its deadly workings? that took delight in spreading the net of sophistry to catch the feet of the inexperienced and unwary? or in launching the shaft of ridicule against the truth of God, until the reverence for sacred things was gone? Oh! what shall be his portion in that judgment, which he has so braved, and what shall he answer when he is reproved? If it were possible that he could be guiltless in the unbelief of his own heart, guiltless he cannot be of that which he has caused. Deeply answerable must he be for the souls whose ruin his fiendish endeavours have wrought. He dares not plead his zeal for sacred truth, when he stands before the Searcher of hearts. Such hypocrisy could scarce deceive the feeble worms, whose understanding is on a level with his own. The honest infidel, if such there be, must feel his unbelief as a calamity; and no desire of serving the cause of truth would lead him to inflict that, which he himself feels as a calamity, upon others. No; he who earnestly strives against his own infidelity, may be a godly and an innocent man; but he who labours in the work of making others infidels, must be ruled by the great enemy of man. The Scripture hath said, "There is a sin unto death;" and no prayer need be made for that. It cannot, shall not be forgiven, "neither in this world, neither in that which is to come." That sin may exist in more forms than one; more, perhaps, than we are able to discern. But I should fear, it must be his who hath writ and wrought against the faith of the Son of God; and laboured to drag the souls, which He died to save, into the gulf of everlasting perdition. LECTURE VIII. REVELATION XIX. 10. The testimony of Jesus is the Spirit of prophecy. THE portion of this testimony, which we last considered, is that which refers to the condition of the ancient people of God in "the latter days." By comparing the prophetic description with the past and actual circumstances of that extraordinary race, we find abundant reason to be convinced that these are "the latter days," and that Jesus of Nazareth is "the Christ of God." The same Spirit of prophecy which drew this portion of the picture with such astonishing exactness of truth, completed its testimony by equally clear and copious views of the character and progress of the Messiah's kingdom. We have formerly found occasion to pursue this topic to some extent, when we came 7 to notice the first planting and promulgation of the religion which Jesus taught*. It was necessary, at that point of the argument, to shew its perfect accordance with the New Covenant of the prophetic Messiah; to prove that the genius and character of both were the same; that the Gospel of Jesus had wrought the predicted changes both in the religious and political aspect of the world; and finally, that every passing year is identifying the two more per fectly. In this concluding Lecture, therefore, we have to carry on the comparison to those leading features in the prophecies concerning the kingdom of Christ, which have as yet passed without our notice. These refer chiefly to two points: its perpetual duration; and its universal extent throughout the world. Unlike those earthly powers, in the midst of which, as Daniel saith, the God of Heaven should "set it upt,"-it was to survive, after they had experienced the cominon fate of the kingdoms of this world. It was to bear a paramount sway, so that in comparison it might be said, that "the kingdom was not left to other people; " but it was "to * Lecture VI. + Daniel ii. 44. break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and itself to stand for ever." This was but the echo of the voice of prophecy in every former age. "The heavens might vanish away like smoke, and the earth wax old like a garment, and they that dwell therein might die in like manner; but that salvation was to be for ever, and that righteousness should not be abolished *." While of the great Prophet Himself it was proclaimed, that "of the increase of His government and peace there should be no end+;" that "His seed also should be made to endure for ever, and His throne as the days of heaven." Thus every disciple of Moses had "heard out of the law, that Christ abideth for ever§;" and though blinded in all else that relates to the kingdom of his Messiah, God gave him a right understanding in this, that it was to be a dominion unimpaired by time, and exempt from the vicissitudes of human things. We may observe that this very character of perpetuity was emphatically claimed for the Gospel of Jesus at the period of its earliest *Isaiah Li. 6. Isaiah ix. 7. § John xii. 34. |