on the heart-the burthen of sin. They will look back on the scenes of Jesus Christ in the garden of Gethsemane, and at the cross, and feel as much oppressed as if they had heard his groans and his prayers; they will then believe the simple sayings of God; "the powers of the world to come," the greatness of eternity, will occupy their attention; they will then look, "not at the things which are seen and temporal," but at the sublime and glorious "things which are eternal;" the distance between that period and the judgment-day will, in thought, be annihilated; they will feel themselves standing on the threshold of the infinite and everlasting mansion, and their whole souls will be absorbed in the nothingness of time, the grandeur of eternity, the awful hurtfulness of sin, and the infinite importance of the great salvation. Those things which we speak of with freezing accents and cold hearts will then be felt in the inmost soul; conviction will seize upon the transgressors, while others will be rejoicing in the Lord, and it will be as it: was in the time of the building of the second temple; "the voice of shouting, and the sound of weeping," will be mingled together, as in the time of Ezra. While troops of pilgrims will be pressing towards the celestial city, many millions of prodigals will return to their Father's house, and will lift up their eyes to the Saviour who died for their sin. These things MUST take place, they did take place at the first preaching of the gospel. By some, such occurrences would be regarded as disorderly. God be praised, there were such disorders as these, and well would it be for us were our religious assemblies frequently interrupted by such disorders. The time will come, assuredly, when "the Spirit will be poured from on high;" and who knows what will be the effect when the Divine Being applies the truths of his Word to the consciences of his creatures. Then will "the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest :" then, my brethren, all the powers of nature, all the resources of providence, all the advantages that are possessed by men in every variety and state, will jointly contribute to aid the general triumph. "The multitude of camels shall come up; the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah: all they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and incense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord." Kings shall offer their gifts, and the majesty of all earthly sovereigns will bow to the majesty of the Saviour. All the spoils of earthly grandeur will be laid at his feet, and none will be "exalted in that day," but the Lord and his Messiah. This, next to our own salvation, is the only proper object of our solicitude: if we can but attain this,—if we can but witness this, every thing else will follow: this touches the source and author of all motion; and in proportion as we can engage the Divine Spirit on our side, in that proportion will Omnipotence be exerted, and who can stay his hand?

There are some who do not expect these scenes to be realized; but we say to them," Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God."* Before him all difficulties vanish; it is only the exertion of the same sort of power as every sincere Christian has witnessed,—

* Matt. xxii. 29.

the power of which he is himself the subject; and what reason can he assign why he should have been touched by the Divine Spirit,-" made willing in the day of his power,"-and the same power not be rendered effectual in the breasts of others? The same influence which was extended to a Paul will effect the renovation of the world. No new power is requisite: it is the same; even that, without which we might "preach in vain," and you "hear in vain ;" it need only to be poured from on high, and then "the wilderness will become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest." Let us, then, in our prayers, especially and earnestly entreat this Divine communication. Never let us pray for the Baptist mission, or any other, without recognising distinctly in our prayers our dependence on the Divine agency; never let us for a moment lose sight of this, but direct our attention to it as the main object of expectation and hope,-regarding it as indeed the work of God. It is his special prerogative to renew the heart of man, and to build up from the ruins of the fall a temple to his praise; and when this is accomplished, "all the kingdoms of the earth will flow into it," the nations that are saved will walk in the light of it: and how can we, who consider ourselves "the temple of the Holy Ghost," be better employed than in imploring him to "send forth his light, and his truth?" Let us address him in the language of the church: "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arin of the Lord; awake, as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Art thou not it that hath cut Rahab and wounded the dragon?" "Where is thy strength, the sounding of thy bowels and of thy mercies?"* The church of God is now praying to this effect, and the best pledge of the final triumphs of Christianity results from the combined influence of prayer and active exertion in a spirit of dependence. Our earnest desire that the heathen should be converted, and that Christianity should be published and received among all nations, may be regarded, we hope, as the earnest and fruit of that Divine Spirit whose more copious effusion will accomplish the work. Let us welcome the rising beam, "the daystar" that ushers in the morning of a brighter day than has ever yet shone upon the earth. Let us fervently pray that the Divine Spirit may be poured out upon the world, and that the Redeemer may "take to him his great power, and reign" universally in the hearts of

men.

* Isaiah li. 9; lxiii. 15.

XI.

THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.*

MATTHEW XVI. -3.-The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting him desired that he would show them a sign from heaven. He answered and said unto them, When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather; for the sky is red: And in the morning, It will be foul weather to-day; for the sky is red and lowering. ye hypocrites! ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?

[PREACHED AT BRISTOL, FOR THE NATIONAL SCHOOLS, NOVEMBER 28, 1820.]

So violent were the prejudices excited by our Saviour's preaching, that those who could agree in nothing besides agreed in the attempt to discredit his authority, and destroy the effects of his ministry. An instance of this is presented in the words just read, in which we find the Pharisees and Sadducees forgetting their mutual antipathy in their common hostility to the pretensions of Jesus Christ. The Pharisees, as you are aware, were a sect among the Jews, who had multiplied to an enormous extent their additions to the law of Moses; which, together with the other parts of the Old Testament, they received as inspired. The Sadducees, a sort of religious skeptics, generally supposed to have confined their belief to the missions and writings of Moses, rejected the doctrines which connect us with a future world; the resurrection of the body, and the existence of spirits. These two parties, at variance on all other occasions, concurred on this; and both, "tempting" our Lord in the hope of ruining his reputation, "desired that he would shew them a sign from heaven;" an indication that he was the Messiah, yet more miraculous and convincing, according to their idea, than any he had before exhibited. By this "sign from heaven," they probably meant some direct manifestation of the Divine glory, without that intervention of second causes which seems to have impaired in their minds the impression of the miracles they had witnessed. They imagined that an immediate vision of the Divine Majesty would afford an evidence of his being the Messiah, more unequivocal and satisfactory than could be afforded by any performances however supernatural. Such a notion was delusive, and arose entirely from the depraved and obdurate state of their minds. When we find those who are already in possession of sufficient evidence yet demanding more than is given, we may be sure that, in such cases, no evidence would be sufficient. Accordingly, it is not the practice of the Divine government to comply with such unreasonable desires:

* Printed from the notes of the Rev. Thomas Grinfield.

but, while he that hath, or that improves his present advantages, shall receive abundantly more : from him that hath not, or that uses not what he has, even that which he hath shall be taken away.

From the suggestion of the words first read, I propose to consider some of the most obvious and palpable signs which the present age exhibits of the advancement of our Saviour's kingdom; and I shall take occasion to remark previously, that it is an important part of wisdom, a duty which as Christians we ought not to neglect,-to discern the signs, to watch the moral aspect of the times in which we live. We are not, indeed, called or qualified to penetrate into futurity; but we may study with advantage that portion of providence in rela tion to the church and the world with which we are most nearly connected.

Of the benefits to be derived from this study, the first is, that we shall thus learn more of the intentions and character of the Divine Being. The providence of God is the execution and development of his mind. In observing the course of providence, we see the operations of his hand, and read his will as truly in its fulfilment as in his written revelation. Again: our devotion should be modified, to a certain extent, by the signs of the times. In our prayers, we may derive encouragement from these to plead with God for the accomplishment of his own gracious designs and promises: we may adapt our humiliation to the demand of the season; acknowledge the hand that wards off impending evils or crowns us with signal favours; and be reminded what benefits we may appropriately implore. And, once more: such a habit of advertence to the prominent features of the age may be useful in the regulation of our active duties. In our exertions to promote the good of mankind and the glory of God, we are not merely to regard his general will as applicable to all times alike; we are to inquire, also, his particular design in reference to the existing state of things,-to study what he would have us do at such a particular crisis. Does He appear, for instance, by various concurring events, to be preparing for the more extensive and rapid diffusion of the gospel? Then it becomes our appropriate duty to provide whatever means seem the best adapted to promote that transcendent object. Some persons, who are sufficiently attentive to the more private details of Christian duty, take but little interest in the fortunes of the universal church: a failure which, in such cases, arises principally from that inattention to the signs of the times reprehended by our Saviour in the text.

Having offered these suggestions, I shall now advert to some plain, unequivocal signs and indications of the present age. I call them plain and unequivocal, in distinction from such as may be thought of an ambiguous character. With respect to some of these signs, while events are passing by us, there may be differences of sentiment; differences which will probably disappear when another generation shall look back upon our own times. In contemplating an object, we find it necessary to recede to a certain distance, in order that we may the more comprehensively survey what pressed too closely and became

too prominent, during our nearer approach; and thus the present portion of providence will be better understood, in all its bearings, when the events which compose its principal features shall have been for some time passed. The following remarks, however, will be confined to the most striking peculiarities of the present age.

1. Of these, the first I shall mention is, the great increase of mental exertion. Some periods have been marked by intellectual inaction; the human mind has appeared as in a state of torpor and dormancy: not a luminary has broken the prevailing darkness; not a distinguished name has been left behind: knowledge has been not merely stationary, it has not merely not been progressive, it has retrograded. Such was that period in which, after the decline of the Platonic philosophy, Aristotle reigned in all the schools, and was idolized as the secretary of nature, who dipped his pen in intellect. From his dictates there was no appeal; and, what was most remarkable, his empire extended to theology. As nothing can convey a higher idea of the intellectual greatness of that extraordinary man, than the unrivalled despotism he then exercised over human minds, so nothing can present a more humiliating picture of the weakness of those minds than the depth of mental degradation to which they thus descended. The Reformation was the great instrument in undermining and demolishing that longestablished system of intellectual despotism and degradation. Under the light diffused by the Reformers, men awoke from the trance of ignorance and infatuation in which they had slept for ages; they felt those energies of thought and reason which had been so long disused; they began to investigate truth for themselves; they started to that career of genius and science which has ever since been rapidly advancing. Had this been the only benefit it produced, the Protestant Reformation would deserve to be numbered among the noblest achievements of mental energy: viewing it in this light, even infidels have applauded Luther and his associates.

Since that era the greatest advances have been made in every department of science, physical and moral; more especially during the last century, in which the progress of knowledge has been more rapid than, perhaps, during any similar period of human history. In addition even to the grand discoveries of Newton, respecting the laws of nature and the system of the universe, such a mass of varied information has been accumulated, that Newton himself, could he witness the present state of his own science, would be astonished at advances he never anticipated. Every year, nay, almost every day has added something; while the registers of discovery have found it no easy task to keep pace with the rapidity of its march. The nomenclature of the preceding fifty years has been found so inadequate to the demands of the latter half-century, that it has become entirely obsolete and a new nomenclature may be required by another age. This is remarkably exemplified in the department of chymical science: nor has less been accomplished in moral and political philosophy. The genius of legislation has been greatly elucidated within the present age. The principle of religious toleration and liberty of