turings in the words of the Lord himself, spoken but the moment e're he left the earth: It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father has put in his own power.

The coming then of the Lord to judgment will be an event sudden and unexpected, as much so as if it were on the morrow, in such an hour as men think not-so that it is vanity in us at the least to be building up our systems of the world's future history, and foretelling what never can be known till it comes, the time of Christ's second Advent. Neither whilst we avoid this error and refrain from presumptuous prophecyings, are we to depart into the extreme of those who in the spirit of the scoffers the Apostle speaks of, are saying, Where is the promise of his coming? and arguing from the present order and stability of creation, that there is no reasonable prospect of this great and solemn event: for again we must remember, we know not the hour, but we do know its character, that it will be one of security, when the great part of mankind shall be wrapped in deep lethargy and forgetfulness; when nature, perchance, may be all loveliness around them, the sun shining in his brightness, and the heavens unshadowed by a passing cloud; when the husbandman will be speculating on his crops, the merchant in his counting-house, the tradesman at his market, the sons of pleasure at their merry-makings, the bridegroom going forth from his chamber, and the bride arrayed in her nuptial attire;-in such an hour as this of inexpectancy and light-heartedness and anticipated joys, in a moment shall be seen and heard the lightning and the thunder clap, the musterings of vengeance in the heavens above, and the throes of dissolution in the earth beneath-and God's mighty angel shall proclaim time no more, and herald in the judgment scene. It will be but a moment-the twinkling of an eye--and what hinders that that moment be the very next? what! e're the eye has time again to twinkle, that the trumpet summons salute our ear, and startle our sluggish souls with astonishment, perchance with dread? There is nothing in reason or revelation to hinder this-the latter has both

warranty and warning that so the end will be. Watch then, for God hath told you. But, if it be not so e're the morrow or the next day, or one year, or two, or a thousand, which in God's sight is but a day; if it be not so to the world universal, why, brethren, should not the Lord's Advent be a special one as midway and momentary and startling to any one of you? You have the morrow's employment marked out of pleasure or of profit, what, if you never put your hand to it; what, if now God's eye be on you marked as the first to fall of this congregation, and the word be on his lip-this night; will not this be the Lord's Advent to you? What can you do when the body is with the dust, and the spirit before God? What difference will it make whether living on earth or sleeping in the grave you hear the trumpet note? None, for at what moment the earth shall present her quick, at the same she shall restore her dead. Remember this, that just such as your soul is now should God summon it to death, just such it will be when he summons it to judgment: the grave has no charm, no purifying change, no mysterious transformation, no process of oblivion, that you should go into it an unrepentent sinner, and come out of it a glorified saint: there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave. The sun may go down in clouds and rise in brightness, but you, if you go down in sin from this world, must rise to everlasting destruction in the world to come. So remember, as the morrow may see the mourners about the street for you, this hour or this night may be to you the Lord's Advent.

You are coming to the year's end, look around you here, or look around your household, and can you think of none to whom the Lord's Advent is come since its commencement? And who are you that e're another year the brethren should not look around and think the same of you? What are you better, or wiser, or stronger, or more secure in any way than they were a year ago. Oh! what are you but a trifler with mercies and warnings and experiences, if when I tell you of the Son of Man's coming, you reflect not that though he may not come to

all present in his Advent, the last and the universal, possibly enough, aye, probably enough, he may come in his Advent especial and distinctive to summon you?

And now; for I have delayed on this point beyond my intention, now that I trust some of you at least may be more deeply awakened to your own personal interest in the enquiry of the text, I will proceed to its application as I have already pointed out.

The question is, When the Lord cometh will he find faith upon the earth? Now our concern in this matter is not with futurity, but the present time. If the Lord came to-morrow would he find faith upon earth? and looking to the nations of the habitable globe, brethren, he would find but little more than one quarter professing it; he would find nearly one half of them ignorant of the very name of God. Yes, though for 1800 years the gospel has been preaching, above two-thirds of the earth's inhabitants are in utter ignorance of the Lord that died for them, and nearly one-half of the God who gave them life. How comes this? Partly because many nations are fallen from the faith; the gospel has been preached to them for a witness, has been professed-yes, look on Asia, and you will remember that it once flourished-but they grew first liberal, as the term is, and then lukewarm, then careless, then hardened, and at last the Lord took away the candlestick from them. Partly too because through the poverty, not of means but of faith in those who know the name of Christ, they have neglected to send forth that gospel to the others. I know that the time of the end shall not be till the gospel has been preached as a witness to all nations. But I know not so certainly that at this moment it hath not been already so preached as to fulfil that word, and therefore I know not but the time of the end may be even now. But how so, you will ask, when it is notorious that there are millions upon millions who have never heard the name of Christ? What of that! Does the scripture say that every individual soul must hear it, that all nations must be converted to it? or does it tell us that it shall be

preached to each nation for a testimony-for a testimony, mind a witness that that land has heard of God's gracious message: and know we not both from revelation and experience that the fate of the children may be involved in their father's doings, and that if the ancestors of a people have rejected the tidings of salvation offered, they may leave the heritage of wrath for its rejection—a mitigated wrath we would trust, but still wrath for the invitation slighted, to their latest posterity? If in earlier days a messenger of Christ's has gone through any land, and brought to it the glad tidings of Christ's Kingdom; if pointing for evidence to the visible works of creation he has proclaimed the unknown God who made them all; or appealing to the inner man and his consciousness of guilt he has told of a Redeemer who died for them all-what, if that generation have refused the messenger and set at nought his tidings, and clung still to their dark idolatries, and God choose not to be long-suffering to that nation, and entreat them again in a later age by the voice of another Ambassador, has it not been fulfilled that in that land the gospel has been preached, and will not God, though it be numbered in the judgment with the unconverted, be justified in his saying and clear when he is judged? And thus, though faith be not found even professed but in about one third part of the earth, yet the testimony of God has gone forth to a far larger portion of its territories; even in the first ages of the gospel, kingdoms that are now in heathen darkness heard the warnings of the messengers of peace, and the light of christian churches illuminated many a land whereon the darkness has now deeply settled again.

We may look, I say, on many a spot which the ignorance of mahometan superstition, or the barbarities of heathenism are defiling, and behold it a spot not where Christ's name has been unheard, but where his faith hath been once and perished; and if those people now are ignorant of the Lord who bought them, their forefathers were not ignorant but have let go the faith once delivered, and if the Lord when he cometh find it not, the reason to be rendered is this, that the Fathers have

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eaten sour grapes and the childrens teeth are set on edge. But it is a lamentable thing to reflect on that nearly threefourths of the earth is yet unchristianized, that when the Lord of all in his infinite mercy sent an embassy of peace to his apostate creatures, and not willing that they should die for their iniquties, but be reconciled to his favour, gave his only Son to die for them; oh! it is a lamentable thing that when the greatness of such love was revealed, and the messengers thereof were sent abroad to proclaim and confirm it with miracles, and nation was commanded to teach nation till the uttermost of the revolted provinces had heard the wondrous grace; yet the coldness and the lethargy and the darkness of the sons of men, has so fatally prevailed that tidings which might e're now have waked the world to extasy are forgotten in lands which knew them once and exhibited so feebly to their fellows by the lands that know them now, that near 2000 years are past and three-fourths of the world is yet unchristianized. Oh! the blindness and the selfishness and the barbarity of men, that when God hath put into their hands the lamp of salvation, they will not lift it up to their brethren who are dying in the darkness of sin; that when he hath given them a Name whereby millions of the lost might be rescued to glory, they will not pass it on from shore to shore.

But, brethren, this reminds us that a something must be wanting where professedly and to our view faith is to be found. We will contract then the circle of our enquiry, and passing from the earth which gives a melancholy negative to our question, we will propose it of the favoured part therefore and ask, Would the Son of Man coming in this day find faith in the christian world? Certainly he would not find one faith, and scarcely one Lord confessed, and one Baptism. But touching the essentials of salvation, the faith once delivered to the saints, would he find that? Alas, no-for there are Socinians who deny the Lord that bought them to be the eternal Son of God, and a far greater multitude than they, the apostate church of Rome, which deny the all and the sole efficiency