without attempting to dive into the depths of depravity from which they derive their theological instructions, we should find enough to show you that though the church of Christ is a holy church and the kingdom of Christ a holy kingdom, the kingdom of holiness has yet to be established in Ireland. We wish the establishment of the reign of intelligence, and of knowledge, and of sanctified knowledge, in the sister island. For ignorance has been the mother of its devotion; ignorance has sent its wretched children to their sacred mountains (as they have supposed them to be), and to their holy wells: and if you visit them on any of the occasions of resort to them, those that the voice of the public has not already put a stop to, and that still linger in some of the darker recesses of the island, you will see that the kingdom established by what is called religion in Ireland is a kingdom of ignorance, and not of knowledge, and sends the votaries of superstition to seek in the mudded waters of their sacred wells healing which those waters never could give to the body, and healing for the soul which is only to be found in the waters of life that are communicated to us in the Gospel. And though the priesthood, and many of the advocates of the church of Rome, tell you in England that we deceive you with stories on the subject, when we represent to you some of the gross superstitions of the country, we rejoice that, in the course of divine providence, the different modes by which travelling has been accelerated has

bled some of your intelligent and impartial countrymen to ual auto us and see things as they really exist. We rejoice brought to bow to Inglis and others, who cannot be suspected the Word of God; and w. though the steps of the traveller are not standard to which every incrst scenes of superstition-that even he ing conformity. We expect au that Ireland wants yet the religion knowledge, of the best kind of her priesthood, and others who from the Word of God; of knowlet the interests of her perishing which leads to eternal happiness; of the Sacred Volume, and tell soul savingly acquainted with the only is not fit for the perusal of dation which can never be moved. W!) that they are obliged to because we anticipate the reign of Himey will be compelled to rea kingdom when, under the influence hey close this book against learn the art of war no more; when light that would let such a into plough-shares, and their spears intactices, that, had they but reconciled to God by the blood of ad it carefully through, under

the blessing of the Spirit of God, scarcely a peasant in the land but would disclaim his superstition.

We plead for Ireland: and is it the religious part of her community alone that pleads? Do not the groans that even you hear rising from the various scenes of murder and outrage throughout the extent of that land, cry most piteously in the same way for a religion of peace? This she has not, this she never will have, till she has the pure and unadulterated Gospel: and send her what Lord Lieutenants you please, send her what political expedients you may, until you pervade her with the Gospel, she will never know peace. This is the character of the kingdom we wish to establish, of the kingdom we expect yet to exist in Ireland.

In the second place we call upon you to consider the reign of the Lord Jesus Christ in its EXTENT. The extent of this reign, as to its outward and visible extent, I mean, is set before us in various strong and remarkable expressions in the word of God. It is sometimes said that he shall reign, "from sea to sea, and from the river unto the end of the earth." We confine ourselves more particularly to the expressions that are used in immediate connexion with this evening's text: "He shall reign over the house of Jacob:" "He must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet." These expressions are by no means different in their import from the class of expressions we have already cited, and spoken of, aud which intimate that the Lord Jesus Christ is to reign over the whole extent of the world. "The house of Jacob," is a figurative term in the Old Testament prophecies for the church of the living God and in the days to which the universal establishment of the reign of Christ refers us, the church of God is to be commensurate in its boundaries with the world on which you are now to look for it as but a speck existing on and struggling against it. Over this house of Jacob, having extended its boundaries thus widely, and including the then existing world within the limits of its communion, regenerated and sanctified by divine grace, the peaceful and peace-giving sceptre of the Saviour is to be extended.

In the other passage which we have brought forward from the epistle to the Corinthians, it is clearly intimated that he shall reign over all his enemies; and if there be left an exception in the declaration that he shall reign over the house of Jacob," that exception is abundantly met in the declaration, that he shall reign over all his enemies. The world, as even at present existing, must be divided into two grand classes, in which are to be ranked the

friends and the enemies of God. To one or other of these classes all mankind are to be referred; over both these classes the Saviour shall ultimately and gloriously reign. He shall reign "over the house of Jacob" with the powerful sceptre of his word: he shall reign over his enemies" with a rod of iron; and as a potter's vessel shall he break them in pieces.

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The result of the conversion of the one, and the overthrow of the other will be, the universal diffusion of true religion wide as the limits of the globe. We cannot enter into the calculation whether, in those days, every individual shall be savingly acquainted with the Lord Jesus Christ or not: but we may safely hazard the assertion, upon the authority of various testimonies of the word of God, that in those days religion shall so universally prevail in its purity and in its power, that the exception shall not be worth the noticing--they shall be so small in proportion to the general aggregate of prevailing good. We do expect the period when this world, rolling round, as it now does, apparently under the curse of its Maker, on account of the burden of crime and sin which rolls along with it, shall present a smiling aspect to the eye of the God that made it, and, as it rolls, being in every part of it vocal with its heartfelt praise. We anticipate the period when the shout of victory shall be heard, asserting that "the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ;" when every nation, and tongue, and tribe, and people, shall worship and fall down before him.

I imagine there are few, at all familiarized with the word of God, and particularly few, at all connected with the visions of prophecy, who would for a moment hesitate as to the truth of this conclusion. You, too, in particular, Christian friends, anticipate the coming of such a period as this: and often in your prayers you implore that the world may be covered with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the face of the mighty deep. Is IRELAND to be an exception to the extent of the Redeemer's victories? Is she to be left out of the boundaries of the Redeemer's kingdom? O! the most prejudiced against her, the most hopeless about her, will surely not hazard such an assertion as this. And if Ireland is to be included in that extent, is a spot where more than seven millions of souls are yet to be won to the Redeemer unworthy to be looked at as you stand and form your calculations of those blessed schemes by which the world itself is to be subdued to Christ? From the island that you are privileged to inhabit, from the white cliffs of your beloved Albion, you seem to stand in the spirit of Christianity, and, in some

sense, in the spirit of prophecy; and, anticipating the victories of the latter day, you already prepare to claim the world for your Redeemer. Distance seems lost in the anticipations and the efforts of the Christian. You stretch out the hand of benevolence, and it rests upon the head of the poor Hottentot in the southernmost wilds of Africa. You put out again the hand of your Christian benevolence, and it affectionately grasps the Hindoo as he roams in his errors in the plains of Hindoostan. You stretch out again the hand of your benevolence, and it strikes the fetters from the arms and the limbs of the West India slave. The world, Christian, you are already feeling it to be your privilege to occupy for Christ; and we ask you, Is Ireland the only spot of it where it is not to be his destiny to reign, or that you are to omit in your calculations? Surely when you go to the Hottentot or to the Hindoo, or when they come to visit you, and find that there are seven millions of your fellowcountrymen lying at your very shores without sufficient means having ever yet been adopted of bringing them to the knowledge of the Saviour, they will not see much consistency in the matter, and they will wonder at the benevolence that has laid hold of them, and forgotten the perishing nearer at home.

We call your attention, in the third place, to the kingdom of the Redeemer in its DURATION. With reference to that duration, the expressions used in the context by the evangelist, Luke, are strong and emphatic: "He shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever; and of his kingdom there shall be no end." In the immediate connexion of the words, as they occur in the epistle of Paul, there seems to be some discrepancy from the statement made by the evangelist. "Then," says the apostle, "cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall put down all rule, and all authority and power. For he must reign till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." We reconcile these predictions by considering the expression" for ever," and the declaration that there shall be "no end" of the kingdom of Christ, as referring to the boundaries of the existence of this world, and intimating that the existence of the kingdom of Christ shall continue to the end of time. There shall be no further dispensation, no change of dispensation, no substitute for the Christian dispensation, no giving up the kingdom of Christ to another, or doing away with that order of things which has set in since the first promulgation of the Gospel by Him and his apostles. That Gospel shall make growing progress,

shall obtain growing influence, shall work growing wonders, and accomplish, under the blessing of the Spirit of God, extraordinary and many changes. But it shall be the same instrumentality, the same principle, the same pervading power, the same dispensation in all its characteristic features still. There shall be no end to it, as there was of the Jewish; and instead of waning away, as the Jewish dispensation did, it shall be for ever.

Nor shall this mediatorial kingdom of our Lord and Saviour be resigned till the last enemy of it is conquered. We look around us, and we behold many enemies still existing to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ; and though we venture not to state precisely the years during which the establishment of his kingdom is to be delayed, and that shall roll away before the last of these enemies falls, yet we stand prepared to watch the downfall of one and of another, and to calculate as each retires before the King of kings and the Lord of lords, that the time is coming when he shall reign over all. We know that antichrist shall give way before the breath of his mouth, and the brightness of his coming: we know that after antichrist, the last enemy that shall then be destroyed is death; and that having asserted the glories of his reign, and the wonders of the grace of the Gospel, in his victories over antichrist, and having reigned over the world in the powers of the principles of the Gospel, by the bringing in of the morning of eternity, and by the blessings of the glorious and happy resurrection, he shall triumph over death, and, one with the Father and the Spirit, reign for ever in the world above.

It is in the issue of this mediatorial reign of our Lord Jesus Christ; it is in the eternity of bliss in heaven with which his kingdom on earth stands connected as its result; it is in the destruction of death, and every thing that is known and called by the name, that we expect to reveal the fulness of the promise in the predicted duration of the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. And that kingdom shall no longer be administered as it is at present: though we shall not then be called to preach at the footstool of the majesty of heaven in prayer in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, because there will be no necessity for prayer; and though the Holy Spirit, as a distinct agent, will no longer manage a separate part of the affairs of that kingdom; though the Mediator, as Mediator, will give up the sceptre of his vice-regency (if I may use the term); and though the Spirit of God will resign the distinct administration which he has been carrying forward under the