steps, filling up the works that they began, carrying on their hallowed offices now bequeathed to our care let us be like them in deadness to sin, and unceasing homage to our unseen Lord. As we grow holier, we grow nearer to them: to be like them is to be with them; even now they are not far from us, we know not how nigh. As yet, for a time, the veil is drawn. We shall know all at His coming. It may be, we shall say-What! so near, and we could not see you? At times we could almost fancy we were not alone; but when we strained our sight, we saw nothing; when we listened, all was still.

SERMON XXIII.

THE WAITING OF THE INVISIBLE CHURCH.

REV. vi. 9, 10, 11.

And when He had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held. And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled.”

THESE are the sights and sounds which St. John saw and heard in heaven, when the Lamb had opened the fifth of the seven seals which made fast the awful book. He saw an altar, and under it the souls of Christ's faithful servants who had been slain for His sake. And they were weary of waiting for the day when God should judge the earth. They were at rest, and yet there was a rising of desire for the end: "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood?"

They were impatient, not so much for their own wrongs as for the glory of God. They were weary that sin should so long war against the Majesty of heaven; that God's world should so long be torn by the rending strife of spiritual evil. They had, in their lifetime, made full trial of its tyranny and hate; and the long train of remembered wrongs heaped on them for their loyalty to Heaven kindled a fire in their souls. But the time was not yet come. Very awful was the answer to their cry. "White robes were given unto every one of them;" some larger visitations of His sustaining grace they were refreshed in their weariness by some mysterious gift; and it was said unto them no need to say who it was that bade them tarry, for who but He could stay their yearnings? —it was said unto them, "that they should rest yet for a little season." God had a work yet to do. Their fellow-servants must needs be slain as they were; and all must be fulfilled. Then should the end come.

Now there is one point in this to which we will direct our thoughts: I mean, the light it throws upon the great mystery of Christ's second coming. We may gather with all certainty from this wonderful revelation of the inner mysteries of the heavenly court, first, that God has a fixed time for the end of the world. This we know from our Lord's

words while He was yet on earth.

While He declared the secrecy of that time to be such that it was hidden from all, both men and angels, yet He specially added, that it was a time fixed and known to the Father. I do not mean simply known as all things must be known to an all-knowing God, but foreseen and fore-determined in the secrets of His hidden wisdom. And this leads on to another truth revealed in the same vision; namely, that God has fixed that time according to the measures of the work which He has to finish: even as Christ had a work to finish on earth; so that we read, again and again, that His "hour was not yet come." In like manner now in heaven, He has a definite foreseen scheme for the administration of His mediatorial kingdom; and according to the accomplishing of this work, will be the time of His coming. So much in a general way. But in this passage we have somewhat more specific and detailed.

1. He has shadowed out to us the nature of the work that He has to do before the end come; that is, to make up a certain number whom God has foreseen and predestinated to life eternal. This we read throughout Holy Writ. "They shall be mine in that day when I make up my jewels,"1 the Lord has said by the prophet Malachi. Then shall the angels "gather together His elect from

1 Mal. iii. 17.

the four winds."

And, to take only one more

passage, the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews shews us how God has ever been gathering out His chosen ones, from righteous Abel to this day. After running down the list of the faithful, St. Paul adds, "These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them." And, again, "God having provided some better thing for us, that they without us should not be made perfect." Abel waited for Enoch, and Enoch for Abraham, and Abraham for Moses, and Moses for Paul; and so all holy men, bishops, and pastors, and saints, along the whole line of this world's history, have waited for us; and we shall wait, it may be, for others yet to come. God is gathering out a mystical number-the hundred and forty and four thousand, which is a symbol of all numbers innumerable-of the twelve tribes of the Israel of God; and He has been gathering them out one by one, from an age or a generation, from a people, a family, or a household, taking one, and leaving another, in the inscrutable mystery of His choice. Whether this secret number be measured by the fall of angels, as some of old were wont to believe; whether the companies of angelic ministers shall be filled up by the redeemed of mankind,

1 St. Matt. xxiv. 31.

2 Heb. xi. 13 and 40.