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dulgence, no decrees of æcumenical councils, no auricular confession, no priestly absolution, no extreme unction, no purgatorial purification, no prayers or masses for the dead, no ceremonial observance, no sacramental efficacy, no dogmas of Patristic Theology, no traditions of the mediæval ages, no Ecclesiastical Constitutions, Canons, or Rubrics, no penances or pilgrimages, voluntary or imposed by others, no imaginary intercessions of saints or angels will then avail to exempt from punishment, or exalt to glory. No one will be saved simply because he is a member of the Anglican or any other visible church. No one will be condemned simply because he is a separatist from any visible church. They only, whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of life, whose bodies are the temples of the Holy Ghost, who, by the new birth, have been grafted as fruit-bearing branches into Christ the true vine, and who are His witnessess before a benighted and apostate world, these only shall be counted worthy to be guests at the marriage supper of the Lamb, and to enter through the gates into the city. *Without are idolaters and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie." "Idolaters shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."

On that dread day where will appear the self-righteous and self-justifying sinner, when the filthy rags of his righteousness shall be weighed in the balance of the sanctuary, and found wanting; when his fancied goodness shall be tested by the verity of God's Law, and shall be pronounced sin, because it originated not in a Divine and justifying faith? Standing in all the deformity of nature's darkness, he will be judged by those works to which he trusted for self-justification, and by those works he will be condemned. None will then be accepted but the regenerate, the justified, the sanctified. To all others, characterized by unbelief and self-righteousness, the Judge will say "I never knew you, depart from me ye that work iniquity."

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Matt. xxv. 12; vii. 23.

With what extatic joy and triumph will this glorious Day be hailed by all the elect of the Father, the redeemed of the Son, and the sanctified of the Holy Ghost; by all who have been expectants of Messiah's predicted Epiphany and glorious Kingdom. Regener

ated by His Spirit, redeemed by His blood, and robed in the wedding garment of His justifying righteousness, they will meet their Lord in the air, and be made kings and priests over a regenerate world, and in blissful reunion and recognition will with united hearts and voices sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb," and praise Him †who hath washed His people from their sins in His own blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation, and hath made them kings and priests unto God His Father, and they shall reign upon the earth. That all now present may attain to this great and unspeakable felicity may God of His infinite mercy grant, through the alone merits and intercession of our Saviour Jesus Christ!

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SERMON II.

66

PROVERBS viii. 15, 16.

By me kings reign, and princes decree justice. By me princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth."

THE paramount and all-absorbing topic of Moses, the Prophets, and the other inspired Writers of the Old Testament Scriptures, who spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, was to testify of Messiah, and prepare the human mind for His predicted Incarnation, who in the fulness of time was to bruise the serpent's head and bring life and immortality to light through the Gospel." To this intent God raised up Enoch, the seventh from Adam, to be a Prophet, and Noah to be a Preacher, to the generations living anterior to the Deluge. Enoch predicted the glorious Epiphany of

**

* 2 Timothy i. 10.

† Jude 14 and 15. Michaelis and others have doubted the inspiration of the Epistle of St. Jude, because they have imagined that Jude has in these verses quoted from the Apocryphal Book of Enoch. This Apochryphal Book was lost since the 8th century. But the celebrated traveller Bruce brought to Europe three copies of an Ethiopic version. An English translation has been published by Archbishop Laurence. Whoever compares the Epistle of St. Jude with this Book of Enoch must perceive that either Jude has quoted from this Apocryphal writer, or this Apocryphal writer has quoted from Jude. That the Apocryphal writer under the name of Enoch has copied from the Epistle of St. Jude, is selfevident from the following testimony of the learned Greswell. The Apocryphal Book of Enoch "could not have been written before A. D. 96, the last year of the reign of Domitian, on the one hand, so neither after A. D. 115, the eighteenth of Trajan, or at the latest, A. D. 127, the eleventh of Hadrian on the other. I should incline to the opinion, that it was written early in the 2nd century; and that in point of time, it coincided with, or was not much later than the Liber Esdræ, which we have concluded to have been written in the reign of the Roman Emperor next after the twelfth in order; that is, the reign of Nerva, between A. D. 96, and A. D. 98."

Greswell on the Parables, 5th volume, 2nd part, 171st page.
Christian Observer, volume 30, pages 417,-426, 494,—503.

our Saviour God, accompanied by His glorified saints participants of the first resurrection, to judge the quick and dead, to vindicate the Divine perfections, and to consign all Christless sinners, all the unregenerate, unjustified, unsanctified, to the blackness of darkness for ever," where their worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched." +Noah proclaimed justification before God, not by works of righteousness which man has done or can do, but by the Divine sinless and all perfect obedience of Jehovah Jesus, the only Law-fulfiller and Righteousness of His people, whose obedience is their panoply to repel all the fiery darts of the wicked one, and their wedding-garment to entitle them to the marriage-supper of the Lamb.

Thus to the myriads who inhabited the world before the flood were faithfully proclaimed the doctrines of Messiah's first Advent to justify, and of His second Advent to judge-a future state of rewards and punishments-the millennial glorification of saints and the final condemnation of the reprobate.

To this end four Melchizedeck, King of righteousness and King of peace, manifested Himself to the Father of the faithful on his return from the slaughter of the confederate kings, and brought forth bread and wine, an eucharistic prelibation of the sacramental elements, commemorative to God's children of Messiah's death and passion, to their great and endless comfort. To this end Abraham was enjoined to sacrifice his son, his only son, Isaac, to prefigure to the eye of faith the locality of Messiah's crucifixion, the duration of His death, the sustentation of His cross, and the substitution of His all-sufficient sacrifice for the eternal death of as many as shall believe on His name. Thus §" Abraham rejoiced to see Christ's day, and he saw it, and was glad."

To this end, when Jacob had crossed the brook Jabbok "there wrestled a man with him," and that

* Mark ix. 44, 46, 48.

† 2 Peter ii. 5.

Genesis xiv. 18-24; Hebrews v. 6-14; vii. 1—17.
Genesis xxii. 1-14; Hebrews xi. 17-19.
¶ Genesis xxxii. 24.

John vizi. 56.

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man was the man Christ Jesus: for he said *" name shall be called no more Jacob, but Israel, for as a Prince hast thou power with God, and with men, and hast prevailed" +" and Jacob called the name of the place Peniel,—for I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved."

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To this end the angel Jehovah appeared to Manoah, and "ascended in the flame of the altar, and Manoah said unto his wife: we shall surely die, because we have seen God."

The Patriarch Job predicted to his Idumæan cotemporaries the second Advent of Messiah, his Redeemer, Advocate, and Vindicator, Messiah's ascension and supremacy over all the earth, the resurrection of his own body, and his assured beatific vision of Messiah upon His throne of glory and judgment.

In like manner Jehovah's Prophet to the Gentile world, apostate Balaam, unsanctified in heart and life, predicted to the Moabites and Midianites, to whom he was especially commissioned,§ the futurity of Messiah's session on the throne of judgment, his own condemnation at the last day, and his eternal separation from that God whom he had defied, and from the Israel of God whom he would fain have cursed, had he not been constrained to bless.

Scripture explicitly reveals manifestations of Jehovah Jesus to Moses in the burning bush; **to the children of Israel in the pillar of cloud and pillar of fire and at Bochim; +tto Joshua before Jericho; ++to Gideon at Ophrah; to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the burning fiery furnace; and §§to Daniel, in a predictive vision, as "Michael, the great Prince who standeth for the children of thy people."

The Mosaic ritual is a symbolic and figurative representation to the eye of faith of the person, character, and perfections of the second Adam, the Lord from heaven, our Prophet, Priest and King-of His first

+ Genesis xxxii. 30. § Num. xxiv. 17. Judges ii. 1-5.

*Genesis xxxii. 28.
Job xix. 23-27.
**Exodus xiii. 20-22;
Judges vi. 11-24.

Daniel iii. 25.

Judges xiii. 2-23. Exod. iii. Mark xii. 26. tt Joshua v. 13—15. §§ Daniel xii. 1.

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