body; but rather refusing deliverance, in the hope of a better resurrection. (Heb. 11: 35.) A brave man despises death, and will face it in the hailstorm of battle, and in the roaring of the elements, with the spirit of an immortal, which extorts universal admiration in a good cause. The Bible teaches every man that he is immortal; and not to count this life dear in a good cause; for the believer shall obtain a glorious resurrection.

Savage and civilized nations, heathen and christians, are universally taught, and are wont, to count not their life dear in the public service, in the salvation of their country, or of their family, or of their bosom friend. Therefore, death itself is not much accounted of among wise men: neither is it by the wisdom and the word of God; and it is the weakness and depravity and folly of man, to pretend to match the doctrine of death at hand, with the doctrine of the near com ing of the Son of man, in the work of converting the soul. A man may defy death in the field of false honor, and die as the fool dieth; he may yield to it on a slow approach of consumption, with cold philosophy; he may surrender it on the gallows for crime, with triumph for his wick edness. The fear of it may be thoroughly subdued by the immortal spirit, which is in man, as well as by veteran discipline, and fre quent danger and time and exposure only increase our indifference to it. Every year of our lives, while we know it comes nearer, we naturally fear it less and less and less. It enters our houses, it passes daily by our doors in the city, and we are called to hold its victim in our arms, whose heart not long since beat with love on our own bosom. It is a solemn and tender hour; but we are not accustomed to tremble even at this, not at the sight of death, and much less at the thought of it.

But not so is the coming of the Son of man in his kingdom. That is it which makes the mighty men, and the bondmen, and every freeman alike tremble, and fly to hide in the

་

the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains; and to call on the mountains and rocks: "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand." (Rev. 6: 16, 17.) They who never quail in battle, who never bend the knee to heaven, who are sheathed in adamantine armor against all temporal calamities, will quail before this doctrine, and prostrate themselves to the earth before the Lord, in view of the great day of his wrath, in which no flesh shall be able to stand; in view of that judgment, which dispenses to every man eternal life, or the second death, according as his work shall be.

- Naturally man has little fear of the judgment in natural death. The immortal spirit within him, often rises superior to the fear of natural death, and nobly defies the king of terrors. Yet that same noble spirit in him will tremble in the view of the second death, and quake with conscious infirmity in apprehension of the judgment day. These latter are spiritual things, wholly belonging to the spiritual world; as a friend reminds me ; and in order to be received they must be taught, not in words of man's wisdom; but in words of the Holy Ghost, "comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receives not the spiritual things of God, for they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them; because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor. 2: 13, 14.) Man will not naturally infer a judgment to come, through any form of preaching natural death, or the death of the body: the whole is rather foolishness to him. He will sit and hear; but he will not believe; and while the preacher urges the death of the body, as a motive to prepare for judgment, the hearer, perhaps, will be naturally inferring universal salvation, as the consequent of natural death: and if I mistake not, this delusion is practically wide spread, on the ground of preaching repentance in view of natural death.

But the doctrine of the kingdom of heaven at hand, in which kingdom this risen body must soon stand before the king on the throne, before Jesus the crucified, and be judged according to the deeds done in this body, whether they be good or bad; and that this body must be received into the inheritance of eternal life, with the holy angels, or be for ever cast out, where is weeping and gnashing of teeth; this doctrine will surely stir the spirit which is in man, and will prick his heart, and cause him earnestly to inquire: “What must I do to be saved?"

Therefore, there is infinite spiritual power in the doctrine of Jesus and the kingdom of heaven at hand; and great natural indifference to the doctrine of the death of the body at hand; the latter is smoky darkness; the former is a glowing furnace of fire, that will melt the most stubborn heart.

PAUL'S OPINION.

"Sinners, awake betimes: ye fools, be wise;
"Awake, before this dreadful morning rise:

"Change your vain thoughts, your sinful words amend

"Fly to the Savior; make the judge your frend;
"Then join the saints, wake every cheerful passion;
"When Christ returns, he comes for your salvation."

The apostles preached this doctrine with power. In the faith of it, they carried the gospel among the nations, so that their sound went even to the ends of the earth. But Paul presented it in the fulness of its glory to the admiring view of the Thessalonians, and also to us: for these things were recorded "for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come." (1 Cor. 10: 11.) And not one jot does the apostle take from the nearness and grandeur of the scene; until he utters the remarkable prophecy of the second chapter of 2 Thessalonians, in which no diminution of the terrors

of the coming king is made; nor to us is permitted any opportunity to expect a thousand years delay of the Lord's coming. It was the following passage, which first opened to my astonished view this doctrine, nearly five years ago. But meeting much opposition to it, and finding little encouragement to speak of it, where I had expected much, I paused in the pursuit, conscious that, if true, it would not injure by delay. In the mean time, domestic anxiety and suffering dried up my spirit, and left me no power to arrange the multitude of thoughts upon this great theme; until now, in the hour of desolation, I thrust them from me with a haste that comports rather with my sense of their intrinsic value, than with respect for the order of their arrangement, or the nice adjustment of their proportions, or the polished texture of their covering. It is only to the magnificence of the thoughts, that I would call the reader's attention; and these are not mine, even in my weakness; they belong to the word of God. It is the overwhelming importance of the doctrine, that engages our meditation, and our study of the scriptures, to learn whether these things are indeed so.. W. e will open to 2d Thessalonians, 2d chapter. It begins:

"Now, we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him; (you perceive how Paul always keeps the great coming of the Lord in view, even when teaching that it is not instant;) that ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand."

The original word here, for "is at hand," is not the same as that our Lord used in preaching the gospel; nor has it the same import by any means; although the word is translated by the same, "is at hand," in English. Hyyins, engike, was the Lord's word, meaning "has come nigh, or is at hand:" vɛorŋuɛv, enesteken, is Paul's word here, meaning has come right upon you, or directly before you..

It signifies a greater nearness than engike. Paul, in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians, put the day and coming of the Lord before them in all its terrors, and living nearness : and he opens this second Epistle with a vivid descriptiption of the same most solemn scene: and, then, to correct their apprehensions, and to calm their troubled mind, he fur. nishes them with certain reasons, why they should not see that day instantly, although they should see it at length, and should gather to the Lord at his coming. And, now you, who understand the scriptures, and also something of the history of the church, and of the world, since the days of the apostles, tell me of the several reasons, which Paul gives for quieting the mind of the Thessalonians, what one remains to our time, and to us, to keep our mind from shaking with fear for that the day of Christ is at hand, enesteken, and has come right upon us?

"Let no man deceive you," says the apostle, "by any means; for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first. [It has come, both wide and terrible, long ago.] And that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition. [He has been above a thousand years revealed, the personification of the mystery of iniquity.] Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the temple of God, [the church is his temple] showing himself that he is God. [This is the little kingdom of the prophet Daniel, which should make war with the saints, and prevail against them,. and wear them out, to the end of time.] Remember ye not, that when I was with you, I told you these things, and now ye know what withholdeth, that he might be revealed in his time."

Paul refers to matters well understood at Thessalonica, and not concealed from the inquirer, even in this new world. He had taught them how the imperial authority, while it survived, would withhold the manifestation of the man of sin..