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with ten thousand of His Saints, to Execute Judgment upon All-Jude 14, 15. O that That Day may come to us with rejoicing of heart and the Soul's festal harmony, at the Manifestation and experience of our DIVINE REDEEMER's Love! To that Great End may the principal aim of our Lives and conversation be directed!

CHAPTER IV.

VERSES 1 to 8.-Furthermore then we beseech you, Brethren, and exhort you by The LORD JESUS, ▲ that as ye have received of us how ye ought to walk, and to please GOD, so ye would abound more and more: for ye know what Commandments we gave you by The LORD JESUS: for This is the Will of GOD, even your Sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication; that every One of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles, which know not GOD. That no Man go beyond and defraud his Brother in any matter; because that The LORD is The AVENGER of all Such, as we also have forewarned you and testified: for GOD hath not Called us unto uncleanness, but unto Holiness; he therefore that despiseth, despiseth not Man, but GOD, Who hath also Given unto us His HOLY SPIRIT.

In the humility of a Supplicant, but with the zeal of a most attached Friend, the Apostle urges the faithful observance of those expositions of duty and consistency in the Christian course, which he had made to them, but which he justly and promptly acknowledged to have been, not originating from his own mind, but Emanations from The DIVINE NATURE in the Person of The Incarnate SON of GOD. The aim of the Apostle is to promote in every professing Christian the purity and propriety of character, which might testify to the unchecked Influence of Grace, as the Sanctifying Power of The SPIRIT, Working in the hearts of Believers, and Inducing to every principle and habit of rectitude.The principle of Self-government in the restraining both the appetite and passions within the bounds of temperance, soberness, and chastity, is thus inculcated; and without such principles prevail systematically, there should seem to be an absence of That Sanctifying Grace, which is the true preparation of the Soul for Heavenly Communion, where the thoughts of the heart are only good continually for it is not in the outward Man alone, and in a suppressed manner, which evades Human penetration, that the Scrutinizing Eye of JEHOVAH will be Satisfied, for He Looks upon the heart; and if evil be there working within, amidst whatever secrecy of imaginings, or concealment of action, Judgment and Condemnation will eventually Overtake every such Offender against Pure and HOLY GOD. The Pure in Spirit are they, that shall see GOD, and see Him, with Whom it is to Save or Destroy, with the chastened delight of reverential love through CHRIST JESUS, and His Welcomed and Availing Intercession.- -So in his Epistle to the Colossian Converts his prayer was, that they might walk worthy of The LORD unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work; and increasing in the knowledge of GOD-i. 9, 10. And that knowledge would stimulate against every thought of wickedness and deed of darkness, if rightly applied, leading, as it should do, to the reverential love of GOD, and the grateful study to please Him. In another address, using the same term of associated affection to the Corinthian Converts, he writes, My beloved Brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the Work of The LORD forasmuch as ye know, that your labour is not in vain in The LORD-1 Cor. xv. 58. The caution against yielding to the base and bestial habits of corrupted Human Nature frequently occurs in this Apostle's writings, as to the Corinthians he says, Know ye not that your bodies are the Members of CHRIST? Shall I then take the Members of CHRIST, and make them the members of an Harlot? GODForbid! Flee fornication; he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body! What! Know ye not that your body is the Temple of The HOLY GHOST, Which is in you, Which ye have of God; and ye are not

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your own? For ye are Bought with a Price: therefore glorify GOD in your body, and in your Spirit, which are GOD's!-1 Cor. vi. 15, 18 to 20. And again in his Epistle to the Ephesians iv. 17, 19, where he draws the comparison between the odious habits of the Heathen Idolaters, and the manners and conversation of those, who have known CHRIST and followed the Guidance of His Gospel. So St. Peter in his first epistle exhorts to the laying aside former lusts (which he attributes to the want of the knowledge of CHRIST and the Purity of His Precepts) saying, As He, Which hath Called you, is HOLY, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation! Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not Redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation, received by tradition from your Fathers; but with the Precious Blood of CHRIST, as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot. Seeing ye have purified your Souls in obeying the Truth through The SPIRIT, unto unfeigned love of the Brethren, see that ye love One Another with a pure heart fervently being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of Incorruptible, by the Word of GOD, Which Liveth and Abideth for ever!-1 Pet. i. 15, 18, 19, 22, 23. Ye shall be holy! for I The LORD, your GOD, am Holy-Levit. xi. 44.-The Gift of The SPIRIT, as the First-Fruits of CHRIST's Sacrificial Intercession, if devoutly received, and faithfully yielded to, is the most Sure Earnest of our succeeding to a Heavenly Inheritance as the Effectual Qualification of the Soul, by the Purity and Piety It Infuseth, for the Holy Communion and Fellowship, which are There enjoyed. Follow peace with all Men and Holiness! without which, no Man shall see The LORD.-Heb. xii. 14.

VERSES 9 to 12.-But as touching Brotherly love, ye need not that I write unto you; for ye yourselves are Taught of GOD to love One Another: and indeed ye do it toward all the Brethren, which are in all Macedonia; but we beseech you, Brethren, that ye increase more and more; and that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your owu hands, as we commanded you; that ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing.

This is My Commandment (Said JESUS) that ye love One Another, as I have Loved you

John xv. 12, 17.

To be Taught of GOD! What an inestimable Privilege is This! And yet It is Offered Freely to All, who will come unto Him to be so Taught the Truth, as It is in JESUS. All the wisdom of this World, however praiseworthy in attainment, if rightly directed, is valueless without the Crowning Acquirement-the knowledge of The MOST HIGH, and the Way of Salvation and Eternal Life and Blessedness, through JESUS CHRIST. The Great Feature of That Doctrine is, Love of a holy and pervading character: Love to GOD, and to The MESSIAH, as The SON of His Love; Love to our Fellows; and Love, in the best sense, to ourselves. And the way to be true in love to ourselves, is to be true to the reverential and grateful love of GOD, and to fulfil our part in the Great Covenant of Pardon and Reconciliation and Eternal Life, Sealed with the Blood of CHRIST. Thus may the Lesson of Brotherly-love be most profitably applied, and, if founded in Christian faith, will abound more and more as the Influence of Grace on the heart, and as the opportunity of exercising may present itself; the principle of love, when vitally actuating, leads to the manifestation of a spirit of peace and tranquillity and contentment, and inculcates the observance of that spirit in Others, contributing thereby to the diffusion of the truest happiness, both within us and around us. The discharge of one's own duties, in the relative situation we are placed, within the Circle of Society, is what we owe to Society as well as to Ourselves, and cannot but be Acceptable to The LORD, as A GOD of Order; and industry and occupation are amongst the most solid sources of individual as well as municipal benefit and social happiness;

the honorable independence, that is one of the fruits of industrious and wellregulated employment of time, is an enduring benefit generally through life; often essentially contributory to health, and affording the means of diffusing good in the spirit of widely directed charity, where alms or aid are essentially beneficial in their remote, as well as immediate effects; making the Spiritual improvement of ourselves and of Others, the primary and paramount object in every course of exertion or exercise.- -To do our own business in the spirit of Christian faithfulness; and not to neglect it, by becoming busy in Others' matters, which do not fairly fall within our province of moral or Christian interference, was amongst the admonitory exhortations of the Apostle Peter, where he says, Let None of you suffer as a busy-body in other Mens' matters!-1 Peter iv. 15. To act justly towards Others is essential to the Christian character: nor will generosity or any excess of zeal to relieve Others justify a departure from this principle.

VERSES 13, 14.-But I would not have you to be ignorant, Brethren, concerning them, which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others, which have no hope; for if we believe that JESUS Died and Rose again, even so them also, which sleep in JESUS, will GOD Bring with Him. Here is the most important of all Truths to the sustaining the Spirit in the Christian warfare; that the end of life is to be not only the end of care and disquietude and discomfort, but to open in the Life to Come on an Union and Fellowship with All that is Holy and Blissful and Heavenly; the experience of which will be crowned with the deeper insight into the Love of CHRIST, The SON of GOD, for Man, and a participation in the Exalting and Exhaustless Fruits of That Love in Eternity. It is this knowledge that we should unceasingly seek effectually to obtain, and so profitably to lay to heart, that it may influence us to rule our Lives and conversation, our habits both of thought and of action, by it. So to think of the termination of this life, amidst the uncertainty, that hangs around it, is to rest the hope of Salvation on the right foundation. On the loss of dear Christian Friends or Relatives, separated from us for a season by death, this Spiritual view prospectively beyond the grave, is the most supportive consolation to Survivors, that can be administered; and to spread the inestimable effects of such faith in Others, we should strive to win them over to the same gladdening belief. The beautiful illustration by this Apostle of the Resurrection that assuredly awaits every Soul of Human Kind, as that CHRIST, in His Sacrificial and Mediatorial Character, Died and Rose again, may be consulted in the xv. chapter of the 1st Epistle to the Corinthians, and the same Great Truth, that CHRIST is Become The First- Fruits of them, that die in His faith-20,may be fondly dwelt upon. To awake from the sleep of death to the consciousness of the Glories of Heaven, and of the experience of Its endless and exquisite Joys, amidst the Holiness that pervades It, is within the power of All, to whom the Gospel of JESUS CHRIST is Laid open, and who receive It into their hearts with becoming gratitude and adoration, and make It the Rule of their Lives: thereby obtaining to themselves not only the Promise of the Blessedness of the endless Life to Come, but the possession of the truest and most enduring Joys in the Life that is.

VERSES 15 to 17.-For this we say unto you by the Word of The LORD, that we, which are alive, and remain unto the Coming of The LORD, shall not prevent them, which are asleep for The LORD Himself shall Descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the ArchAngel, and with the Trump of GOD; and the Dead in CHRIST shall rise first: then we, which are alive and remain, shall be Caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet The LORD in the Air: and so shall we ever be with The LORD.

The term prevent means here come before,' or 'precede,' at the Final Advent of our Blessed SAVIOUR, in His Awful and Omnipotent Character of

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JUDGE of both Quick and Dead. The Coming of MESSIAH will be ere the whole of Human Nature has paid the common debt, or shared the common lot of passing to the grave, and the Dead will be in the instant aroused by the Trump of GOD, and re-united in body and Soul, so as to join in the Assembly of the Living, when All will appear before the Throne of The LAMB, submissive to His Power, and prepared to acknowledge the Righteousness of His Judgment. But with what different feelings will the Utterance of The Judgment, Which will Issue from That Throne, be met! How overwhelming will be their's, who rejected the Offer of Salvation, having yielded themselves up to blasphemy, pride, sensuality, oppression, cruelty, or any other impulse of depraved hearts, or perverted minds! And at the same time, how inconceivably exalting and rejoicing the sensations of Such, who entered fondly into and continued faithfully in the Gospel Covenant of Pardon and Reconciliation, Written by the Finger of GOD, and Sealed with the Blood of The Incarnate SON of His Love. To be with The LORD, is to be, as St. Paul insists, in all the engaging and rivetting contemplation of His Unspeakable Condescension and Goodness, and in the ceaseless admiration of His Devotedness to Man, in the Immense Sacrifice Made by Him, by the Stooping to the Adoption of our Nature, and Enduring its heartless ingratitude, contempt and persecution, whilst Engaged in the Only Office of Doing us Good, both for Time and for Eternity. Amidst a Communion of Spirits so adoringly regarding the Assertion of The MESSIAH's Power, in the Fulfilment of His Gracious Promise to Raise them, that have had faith in Him, to be Where He is, in a circle of Celestial Glory, participating in the Holiness and Happiness of HEAVEN, to be then found, in all our delightful reflections at having, in our state of probation, gone the Way of His Chosen, should be the leading impulse of our thoughts here, that we might thence gather strength in a prayerful and dependant Spirit to seek The HOLY SPIRIT's Guidance, and the right application of The DIVINE Council in the Revelation of GOD's Will, and in the Record of The SAVIOUR's and His Followers' Example.- -Our SAVIOUR had Predicted His Final Advent, when Prophetically Cautioning His Disciples against the future appearances of false Prophets assuming the Character of The MESSIAH; Saying, For as the Lightning cometh out of the East, and shineth even unto the West; so shall also the Coming of The SON of Man be! Then shall Appear the Sign of The SON of Man in Heaven; and then shall all the Tribes of the Earth mourn, and they shall see The SON of Man Coming in the Clouds of Heaven, with Power and Great Glory; and He shall Send His Angels with a great sound of a Trumpet; and they shall gather together His Elect from the four winds, from one end of Heaven to the other-Matt xxiv. 27, 30, 31.- -On the Ascension of our SAVIOUR into Heaven after His Resurrection, whilst the Disciples were gazing on Him, a Cloud received Him out of their sight; and while they looked steadfastly toward Heaven, as He Went up, behold, two Men, (or Angels) stood by them in white apparel; which also said, Ye Men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into Heaven? This Same JESUS, Which is Taken up from you into Heaven, shall so Come in like Manner, as ye have seen Him Go into Heaven -Acts i. 9 to 11.And St. Paul, in his after Letter to the Thessalonian Converts, renews his assurance in equal splendour of imagery, of The Coming Judgment, and the Omnipotence with which JESUS will Execute it; Discriminating between them, that are His, and Such as have been hostile to His SPIRIT, or Gospel-2 Thess. i. 7 to 10; concluding with his Apostolic admonition to prepare for That Great and Solemn Day, on Which the Destiny of every Human Soul will be Fixed for Eternity.The Apostle St. John depicts a DIVINE Revelation Made to him, of an Intermediate State, that shall Precede the Universal Resurrection, where he says, I saw the Souls of them that were beheaded

for the witness of JESUS, and for the Word of GOD; and they lived and reigned with CHRIST a thousand years. But (the Apostle adds) the Rest of the Dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished; This is the First Resurrection on Such the second Death hath no power; but they shall be Priests of GOD, and of CHRIST, and shall reign with Him a thousand years-Rev. xx. 4 to 6.- -The most Gracious Encouragement is Held out by JESUS to His Disciples, (as recorded by St. John) when Foretelling His Own Death, and consequent Separation for a season from them; He Said, Let not your heart be troubled, ye believe in GOD: believe also in Me! In My FATHER's House are Many Mansions; if it were not so, I would have Told you: I Go to Prepare a Place for you; and if I Go and Prepare a Place for you, I will Come again, and Receive you unto Myself; that Where I am, There ye may be also-John xiv. 1 to 3. What a Flood of Delight does This Promise of our SAVIOUR, to be with Him for Ever in the Mansions of Blessedness, pour upon the Soul of the true Believer! How would all the attractions and fascinations of worldly pleasure or acquirement sink into utter nothingness, in comparison even with the hope of Such an Attainment, were the heart but true to its own truest interest! And how can our gratitude or obedience be in any way limited, or allowed to be suspended or diverted, if the faith, that is in us, be the lively faith that the Scriptures of DIVINE Truth Call into exercise! Oh! may the love of JESUS reign ever in our hearts, that both in Time and in Eternity, Where He is, we may be also!

VERSE 18.-Wherefore comfort One Another with these Words!

And truly to what depth of affliction or privation will not those Words speak Consolation, and awaken to a Joy, that only can be understood by those who experience it; and which, amidst the torment of the flame, and the torture of the rack, have given a sensation of delight from the nearer prospect of being with JESUS, when the Eternal Rest and Peace of the Soul will be Confirmed, through the Propitiatory Sacrifice of Him, Who hath Brought Life and Immortality to Light by His Gospel.

CHAPTER V.

VERSES 1 to 3.-But of the times and the seasons, Brethren, ye have no need that I write unto you: for yourselves know perfectly, that the Day of The LORD so Cometh, as a Thief in the night: for when they shall say, 'Peace and safety!' then sudden Destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a Woman with Child; and they shall not escape!

With the patience of Saints, should all Believers await The LORD's Own Time; assured and well satisfied, that He will Come in Fulfilment of His Unfailing Promise, and that He will not Tarry beyond His Appointed Season: and in the approach and advent of death to each of us, we may well rest our confidence, that then will The LORD's Time of Grace and of Glory, in their Fullest Union, arise upon us, with The DAY-STAR from On High, Beaming Its Softest, Purest Blessings upon us, if in this Life we have firmly and effectually laid hold of the Cross of CHRIST,--have Clung to Him as the Only SOURCE of our Hope of Salvation, in a faithful love of Him, Whose Sufferings and Whose Righteousness have thus been our Ransom and Reconciliation. But how inconceivably awful and horrifying will be the then feeling and prospective fate of them, who have set at nought the whole Council of GOD, and crucified relentlessly The LORD of Life, and done perseveringly despite to The SPIRIT of Grace! Despair! without any, the most distant ray of hope, and only coupled with the deepest remorse and unceasing Self condemnation, at having wilfully shut their eyes upon the Purifying Light of Revelation, and turned their backs upon

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