wherever conferred. Probably St. Paul spake of this privilege, when enumerating the gifts communicated to the primitive church, in the xiith chapter of the above epistle. To one, he says, is given by the same Spirit, the word of knowledge. This word of knowledge, he distinguishes from another, called just before, The word of wisdom. The like distinctions occur, chapter xiiith and xivth, in the same epistle.— Learned men, who think that by the word of wisdom we must understand inspiration, think also, that by the word of knowledge, we must understand an acquaintance with the mysteries of which I have spoken. Many mysteries are mentioned in the sacred writings. The mystery of the restoration of the Jews; the mystery of iniquity; and the mystery of the beast. The passages to which I allude are known to you, and time does not allow me more than a recital.

2. Why does St. Paul, when speaking of those who shall be found on earth when Christ shall descend from heaven, add, We which are alive, and remain at the coming of the Lord? Did he flatter himself to be of that number? Some critics have thought so: and when pressed by those words in the second epistle to Timothy, The time of my departure is at hand; I am ready to be offered up; they have replied, that St. Paul had changed his ideas, and divested himself of the illusive hope that he should never die!

But how many arguments might I not adduce to refute this error, if it required refutation, and did not refute itself? How should St. Paul, who had not only the gift of inspiration, but who declared that what he said was by the word of the Lord, or according to

his miraculous gift, fall into so great a mistake in speaking on this subject? How do they reconcile this presumption with what he says of the resurrection in his epistles, written prior to this, from which we have taken our text? Not to multiply arguments; there are some texts in which St. Paul seems to class himself with those who shall rise, seeing he says, we.Let us next attend to that in the second epistle to the Corinthians God, who raised up the Lord Jesus, shall raise up us also, chap. iv. 14. But in my text he seems to associate himself in the class of those who shall not be raised, being alive when Christ shall descend from heaven; we that are alive, and remain at the coming of the Lord. Emphasis then should not be laid on the pronoun we, it signifies, in general, those who; and it ought to be explained, not by its general import, but by the nature of the things to which it is applied, which do not suffer us to believe, that the apostle here meant to designate himself, as I think is proved.

3. In what respects does St. Paul prove, that those who die before the advent of the Son of God, shall not thereby retard their happiness; and that those who shall then survive, shall not enjoy earlier than they the happiness with which the Saviour shall invest them?

The apostle proves it from the supremacy of Christ at the consummation of the age. The instant he shall descend from heaven, he shall awake the dead by his mighty voice. The bodies of the saints shall rise, and the bodies of those that are alive shall be purified from their natural incumbrance, according to

the assertion of St. Paul, already adduced; we shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed. And it must also be remarked, that this change, he adds, shall be made in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye; that is, immediately on the coming of Jesus Christ: and after this change, the saints who shall rise, and those who shall be yet alive, shall be caught up together to meet the Lord in the air, and shall be for ever with the Lord. The survivors, therefore, shall have no prerogative over others; so is the sense of the text: We which are alive and remain at the coming of the Lord, &c.

But this is a very extraordinary kind of consolation: St. Paul still left the Thessalonians in their old mistake, that some of them should still live to see the last day; Why did he not undeceive them? Why did he not say to console them in their trouble, that the consummation of the ages was, as yet, a very distant period; and that the living and the dead should rise on the same day! This is the fourth, and the most considerable difficulty in the words of my text.

IV. The apostles seem to have been ignorant whether the end of the world should happen in their time, or whether it should be at the distance of many ages; and it seems that by so closely circumscribing the knowledge of inspired men, we derogate from their claims of inspiration.-A whole dissertation would scarcely suffice to remove this difficulty; I shall content myself with opening the sources of its solution.

1. Ignorance Af one truth is unconnected with the revelation of another truth; I would say, it does not follow that the Holy Spirit has not revealed certain

things to sacred authors, because he has not revealed them to others. We are assured he did not acquaint them with the epoch of the consummation of the age. This epoch was not only concealed from the apostles, but also from Jesus Christ considered as man; hence when speaking of the last day, he said, that neither the angels in heaven, nor even the Son of man, knew when it should occur; the secret being reserved with God alone. Mark xiii. 32.

2. Though the apostles were ignorant of the final period of the world, they left the Christians of their own age in the presumption that they might survive to the end of the world, they left the point undetermined. The texts which seem repugnant to what I say, regard the destruction of Jerusalem, and not the day of judgment; but it is not possible to examine them here in support of what I assert.

3. But though the apostles were ignorant of the final period of the world, they were confident, however, that it should not come till the prophecies, respecting the destiny of the church were accomplished. This is suggested by St. Paul in his second epistle to the Thessalonians: Now, we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, that ye be not soon shaken in your mind, or troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter, as from us as though the day of Christ was at hand. Let no man deceive you in any way whatever; for the day of the Lord shall not come until the revolt shall have previously happened, and till that man of sin, the son of perdition, shall be revealed; chap. ii.

4. In fine, the apostles leaving the question undecided respecting the final period of the world; a question not essential to salvation, have determined the points of which we cannot be ignorant in order to be saved; I would say, the manner in which men should live to whom this period was unknown. They have drawn conclusions the most just and certain from the uncertainty in which those Christians were placed. They have inferred, that the church being ignorant of the day in which Christ shall come to judge the world, should be always ready for that event. But brevity obliges me to suppress the texts whence the inferences are deduced.

II. Having sufficiently discharged the duties of the critic, I proceed to those of the preacher. Taking the words of St. Paul in all their extent, we see the sentiments with which we should be animated when called to survive our dearest friends, which we shall now discuss.

St. Paul does not condemn all sorts of sorrow occasioned by the loss of those we love; he requires only that Christians should not be inconsolable in these circumstances, as those who have no hope.Hence there is both a criminal and an innocent sorrow. The criminal sorrow is that which confounds us with those who are destitute of hope; but the innocent sorrow is compatible with the Christian hope. On these points we shall enter into some detail.

First. The sorrow occasioned to us by the death of those we love, confounds us with those that have no hope, when it proceeds from a principle of distrust. Such is sometimes our situation on earth, that all our