the character of these apostates from the truth; and afterwards the judgment, both of the elemental and the spiritual world, coming upon men in the midst of their scoffings, and sweeping them into judgment, with all their ignorance and error upon their heads; and concludes with the "new heavens and new earth," for which we with hearty expectation look, and with all holiness prepare. Taking the Apostle's guidance and instruction, I do call upon every man to remember at what unawares Sodom was arrested in her wicked career, and not to trust to vain hopes of timeous warning, to flattering and false speeches of ignorant and wicked men, as that the coming of that day is far off, and that those who preach it are troublers of the world's peace. Give not heed to such deceivers; they are servants of Satan; being themselves deceived, and greedily bent on deceiving others. The church is in its last stage of hypocrisy and corruption. Faith, and honesty, the soul of faith, hardly any more exist. Sensuality, as brutal as Sodom's, hath long prevailed in the chief cities of Christendom: marriage, God's ordinance, is spoken against as an evil; and children, God's greatest blessing, as a very great curse; and every means is taken to bring into discredit things venerable and holy. Society is broken from its moorings; the stormy tempest of revolution rageth; and the ranks and orders of men are driving right ahead against one another. Religion is away from men's thoughts: the heads of the people are silent in their places incurable blindness is settling down upon the church, inability to think a thought, insensibility to feel a right feeling; perfect inanity of speech and inanity of action. The people have every thing their own way: neither king nor priest, neither church nor state, may debate the matter any longer. The crew of the ship are fairly up in insurrection, and the officers are put down; the helm is in the hand of those who know neither chart nor compass. The spirit of madness is arising on every side; fury is poured forth, and blood drencheth the earth. What a night of horrors is setting in upon the world! In the midst of which awful precursors of more awful judgment, let the people of God stand fast, and believe assuredly that they shall receive deliverance. God is taking evidence; he is come down to see whether the wickedness

be such as it is reported to him. He is trying every ordinance of his appointment, to see if there be any strength left in it; every man, to see if there be any reverence in him for any ordinance of God. The ranks and orders of men are revealing the ungodliness that is in them; they are witnessing to their own ripeness for perdition. History is recording their acts: she panteth in her haste, being unable to follow the rapid revelation which they are making of their wickedness. It is a terrible crisis! The angels of the Lord are amongst us, looking on; the witnesses are observing all. O ye people of God, entertain them in your houses, in your hearts, as Lot did; and they will surely save you, as they saved him. The time of the angel's marking is going forward, and the six slaughtermen are abiding till he has done his commission of mercy: then will they fall on, and spare neither man, woman, nor child. Though these three men, Noah, Job, and Daniel, were in that wicked city of apostate Christendom, they shall save neither son nor daughter; they shall but save their own soul by their righteousness, saith the Lord. Whosever believeth these things, let him take up at once the office of Abraham, to intercede; and the office of Lot, to be vexed daily, and daily to sigh and to cry unto God; and let him abide in his place, nothing daunted; fleeing only to avoid persecution; and being assured that it is not in this place, nor yet in that, no, nor at Jerusalem, but in the heavens, that we are to find our place of safety, our chamber of salvation.

4. The fourth and last of these most conspicuous benefits promised to this faithful servant of the Chief Shepherd, is thus expressed, "Behold, I come quickly: hold fast that which [grasp what thou hast, Gr.] thou hast, that no man take thy crown." This no doubt hath an intimate connection with the preceding one, as revealing the coming of the Lord, whereby the deliverance promised should be wrought to his saints, and the tribulation threatened to the enemies of his saints. We have seen, in the passages of Scripture referred to for the illustration and enforcement of the preceding topic, that the coming of the Lord is always interwoven with the deliverance of the church and the perdition of her enemies; and therefore it was not to be expected, but that here also it should be

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found in the company of the same series of events; of which it is the centre and pivot; of which they are either the prelude or the sequel. And accordingly here it is introduced, with its usual invocation to attention on the part of man: Behold, he cometh with clouds;" "Behold, I come quickly;" Surely I come quickly." In the Old Testament it is commonly called "the day of the Lord," and, as in the passage before us, it is always represented as hasting, and hasting exceedingly for example, Zeph. i. 14, "The great day of the Lord is near; it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly:" and, as here, it is ever connected with deliverance and reward to his people; for example, Jer. xxx. 7, "Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it it is even the time of Jacob's trouble; but he shall be saved out of it." And in "the burden of the valley of vision," to which our attention is particularly drawn in the style of Christ prefixed to this epistle, we have that day written of in these words: "For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord God of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains." (Isa. xxii. 5.) Search in all the prophets, and find me one place, if you can, in which this day is not represented as coming quickly; and then will I believe that the ministers of the church may be otherwise than most guilty and abandoned in representing it as far off; at least more than one thousand years. Surely they are making a snare for their own feet, and for the feet of all the foolish people who give heed to them. Yes, they answer, there is a passage, one at least, in which the Apostle Paul censures the church against looking upon that day as near at hand: and this passage they cleave unto as the strong-hold of their unbelief, and their justification for making light of the whole matter. Let us examine it, and for their souls' sake endeavour to dislodge them from their false and fatal security. It is contained in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians, which, like the Second Epistle of Peter, may be entitled, Of the Coming of the Lord. Now, before entering upon this work and labour of love for my brethren, let me point out to them a sure and certain proof that they are making

an evil and erroneous use of this Apostle's writing, inasmuch as he dismisseth the subject with this prayer: "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into a patient waiting for Christ," [margin, "the patience of Christ," the same as in our subject, "because thou hast kept the word of my patience."] Surely Paul, who prayed this prayer, could not at the same time be writing to dissuade them from expecting Christ; and you, who use the Epistle to encourage yourselves, in that indifference to and contempt of the subject, which you wickedly practise, must be using it grievously amiss, and greatly perverting the Apostle's aim, who prays, that those he wrote to might have their minds directed into the patient waiting for Christ. What his real object is, he himself doth well explain. He beginneth by giving thanks to God for their patience under their tribulations, and counteth the same a sure token of their inheriting rest with Christ in the day of his manifestation; then he proceedeth (chapter ii.) very lovingly and earnestly, by that very hope and assurance, to warn them lest, by any spirit, word, or epistle, though of Paul's own, they should be shaken out of their mind and agitated, for instance, because the day of Christ is close at hand. Our translation conveys the impression that the Apostle believed the day of the Lord not to be at hand; but I submit to the learned reader, that this is not in the original; which is literally “ as that the day of Christ is instant," and not "as if," or "as though, the day of Christ were instant." The tense of the verb is indicative, and not conditional. In his former Epistle he had written, that it should come as a thief, with the voice of the archangel and with the trump of God; and in the parallel passage he had written of it as coming "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." These declarations he doth not here mean to contradict, and with them to contradict all Scripture; but he is earnest to prevent this very instancy of that day from being used by deceivers to shake the Thessalonians out of their sound mind, and cast them into a fever of agitation, and get them to neglect their ordinary callings, and to set light by the Apostle's commandments; and, in one word, break up the church though a frenzy of fear and alarm about the coming of the Lord. And he conjures them to suffer nothing whatever

to work them up to such excitement; and prays that they may be established, stedfast, and brought into the condition of patient waiting, diligent preparation, and continual readiness. I submit that this is the true rendering of the "That passage, ye be not quickly shaken out of your mind, nor agitated, either by spirit, or by word, or by epistle, though by us, though that the day of Christ is instant:" and I think it rather an assertion, than a denial, of its being at hand. However this be, the lesson is the same, and a very good one it is-to wit, that we should not be shaken out of our senses, or disturbed in our mind, by that or any other hope;-and, if I mistake not, the very same thing is signified in our text, where it is said, "hold fast what thou hast," as in that Epistle, "stand and hold fast the traditions which ye were taught, whether by our word or epistle." The notion that the Apostle in that place put off the day of the Lord to a distance, is favoured by the words supplied by our translators in the next verse, which, being literally rendered, is as follows: "Let not any one in any way deceive you; that unless the apostasy come first, and the man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition," &c. Then follows a discourse concerning the manifestation of the wicked or lawless one, which is continued down to the 13th verse; when he again resumes the thread of his subject, which is, to establish the minds and confirm the good order of this church, which had been somewhat disturbed by Satan taking advantage of the Apostle's own Epistle, and his declaration therein of the instant coming of the Lord. Wherefore this digression concerning the man of sin, occupying the eleven intervening verses, is introduced, is a question of which every one may give the best account he can; but whatever account may be given thereof doth not prejudice the single object of the Apostle, to establish the minds of the believers in the Lord's coming, and to redeem them from the heat and rage of violent excitation, to the calm and steady mood of patience. Our translators manifestly thought that this digression to the subject of the man of sin was introduced to postpone and put off the coming of the Lord; which doubtless it is prior thereto, as is distinctly declared in ver. 8, where it is said, that "the Lord shall consume him with the breath of his mouth, and destroy him with