of a prophecy so remarkable, our Lord had used words which they who heard Him as well as the apostles, did not remember. Suppose that some great and famous preacher from a distant country were to perform in the streets of London even a tenth part of the wonders which our Lord performed in Jerusalem. Supposing the eyes of all men to have been drawn to him on some one solemn occasion, on which he entered into the city at the head of his disciples, and preached to them an affecting sermon on his own fate and on their duties; would it be safe for any person, in writing the life of such a man twenty or thirty years afterwards, to say that he had, on that particular occasion, publicly foretold the destruction of the town, when, in truth, he had said nothing like it? Would not all those who had been present exclaim "we remember that discourse as well as you can, and we are sure that the prophet never used the expressions which you impute to him." How then could St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John venture to do that which no man in his senses would, in this country, venture on?

But, further, it may be asked, "How, if our Lord did not really deliver this prophecy, how did His evangelists know that Jerusalem was shortly to be laid in ashes?" That of those evangelists the first three, at least, if not all four, must have written their gospels before Jerusalem was destroyed, is certain not only from abundant internal evidence which proves that these works were written while Jerusalem was

yet standing; but from the fact in which all ancient writers agree, that St. Matthew, St. Luke, and St. Mark were themselves dead before those calamities came to pass. Either, then, they must have taken their knowledge of that future destruction from the preaching of their Master, or they must have had the gift of prophecy themselves. But if they were, themselves, the prophets of the Most High, we cannot apprehend that they would have told a falsehood in imputing to their Master words which He never uttered. It follows then, so certainly as to leave no cause of doubt with any reflecting mind, that Jesus of Nazareth really uttered the words which are here given to Him; that He must, therefore, have been inspired by God, and (since God would never inspire a man with miraculous knowledge in order to establish a lie) that we may be sure He was, as He professed Himself, the Son of God, the Saviour of Israel and of the world.

From the fact, then, of these words having been uttered by our Lord, and having received after His death their exact accomplishment, we may draw a greater certainty of faith in Him, and confirm our obligation to obey Him and keep His command

ments.

But, from the words themselves, as they have been read to you in my text, some very important consequences follow which it shall be the object of my present discourse to explain to your understandings, and apply to your consciences, inasmuch as they greatly illustrate the manner of God's ordi

not have been properly said to have any day of salvation at all, and that it would have been the greatest injustice imaginable to give as a reason for the severities which were to be exercised on them that "they knew not the time of visitation," when it was never possible for them to know it. Nor is it easy to discover why our Lord should say of the Jews that "now," when He thus spake, "the things which belonged to their peace were hidden from their eyes," unless the time had been wherein those things were not hidden from them. When I say it is now too late to attempt any thing, I certainly give my hearers to understand that the thing might once have been possible, since otherwise, whether now or then, the case would have been the same, and there would be no propriety in expressing any distinction. We may conclude, accordingly, that even to those Jews who, when Christ spake this, were sentenced to destruction, there had been afforded a sufficient opportunity wherein they might, except through their own fault, have entered into the Kingdom of God, and have become the heirs of life everlasting.

And since we have no reason to suppose that God's dealing with that generation of vipers was at variance or inconsistent with the general course of His spiritual work on the souls of men, I conclude that every sinner has some acceptable time, in which the mercy of God is, not in name only nor in mockery, but effectually offered to him, in which his day of visitation, the things which belong

to his peace are not hidden from his eyes; and in which he might, unless through his own single and wilful obstinacy, discern and follow the path of sal

vation.

I know

Let no man mistake my meaning! I do not say that the time can be found in which the sinner, by his own natural strength and unassisted faculties, can either obtain or follow after salvation. that we are by nature incapable of any good thing; that the old man is, in his very constitution, in continual enmity against God; and that either to will or to do what God requires altogether surpasses our powers, unless both the preventing and assisting grace of God's Spirit descend on the soul both to give us, in the first instance," a good will," and to "work with" and support our endeavours after salvation when we have that will. But this I maintain, and I maintain it, as on many other passages of Scripture, so particularly on the grounds of the present text, first, that some such time or times of gracious visitation is accorded by God to all His creatures, wherein He gives them the power and opportunity of forsaking the bondage of sin for the glorious liberty of His children'; and further (which follows from the universality of the gift, and from the particular instance of the Jews here mentioned by our Saviour) that this gift may be resisted and rendered vain, and has been thus frustrated and resisted by the personal fault and wilful hardiness or negligence of all those who, like these Jews, are finally suffered to perish. And it follows that the

Calvinists are mistaken in maintaining either the absolute election of a few, to the passing over or reprobation of the greater number of mankind, or that the saving grace of God, wherever given, is always irresistibly exerted to the conversion and final salvation of those whom it once condescends to visit.

But that the power of repentance and faith thus given to all is altogether unconnected with our own strength and faculties; that it is of God's free-will to give or to withhold; and that when this is withheld, no outward opportunities of knowledge or conviction can profit us any thing, is also certain from the same example of the citizens of Jerusalem, from whose eyes, after they had once enjoyed for a sufficient time the power of "seeing the things which belonged unto their peace," those things were for ever hidden. It was not that Christ had, at the time when He thus spoke, withdrawn His visible presence from them. His miracles were still wrought in their streets, His preaching was still heard in the courts of their temple, His promises of love and blessedness were still held out to all that should put their trust in Him; the fountain of His atoning blood was shortly after offered, and His body given for the sins of the world.

But from that presence they derived no blessing; those miracles, that preaching, those promises, were for others, not for them; the atonement of His sacrifice was to them a savour of death; their day of grace was gone by, and there remained no more for