want of faith; a want of reliance on God's promises, because we do not come to Christ, as the Author and the Finisher, and seek his favour and blessing in his own appointed way. We trust too much to ourselves, we seek our comforts exclusively from ourselves; and when they fail (as fail they must), we have no other resource to fly to, We are like a ship that has lost its last anchor; and we must fain then run upon the rocks. Now, the Gospel says, we must never trust to ourselves. The Gospel repeatedly lays it down, that though "we say we are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, yet that we are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." It counsels us to buy of Jesus gold tried in the fire; to clothe ourselves in garments washed and whitened in the blood of the Lamb. It tells us we have no power of ourselves to help ourselves; that we are not sufficient to think, much less to do, any thing as of ourselves; but that our sufficiency is of a covenant God. It is grace which must soften our hearts; it is grace which must give us true repentance, and work in our souls the whole work of "wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption." "The Spirit it is that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing." The promises of God in the cross of Christ are unbounded and enduring—" yea and amen in him, to the glory of God by us :"but then it is only by the living Spirit of the Lord upon our hearts that we can appropriate them, or safely rely upon their immutable power. "The Spirit must take of the things of God, and shew them to us." "I will be with you," saith the Lord of hosts: but with whom?-with the sensual? with the carnal? will God support the pharisee in his unscriptural hypocrisy and heartless form? will he draw nigh to them that are not willing to draw nigh to him? or dwell with those that have but an impure, and sensual, and stubborn heart to offer him for his residence? Never, never; "for thus saith the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy, I dwell in the high and holy place; with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit." If we cannot feel the covenanted blessings of religion, both for time and for eternity, it is because "we will not come to him that we may have life;" it is because " grieve the Holy Ghost; and because we have trodden under foot the Son of God; and have counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing; and have done despite to the Spirit of grace." "Yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou mightest be justified in thy saying, and mightest overcome when thou art judged;" verily, "our blood is on our own heads." we The Saviour says, "Ho, every one that thirsteth, come to the waters." None can tell the full luxury of water, but the parching lips in a burning fever; nor can any feel the refreshing power of Christ's blood, but he who is really athirst for the cup of salvation! He it is to whom the Lord says, "I will be with you; I will never leave nor forsake you." Then, what blessed expressions are these! and uttered, not by man, but by him, the Lord of eternal life!-by him who cannot lie, but who will fulfil beyond what we can desire,-by him, "who, willing to shew more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge, to lay hold on the hope set before us!" So that the Christian, regenerated and renewed by God's reviving grace in Christ Jesus, need not repine in any circumstances; he need not be in doubt, in suspense, in alarm: but, in every trial, in every perplexity, in every peril of body or of soul, he may say, boldly, fearlessly, in the most cheerful, animated, and soul-restoring accents: "The Lord is my helper; he has redeemed me with his blood; he has sealed me by the Spirit unto the day of redemption: he has "guided me by his counsel," and "has left me an example;" he has guarded me amidst a perverse, and crooked, and dangerous world: and will he now suffer me to pine in want?— will he allow me to be needlessly assaulted? will he, who, when I was an enemy, was reconciled by the death of his Son, permit me, when reconciled, to wander over the wilderness of life a helpless, hopeless, desolate, and friendless creature? Thanks be to his name, he has told me-No! I am assured of his presence and protection for evermore. "Having loved his own, which are in the world, he loves them unto the end." Let, then, the world be hard with us, if it will; let "men rise up against us, and be ready to swallow us up quick, so wrathfully are they displeased at us !"-yet, even then, when the floods swell, and the deep waters of the proud are going even over our soul!— "the Lord himself is on our side," now may the believer say, and we will not fear what man can do unto us. Only do thou be ready, O blessed Jesus, to visit us according to thy promise; do thou but stand at the door and knock, willing to enter our lowly dwelling, 66 to sup with us, and we with thee,"-then, lift up your heads, O ye gates of our heart, and be ye lift up, ye doors of our now awakened and willing soul, and the King of glory for ever shall come in! CHURCH OF ENGLAND MAGAZINE. AN ADDRESS On the better Observance of the Lord's Day, BY THE REV. G. GILBERT, B.D.* "CRY aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins," was the commission given to the prophet Isaiah on an occasion similar in some degree to the present. Among those sins was that of profaning the Sabbath-day. The remonstrance for this sin is thus conveyed: "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." It must be evident to every candid mind, that these words contain a reproof for the hypocritical manner in which the Israelites at that time pretended to keep the Sabbath-day. While in the language of another Scripture the open profanation of the Sabbath is reproved in the persons of the nobles of Judah: "Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath" (Nehemiah, xiii. 17, 18); and in what manner it was thus profaned, the preceding two verses will shew: "In those days," saith the prophet, "saw I in Judah some treading wine-presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and lading asses; as also wine, grapes, and figs, and all manner of burdens, which they brought into Jerusalem on the Sabbath-day: and I testified against them in the day wherein they sold victuals. There dwelt men of Tyre also therein, which brought fish, and all manner of ware, and sold on the Sabbath unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem." Then," the prophet adds, "Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the Sabbath-day?" 66 Secular occupation, open traffic, frivolous pleasure, inconvenient hilarity, mark too fearfully the correspondence of these our times with those in which the prophets Isaiah and Nehemiah lived. We are not content with the liberty which our blessed Lord has granted us in that remarkable saying which he spake, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath," without going beyond the limits which all Scripture assigns to his words, viz. that it was made for man's rest from toil, and not for man's perversion and abuse to evil and sinful ends; made for man's delight in God's worship and service, and not in his own trifling and dissipated pleasure; made for man's spiritual benefit and intercourse, devotional and charitable employment; and not for unprofitable visiting, the frequenting of the scenes of fashionable resort, luxurious festivities, and crowded banquets. It is the notorious and open breach of the fourth commandment-Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy-in all grades of society, which has called forth from the clergy of this extensive and very populous parish an address to the inhabitants on "the better observance of the Lord's day." And if you will bear with me, brethren, in an open and honest appeal to your hearts and judgments, I will endeavour humbly to offer to your consideration some few points which Occasioned by the publication and circulation of an Address on the above subject, agreed upon by the Rectors and other officiating clergy of the parish of Marylebone, Feb. 1837. may not have occurred to you in reference to your duty on that day. In the first place, have you duly considered that the commencement, the dawn of every Sabbath-and, indeed, the dawn of every day, but more especially of the Lord's day is the Lord's? The evangelists are all unanimous in recording, that, very early in the morning, and while it was yet dark, as it began to dawn, two of the disciples, Peter and another, and Mary Magdalene and the other Mary, came to the sepulchre of their Lord, and found angels, which told them that he had risen from the dead. If, then, you commemorate-and your profession is such-if you commemorate his resurrection on this his day, the whole must be consecrated by you to that object, beginning with the earliest hours at which your eyes behold its light, and ending only when you recline upon your bed. Thus viewed, your first duty-as indeed it is your every-day duty-is to return thanks and praise to your merciful God, for sustaining you-as the Psalmist expresses himself," I laid me down and slept; I awaked, for the Lord sustained me." Sacred subjects and moral improvement of time will be most befitting the intervals before, between, and after the morning and evening worship of Almighty God in his house of prayer; in a portion of the first of which intervals, as also of the last when practicable, the assembling of your families and households for social worship is most urgently incumbent upon every Christian, whose influence and control extends to children and servants. I have said, the morning and evening worship of Almighty God, because I fear, and indeed I am aware, that many, far too many, content themselves with attending on that worship but once on the Lord's day, just at whichever may be most congenial to their own habits or their own caprice; while the practice of some is seldom, and of others never, to attend at public worship. Of these latter it can be but to little or to no purpose now to But to those who form speak, for they cannot hear. a part of the other classes mentioned, I appeal ;-and I entreat them to reflect well for themselves, whether they do not practically contradict the professions which they make as Christians, by devoting any portion of that time," which God's immutable law doth exact for ever" to be sanctified to his service, to any other pursuit or end than that for which the whole day was originally set apart and commanded to be kept holy. It may not have occurred to some of you, that the food which you require, and the indulgences which you provide, may all be supplied on the day before the Sabbath. It may not have occurred to you, that the purveyors of your necessary food, or articles of luxury, as creatures of the same God, redeemed by the blood of the same atonement, and to be sanctified by the same Holy Spirit, with yourselves, are equally concerned in the duty and advantages of a due observance of this day. It may not have occurred to you, that the preventing them from the discharge of this duty, and the debarring them from these advantages, by your want of due consideration, or neglect, will be required at your hands. It may not have occurred to you, that the enactment of a penalty by the legislature, and the enforcement of it on the part of the magistrate, for the sale of articles even of necessity during divine service, or for open traffic in some things totally unnecessary at any part of the day, is in the extreme absurd and puerile, while the traffickers are encouraged to such an extent as that the penalty is but a small tax upon the profit of their trading. It may not have occurred to you, that in taking your own pleasure, and in the undue use of your equipages, you are depriving your attendants of those privileges which it is your bounden duty to afford them, as Christian members of a professedly Christian household, and your cattle of that rest which, in the law of God, you are enjoined to give them; nor that your example is the common property of those who observe you, and who will appropriate to themselves the pattern which you set them. If none of these considerations have presented themselves to your minds, let them now be entertained seriously, and with a direct reference to his power, his pleasure, his ways, and his command, who first instituted the Sabbath as a sacred day of rest, because that in it God rested from his own work of creation; and to his Gospel who has declared that the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath-day. It cannot be supposed that, in keeping only a portion of that day holy, you are complying with what is required of you; neither can it be granted that attendance at divine worship, which is alloyed by worldly thoughts, or accompanied by unsuitable and uncongenial schemes for finishing out the day, is such worship as God will approve; or that they who continue to manifest such a spirit in his sight, are such as he seeks to worship him. We read in holy writ of those whom the word preached did not profit, because it was not mixed with faith in them that heard it. how are they qualified to hear the things of God, the Gospel of salvation by Jesus Christ his Son, whose worship has been so destitute of faith in apprehending his spiritual presence among them, and of sincerity in praying for those blessings which, peradventure, they have not even asked with their lips? And Be not deceived, my brethren-God is not mocked: you may deceive your fellow-creatures, you may deceive yourselves: but God you CANNOT deceive! It was said by your divine Lord, that the hypocrites prayed and fasted to be seen of men; but he added, "when thou prayest, pray to thy Father which is in secret: when thou fastest, anoint thine head and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret." By this was intended, that assumed devotion to gain the notice and applause of man was offensive; but that genuine supplication, and true contrition of heart, were acceptable in the sight of God. As, then, your devotion is, so will your profit be in that which you hear. If you pray with the heart and with the understanding also, your hearing the word preached will not be the mere hearing of the outward ear, but that which, by God's grace, shall be so grafted inwardly in your hearts as to bring forth in you the fruit of good living. [To be concluded in next Number.] THE DEATH OF HOWARD. A DAY or two after his return to Cherson, he went to dine with Admiral Mordvinof, who lived about a mile and a half from his lodgings. He stayed later than usual, and when he returned, found himself unwell, and thought he had something of the gout flying about him, being subject to the attacks of that disease from an early period of his life. He immediately took some sal volatile in a little tea, and thought himself better, until three or four o'clock on the following morning, when, feeling not quite so well, he repeated his former dose. Soon after his usual hour he got up and walked out; but, finding himself worse, soon returned home and took an emetic, which did not prevent a violent attack of fever on the following night; to arrest whose progress he had immediate recourse to his favourite remedy of James's powders, which he regularly took every two or four hours, till Sunday the 17th [of January, 1790]; for though, as soon as he was acquainted with his illness, Prince Potemkin kindly sent his physician to attend him, his own prescriptions were never interfered with during this From his Memoirs. period, in which he continued to be perfectly sensible and collected, except that, on the 12th, he had a kind of fit, in which he suddenly fell down; his face became black; his breathing difficult, and he remained senseless for half an hour. On the 17th the fit was repeated; but, as in the former instance, the insensibility which it occasioned was but of a very short continuance; and it was probably at about this period of his illness, or perhaps a few days earlier, that he thus recorded, in one of his memorandum-books, the grateful sense he entertained of the mercies he had received at the hands of the Lord, in seasons that were past, and of his ardent desire to be enabled to put his trust and confidence in him for the future. 66 'May I not look on present difficulties, or think of future ones in this world, as I am but a pilgrim or wayfaring man, that tarries but a night! This is not my home but may I think what God has done for me, and rely on his power and his grace; for his promise, his mercy endureth for ever: but I am faint and low, yet I trust in the right way, pursuing though too apt to forget my Almighty Friend and my God. Oh! my soul, remember and record how often God has sent an answer of peace, mercies in the most seasonable times; how often, better than thy fears, exceeded thy expectations. Oh, why should I distrust this good and faithful God? In his word, he has said, 'In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he will direct thy path.' Lord, leave me not to my own wisdom, which is folly; nor to my own strength, which is weakness. Help me to glorify thee on earth, and finish the work thou givest me to do, and to thy name alone be all the praise." The latter of these pious reflections and devout aspirations is inscribed upon the cover of the book; and beneath it, evidently written at a somewhat later period, are two short sentences bearing his dying testimony to his belief in the doctrines which had formed so prominent a feature in his creed through life, and which led him to place his firm and sole dependence for salvation on the Rock of Ages in the hour of death. "Oh that the Son of God may not die for me in vain!" "I think I never look into myself, but I find some corruption and sin in my heart. O God, do thou sanctify and cleanse the thoughts of my depraved heart." In the middle of a page of another, still remaining in pencil, he has traced in ink the following sentence in his notes of one of Dr. Stennet's sermons, strikingly characteristic of his feelings at the near approach of his own dissolution: "It is one of the noblest expressions of real religion to be cheerfully willing to live or die, as it may seem meet to God." On the inside of the cover of the book he has written the following sentence, rendered doubly interesting from its being, in all probability, the last the hand of Howard ever traced :"Oh that Christ may be magnified in me, either by life or death!" Thus fully preparing himself for a change which was now rapidly approaching, on the 18th of January the symptoms of this great and good man's disease began to assume a still more alarming appearance; for he was seized with a violent hiccoughing, which continued the next day, until it was somewhat allayed by musk draughts, administered by direction of his medical attendant. Whilst in the enjoyment of health, it had been Mr. Howard's frequent, indeed his almost daily custom, at a certain hour, to visit his friend Admiral Priestman, who resided at Cherson, and who, on finding that he failed in his usual calls, went some few days after he had been totally confined to his house, to see him, when he found him weak and ill, sitting before a stove in his bed room. On inquiring after his health, he replied that his end was approaching very fast; that he had several things to say, and thanked him for having called. The admiral, concluding from his answers that he was in a melancholy mood, endeavoured to turn the conversation, imagining the whole, or the principal part of his disorder, might be the mere effect of low spirits. Mr. Howard, however, assured him that it was not, and added, in a very impressive, yet cheerful manner, "Priestman, you style this a dull conversation, and endeavour to divert my mind from dwelling upon death; but I entertain very different sentiments. Death has no terrors for me it is an event I always look to with cheerfulness, if not with pleasure; and be assured the subject is more grateful to me than any other. I am well aware that I have but a short time to live; my mode of life has rendered it impossible that I should get rid of this fever. If I had lived as you do, eating heartily of animal food, and drinking wine, I might, perhaps, by altering my diet, be able to subdue it. But how can such a man as I am lower his diet, who has been accustomed for years to exist upon vegetables and water, a little bread, and a little tea? I have no method of lowering my nourishment, and therefore I must die. It is such jolly fellows as you, Priestman, who get over these fevers:" then, turning from that subject, he spoke of his funeral, and cheerfully gave directions where he would be buried. "There is a spot," said he, "near the village of Dauphigny-this would suit me nicely-you know it well, for I have often said that I should like to be buried there; and let me beg of you, as you value your old friend, not to suffer any pomp to be used at my funeral; nor any monument, nor monumental inscription whatsoever, to mark where I am laid: but lay me quietly in the earth, place a sun-dial over my grave, and let me be forgotten." Having given these directions, he was desirous that no time should be lost for securing the object of his wishes; for which purpose, the admiral soon afterwards, though very reluctantly, left the house; and he had not been gone long, ere a letter was brought to Mr. Howard from a friend in England, who had lately seen his son at Leicester, and expressed his hopes that, on his return, he would find him considerably better. When this pleasing account was read to him by his servant, for he was too ill to read it himself, it affected him very sensibly; and his expressions of the delight it afforded him were peculiarly strong. Amongst other things, he repeatedly desired Thomasson, should his son, by the blessing of God, ever be restored to his reason, to tell him how much and how fervently he had prayed for his happiness, during an illness which he was now most firmly convinced would be his last. He also observed to him, in reference to the spot he had selected for his grave,—and which he probably was induced to choose, in preference to any other in the neighbourhood, from its being situated in the grounds of a French gentleman, who had shewn him many acts of kindness, that he should be at the same distance from heaven there, as if brought back to England; adding, that he had long felt no other wish for life, but as it afforded him the means of relieving the distresses of his fellow-creatures. When his friend returned to him with the intelligence that he had executed his commission respecting the place of his interment, his countenance brightened; a gleam of satisfaction came over his face; and he prepared to go to bed. As the admiral still remained with him, he gave him the letter to read which communicated the improvement in his son's health; and when he had read it, he turned his languid head on his pillow, and asked, "Is not this comfort for a dying father?" He then expressed great repugnance to being buried according to the rites of the Greek Church; and begged the admiral not only to prevent all interference on the part of the Russian priests, but himself to read the burial service of the Church of England over his body, which was the last request he ever made, and indeed nearly the last words his lips pronounced, as he was soon afterwards seized with a third fit, and ceased to speak for an hour or two previous to his decease. Still, however, he was sensible for a while; as, on being requested to let the physician be sent for, who was then at some little distance from his residence, he nodded his head by way of assent, though it was too late, as, before he could arrive, the rattling in the throat had begun, and he soon afterwards breathed his last, at about eight o'clock in the morning of the 20th of January, 1790. Biography. THE LIFE OF SYMEON, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM. [Concluded from No. LIV.] * "SYMEON was now advanced to a higher station, and a post of great peril, in this distressed Church. In one of the murderous riots with which the Jews ever and anon assailed the flock of Christ, they threw its bishop, James, the brother of the Lord, down from the battlements of the Temple, and then stoned him until he expired. Upon this a solemn assembly was held of the Church, to which there came from all quarters the apostles (such at least as were within reach), the disciples, and the kinsmen of the Lord. They elected Symeon into the place of James.† Perhaps not only his relationship to the Lord, and private character, but also his age as a disciple, contributed to this choice. For as heresy was now beginning to rear its head in the Church, it was of the utmost importance that they, whose authority was to be looked up to, should have been, if possible, eye-witnesses and hearers of the Lord himself. Such men would be able, by their own testimony, to keep their flocks clear from the forged traditions by which the heretics perverted the truth. Symeon was very shortly called upon to put this his talent to account. One Thebuthis, disappointed at not being elected rather than Symeon, headed a heresy, which must have miserably added to the distress of this afflicted Church. But Symeon had heard his Master say, 'It must needs be that offences come. But woe to that man by whom the offence cometh.'§ He was not, therefore, confounded at the sight of this as yet strange spectacle; and the awful warning contained in this prophecy would stimulate him, were other motives wanting, to exert all his talents and opportunities, that no share of the guilt might be imputed to himself, if the gangrene made progress. Yet the feelings of a good shepherd, like Symeon, must have been painfully wrung, even if but one or two of his flock were infected. The malice and uncharitableness with which a deflection from Christian truth always fills the breast of the separatist, who now regards his former pastor with hatred much greater than any love which he once bore towards him; the wranglings which now filled the house of peace; the reckless disputations, on awful points, which the Lord had purposely left in mystery; the mad perversions of the holy word; the avowed contempt of established ordinances; the railing accusation; the unblushing falsehood; the audacious forgerythese were lamentable novelties in the yet virgin Church; and their outward effects were even still less horrible to Symeon than the thought of the extreme jeopardy in which the eternal salvation of these, his wandering sheep, was involved. We, alas! are so inured to such horrible sights, that we cannot see them in their proper hideousness. But to Symeon, his Church, thus vitiated for the first time, must have seemed like a second fall of man. O that we and all could enter into the notions and feelings of this godly man on the unity of the Church of God! How beautiful would she be in our sight! how happy, how unwearied would be our labour of love in building up each other into so glorious a temple! Alas! we may as well endeavour to enter into the notions and feelings of the innocent Adam! "To counterbalance this disquietude from within, there was now unwonted peace from without. A succession of iniquitous and rapacious governors, who seemed to have been raised up by God for preparing the execution of his awful judgment, were goading on the Jews to their fatal rebellion. The attention of the persecutor was thus too fully absorbed with his own concerns to attend to his usual employment of harassing the Christian Church. Now, therefore, it had rest, and Symeon's utmost diligence would be exerted to separate his flock from the doomed nation. For by this time the prophecy of his Master was rapidly unfolding itself. The portentous signs which he had bidden him to expect, as harbingers of the approaching destruction, were already blazing in the sky. Even to us, who are certified from its fore-calculated appearance, that it is a thing in the regular course of nature, and therefore look for no consequences, a comet is an object of instinctive awe. The mind cannot contemplate a strangeness in the heavens without a feeling, however quickly subdued, of being brought under strange influence. What, then, must have been the feelings of Symeon at the unnatural spectacle when a fiery sword hung in the sky over his dying country for a whole year!* Now was his vigilance put to its utmost proof. He had, like Noah, to preach and fill the ark of salvation. He had not only to draw off his own flock apart from the doomed multitude, as the wheat for the garner from the tares for the fire, but also to win over, and save as many as possible of the yet unconverted. God had chosen him as the fittest instrument for his merciful purpose; for perhaps none but he, who was kinsman of the Lord, who had heard the Almighty denouncer with his own ears, could have prevailed to keep the line of separation so clear as to fulfil his Master's prediction, that not a hair of the head in all his followers should perish.' But as it had been in the days of Noah, so was it now. They ate, and they drank, and they were married. Men became accustomed to horrors; and the chance of repentance is often least when the danger is greatest. The same reckless passions which brought on the crisis, pampered by ample food, kick against all warning, either human or divine. Even Joseph. Bell. Jud. vi. 5, 3. † Luke, xxi. 18. Matt. xxiv. 38. such as are pricked with compunction find themselves too far gone to return. On! on! is the perpetual cry of our deluding evil spirit, and never ceases until we have rushed to the edge of the precipice, and cannot but fall headlong. Few, therefore, probably were they who accepted Symeon's invitation to enter the ark. "Symeon had now brought his household of faith together, and was waiting the Lord's time. The first signal to be ready had been given. Jerusalem was compassed with armies.* Christian hymn and prayer ascended amid the execrations of the doomed. The Temple, where murderers, and no longer righteousness now lodged,† had, without doubt, ceased to be frequented by the flock of Christ. What an awful interval of suspense was this, when all the haunts of their devotion, all the monuments of the religion of their fathers, all the spots consecrated by the Lord's presence, yea, their own places of assembly for prayer, were shortly to be mingled with blood, smoke, and fire, in one undistinguished ruin. But their houses of prayer were not, as the Temple to the Jew, necessary to their religion. These were not bound fast to the soil by local obligation. They were the accidental appendages, not the indispensable vehicle of the religion of the Gospel. Had they been more important, the resolute faith of this little flock would cheerfully have parted with them. "Amid this daily expectation of fleeing to the mountains, the last signal came from the Lord. Symeon and his Church were warned by a divine oracle to quit the devoted city, and take refuge in Pella, a city in the mountainous country beyond Jordan.§ An interruption of the blockade at this moment gave a free passage to their escape. Thus the ark was floated, and it rested as upon another Ararat. From this secure retreat, Symeon heard but the rumours of wars, until the final and dreadful execution of his Master's denunciation was announced to him. It must have been with a strange mixture of sorrow and joy that he heard this news. Jerusalem was dear to the heart of every Jew. His country was wiped out from the tablet of nations; his countrymen, in uncounted myriads, had been slain or sold; some of the sweetest and most natural associations of a long life were utterly broken up. But, on the other hand, the Lord's truth had been vindicated in the face of the whole earth, and to all succeeding ages. The yoke of their oppressor had ceased. His flock had been mercifully delivered by the Lord himself from the general calamity. "A.D. 70. What breathless awe must have attended his solemn announcement to his assembled Church of this fearful consummation; and with what a fearful comment could he follow it up! The Lord had mingled his prophecy of the judgment of this day with that of the last day; and he bade the witnesses of the one prepare themselves for witnessing the other. The 'great and dreadful day of the Lord,' which had just passed over to the extent of Judea, and to the death of the body, was the harbinger of another still greater and more dreadful day, which should come to pass to the extent of the whole world, and to the death of the soul. He who had come in judgment on Jerusalem, should come a second time to judge the world. You have already in your patience possessed your souls (he might have said) to the salvation of this life; henceforward possess them in your patience to the salvation of the life to come. O pray without ceasing, and labour without being weary, that He who chose you for his own from the general doom on this day may also choose you on that. This signal deliverance has made you responsible beyond all other men, and has bound you beyond all other men not to neglect so Luke, xxi. 20. + Isaiah, i. 21. 1 Luke, xxi. 21. Euseb. iii. 5. Epiphan. de Mens. et Pond. 15. Luke, xxi. 19. |