neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat." "There is no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither any more pain; for the former things are passed away." Nor any more sin; nor any more guilt; no more remorse; no more punishment; no more penitence; no more trial; no infirmity to depress us; no affection to mislead us; no passion to transport us; no prejudice to blind us; no sloth, no pride, no envy, no strife; but the light of God's countenance, and a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the Throne. That is our home; here we are but on pilgrimage, and Christ is calling us home. He calls us to His many mansions, which He has prepared. And the Spirit and the Bride call us too, and all things will be ready for us by the time of our coming. "Seeing then that we have a great High Priest that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our profession;" seeing we have "so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight;" "let us labour to enter into our rest;" "let us come boldly unto the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need?."

1 Rev. xxi. 4.

2

Heb. iv. 11. 14. 16; xii. 1.

SERMON XVII.

WAITING FOR CHRIST.

REV. xxii. 20.

"He who testifieth these things, saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

Had

WHEN Our Lord was going away, He said He would quickly come again; yet knowing that by "quickly" He did not mean what would be at first sight understood by the word, He added, "suddenly," or "as a thief." "Behold I come as a thief; blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments1." His coming been soon, in our sense of the word, it could not well have been sudden. On servants who are bid to wait for their master's return from an entertainment, that return, one should think, could not fall suddenly. It was because to us His coming would not seem soon, that it was sudden. What you expect to come, you wait for; what fails to come,

1 Rev. xvi. 15.

you give up; while, then, Christ said that His coming would be soon, yet by saying it would be sudden, He said that to us it would seem long.

Yet though to us He seem to delay, yet He has declared that His coming is speedy, He has bid us ever look out for His coming; and His first followers, as the Epistles show us, were ever looking out for it. Surely it is our duty to look out for it, as likely to come immediately, though hitherto for near two thousand years the Church has been looking out in vain.

Is there not something significant that, in the last book of Scripture, which more than any other implies a long continuance to the Christian Church, that there we should read such express and repeated assurances that Christ's coming would be speedy. Even in the last chapter we are told it three times. "Behold I. come quickly; blessed is he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this book." "Behold I come quickly, and My reward is with Me." And again, in the text, "He that testifieth these things, saith, Surely I come quickly." Such is the announcement; and, in consequence, we are commanded to be ever looking out for the great day, to "wait for His Son from heaven;" to "look and haste unto the coming of the day of God?."

It is true, indeed, that in one place St. Paul cautions his brethren against expecting the immediate

1 1 Thess. i. 10.

2 2 Pet. iii. 12.

coming of Christ; but he does not say more than that Christ will send a sign immediately before His coming, a certain dreadful enemy of the truth,— which is to be followed by Himself at once, and does not stand in our way, or prevent eager eyes from looking out for Him. And, in truth, St. Paul seems rather to be warning his brethren against being disappointed if Christ did not come, than hindering them from expecting Him.

Now it may be objected that this is a kind of paradox; how is it possible, it may be asked, ever to be expecting what has so long been delayed? What has been so long coming, may be longer still. It was possible, indeed, for the early Christians, who had no experience of the long period which the Church was to remain on earth, to look out for Christ; but we cannot help using our reason: there are no more grounds to expect Christ now than at those many former times, when, as the event showed, He did not Christians have ever been expecting the last day, and ever meeting with disappointment. They have seen what they thought symptoms of His coming, and peculiarities in their own times, which a little more knowledge of the world, a more enlarged experience, would have shown them to be common to all times. They have been ever frightened without good reason, fretting in their narrow minds, and building on their superstitious fancies. What age

come.

of the world has there been in which people did not think the day of judgment coming? Such expecta

tion has but evidenced and fostered indolence and superstition; it is to be considered as a mere weak

ness.

Now I shall attempt to say something in answer to this objection.

1. And first, considered as an objection to a habit of continual waiting, it (what is called) proves too much. If it is consistently followed up, no age ought ever to expect the day of Christ; the age in which He shall come (whatever it is) ought not to expect Him;-which is the very thing that He has warned us against. He no where warns us against what is contemptuously called superstition; but He expressly warns us against high-minded security. If it be true that Christians have expected Him when He did not come, it is quite as true that when He does come, the world will not expect Him. If it be true that Christians have fancied signs of His coming, when there were none, it is equally true that the world will not see the signs of His coming when they are present. His signs are not so plain but you have to search for them; not so plain but you may be mistaken in your search; and your choice lies between the risk of thinking you see what is not, and of not seeing what is. True it is, that many times, many ages, have Christians been mistaken in thinking they discerned Christ's coming; but better a thousand times think Him coming when He is not, than once think Him not coming when He is. Such is the difference between Scripture and the world; judging

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