This cannot be fully accomplished, till the dead in Christ shall be raised, with bodies incorruptible and glorious, as their Redeemer's on the morning of the resurrection!

The earthly tabernacle, which like the leprous house of old, had been so infected by the loathsome disease of the unclean inhabitant, who once dwelt in it, that it must be entirely razed to the ground, and mingled with the dust, shall on that morning, be rebuilt-raised anew out of its ruins, in far more than even the splendour and glory which belonged to the earthly tabernacle of Adam's sinless soul, before the fall. For this, even then, had only the honour of being a suitable residence for a pure spirit-(the likeness to the divine image being, on the morning of the creation, confined to man's spiritual part,) but on the morning of their resurrection, the bodies of the saints shall be made like unto His who has united, in his own person, the human nature with the divine! Thus the likeness to the divine image will then and forever extend both to the material and immaterial part of their compound nature-both to the glorified body and the glorified spirit-as in both, the glorified saints will then resemble Him, who is "the brightness of the Father's glory -the express image of His person," and by whose assumption of the glories of the Godhead into a human form (by an union never to be dissolved,) everlasting honor has been put even on man's corporeal frame and a divine glory flung round it, immeasurably brighter than encircled Adam's before the fall!

Oh! what a mortification for that malignant spirit, who hates and persecutes the saints of God, with such intense and unrelenting rage, to see all his diabolical assaults against them thus issue in his own defeat, dishonour, and disgrace: to see, that by all his malice and machinations, he has only been in

strumental in raising them to a more exalted height of glory, than but for him they could ever have attained!

And what a magnificent triumph for the Son of God. What a noble recompense for all the Almighty Warrior suffered in His conflict with Satan, to see not merely His great enemy thus entirely vanquished -the serpent's head thus crushed under His feetbut even materials extracted from that serpent's envenomed poison, and deadly sting, for increasing His own glory, and brightening to all His people the everlasting splendour of their celestial crown!

Is not the hope, thus linked with the day of Christ's appearing, well entitled to be called, by way of eminence, the believer's blessed hope? And seeing what exalted, purifying, and comforting influences must emanate, through the sanctifying operation, of the Holy Ghost, from the constant cherishing of such a hope, can we wonder that such a prominent station should be assigned to it, in the scriptural exhibition of the Gospel scheme!

And now, when we glance back retrospectively at the substance of this and the preceeding chapter, surely, unless my judgment much deceive me, we have seen some satisfactory reasons for the prominence, which we have proved to be given, in Scripture, to the second coming of the Son of God, as the grand stimulating motive for the Christian's watchfulness, constancy, and courage, in fighting the good fight of faith-the grand animating hope to support and cheer the Christian's spirit, amidst all the toils and tribulations of his earthly pilgrimage.

We have seen how the habitual contemplation of this event keeps the Saviour Himself continually before the view, amidst associations, and in an aspect, most powerfully calculated to exalt Him in our esteem, and endear Him to our affections-and to teach us to

appreciate, at their just value, the utter emptiness of all that this world idolizes, and the inestimable preciousness of His great salvation!

We have seen how it is further fitted to develope to their fullest extent, and make instrumental in imparting their highest happiness, some of the peculiarly distinguishing, noblest, and loveliest features of the Christian character, both as regards the Redeemer, His redeemed people, or the believer's personal hopes of happiness for eternity! We have seen how all the most glorious promises and prospects of the Gospel point to the day of Christ's appearing, when they are all to receive their full accomplishment! How then, and not till then, the mediatorial glory of the Redeemer will be complete, and He shall see fully of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied! How then, and not till then, the collective glory of the Church will be complete, and all her assembled members will be united, as one glorified body to their glorified Head! How then, and not till then, the personal glory of each individual member of that Church will be complete, and the work of redemption, in their behalf, be seen to be worthy of a God to have accomplished!

We have also remarked, when contrasting the scene of unclouded glory, and unbounded blessedness, thus opened to our view, by the prospect of the day of Christ's manifestation, with that presented to the eye by the day of the believer's death, how though the latter be indeed to him a glorious day, yet is there a surpassing glory in the former, which transcendently excelleth; and how the former is free from all those clouding anticipations of pain, and agony, and separation, and decay, and death, which are connected with the entrance on the state of preparatory rest and blessedness, which faith is privileged to behold, as reserved for the believer's spirit, when released from the burthen of the flesh. And as these painful associations

(however the believer is privileged, through Christ strengthening him, to triumph over all tormenting fear of them,) must from the very constitution of our nature, exercise something of a repelling influence over our thoughts and feelings, we have endeavoured to shew, that there are unquestionable traces of the divine wisdom and the divine benignity, manifested in directing our habitual anticipations to a scene, where, to a believer all is attractive-bright-glorious-blissfulwithout a single darkening, or alloying association of sorrow or suffering from any source, to dim the glory of the prospect presented to the view, or damp the ardor of desire for its immediate, and everlasting enjoyment.

CHAPTER V.

PRACTICAL REFLECTIONS.

HAVING thus adduced some of the more striking scriptural testimonies, concerning the second coming of the Son of God, and suggested some probable reasons for the prominent station assigned to its exhibition, in the development of the Gospel scheme, I would now proceed, according to our proposed plan, to derive from the subject some of those practical inferences, the enforcement of which stamps on this all-important doctrine its paramount and peculiar value. For the more attentively we study the word of God, the more deeply shall we be convinced, that the ultimate design of the religion of Jesus, to which the revelation of every doctrine it unfolds is distinctly subservient, is to mould the character into a conformity with the Saviour's, and to regulate the life by those essential principles of righteousness, which are at once the transcript of the mind, the announcement of the will, and the indispensable qualification for the enjoyment of the service and presence, of a righteous God.

If then the second coming of the Saviour could not be made powerfully instrumental towards the attainment of this object, we may feel convinced such a station as it occupies would not have been given to it, in a scheme which has been revealed to us, for the very