weight, and the sin which does so easily beset you, and to run with patience the race that is set before you, looking unto Jesus, the Author and Finisher of your faith; asking, and asking as the only boon that heaven itself holds, worth your seeking, for His blood to pardon, His Spirit to cleanse, His righteousness to clothe you; that, having even now put on the garments of a Saviour's righteousness, the robes of purity and peace, of those who are before the throne, you may, on the day of your departure hence," have right," as the Word of God strongly expresses it, a right, not of merit, but of fitness, "to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city," and take your place among that unnumbered multitude, who, having once been admitted there, shall go no more out for ever.

1 Rev. xxii. 14.

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SERMON X.

PREPARATION FOR HEAVEN.

ST. LUKE Xxi. 31.

"THE KINGDOM OF GOD IS NIGH AT HAND."

It is the wise and benevolent intention of our Church, at this season' of the Christian year, to draw the thoughts and feelings of her people towards some of the highest mysteries, and the most elevating promises, of the religion they profess. Thus, at one time, she leads us, by her appropriate selections of Scripture, to look forward to the holy anniversary of our Lord's first coming in the flesh; at another, by the same judicious arrangement, to his second coming to judge the world. She inter

1 Advent.

mingles these great and solemn truths, with many fair, and blessed, and soulencouraging visions of future glory, which God has prepared for those who love him.

Among the portions of Scripture to which we allude, and which the Church has selected for these valuable and important purposes, the Gospel of this day' deserves the serious consideration of her people. There is little doubt, that it refers primarily to the destruction of Jerusalem, and that, in the language of Eastern metaphor, "the sun, and the moon, and the stars" represented, and were well understood, by our Lord's hearers, to represent, the different powers and dignities of earth. Thus, when these same terms are adopted in the Book of Ecclesiastes, the Jewish commentators upon the text, declare, that by the sun, they understand "the kingdom of the house of David;" by the moon,

1 The Second Sunday in Advent.

the Sanhedrim;" and by the stars, "the Rabbies." There is little doubt, therefore, that however perplexing such a description, as we have read this morning, may be to us, it was, to those to whom it was primarily addressed, perfectly intelligible, perfectly clear; and that the Jews entered as fully into all the warnings and all the threatenings of the prophecy, as they did into those of the parable of the vineyard and the husbandmen, when, notwithstanding the veil of metaphor beneath which it was shrouded, they so feelingly exclaimed"God forbid."

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Thus, when they heard, in the language of the text, that "the kingdom of God was nigh at hand," and that that generation should not pass away till all were fulfilled," they perfectly understood, not merely that this was a prediction of the end of the world, and the final close of all things, and the revelation of the everlasting kingdom of God; but

that, in its primary sense, it foretold a more visible and glorious display of the kingdom of the Messiah, in the destruction of his enemies, in the overthrow of their nation, their rulers, and themselves.

This primary sense of the prophecy, has been most undeniably fulfilled. The Son of man came, as he had promised, with power and great glory, and the "kingdom of God, which was nigh at hand," when he spake the words of the text, shortly afterwards actually arrived ; and before that generation passed away, the Roman eagle had fleshed his beak within their crowded city, and had flapped his wings over the smoking ruins of their temple.

But there is, as all revelation assures us, yet another fulfilment of the text, awaiting the people of God, one in which you, and I, and all must bear a part; the day on which this kingdom of God, which even now "is nigh at hand" to every individual among us,-for who