SERMON I.

ST. JAMES, v. 8.

For the coming of the Lord draweth nigh.

TIME was, when I know not what mystical meanings were drawn, by a certain cabalistic alchymy, from the simplest expressions of holy writ--from expressions in which no allusion could reasonably be supposed to any thing beyond the particular occasion upon which they were introduced. While this phrensy raged among the learned, visionary lessons of divinity were often derived, not only from detached texts of Scripture, but from single words, not from words only, but from letters-from the place, the shape, the posture of a letter; and the blunders of transcribers, as they have since proved to be, have been the groundwork of many a fine-spun meditation.

It is the weakness of human nature, in every instance of folly, to run from one extreme to its opposite. In later ages, since we have seen the futility of those mystic expositions in which the school of Origen so much delighted, we have been too apt to fall into the contrary error; and the same unwarrantable licence of figurative interpretation which they employed to elevate, as they thought, the plainer parts of Scripture, has been used, in modern times, in effect to lower the divine.

Among the passages which have been thus misrepresented by the refinements of a false criticism, are all those which contain the explicit promise of the coming of the Son of Man in glory, or in his kingdom; which it is become so much the fashion to understand of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman arms, within half a century after our Lord's ascension, that, to those who take the sense of Scripture from some of the best modern expositors, it must seem doubtful whether any clear prediction is to be found in the New Testament, of an event in which, of all others, the Christian world is the most interested.

As I conceive the right understanding of

this phrase to be of no small importance, seeing the hopes of the righteous and the fears of the wicked rest chiefly on the explicit promises of our Saviour's coming, it is my present purpose to give the matter, as far as my abilities may be equal to it, a complete discussion: And although, from the nature of the subject, the disquisition must be chiefly critical, consisting in a particular and minute examination of the passages wherein the phrase in question occurs, yet I trust, that by God's assistance, I shall be able so to state my argument, that every one here, who is but as well versed as every Christian ought to be in the English Bible, may be a very good judge of the evidence of my conclusion. If I should sometimes have occasion, which will be but seldom, to appeal to the Scriptures in the original language, it will not be to impose a new sense upon the texts which I may find it to my purpose to produce; but to open and ascertain the meaning, where the original expressions may be more clear and determinate than those of our translation: And in these cases, the expositions

knowledge of the Scriptures, especially the Scriptures of the New Testament; and yet that knowledge of the Scriptures which is necessary to the understanding of these things, is what few in this country (I would hope) are too illiterate to attain. It is our duty to facilitate the attainment by clearing difficulties. It may be proper to state those we cannot clear, to present our hearers with the interpretations that have been attempted, and to show where they fail,in a word, to make them masters of the question, though neither they nor we may be competent to the resolution of it. This instruction would more effectually secure them against the poison of modern corruptions, than the practice, dictated by a false discretion, of avoiding the mention of every doctrine that may be combated, and of burying every text of doubtful meaning. The corrupters of the Christian doctrine have no such reserve. The doctrines of the divinity of the Son the incarnation

the satisfaction of the cross as a sacrifice, in the literal meaning of the word-the Mediatorial intercession the influences of the Spirit-the eternity of future punishment

are topics of popular discussion with those who would deny or pervert these doctrines : And we may judge by their success what our own might be, if we would but meet our antagonists on their own ground. The common people, we find, enter into the force, though they do not perceive the sophistry of their arguments. The same people would much more enter into the internal evidence of the genuine doctrine of the gospel, if holden out to them, not in parts, studiously divested of whatever may seem mysterious, not with accommodations to the prevailing fashion of opinions, — but entire and undisguised. Nor are the laity to shut their ears against these disputations, as niceties in which they are not concerned, or difficulties above the reach of their abilities; and least of all are they to neglect those disquisitions which immediately respect the interpretation of texts. Every sentence of the Bible is from God, and every man is interested in the meaning of it. The teacher, therefore, is to expound, and the disciple to hear and read, with diligence: And much might be the fruit of the blessing of God on their united exer