They knew not! But had they not been told? Yes, verily. Noah preached to them of righteousness and judgment to come; he builded the ark also, and thereby gave them warning; by which, as it is written, "he condemned the world." They had heard, therefore, that the flood was coming; and many, very many of them must have joined Noah in making visible preparation for it; yet our Lord says, "They knew not, till the flood came.' This opens a truly deceitful mine of the human heart; and as it was then, so it is now. It is possible to hear of the coming King, the coming judgments, and the coming kingdom, and to be constrained to admit the justice of the statements, not seeing how the arguments advanced can be refuted-nay, not only so, but to take a liking for the subject, to find in it a comprehensiveness, a depth of intellectual exercise, an excitement of political application, which invests it with a very animating interest; and thereupon to become a zealous advocate for it, a champion in the controversy excited by it; and yet to be without part or lot in its blessedness; never really to embody it in your instinctive creed, so as to make it your own; and, after all, to have it truly said of you, in the sense now before us, that you knew it not till it came. Here, as in every other branch of it, salvation is by grace. The natural workings of the mind and heart of man are easily mistaken for the energisings of the Holy Ghost. The study of prophecy may be as formal as the profession of orthodoxy; and the formal student, as well as the

formal professor, may live and die at enmity against God, and be cast into the damnation of hell.

You know that the Lord is coming, and shall come; but you know not the time. "Watch, therefore: if the good-man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore, be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." It is very evident that the disciples and first Christians lived under this lively impression, and were persuaded that the day of the Lord's coming was at hand. They turned from idols to serve the living God, and "to wait for his Son from heaven." Their conversation was in heaven, from whence they looked for the Lord. Jesus Christ to come and change their bodies into the likeness of His risen body. The apostles, instead of referring to the believer's death, and holding out the disembodied state as the object of the Church's proximate hope, addressed the brethren on this wise: "Ye come behind us in no gift, waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” "The Lord is at hand. Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord." "Stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh." "Be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ." "And I pray God, your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."

And the church of the Thessalonians was so

impressed by this and similar language, that the apostle Paul was taught of the Holy Ghost to explain to them that the great tribulation spoken of by the Lord Jesus must intervene; for that the Son of Man would not come until first the man of sin was revealed, arrogating to himself the incommunicable attributes of God. This is the subject of 2 Thess. ii. 1-8. This must have caused the animating expectation of the immediate coming of the Lord to have subsided in the Church. It was necessary that it should be so: the truth of the case required it. But, to guard the faithful against the despondency in the first instance, and afterwards the unbelief likely to arise from this, a detailed description of the progress of the great tribulation was revealed, as we have seen, to St John, and by him communicated to all the churches.

Now, then, that the man of sin has been revealed: now that the mystery of iniquity has been working, not in its secret spirit only, (in which sense it is in the nature of every fallen man, and did begin to oppose the gospel even in the apostles' days,) but also in its open form, as the manifest usurper of the government of Melchisedek, wearing on the same head, in antichristian combination, the crown and the mitre: now that the great tribulation has been running its course, and such signs as are predicted to mark the termination of it, are starting into more and more manifest existence in every kingdom of Europe: now, the impression which animated and supported the first disciples in all their troubles, but which afterwards

died away in the Church, should revive and reanimate us, and set us upon such a course of holy devoted activity and self-denial, as would require the very impression which caused it to support us under it. For, mark! let the prophetic numbers be calculated as they may, at the longest feasible calculation the time is now short; and the Lord Jesus has said distinctly, that the last days of the time shall be shortened, for the elect's sake-how much shortened He has not said. Therefore, if we could surely calculate the numbers of the times given by Daniel and John, and if we could successfully demonstrate that our calculation is correct to a day and an hour; yet, still, of the exact time of our Lord's coming no man could know: but one thing we know, the time covered by the prophetic numbers shall not be lengthened. The impression made upon the disciples, therefore, though proved to be premature in their case, is exactly the impression which should be made upon us, and which will not prove to be premature in our case. Combined with the certainty of the event, and the well-grounded conviction of its nearness, there remains uncertainty as to the time; and my mind has been much affected by observing how this, like every other branch of divine truth, works two ways. To those who are watching, the uncertainty, by keeping them watching, is a savour of life unto life: to those who are careless, the uncertainty, by leaving them in their carelessness, is a savour of death unto death." It was to deepen the impression of these points, that the

parable of the Ten Virgins was spoken. It marks the state of affairs at the time of the end among those who had received warning. "THEN" (mark the connexion with the 24th chapter-then) "shall the kingdom of heaven be likened," &c. All the ten had so far taken warning, and embraced the hope, that they seemed to be waiting for the expected Bridegroom. Had He arrived at that instant, all the ten would have entered into the marriage but He tarried: His delay put their constancy to the test. It is endurance that proves principle. It is "to him that overcometh," the promises are made. They sank under the trial, five of them to rise no more. The day of the Lord's coming will prove, to many avowed expectants of it, a day of surprise, and a day of separation. This is the connexion of the fortieth and forty-first verses with the thirty-ninth. There

shall be two in one field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two virgins shall be waiting for the marriage; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two ministers shall be officiating in the church; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two magistrates shall be sitting on the bench; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two farmers shall be bargaining in the market; the one shall be taken, and the other left-" Where, Lord? And Jesus answered, Wheresoever the body is, thither will the eagles be gathered together," (Luke xvii. 37.) "Watch, therefore; for ye know

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