"But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief." What an awful intimation that to be forgetful of, or unprepared for that day, was a sign of spiritual darkness! "Therefore let us not sleep, as do others—but let us watch and be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and for an helmet the hope of salvation."

What a blessed state to be found in, by the Lord at His coming! The Christian warrior-armed in his divine panoply;-awake, and watchful, at his post -looking and longing for the promised appearance of the Captain of his Salvation !-ready to rejoice with exceeding great joy, when he sees His banner-flag unfolded from the battlements of Heaven, and hears the blast of the Archangel's trumpet, heralding His approach!

Again, would he strengthen their patience and faith in all the persecutions and tribulations that they endured?

In what magnificent and awful language does he point their view to that coming day of recompense to their persecutors, but rest to them who were troubled, "when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven, with His mighty angels, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall be punished, with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power, when He shall come, to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe, in that day."

The Apostle does not, you see, direct their thoughts, when he would inculcate on their troubled minds patience amidst their persecutions, to the time of rest awaiting them, when their warfare should be accomplished, and they should reach those mansions of

everlasting tranquillity and peace-" where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest."

He presents a far more splendid vision to their view! one which, if realised by a substantiating faith, might well enable them to look, undismayed, on all their persecutors, and on all their tribulations. He displays, before their divinely illumined eyes, the awful glories of the day of Christ's appearing! He exhibits the Lord—their own beloved Almighty Lord -descending from Heaven with a shout-revealed in flaming fire-attended with all His mighty angels -His enemies and theirs driven from before Him, as the dust before the whirlwind-and they themselves with all His saints, invested with such glory, reflected from the Sun of righteousness, then shining in all His strength, that Jesus Himself will be admired, and glorified in His saints, in that day! Oh! how powerless would the most powerful persecutors; how light would the heaviest load of affliction appear, in the realized prospect of that day of the revelation of the Lord!

And the testimony here given to the Apostle's desire to keep the day of Christ's manifestation ever present to their minds, is the more remarkable and important, because as we see by the next chapter, some expressions of his former epistle had led to an erroneous expectation amongst the Thessalonians, that the day of Christ was at hand-that the Lord was about immediately to appear. This error he corrects, by shewing that various events must be accomplished, before the day of the Lord should arrive! But (so far from withdrawing their thoughts from the subject) he again, as we have seen, directs their attention to the prospect of the day itself, as a motive for patient endurance of the rage of persecution!

Could he more plainly, or emphatically, tell Christians, of every age, that though they should not be

over-curious, or at all dogmatical in their endeavours to ascertain the precise period of this glorious event (about which they are as liable as the Thessalonians to make immense mistakes,) still the event itself, with all its magnificent and blissful prospects, all its animating, sanctifying, elevating, and comforting influences, ought to be kept by all, who love the Lord, in everlasting remembrance.

The same sentiment is briefly but very beautifully expressed, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, when exhorting them to steadfastness in the faith, amidst the reproaches and afflictions they had endured, for the truth's sake, the Apostle solemnly reminds them

"Ye have need of patience, that, after ye have done the will of God, ye might receive the promisefor yet a little while, and He that cometh will come, and will not tarry."

In the view of eternity, a thousand years seem to the Apostle's eye but as a day;-a long lapse of centuries but a little while. Oh! that all Christians would live with such a realizing view of eternity always before them!

On another occasion, (to show how familiar the topic was to his mind, as a motive to the discharge of Christian duty,) when he would enforce moderation on his Philippian converts, how short, but how sublime his exhortation!

"Let your moderation be known unto all men! The Lord is at hand!" The world, and the fashion and fleeting possessions thereof, are swiftly passing away. The day of the Lord will soon burst on our view! and, therefore, no object which, when the light of that day is flashed upon it, shrinks into insignificance, is worthy of the immoderate desires or pursuit of an expectant of the glory, which in that day shall be revealed!

In the same spirit we find St. James, when exhort

⚫ing the brethren to wait patiently for their promised possession of rest and glory, as the fruits of their faith, (like the husbandman waiting with long enduring patience, for the precious fruit of the earth,) we find him adopting a similar style of exhortation

"Be ye also patient! stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh!" and when He comes, you shall reap a rich reward of all your patient waiting, even an abundant harvest of blessedness and glory!

Again, when he would rebuke the unseemly envyings, and jealousies, and contentions, which were so peculiarly unbecoming in the followers of the meek, and lowly, and loving Saviour of mankind, how strikingly solemn the dissuasive employed by the Apostle

"Grudge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold the Judge standeth before the door!"

As if he had said "Shall the voice of the servants be heard within the Church-which is the house of God, disputing and quarrelling together, when the Master is standing at the door, listening to all that is passing in the house-and the servants know not the moment He may knock, and call them before Him, as their judge, to render Him an account of the trusts committed to their charge! And is envying, and contention, and strife, the employment in which they would wish to be found by Him, when summoned into His presence, at His coming!"

How powerfully practical the purpose for which the Apostle refers to this glorious prospect of Christ's second advent! How does he make it minister to the use of edifying, by promoting the growth of cheerful patience, and brotherly love.

Another species of proof, on this most interesting subject, is supplied by the incidental manner in which

the habitual expectation of the event is alluded to by the apostles, as a recognised and distinguishing mark of a believer-a peculiar and prominent feature of the Christian character-so essential to its full exhibition, at least, if not its existence, that the absence of it would have implied great, if not radical deficiency, as its prominence implied a higher degree of proficiency, and progress towards perfection.

"Ye turned to God from idols, (says St. Paul to the Thessalonians,) to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from Heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come."

Must not the "waiting for the Lord, from heaven," from its introduction into such a brief delineation of the change, which embracing the gospel had wrought in them, have been regarded by the apostle as of the very essence of the character, which that gospel was designed to form?

Again-Observe on what grounds St. Paul expressed his thankful joy on behalf of his Corinthian converts-those that were sanctified in Christ Jesus

"I thank my God always on your behalf, that in every thing ye are enriched by Him, in all utterance, and all knowledge, so that ye come behind in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Could words more plainly or powerfully express the apostle's conviction, that the possession of this habit of mind was a peculiarly precious gift of Goda crowning and perfecting grace of the Christian character?

A similar observation will apply to a remarkable passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews

"As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment-so Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Having thus spoken of His first manifestation in the flesh, as an offering for sin, he