and agitate the world, carries with it, like a mill-stone into the sea, great Babylon that pollutes the earth. I have no more fear that the Romish Apostasy will gain the supremacy in this land, than I have that Mahometanism will. I believe it is now plunging in its last spasmodic convulsions. It will, like a dying maniac, put forth its most tremendous energies in its last struggle, but its fury is the evidence of its last moments; in spite of all, it will go down like a mill-stone into the sea, and shall be heard and seen no more at all. And the Jews will begin to look at their long lost home, already setting their hearts upon Palestine. And Christian men will begin more than ever to let go the distinctions which they have worn, and to think only of the glorious and lasting and vital features that characterize and stamp all the people of God. But amid all the havoc and obscurity of coming conflict, we can see and therefore we lift up our heads because our redemption draweth nigh emerging from beneath the horizon, the Sun of righteousness, who shall arise with healing in his wings to them that fear him, and that look for him the second time, without sin unto salvation.

The nearer that the time for these things is, the busier we ought to be. If we want to keep our estates, let us lay them out. If you want to be rich, give. If you want to be strong, expend your strength. If you want to be really built up in your faith, try to build up others in their most holy faith. The shorter the time that remains, the more we have to do. Charge every hour that lasts with intenser feeling. Crowd into every day that remains acts of greater beneficence. Concentrate every energy, seek to be useful, determine to make men better for your having been in the world. The light will soon be out, the day will soon be done, the night cometh when no man can work. And if we be God's people, the nearer we are to the Lord's coming

with ten thousand of his saints, the more busily we shall be getting ready to meet him. Blessed is that servant whom, when his Lord cometh, he findeth busy in his Lord's vineyard, and in his Lord's employment. And then, blessed result! as the issue of it, all creation shall be emancipated from its bondage. The repressive curse that weighs down. Eden beneath us, and prevents its bursting out into flower and blossom, will be removed; the desert will become green, the wilderness will blossom as the spring of Paradise, and nature will be fairer in her last robes than she was in her first. And, in the next place, the brute creation shall be restored and emancipated from their bondage. The whole creation, says the apostle, groans and travails in pain, waiting to be delivered. Man makes use of the bad instincts of the brute creation-instincts from beneath, not from above-in order to promote his own sinful or thoughtless purposes; but a day comes when these, too, shall be restored, "and the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together: and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den. And they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." Then, too, the sons of God, when the Lord comes with ten thousand of his saints, shall be manifested; the tabernacle of God shall then be with men; God shall then wipe away all tears from all eyes; Enoch's grand prophecy shall be lost in John's grander Apocalypse; the genesis of Moses shall be merged in the regenesis of the Revelation; all things shall be made new, and God will again appear in the

midst of a better Eden, and speak with man at eventide, no longer a refugee from him under the consciousness of sin, but his son, his friend; reclaimed, restored, regenerated, all things made new. When the Lord shall thus come with his saints, taking vengeance on them that know him not, may we be spared and kept, as a man spareth his son that serveth him, and be found among his jewels on that day.

CHAPTER XVII.

ENOCH'S CREED.

"There is no God,' the foolish saith,
But none, 'There is no sorrow: '
And Nature oft the cry of faith

In bitter need will borrow.

"Eyes, which the preacher could not school,

By way-side graves are raised;

And lips say,' God be pitiful,'

That ne'er said, 'God be praised.""

"But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to

God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him."- HEBREWS xi. 6.

THE apostle draws the inference embodied in these words, from the statement he had made respecting Enoch, who was translated, and who had this testimony that he pleased God. The inference he makes from this is, that if Enoch pleased God, he must have had faith; that same faith which he, the apostle, had in Christ the Saviour, for without faith, it is impossible to please God. Without this grace, whatever excellency we may have, we cannot please him. We may be the most learned, the most eloquent, the most wealthy, or the most renowned, it matters not, without that faith which gives to every grace its excellency, to all fruits their flavor, and to all flowers their tints, it is impossible to please God. It is faith, however, not in a proposition, but in him who proposes it. The faith of a Christian is not built upon

a series of arguments that make out a certain conclusion;

We accept the this the mathema

this the Christian

but simply upon this, Thus saith the Lord. proposal, not because we can prove it, tician does; but because God says it, does. We may prove a proposition contained in Scripture on independent data, and there is no sin in doing so; but we must never let go this inner and vital fact, that we receive the proposition simply because God says it, and upon his authority alone. Faith, then, is not in reason, nor in the church, nor in authority, nor in antiquity, nor in numbers, nor in the fathers; but simply in Christ Jesus, than whom there is none other by whom we may be saved.

Without this faith, it is impossible to please God. The very question, "What must I do to be saved?" has only one answer to it, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;" or, Have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt please God. If, then, without faith in him it is impossible to be saved, without faith in him it is impossible to please God. Christ is the way in which Enoch walked, and without believing in Jesus we cannot enter upon that way which Christ is. Without faith in Christ, we are not in the way that leads to heaven; we cannot, therefore, walk with God; we cannot, therefore, please God.

Without faith in Christ, we cannot have that natural disposition which is declared to be "enmity to God" extracted, and that true disposition which is declared to be love to God implanted in its place. The apostle himself tells us in his Epistle to the Romans, They that are in the flesh, they that are carnal, unconverted, unregenerate, cannot please God. Between God and us, in such a state, there can be no coincidence of walk; there can be no unity of design; there can be no harmony of nature; there can be no identity of object: we are at issue; we are opposed