ready to deny the existence of the sins which we have just confessed with our tongues-yea, almost ready to turn and rend the man who ventures to allude to their substantial and personal reality. But, if our vision is not clouded with some strange and fearful delusion-our spiritual conceptions wholly warped, and our apprehensions too deeply tinged with the dark and gloomy aspect of the times in which we live-there is a day immediately at hand when it shall not be needful to ordain fasts and acts of outward humiliation, or to issue forms of prayer in aid of the reluctant piety of the people; but it shall prove to be a day wherein the lofty look and scornful pride both of the Church and the nation shall be laid low, and their honour trampled in the dust of the earth: a day when there shall be a great mourning in the spiritual Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon. THEN shall the land truly mourn-not with loud and tutored lamentations, ascending in regular cadence from well filled churches-for, in that day, every family shall mourn apart; the family of the spiritual house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan' apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart; yea, all THE FAMILIES THAT REMAIN, every family apart, and their wives apart-a fast, when all shall seek to hide their agony in the secret recesses of their own chambers, and every man shall smite upon his own breast in the depth of woe and bitterness of spirit. Then a lamentation shall be heard, piercing the ears of the Lord God of Sabaoth, who will send forth from the cloud of glory the refreshing showers of the latter rain, and pour down, through the risen saints, heavenly consolation to heal the bleeding wounds of a truly broken-hearted Church. But, Now, prepare thyself, O daughter of Jerusalem; array thyself in sackcloth, cover thy proud head with ashes, and sit in the dust; for the days of thy rejoicings are ended, and the days of thy mourning and widowhood are near. But, who are these two witnesses who issue from the temple, and, though clothed in sackcloth, yet appear invested with such power and honour? Who are these that can thus stand before the God of all the earth? THE RETROSPECT. No. XIV. There is a natural propensity in man which exposes him to the continual temptation of directing his faith to, and fixing his hopes upon, that which is visible and tangible to the senses, instead of to, and upon, the invisible realities of the spiritual world. Nor is the force of this observation much diminished by such expectations being more immediately directed towards some phenomenon which it is anticipated may be developed in the Church of Christ: the principle is the same, though the objects upon which it acts may be different. The whole world is sustained upon hope, and it is a part of the essence of a man's being that he should live upon hope he is born in hope and he dies in hope, and he passes through his long and weari VOL. III. P some pilgrimage supported throughout its various meanderings by a constant succession of hopes. It is unquestionably a stage advanced in the right direction when a man's expectations are centered in the Church rather than upon the world; but he will have certainly attained a far higher standard when his heart is found concentrated upon God Himself, rather than upon the manner and character of His dispensations to man; for the Church-that is, as respects her outward and visible manifestation-is but the accident of the truth, and not its essence: God alone is THE TRUTH, and the Church, in its highest and most spiritual form, is but the outward expression of those infinite perfections which are essentially and eternally existent in the Godhead. It follows from these premises, which we think are indisputable, that whilst the Church should ever exercise an intelligent and lively faith, and possess a "quick understanding" (scent) in the knowledge of God's ways, both as respects her own career and the world at large, yet that she should always regard both these but as accessories to the truth and not as the truth itself; and when contemplating them, either as displays of God's divine majesty and power, or as indications of His future purposes with either, her thoughts and affections should be rather fixed on God Himself than upon any manifestations of His power or acts. It is quite possible, for example, to exercise a certain degree of faith, and even much acumen, in the development of the unfulfilled prophecies of Scripture, and yet to be very far removed from a truly spiritual union with God, or enjoy any deep entrance into the divine mind and purpose. If an interpreter of prophecy confine himself to the mere unfolding of future events hereafter to be manifested, either in the political or natural world, he is but a fortune-teller of the Church, since all these outward developments can only be contemplated as the manifestation of those attributes of the divinity, into the fellowship of which all the mystical members of the body of Christ are invited to enter with their Head. When our Lord, in His memorable discourse with Nicodemus, placed the new birth-that is, spiritual regeneration by the Holy Ghost-in the category of "earthly things," it must not be supposed He was using an indefinite expression by way of illustration, but that He enunciated an eternal principle of truth, and one which it was most needful a ruler in Israel should fully understand, inasmuch as the commencement of His ministry on earth was the sign that the Holy Ghost |