the grace of God to withstand, the lukewarmness which forms its object for although we who wait for the Son of Man shall not be on the earth but in the air during the period of Laodicea, yet we are now to be assailed, and I fear that some may suffer by its spirit. The lukewarmness of this church is given as the express reason why Christ will spue it out of his mouth; and as there is no event too insignificant, or relation too mean, for God to employ in the exposition of his truth, I believe that the nausea produced by things lukewarm in the natural system aptly expresses the offence which Laodicea shall give to her long-suffering Lord. He sees not, and cannot be satisfied with, the travail of his soul in her: he cannot be comforted by her, or retain her. Had she been cold, he never would have had her in his mouth; had she been hot, he would have rejoiced in her: as she is, he feels that he cannot own her or endure her. But we may learn something more from the expression. God warned his ancient people, that, if they kept not his statutes, the land of promise would spue them out also, as it spued out the nations that were before them (Lev. xviii. 28, xx. 22). Now that land typified the rest that remaineth for the people of God; which rest they shall have at Christ's appearing and kingdom. But Christ shall then confess them who have confessed him. And as it is with the mouth that confession is made unto salvation (Rom. x. 10), so it shall be with the mouth that Christ shall confess us before his Father and the angels. Whence it appears to me that Christ, in threatening to spue the angel of Laodicea out of his mouth, is threatening that he will not keep him in his mouth to confess him. But it is no less important to remark, that the threat is not "I will," but "I am about to do it" (μɛλ). Had it even been " I will," I should still have regarded it, not as a prediction, but strictly as a threatening; which, as the counterpart of a promise, implies no more than that such shall be the fruit of a continuance in the same evil condition. So did Jonah cry, "Yet forty days, and Ninevah shall be overthrown" (Jon. iii. 4). So was Ezekiel commissioned to tell the wicked, "Thou shall surely die" (Ezek. xxxiii. 8, 14). So said Isaiah to Hezekiah, "Set thy house in order; for thou shalt die, and not live" (Isa. xxxviii. 1, 5). In all these cases the word did not stand. And the same truth is implied in Dan. iv. 27. But the real expression, "I am about to do it," strengthens this view of the threatening, and teaches us, in accordance with the sequel of the epistle, that, as long as a church is a church, Christ is waiting to restore it from the lowest conceivable ebb of faith; and that even Laodicea, if she take the warning of Christ, when he saith, "I am about to spue thee out of my mouth," may recover, and not be spued out at all. This is a lesson which many of God's faithful people are

most unwilling to learn: they are in continual, yea, peculiar danger of not keeping the word of Christ's patience: they cannot reconcile patient waiting with earnest crying, or a fearless testimony with the diligent seeking of peace with all men: they must needs be busy; and so they will not inquire of God when and how to work; they will not look at Christ, in whom they are to see all God's will concerning their conduct; and whose life was, from beginning to end, a keeping of his Father's patience a refusal to break the bruised reed, to extinguish the feebly burning wick, and a perfect ensample when to speak without haste, when to forbear without unfaithfulness: they are tempted to think that God cannot do well without them; they have a sort of restless curiosity to see the crisis-to have something tangible to which they can point in the way of offence, persecution, blasphemy, apostasy :-in short, though they may not be aware of it, they, to a certain extent, walk as if bearing the offence of Jesus consisted in causing men to be offended: and so, in their eagerness to find out apostasy, they find it out sooner than God does, making haste for him, as really as the bulk of baptized men are now making haste against him: they give up those whom God has not given up; they, the earthen vessels of the treasure, denounce those as hopeless over whom God manifest in flesh, to whom they owe what they are, yet graciously and patiently lingers: they proclaim sores to be beyond remedy, which have never been so proclaimed by the wise Physician. And why? Because, being puffed up, they are not wise to discern between the sins of a church and the signs of an apostasy. Every unfaithful church forsakes the covenant of her God; but an apostasy alone is given up to forsake it. Apostasy is not a sin against grace, but the judgment of God upon a completed sin against grace. For, if we look at the apostasy which shall attend the apocalypse of the man of sin, we find that it expresses not a simple rejection of the truth; but an energy of error sent by God upon those who have already refused to receive the love of the truth; as it is written, "for this cause God shall send them," &c. (2 Thess. ii. 3, 10, 11). And, therefore, till we know that the judgment of God has so begun, let us beware of pronouncing any church apostate. We are to be followers of God. God has indeed declared that Esau shall despise his birthright and be supplanted; and that the daughter of Edom shall have the cup transferred to her from the daughter of Zion. But Satan knows better than we what a dishonour it is to Christ that his churches should apostatise. It is a greater triumph to him than a whole continent of Pagans retained in darkness; and therefore, while we are with little concern turning away from an approaching apostasy, he rejoices to rob a sinking church of the prayers of the saints, and to see them bearing

witness against that as an apostasy for which they should be interceding as a church. Let us remember that Jacob, who shall supplant Esau, is also of the Gentiles. And who knoweth but one or more of the churches in these lands may, through many sins and many trials, be brought to purchase the birthright, and help to make up the hundred and forty and four thousand, -the Enoch of the Lamb? But be this as it may, let us beware of walking to-day by the light of to-morrow. Blessed are they whom men separate but they that separate themselves work in the flesh (Luke vi. 22; Jude 19). What God hath joined, let no man put asunder; God alone may sever. Be not deceived, my brethren. Think not, I beseech you, that the lovers of pleasures are never found among those that sigh and cry for the things that are done in the church and the land. Ye are unskilful watchmen, trusting to the places which you occupy, not to the seven eyes of the Lamb. A lover of pleasures does not mean a mere sensualist, a mere child of frivolity and fashion and fame. No: there are as many lovers of pleasures in the closet, at the sick-bed, in the hovels of the wretched, among the scrupulous worshippers, among the uncompromising witnesses of the true God. Christ pleased not himself, but took on him a light because a joyous burden,-the whole reproaches of men against his Father, the whole will of his Father concerning men ;-and a lover of pleasures is just one that pleases himself. Against this, in the holiest of us, the only safety is to follow Christ; and then we shall be secure against winds of doctrine, and dilemmas of conscience, and wresting of Scriptures, and aberrations from the catholic faith, and the straight way after views and pursuits of our own, look they as holy as they may. Ours is the Ours is the way of the Lord; to preserve which, there are two things especially needful. Of these, the first is to preserve the form of sound words, the healthy phraseology of a healthy faith. Let the statement seem as likely; let it, in itself, be as true as it may; be assured of this, that if it depart from the form of sound words, if it suggest not the whole circle of Divine truth, it is either error or exaggerated truth. It cannot be that man can devise better words than the Spirit of God. It is a temptation of the devil to think that our explanation of a thing can make it either more plain or more instructive; and that we can, any disputed question, make a selection of words less liable to perversion than the words of God. To expound the word of God is the proper work of him that is called to that work; but to substitute conventional terms for the words of God, is a very different and a very sinful thing. Our faith comes to stand in these; we can receive no other; and we enter with blinded eyes the crooked ways into which they may conduct us. The people of God have greatly sinned in this of late. O let it cease; and

in

let our only bond become "If any man love the Lord Jesus." For we must be fools, that we may be wise: we must first believe, before we inquire: we must relinquish subtleties, and learn the faith, overcoming by the blood.-But we must, in the second place, honour the ordinances. What are all the backslidings, abuses, profanations, hypocrisies of the church, but a dishonour of God's ordinances? And can it be the way of God to testify against such things, by despising those very ordinances in different ways, but almost to the same degree? Verily, no. I testify to my brethren the truth in love, as one who beareth rule in the house of that God who will have his house ordered well, and his economy faithfully observed, by those who fear him; that, be the occasion as tempting, the scheme as expedient, the door as open, the experience as promising, the call as urgent as they may, if a thing cannot be done without a breach of God's ordinances, of king and subject, pastor and people, husband and wife, parent and child, master and servant, preached word, Sabbath, sacrament, household worship, and whatsoever other there be, then the doing of it is not of God, but of the devil coming as an angel of light. What are we, to be busy in search of work? Alas! alas! there is plenty at our hand in God's own ways. The work which God would have us do is as nigh us as the word he would have us believe. We need not ascend into heaven, or descend into the deep for either. We like to do so; for doing so pleases ourselves. But what have we to profit which we have not received? And cannot the same bountiful God who hath given unto us, give unto any man, in the pure maintenance of his own ordinances? Were we only faithful in our prayers, it would be so. But God cannot be deceived by a lie; and we lie unto him when we pray him for a blessing on his ordinances in such a spirit as would lead us to trample them down, without remorse, at every sudden suggestion of expediency or zeal. Therefore, remember, I beseech you, these words: "The Scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. All therefore whatsoever they bid ye observe, that observe and do; but do not ye after their works; for they say, and do not" (Matt. xxiii. 2, 3). "Because thou hast kept the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of temptation" (Rev. iii. 10). "The righteous bring forth fruit in patience" (Luke viii. 15). "The signs of an Apostle are wrought in patience" (2 Cor. xii. 12). "Above all, remember the God of patience" (Rom. xv. 5). For if we have not patience, we shall not be hid in the day of evil.

"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and have made my fortune, and have need of nothing, and knowest not thou art the wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked one. I counsel thee to buy of me gold fired out of the fire, that thou

mayest make rich; and white garments, that thou mayest be invested, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be made manifest; and anoint thine eyes with eye-salve, that thou mayest behold (Bεns)" (Rev. iii. 17, 18).

It is important here to observe at the outset, that while Christ discerned the true character of the angel (for Laodicea shall still have an angel, but, alas! how fallen!) he takes the account of his ostensible character from his own profession, "because thou sayest," and not from any underhand report: that were the devil's way, and is now the devil's way in all his children, and many of the children of God too; to accuse without love, and accuse upon report. Christ took up no reproach against his neighbour: this is made one reason for his inheriting his Father's kingdom (Psa. xv. 3). And if we would walk like Christ we will not do so either. Men are now ignorant what it is to exhort; they can only rail and backbite, or be silent; and seldom the latter, except in the presence of the person to whom they should speak the truth in love. The instability of their hearts, being not fixed upon God, causeth their ears to itch. The world, against which, as baptized men, they are called to testify as to its practices and protest as to its judgment, is at once their model, their teacher, and their judge. Public opinion, that direct contradiction of God's mind, is the compass by which they would steer; and, instead of being clothed with sackcloth because men prefer the voice of the waters to the voice of Christ, and filled with holy jealousy to stand fast and fair for the pure word of the Lord, they actually set themselves, ministers and all, to bargain public opinion into the pay of Christ-no, not of Christ, but of his betrayers with a kiss-and to take Antichrist for a servant for ever (Job xli. 4). Every thing is on the surface of the bubble. And as Satan is now, by the breakings of Antichrist against the powers ordained of God, mocking our Jesus, who letteth the oppressed go free, and opening the prisondoors to them that are bound; so, with a mock impartial justice, he brings every thing to light, in ridicule of that great day when all secrets shall be revealed. "I heard the defaming of many; fear on every side. Report, say they; and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting" (Jer. xx. 10). To go to your brother, and tell him his fault between him and thee alone: to tell him his fault in that love of the Father which moved him not to spare his only Son, in that love of the Son which moved him to lay down his life for his enemies, in that love of the Spirit which createth all bowels of mercies; to deliver thine own soul, and do what thou canst to deliver his; and all this before thou hast informed two or three witnesses, before thou hast informed the church; and with a resolution never to tell it to the world (for it cannot partake of God's grief