hold according to his laws, to refrain from doing what is inconsistent with his holy will. Disobedience to my orders I must punish; and if they be so evaded as to screen you from my chastisement, be sure your sin will find you out, and the Lord will visit it.' When such is the final declaration of a parent, or rightful governor, whose previous more gentle dissuasions have proved ineffectual, it is not often that the words fall to the ground.

The same rule holds good with servants. We detect something in their habits, language, or pursuits in no way interfering with the due discharge of their duties to us, but such as we should not sanction in ourselves, or expect the Lord to sanction in any professing his holy name. The alternative is plain : after setting it before them in the light of scripture, and showing its injurious tendency, we must plead our own accountability before God. 'Abraham is held out to us as a pattern for believers, who are told to walk in his faith: he, by the power of that faith, commanded his children and household to keep the way of the Lord, and he was therein greatly blessed. Eli, neglecting so to do, was terribly scourged, and a sword rested on his posterity. These are warnings to me: you form part of my household, and if you persist in a wrong course you must do so no longer. I part with you for no fault in your conduct towards me, but because I dare not, as your master, stand faulty before God.'

Let no one say this savours of works,-of cleansing the outside of the cup and platter only. All things pertaining to the Christian ought to be pure and clean, so far as he can make them so for every Believer is the temple of God, and these vessels of

the temple, whether they be gold or clay should be kept decent. Young Edward soon put down the rebellion that he so royally met and rebuked: Abraham promptly ejected the bond-woman and her son who mocked a divine ordinance and persecuted him that was born after the Spirit. Joshua could not enter into the domestic details of all the families of Israel, but publickly pledged himself that both he and his house would serve the Lord.

In all these cases, the exercise of authority was plainly implied, and a blessing accompanied it. Eli fell short of his duty: for his sin the ark was taken, his sons were slain, his own neck broken, and poverty and degradation entailed on his house for ever. C. E.

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If you give yourself, yield yourself, cast yourself commit yourself wholly and only to your loving Father, then shall his power be in you and make you strong; and that so strong that you shall feel no pain which should be to another present death; and His Spirit shall speak in you, and teach you what to answer, according to his promise.-Tyndal to Frith.

THE SECOND ADVENT.

No. III.

WHEN our blessed Lord made his entry into Jerusalem, he rode upon an ass, an animal ridden by persons of the highest rank but ridden only in peace. He came the meek and lowly messenger of peace to beseech the people to turn and live. In Rev. xix. 11. he is described under very different circumstances, riding on a horse, an animal only spoken of in scripture in connection with war, crowned and having his garments dipped in blood. The object of this advent is therefore not only different from, but contrasted with that of the former: then he came to plead with his enemies, now to tread them down, then to draw out a people who should follow him through much tribulation, now to exalt that people to glory. Equally or almost equally contrasted is the present picture with that presented, Rev. vi. 2. there a nameless one went out on a swift mission, here a name is given, and that the name which belongs to God alone, King of kings and Lord of lords. Those who argue from the fact, that the first is an emblem only, that therefore the last must be merely an emblem likewise, forget that the question is not whether the appearance is emblematic but what it is emblematic of that this emblem is interpreted and we are here told the name of the emblematic

person; that an emblem is never superior to the thing it represents, and that therefore if the person called King of kings and Lord of lords be emblematic, it can be only of him to whom that title of right belongs,—not of influences or providences. No one I believe disputes that the representation is emblematic, but the names pin down the emblem to a person, and that person no other than Jehovah the Messiah. Immediately on his appearing, the dead in Christ are raised, (1 Thess. iv. 16.) then we who are alive and remain are changed, (1 Cor. xv. 51, 52.) into the likeness of Christ's glorious body, (Phil. iii. 21.) and then all together are caught up to meet the Lord in the air, (1 Thess. iv. 17.) so that he descends to earth attended by his saints, (Jude 14.) called, (Rev. xix. 14.) the armies in heaven. obscurity as to who are the

"the dead in Christ," not

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Now we are left in no persons thus caught up, some of the dead, and

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we which are alive and remain," when evidently by "we" the Apostle means all who are in Christ who survive to that day, (1 Thess. iv. 14, 16, 17.) this body therefore consists of all the people of God from the fall to the glorious appearing of Messiah, or in other words of the elect church. Now we had been told, (Rev. xix. 7.) that the Lamb's wife had made herself ready, and (v. 8.) that she was arrayed in fine linen clean and white," and here (v. 14.) we find the armies in heaven following their Lord, " clothed in fine linen white and clean." The elect church is therefore the bride, the beloved of the Song of Songs, the Queen of Ps. xlv. the church of God which he hath purchased with his own blood, gathered out of all nations, climates and races, out of every dispensation and period of time, when Jew and Gentile,

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D.

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philosopher and sovereign, ruler and slave, the indefatigible Paul and the dying thief, the Gospel-nurtured Timothy and the Philippian jailer, all meet together one body, one flesh, one bone, for they are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones; when there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all.

Attended by his saints, who take no part in the conflict, (see Is. xxvi. 20, 21. and Is. xxvii. 1.) but follow him, their garments being white, while his are dipped in blood, he goes forth (Zech. xiv. 3.) to "fight against those nations," which as we have seen were gathered together against Jerusalem, delivers Jerusalem, and treads down his enemies as grapes are trodden in the winepress. He treads it alone. Is. Ixiii. 3. The ruling powers of the earth who were not engaged in confederacy against him, appear to stand by inactive, and Israel whom he came to rescue neither helps him nor defends itself, but after the victory its repentance and cry for help are expressed in the beautiful song contained in Is. Ixiii. 7. to end of ch. lxiv. The confederacy is then destroyed, and the beast and false prophet are taken and cast into the lake of fire. The beast is no longer bestridden by the woman, Rome having been already swallowed up; but the false prophet like Balaam is still in the camp; though Rome was swallowed up; and doubtless the existing Pope shared her fate, the Popedom was not extinct; there would be little difficulty in assembling the foreign cardinals who could form a college and proceed to an election, and Avignon or some other town might become the centre of Christendom; there is therefore no inconsistency in