tally with the law and the testimony, repudiate it. For what does the apostle say? "If we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that we have preached, let him be accursed."

And does not our Lord himself say, That in "the last days there will be signs and wonders so great and so many, that if it were possible, they would deceive the very elect;" teaching us that there is an exempted party, although others may be caught, and captivated, and charmed by the delusion? I have thus shown that miracles are not always from God, as it is said in Deut. xiii. 1-3: "If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and serve them; thou shalt not hearken unto that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul;" wherein it is shown us that wonders may be done by a false prophet for a false end. I admit that many of the miracles done in the popedom have been proved to be false by the childishness of the occasion, the falsity of the claim, the idle object for which they were done, the doctrine that was quoted to sustain it; and therefore in no respect are they to be placed in the same category with the miracles wrought by our blessed Lord. But do not be deceived: if I were to see a man come into the world preaching that transubstantiation is true, and he were to raise a dead man from the grave to prove it, I would not believe him I would say, "Let him be anathema." If I were to see a

man come into the world and make the tree that had been fruitful barren at his word, and make sea-sand to blossom like the rose, and then tell me that I was to worship the Virgin Mary, I would say, "Let him be anathema." No power that can be put forth can prove to me that any thing is truth which is contrary to the plain, common-sense, honest interpretation of this blessed book. Therefore, see the infinite importance of cleaving close to your Bibles. There is no infallible directory but the word of God-no expiatory atonement but the death of Jesus-no sanctifying power but the Spirit of God-Christ's cross without a

screen-his word without a clasp-the way to heaven without an obstruction; these are the elements, the substance, and the very core of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

A few words more, and I will close. The next brand here mentioned is "deceivableness of unrighteousness." He is not only to come with "signs and lying wonders," but to come with all "deceivableness of unrighteousness." Roman Catholics have often far more semblance of piety about them than Protestants, but with it the substance of infidelity. To say a hundred paternosters with the lip is far more meritorious than to breathe one fervent "Our Father" from the bottom of the heart. To carry a cross on one's shoulder is greater glory than to glory in the cross of Christ; to make genuflexions with the bended knee is better than to bow and break the unbended heart; to fast severely in Lent, after feasting heartily in the Carnival, is the greatest merit; abstinence from flesh, though no abstinence from lusts and passions, is the very perfection of this system of "deceivableness of unrighteousness." The apostolic prescription is, "If any man will not work, neither should he eat." The priestly prescription is, "Let him go into a monastery, and be fed as a beggar at the public expense;" if you be of a solitary and ascetic temperament, there is a hermitage for you, or a whip with which to scourge yourself, or an iron band to wear round your waist. So exquisitely is the system adapted, that if you are poor, poverty can be made the path to heaven; if rich, your gold will pave the way to heaven; if ascetic, a whip will scourge you to heaven; if a licentious debauchee, you have only to cross the street, and you will find the open confessional, and a sympathizing father within it to give you absolution; if there be a blighted and disappointed heart in its first and earliest affections, there is held out the charming retreat of a nunnery, so beautiful in romance, so sweetly delineated in Tractarian poems, but found to be in the end the grave of the living, or the hell of the dead. Again, if you are of an avaricious, cold temperament, scraping and gathering all, and parting with nothing, you may draw upon this great ecclesiastical corporation, and get a surplus of merits which you may put in your cash-box, or enter in your ledger, as you may prefer. For the robber who has lived on the plunder of the

honest, a tithe of his gains will half shrive him, and make his sufferings in purgatory short. Or if you are tasteful and love beautiful architecture, it will meet with your taste: it is a fact that Mr. Pugin was converted, by his architectural taste alone, from being what is called a Protestant, to be, what he is, a real Roman Catholic. I often wonder that more architects, and painters, and poets, who are not spiritual men, do not become Roman Catholics, because that system encourages them to the utmost; and not only encourages them, but gives them what meets and gratifies their taste. And if you are a sincere believer, there is just as much Christianity left as will show you it is not wholly cast out: a ray or two penetrates the gloom-a beam of the unutterable glory pointing to the skies; so that in the midst of that eclipse, in spite of its corruptions, you may catch a light that will lead you to the Lamb, and lift you to the skies. Such, I say, is its "deceivableness of unrighteousness." In whom is this manifested? "In them that perish."

A person may be

I have taken up much of your time, but I wish to close this part of my subject to-night. There is to be no conversion of this system, but the Lord is to consume it by "the Spirit of his mouth;" that is, as in another passage, "He shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth;" i. e. his own holy word. That consumption is at this moment going on. Great Babylon is now coming into remembrance before God. far gone in a consumption, and yet alive; so Babylon is now being gradually consumed, but it is only to be "destroyed with the brightness of our Lord's coming." Does not this imply that it will exist till Christ comes? Bibles, tracts, political friends, and political foes, may consume it, but he is to destroy, i. e. utterly to end it, by the brightness of his coming. I believe that the pope, who is now a refugee, will return to Rome, but shorn of much of his sovereignty; the beast is being consumed, but he waits for that day when the lightning that flashes from the east, shall kindle a conflagration in the central seat of great Babylon, which shall then go down like a millstone into the fathomless and fiery flood, and all heaven, and the saints above, and the saints below, shall shout, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen. . . Hallelujah, for the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth." My dear friends, I call

to you, "Come out of her, that ye be not partakers of her plagues." Have no connection with her-no sympathy with her Taste not her cup, wear not her garments, stand aloof from her, lest, touching her, sympathizing with her, trying to form diplomatic intercourse with her, apologizing for her, seeking to endow her, as if the money of kings and states could avert God's judgments-lest you be sucked into the terrible vortex, and, being partakers of her sins, be plunged into the fire of her ruin. But, my dear friends, come what may, let us rejoice that Christ is our King, not Antichrist; that the Bible of Christ, not the Breviary, is our law; that the gospel, not another gospel, is our hope; and come life, come death, come signs, come wonders, come miracles, come things present, things past, things to come-nothing, nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

455

LECTURE XXXIII.

1848; OR, PROPHECY FULFILLED.

"He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus."-Revelation xxii. 20.

"And the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air; and there came a great voice out of the temple of heaven, from the throne, saying, It is done."Revelation xvi. 17.

LAST Sabbath evening I showed you that the reign of Antichrist was to endure from that moment when the mystery of iniquity began, in St. Paul's day, until that moment when the Lord shall come again. I showed you on a previous evening that in Matt. xxiv. there was the earliest intimation that Christ's advent should take the world by surprise, and should come upon them like the lightning that gleams from the east and spreads its coruscations in the west, and should find them as the flood found them in the days of Noah, eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. On a previous evening, I showed you by a multitude of texts that the great hope, as it seems to me, held out in every passage of the New Testament, is that of Christ's second advent; and just as the devout Jew continually looked for his first, so the devout Christian, leaning on the first as the foundation of this hope, anticipates with joy the second as the substance and realization of it. I drew fairly the inference, that no Millennium is to precede the advent of Christ, but, on the contrary, to succeed it; that he comes first to a world unprepared for his advent, though to his church as to a bride waiting for the bridegroom; and that the Millennium will not be the dawn that precedes it, but the noon that streams from that risen and meridian Sun of Righteousness.

I now proceed to lay before you some proofs of the truth of what I stated in my last lectures in Exeter Hall, announced as