they were prepared for it, it would not come upon them "with sudden destruction."

IT WILL COME, when the world is full of living men, women and children. No universal blast of death will have first swept across the earth, and strewed upon it the carcases of the slain. Living men and women and children will be all over the world, when THE DAY comes, as full of strength, health, vigour, activity, thought, and forethought, as at any period since God first "breathed into man's nostrils the breath of life," Gen. ii. 7.

IT WILL COME, when men are blind to its coming, each in his own blindness-asleep, each in his own dream. The astronomer will be calculating his eclipses for years yet to come -the physician will be studying his arts, to add length of days to man's body-the philosopher, with his "philosophy falsely so called," will be improving and enlightening his species—the politician will be planning beautiful schemes for man's welfare in ages onward-the man of riches will be saying to his soul, "Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry," Luke xii. 19-the man, "that will be rich," 1 Tim. vi. 9, will be toiling and labouring after his "filthy

lucre," rising up early and sitting up late, Ps. cxxvii. 2—the man, that "liveth in pleasure," 1 Tim. v. 6, will be sending for "the harp and the viol, the tabret and pipe and wine,” to be in his "feast," regarding "not the work of the Lord, neither considering the operation of his hands," Is. v. 12—the preachers, THE BLIND PREACHERS AMONG THEM, will be speaking their smooth things and prophesying their deceits, Is. xxx. 10, each in his own delusion, but all of them blinding men's eyes to THE DAY-the king, and the noble, and the magistrate, and the farmer, and the tradesman, and the labourerthe mean man and the mighty man,

Is.

V.

15 "both free and bond, both small and great," Rev. xix. 18—the man, the woman and the child-the married and the unmarriedthe people and the priest, the servant and his master, the maid and her mistress, the buyer and the seller, the lender and the borrower, the taker of usury and the giver of usury to him, Is. xxiv. 2-shall all be weaving their webs of distant years and distant things, turning time into eternity, thinking and speaking of time's world as never-ending, at the very instant, THE DAY, THE LAST DAY, THE DAY OF THE LORD, cometh upon them as a thief.

IT WILL COME, when men are very wicked

ripe for destruction, and destruction ripe for them. Dreadful state! THE DAY is suspended, is in

abeyance, until, as in the visitation upon the Amorites, "the iniquity" of men on the earth is "full," Gen. xiv. 17.-It will come, when iniquity is FULL upon earth, and the Lord can bear it no longer-when the "God of this world," 2 Cor. iv. 4, "who hath nothing in Christ," John xiv. 30, has fully blinded the minds and hardened the hearts of men, and they have nothing in Christ-when the iniquity of their blinded minds and hardened hearts issues forth in one devilish universal lie, that the day of the Lord is NOT coming.Therefore will it come with sudden destruction, and they shall not—it is the Lord's shall not -they shall not escape,

Do you marvel at this awful suddenness of THE DAY? Come now, and let us reason together, and meditate over some of the passages in the book of God, in which its awful suddenness is set forth, directly or inferentially.

Turn first to Matt. xxiv., and see what the Lord says in that typical, prophetic account of HIS DAY. His words there have all been accomplished in their letter, as a prophetic type,

in the destruction of Jerusalem, and they will yet be accomplished in their letter with a thou+ sand-fold completeness in the destruction of the world at His DAY.-Read verse 27, (6 as the LIGHTNING Cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west, so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be"-read it, and pause-read it, and stand in awe-read it, and pray. Now read ver. 21-26-But in reading them take this Scripture truth with you: three things are to bring in THE DAY OF THE LORD-great and universal troubles, great and universal wickedness, a great and universal form of godliness and spreading of a false gospel. They are all set forth in this chapter, two of them in these six verses, and the other in ver. 37, 38*; but they will not take one tittle away from the suddenness of the coming of THE DAY. Nay, these three things will, in very deed, constitute its suddenness-the wickedness, the disquietings, the self-deceiving unbelief of men will, at once, call for and cause the LIGHTNING-COMING of the Son of Man.Now read ver. 21-26, "For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time"-the time at which Christ was then speaking-“ no, nor

* See the corresponding passage in Luke xvii. 26 and following verses.

ever shall be after it, and, except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved"-not even the elect, so hot will be the furnace-but for the elects' sake those days shall be shortened"*-for their sake the Lord will make a short work of his judgment on the QUICK, it may be the work of extreme shortness, nay, of perfect suddenness, the work of ONE moment, of ONE twinkling of an eye"then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here is Christ, or there"-Christ is come to this place or to that" believe it not❞—no, when he does come, one man will not need to be told of his coming by another, for "every eye shall see him," Rev. i. 7-" for there shall arise false Christs" in person it may be, in the setting forth of false Gospels it shall be-" and false prophets"-false teachers and preachers-" and shall shew great signs and wonders"-shall appear to have great power over the minds of men in bringing them to God, or, it may be,

* Daniel, speaking of the same period, at which he describes the Great Prince" as standing up for his people, says, "there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that same time, and at that time thy people," the elect of God, "shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the Book," Dan. xii. 1. A passage evidently appropriated by Christ, as referring to the time and events of which he himself is here prophesying.