Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." Until then His glorious body shall remain in heaven. Until every object intended to be effected by the dispensation of the Gospel shall be obtained, until God has manifested His patience towards obstinate transgressors, until sinners have been invited to receive the overtures of mercy, until the souls of all His people are regenerated by the workings of the Spirit, and purified by sanctifying grace, until every member of His family shall be delivered from pain and sorrow, until all the dispensations of time shall have done their work, and until all the ancient prophecies shall have been fulfilled, the heavens shall retain Him. When all this shall have been accomplished, then shall Jesus Christ appear the second time, coming in the clouds of heaven to perfect the work committed to His charge as mediator between God and man. We come

III. To observe the concord of both the Old and New Testaments respecting Christ and His doctrine, "Which before was preached unto you, and which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began.”

Christ had been before preached unto the Jews, having been portrayed unto them by types, delineated by shadows, pointed out by emblems, and declared by the voices of living messengers. He was proclaimed by Moses and the prophets; preached by John the Baptist; the doctrines were announced by Himself; and He had been already held up in the ministry of the apostles, as well before as after His resurrection and ascension.

The Jewish economy was not merely intended for the immediate benefit of the chosen people, but whilst it furnished them with a motive to serve God, and to adhere to the precepts of Mount Sinai, it extended to illustrate future blessings which should be realized by both Jews and Gentiles through the doctrines which Mount Calvary supplied.

The words of the New Testament are like threads of gold interwoven with the precepts of the Old, so as to form a curious web of such proportionate beauty that won the admira

tion and sustained the hopes of all the faithful from the creation of the world to the incarnation of Christ. It was to magnify the "Desire of all nations" one nation was made the conservative of the oracles of God. Those oracles were supplied to them by littles: and in every additional supply there was an additional unmistakable token of the future blessedness of the Gospel. The scheme of every prior dispensation afforded a relief of mercy and a gleam of hope centering in Christ, who is the grand object of all the Divine dispensations from the beginning of the world to its close.

God did not leave His Son without a witness in any age of the world, for we are certain that there were some throughout the successive ages who earnestly looked for the Messiah, and the blessings of His kingdom. What preserved our first parents from despair, but the promise that the seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head? Abel in his offered sacrifice recognized the sacrifice of Christ; Enoch prophesied of His coming; Abraham saw His Day afar off, and was glad; Jacob, with his dying breath, could testify, "I have waited for thy salvation, O God," Job was supported in the midst of his toils by knowing that his "Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth;" David was satisfied when he felt that he should awake in his likeness; Moses, Samuel, and all the prophets could join with the Church in that energetic prayer, "O, that the Salvation of Israel were come out of Zion." "God hath spoken by the mouth of all the prophets since the world began."

Then, brethren, since we are assured that Christ is the substance of all the Scriptures, let us reverence them above all other records, and since they unanimously declare that Christ being now in heaven shall hereafter appear to restore all things, prepare my soul to meet Him.

165

The Tenth Sunday after Trinity.

EVENING SERVICE.-First Lesson: 1 Kings xxii.

Verse 8.-" And the King of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man, Micaiah the son of Imlah, by whom we may enquire of the Lord; but I hate him, for he doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so."

GREAT sinners must expect to be visited with great judgments; and though those judgments be delayed to confirm the long-suffering of God, yet they will ultimately come and will not miscarry. When men incur signal judgments in this world, it is by persisting in a long course of sin in spite of warnings and threatenings. Ahab had been repeatedly warned, now in one way, then in another; but nothing seemed to produce a proper permanent effect on his mind. One might have thought that the three years and a half drought in the land, the signal defeat of the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, together with the repeated verbal messages of Elijah, would have been sufficient to induce him to relent, to forsake his wickedness, and return unto the Lord. But no, the insinuations of his wicked wife, and the propensities of his own equally wicked heart held him as it were with an iron grasp, thus going from bad to worse, and from worse to worst, until he became ripe for destruction. If the repentance he professed upon being reproved by Elijah after the tragedy of Naboth the Jezreelite had been permanent, doubtless God would have forgiven him the past, and would have honoured him, as He had done, with success; instead of that he soon returned to his evil ways, for which cause God sent upon him strong delusion that he should believe a lie, being

not ashamed to own to the King of Judah that he hated the man who spoke the truth to him in the name of God. Thus when persons become hardened by sin, and by repeated acts of iniquity fill the cup of God's displeasure, nothing will prevent them from rushing headlong to their own destruction.

Micaiah, the son of Imlah, is supposed to have been the prophet who reproved Ahab for dismissing Benhadad, the King of Syria, of which we read in the twentieth chapter, and that it was because of the judgments with which he then threatened him, Ahab entertained that strong animosity against him; but, however strong his hatred before, it became still stronger when he heard first the ironical language, and then the faithful parable with which he addressed him respecting the battle of Ramoth Gilead. The sequel of the story, which you have already heard in the reading of the Lesson, brings out the character of Ahab in the strongest colours. His cruelty towards Micaiah, and his treachery towards Jehoshaphat clearly prove how worthily he deserved. the fate which soon afterwards befel him.

There are two things which suggest themselves to our consideration in contemplating this passage of Holy Scripture. First, that God's message to those who persist in doing wickedly is a message of evil. Secondly, that the wicked hate those who have the courage to declare the truth to them in God's name.

I. We observe that God's message to those who persist in doing wickedly is a message of evil. Every one of such a character can say with Ahab, " He doth not prophesy good concerning me, but evil." How can it be otherwise when wickedness is so contrary to the character of God, so opposed to His glory, and so destructive to His works. The burden of this message of evil consists sometimes of providential judgments in this world, but chiefly of spiritual punishment in the world to come. We might refer to a series of the most appalling providential judgments which are recorded in both the Old and New Testaments as being consequent upon per

sistency in wickedness; but as those are less perceptible under the present dispensation of things than they were of old, we shall more especially fix our attention on the future judg ments which are reserved for the wicked. We must not think that if a man is allowed to go on successfully to the end of his life, notwithstanding the enormity of the crimes of which he has been guilty, God forgets his iniquities and lets them drop to the ground without any further notice. The whole tenor of Scripture teaches us that there is a day of retribution-that ungodly men as well as the angels who kept not their first estate are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the last day-that the tares which are suffered to grow among the wheat are ultimately to be consumed-and that endless destruction awaits the impenitent hereafter. The reasons for these messages of evil are—

We

1. Because the purity of God's nature insists upon the punishment of wickedness. He is of purer eyes than to behold evil and look upon iniquity. Holiness and corruption cannot dwell together, dry stubble cannot come in contact with consuming fire without being burnt, light and darkness cannot coalesce, there is no agreement between God and Belial. "The pure in heart" only "shall see God." cannot form an idea of the extreme purity of His nature, the whitest snow, the purest metal, the brightest ray fall far short of those qualities which are necessary to give but a faint idea of it. It is blended with His essence; being of infinite perfection, without it He cannot exist. When we think on the other hand that wickedness is of so foul a nature that the filthiest object in creation cannot furnish an emblem sufficiently abominable to represent it; when we think that it attempts to remove the stability of God's throne, when we think that it dims the lustre of God's universe, when we think that it defaces the impression of God's image, when we think that it despises the love of God's Son, when we think that it slights the overtures of God's grace; shall He not visit for this? and will He not punish those who continue to indulge in that which He so infinitely abominates ?