SERMON VII.

"THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES."

DANIEL Xii. 4.

Many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.

THESE words of the Prophet will 'naturally lead us to the consideration of the last among the six signs which I have ventured to bring before you as "signs of the "times:❞—That prodigious increase of knowledge among all ranks of people; a general desire most especially directed towards the study and acquisition of religious knowledge; the press teeming with religious publications; the people eager in the purchase thereof; and the wide circulation of the sacred Word of God over so large a portion of the earth.

In drawing your especial attention to this most manifest and striking feature of our day,

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I shall first speak of the increase of knowledge so much dwelt upon in Scripture as peculiarly marking the latter days. Secondly, I shall advert to the positive fact of its great increase in our own day. And, thirdly, I shall point out the different view entertained of this fact, by two very opposite descriptions of professing Christians.

The latter days, that is the Gospel times, are spoken of in the Word of God as a highly privileged period in the history of the world, from true knowledge being its peculiar characteristic. The prophets "who spake as they "were moved by the Holy Ghost," do not, indeed, speak of the Gospel times as at once abounding with knowledge of the truth: they manifestly show that it is to be a progressive thing, and only towards the end that it shall be so general as to include the whole world. For though the promise is positive as to the final result, and couched in passages such as these" The earth shall be full of the know"ledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the "sea" (Isaiah xi. 9); and, "after those days, "saith the Lord, I will put my law in their "inward parts, and write it in their hearts; "and will be their God, and they shall be my

"people. And they shall teach no more every "man his neighbour, and every man his bro"ther, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall "all know me, from the least of them unto the "greatest of them, saith the Lord" (Jer. xxxi. 33, 34); though passages of this character abound in holy Scripture, as speaking of the fulness of knowledge in the Gospel times, yet it is evidently of an increasing knowledge: "a little one shall become a thousand, and a "small one a strong nation: I the Lord will "hasten it in his time." (Isaiah lx. 22.) So "is the kingdom of God, as if a man should "cast seed into the ground; and should sleep, "and rise night and day, and the seed should

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spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. "For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; "first the blade, then the ear, after that the "full corn in the ear." (St. Matt. iv. 26-28.) "It is like leaven, which a woman took and "hid in three measures of meal, till the whole "was leavened." (St. Luke xiii. 21.) Passages such as these, also, prevailing in God's holy Word, clearly show that general knowledge should be arrived at in the history of mankind, according to that striking illustration of the same result in each individual believer in the

grace and power of his Redeemer: "The path "of the just is as the shining light, that shineth 66 more and more unto the perfect day." (Prov. iv. 18.)

The prophecies, considered in this view of their practical tendency, assume their proper character of preparing monitors; and much more awaken us to the useful, or perhaps to any thought at all upon an intended warning, than if it had been spoken plainly and exclusively, that knowledge would at once, and suddenly, and in its fulness and perfection, be sent into the world. We are now prepared to look to any period, and most especially to such a period as is our own day, wherein knowledge generally, and knowledge especially of the best kind, in its very wide and manifest diffusion more and more around us, calls upon us to remember our blessed Lord's own question to all who live in such times as ours" Can ye not discern the signs of the times?"

And this brings me to my second position, -the positive fact of the great increase of knowledge in our own day.

With respect to the fact itself I need not say much: what seems to be matter visible to us all wants no other than the appeal to our

observation and experience for its argument. Science of every kind has been making great advance; and if, as is probable, there be a rarer portion of deep thought and intellectual research, but confined to some few, as in other times spoken of as times of an enlightened age, yet there is unquestionably a much wider diffusion of learning; there are more candidates for their measured portion thereof, and more facilities put out for its acquirement, than have ever been known since the world was.

But amid this general and increasing desire after knowledge, it is the seeking after religious knowledge, the pure knowledge of the Gospel, which renders our day so much a day of solemn consideration to us all. So fast has the progress been in the diffusion of religious knowledge here at home, and in other nations abroad, that no one can open his eyes and see, no one can give his ears to hear, but must confess the wide and rapid increase hereof to be the manifest character of our day.

But upon the increase of the knowledge of Christ's Gospel alone it is that there is real cause of congratulation among ourselves, and of thankfulness towards God. Unless that knowledge increase and abound, what will all