took upon Him the body of a mortal infant, and for our sakes He consented to struggle through the feebleness and infirmities of human life. But hereafter, when the Son of Man shall appear the second time, the dignity of his eternal power and Godhead will be fully revealed in his approach. At first He came as a man of sorrows, to suffer, bleed, and die; but hereafter as the mighty God, to take vengeance upon all resisters of his grace, and to be eternally admired in all them that believe. And now let us contemplate, according to the Scriptures, the special purposes of Christ's second coming. They are purposes of mercy and of judgment; of mercy to all his true. servants. Death, and the grave, and the day of judgment, are indeed awful realities, and are calculated to awaken the liveliest fears in the most stout-hearted sinner and also to hasten the preparations of the most advanced Christian. But there will be nothing terrible in these events to the people of God; when they die their flesh rests in hope; and even though their bones may be scattered wide apart, one from another, yet is their dust precious in his sight who numbers the sands upon the sea-shore, and who will, doubtless, when the appointed hour shall arrive, collect, though it be from the four winds, every portion of these vile bodies that shall be required for framing and fashioning those glorious bodies, which the souls of just men made perfect shall then for ever inhabit.

Truly, then, Christians seem guilty of unsaying much of their professed faith, when they are much afraid to die. Let those fear who are living in the course of this world, who have made earthly things their main pursuit and portion, the flesh their counsellor, man's opinion their rule, and God their enemy. Let them fear to die who have no warrantable hope beyond the grave, who are living without prayer, whose conversation is unholy, who delight not in God, whose religion, such as it is, is by constraint, whose Sabbaths are wearisome, whose week days are their best days, and most suited to their taste; but let not the Christian fear to die. What! Shall he fear that which brings him to the very end of his faith, the professed object of his desire? Shall he

fear that which carries him for ever beyond the reach of all possible evil, whether of sin or of sorrow? Shall the way-worn traveller fear the conclusion of his journey, or the tempest-tossed mariner the haven where he would be? Shall the warrior fear the moment of final victory? or shall the penitent, accepted prodigal fear his father's house? Now, my brethren, although we rightly judge the event of death to be, in every case, most solemn in its arrival, and to be contemplated most seriously, and to be prepared for most diligently, yet is it altogether a manifest inconsistency in the Christian to shrink from the coming of his Lord; for such may well be considered the event of death to every obedient believer in his Saviour's name. To him the lingering fatal sickness, or more sudden dismissal from the body of the flesh, is the utmost of mercy that can befal him here, and if he had but an Apostle's faith, he would at least be in that holy difficulty which St. Paul confessed when he said: "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better." And what is there, my brethren, in the grave's short dominion so much to terrify the contemplations of any true-hearted servant of God and his Christ? The grave has not a moment's power over the soul,-that rises to God, or ever the body descends into the earth,—and when we recollect, that it is the soul which animates the body, that renders it capable of pain or pleasure, of joy or sorrow, the Christian surely need be under no great concern, how for a time it may fare with his lifeless body when the soul has left it; for if, as we know, the Christian's soul will then be with God, the Christian himself will be there; not in the grave, not the companion of worms, corruption, and darkness, but of the spirits of just men made perfect, of angels and archangels, of God the Eternal Father, and of Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant! And so again, concerning the issues of the last judgment, when the Son of Man shall be revealed from heaven to judge both the quick and the dead; even then may the Christian trust and not be afraid: confusion belongs not to him in that solemn hour, but to those who know not God, nor obey the Gospel of our Lord

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Jesus Christ; and to them indeed Christ's second coming forebodes nothing but dismay and destruction; and most justly, for how often, when on earth He came among them in the ordinances of his grace, offering Himself to redeem their souls from sin and Satan, and by his mercy to prepare them for the day of his judgment, did they make light of his great salvation, and still dared to risk his wrath rather than give up the love of the world and the practice of sin? To all such, our Lord's statement in the text may well sound an alarm of terrible import. O that it may now be a word both of warning and persuasion! Surely," said Christ, "I come quickly;" "Surely I come;" let both the righteous and the wicked be assured of this truth, the one for his comfort and encouragement, the other for his conviction and conversion. As surely as Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, so surely will He come again as the appointed Sovereign Judge of the human race. And He will come "quickly." Years and ages seem long periods to mortal man, but they are as nothing in his view, to whom a thousand years are as one day! And when compared with that eternity of existence, which will assuredly follow the second coming of the Son of God, the time, however long between the prophecy of the event and its fulfilment, is indeed a short and quickly passing interval. But when we consider, that the event of death is to each one in effect as the second coming of Jesus Christ, then does there appear to be a more strict and striking truth in these words of the Lord, the Judge, "Surely I come quickly!" Say not, therefore, that threescore years and ten are long in passing. Ask those who have arrived at this, and take their answer concerning their joys and sorrows, their pursuits and occupations, and they will tell you that in respect of duration they have brought all these years to an end as a tale that is told. My brethren, strictly speaking, no lifetime, however protracted, can be considered long, which shortens as it passes. And this

is the case with the longest life. How quick in coming is each man's last hour, even if he should live to extreme old age; and then how commonly is death prematurely hastened by the invasions of sickness, pain, and manifold

sorrows! Infancy cannot ensure the attainment of childhood, nor childhood youth, nor youth manhood, nor manhood old age. Death cuts down, without regard to years, the fairest and most withered of the human race; and when once the sentence has gone forth from the Sovereign of life, we die, and our spirits are gone to give in their account before the Judge of all the earth. O then, let none say or think concerning their Lord, where is the promise of his coming? his chariot wheels are not slow, for at whatever distance in point of time the general judgment may be, yet to every human soul the day of death is the day which decides its eternal state, and therefore to be reckoned and prepared for as the judgment day itself. For the grave gives no place for repentance. To those who die in their sins, mercy speaks no more, no saving convictions can work upon the ungodly in another world, if they are ever to be quickened to a spiritual life, it must be now in the time of their mortal life; if they will indeed receive Christ as their Saviour, they must receive Him now, if they would be prepared to meet Him in judgment, they must be quick in their preparations, lest, coming suddenly, He should find them still sleeping the deep sleep of spiritual death.

REMARKS ON THE CHARACTER OF NEHEMIAH.

It is said that virtues are better taught and enforced by example than by precept. If so, we have in the character of Nehemiah an instance of the virtue of public spirit, which may be set against any thing that history can produce; nor can Greece or Rome boast of a hero superior to him in this respect. Nehemiah was a Jew, but he had not been born in, or had ever seen, Jerusalem. His father seems to have been one of those Jews who were carried to Shushan, where the court of the Persian king was, and having got a good settlement there, would not embrace the opportunity of going to Judea, when the Jews had obtained leave to return from the captivity. Nehemiah was cupbearer to the king of Persia, a place of great honour and profit; he was highly in the favour of that prince, and rich, having every thing that, as to

this world, he could wish. But he thought of his remote, poor, and desolate country; and when some who came from Jerusalem told him the state of the city, how it still lay in ruins, and the inhabitants exposed to the insults of their enemies and the scorn of their neighbours, and in a state of misery, he was greatly afflicted; applied himself to fasting and earnest supplication to God, and then resolved to take the first opportunity of addressing himself to the king. One day the king observed his being melancholy, which was unusual in him, and asking him the cause, he replied, "Why should not my countenance be sad, when the city, the place of the sepulchres of my fathers, lies waste?" The king granted his request, and sent him to Judea as governor, with power to rebuild the walls and gates, which he executed speedily and effectually. But the neighbouring nations did all they could to oppose, and conspired to attack the Jews, if they attempted to rebuild the ruined city. Upon this, Nehemiah did not order the people to go to prayers only, and to confess their sins, and commit their cause to heaven, but, like a pious and a brave man, he exhorted them to join with him in supplication to God, and, at the same time, to put themselves in a posture of defence. "We made," he says, "our prayer to God. I set the people with their swords, their spears, their bows, and I said to them, Be not afraid of them. Remember the Lord, who great and terrible, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, your wives and your houses." Nehemiah made great reforms amongst the people, whom he had found in a wretched state. But there were amongst the Jews false, treacherous brethren, men who were in a foreign interest, and received bribes from their idolatrous neighbours, and who sought to bring an invasion upon their own country, and to distress the people and the governor; and amongst these apostates were priests and prophets, false prophets, who endeavoured by their predictions to frighten the Jews. One of these told Nehemiah that there was a conspiracy formed against him, and assassins determined to kill him, and advised him to go and shut himself up in the temple. But he answered, "Should such a man as I flee? who

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