captivity to the obedience of Christ. Now, while it is called To-day, seek the washing of a Saviour's blood, the clothing of a Saviour's righteousness. "Enter into the rock (that rock is Christ), and hide thee in the dust, for fear of the Lord and for the glory of his majesty."* See to it, that you be not tares, whom the reapers will bind in bundles to burn. Seek that you may be found to be wheat to be gathered into the Saviour's barn, when he "shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ."+

To you who have heard the voice of the Lord speaking by his Holy Spirit to your hearts,whom the thunders of Sinai, and the threatenings of the law, have driven to flee for refuge to a crucified Saviour,-to you, who have made a covenant with him by sacrifice, renouncing all but his blood as the ground of your hope, receiving all from his fulness to justify and to make you meet for the heavenly inheritance;-to you we say, Rejoice, and be exceeding glad." Even now hath he “given his angels charge concerning thee, to keep thee in all thy ways;"‡ in those fiery trials which shall precede his coming, and prepare and purge and purify his Church, + 2 Thess. i. 7, 8.

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* Isa. ii. 10.

Ps. xci. 11.

"the angel of the Lord shall encamp round about those who fear him, and deliver them."* And when at length the shout from heaven is heard, and the archangel's voice replies, and the trump of God sounds forth, then will these ministering spirits, who have all along attended unseen upon the heirs of salvation, appear in all their strength and holiness and love and obedience, to gather you, and guard you, and convey you safely to your Lord.

Ps. xxxiv. 7.

LECTURE VI.

THE TRANSLATION OF THE LIVING SAINTS.

BY THE REV. E. LILLINGSTON, B.A.,

RURAL DEAN AND PERPETUAL CURATE OF ALL SAINTS, DERBY.

1 THESS. IV. 17. Former Part.

"Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air."

THE subject which I am to bring before you this evening, and which is contained in the words of the Apostle now read for our text, is indeed, one upon which we may enter with peculiar interest; because the events here stated and referred to, are those in which you and I, my brethren, if we be the people of God, if we be what we profess,— true Christians, shall soon have a personal share. For if we "have fled for refuge to lay hold on the hope set before us," we are heirs of the promises,

and all the blessings that are contained and conveyed in those promises, are secured to us by the covenant engagements of our covenant-keeping God; and no power of earth or hell can hinder our possession and enjoyment of the purchased inheritance. So that we must either be the partakers of the first resurrection, spoken of in the former verse, and referred to in this, or we shall experience that translation which is here described.*

And, my brethren, amidst all the uncertainties of the future, which the anticipating power of man can contemplate; how delightful, how comforting, how satisfying, to be able to look forward to something, not only excellent in itself, and far more desirable than any other object on which the heart of man can fix; but which is also sure and certain in its accomplishment. Such is the second coming of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and the great and glorious realities connected with that event. For though it be the privilege of the true Christian to be assured, that all things shall work together for his good, yet, as regards the particular circumstances of his future course, and the trials and difficulties under which he may be speedily placed, he "knoweth not what a day may bring forth." (Prov. xxvii. 1.) He has indeed the Ephes. i. 14; Rom. viii. 23; Luke xxi. 28.

assurance, and it is a blessed truth to his soul, that his God will never leave him nor forsake him; yet there is no SPECIFIC EVENT, on which his mind can settle with equal certainty as on the one now before us. For, says the Apostle, "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: (for the trumpet shall sound,) and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." (1 Cor. xv. 51,52.) There is, indeed, nothing certain in the future to which we can look, but what God has declared or promised; and all the promises of God, exceeding great and precious as they are, (taken from the commencement of his gracious communication with fallen man in the garden of Eden, until the close of this present dispensation ;) ALL have reference to, and seem to be included in,

THIS GREAT EVENT, THE SECOND COMING OF OUR

LORD AND SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST; which is, and which ever has been, EMPHATICALLY, THE HOPE OF THE CHURCH.

Even before the first advent of our blessed Lord the eye of faith discerned His second coming, and to it the saints looked forward in the expectation of hope and desire. The patriarch, Job, exclaims, in that well-known passage, “I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my

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