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tered over the world, they will be perfectly qualified to address mankind in the tongue in which each was born, and to display to them the unsearchable riches of the redemption which is in Christ. One corpse is

prepared to march northward and eastward, and preach the gospel in all the Teutonic dialects: another is prepared to traverse North-Africa, Egypt, Arabia, and all the countries which use the Arabic languages; others are preparing to undertake Persia, Judea, China, and all the other inhabited countries on earth. And when the Son of God shall send these men forth, on this great work, we may calculate that it will be with an unction of his spirit proportioned to the magnitude of the enterprise; an unction which shall exalt and sublimate their genius beyond any thing which we can conceive, and arouse them to such displays of zeal, heroism and hardihood, in the cause of human salvation, as shall excel all that our age has witnessed, or history exemplified.

When these men shall be dispersed over the face of the earth, they will find that their brothers have been before them, and opened their path to the heathen. They will find the holy scriptures translated into the languages of the nations which they visit; they will find the people reading them; and only waiting, like the Ethiopian eunuch, for some one to interpret the meaning to them, in order to embrace with joy the faith of Christ, and to be baptised. They will visit the tombs of these holy translators; or in some instances visit them in person, bending under the weight of years, and hoary with time. The Lord will then pour out upon the nations a blessing which there shall not be room to receive. The earth shall be filled with the

knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. A church of a new aspect will arise; a Bible church, of apostolic character; unfettered by the doctrines, uncontaminated with the inventions, unrestrained by the political influence of men.

Were it not that I am afraid to render my picture confused and obscure I should show that there is in every nation on the earth; a shaking of the existing establishments, which will in the issue be favourable to the general diffusion and establishment of the christian religion. But I chuse merely to glance at what is going forward without the boundaries of the church, and to concentrate your attention on her internal condition, as it tends to illustrate the meaning and fulfilment of the prophecies.

I suppose that I have been sufficiently diffuse, on the present head of my discourse; and shall draw towards a conclusion by observing, that I think it highly probable, that within the space of the three years and a half of the reign of the atheistic power, and the suspension of public religious worship in Europe, the gospel will be preached in all the heathen lands; and, that when the slain witnesses shall be raised from the dead, and stand upon their feet, they will find, with pleasing surprise, that during the time of their suspended animation, God was quickening into life the Gentiles, who had been dead in trespasses and in sins. Then shall that passage of holy writ be again applicable to the state of human things. "I say then, have they stumbled, that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall, salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jeal

ousy.

Now if the fall of them be the riches of the

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world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?" "For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!*

The ingathering of the nations of the earth into Christ's sheepfold, is a wondrous work, and effected by wonderful means. So far as we are capable of judging, from the light afforded us in the holy scriptures, God's judgments inflicted upon one class of mankind, always issue in blessings to some other class; and it is rather with a view to the benefit of the latter, than with a view to the punishment of the former, that God manages his mysterious dispensations. By the infliction of partial punishment he vindicates the justice of his government; and by converting even that infliction into the means of promoting the best and most general interests of mankind, he demonstrates, that mercy triumphs over judgment. When the Jews rejected christianity, that very rejection furnished an occasion of sending the gospel immediately abroad into all the heathen nations, and of gathering into the church of God tribes of men, ten times more numerous than the children of Israel ever were. And when these Gentiles are gathered, then Israel also shall be remembered, and brought to the knowledge and enjoyment of their own Messiah. In like manner, God's judgments upon Europe will be the means of diffusing the christian faith over all the nations of the earth; and that effected, the witnesses are raised from the dead, chris

* Rom. xi. 11. 12–15. 33.

tianity is re-established in that country; thus all the Gentile nations are converted unto God. Then the Lord will remember his servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their seed for ever; his anger will pass away, his repentings will be kindled within him, and he will call them with a holy calling, and reinstate them in their long suspended privileges. There will then be one shepherd and one sheepfold; the Lord will be one, and his name one, in all the earth.

Thus have I endeavoured to inquire into the signs of the times, in respect to the European church, and to compare them with the prophecies; and shall leave each one of my audience to ponder the momentous subject at his leisure.

But, perhaps, some one may inquire, are there no signs of the times in the American churches? Here God has cast our lot, here is the scene of our operations, where we must act, and suffer, in the service of our Redeemer; and it deeply interests us to know, the aspects and tendencies of things in the American church. Brethren, I will admit the importance of your inquiry, provided you will admit its difficulties. For, in the first place, nothing is so difficult as to know ourselves; and next to that, is the difficulty of knowing our country. The old divines are in the habit of representing the difficulty of self-examination by this figure; "the eye which sees all things can never see itself, without some reflecting mirror." There is no country of which we are so little capable of judging correctly, as of our own. When we attempt to examine into the character of our country, we resemble a man who goes close up to a picture, in order to judge of its excellence; but from his position, he sees nothing

but rough and rude daubings of different colours: place him at the proper point of distance, the colouring mellows, and the whole figure stands boldly out from the canvas. In this latter position, he resembles the man who studies the character and condition of a distant country. When we look to a nation beyond the Atlantic, our vision is not distracted by a multitude of minute particulars; we catch the general contour and outline, and can scarcely err in our general judgment. But when we come to judge of our own country, we have nothing presented to our eyes but a long bill of particulars, without number, order, system, or arrange

ment.

The general impression which every man has of his country, is made by an infinity of little things which have operated on his feelings, and promoted his happiness. Hence, the preference which every man gives to his native soil. The Arab wonders how men can live in countries which do not produce dates; the Laplander pronounces all men wretched who are strangers to snow and the rein deer; and the Esquimaux would not consent to live in Paradise without a supply of seal oil. It is certainly a great blessing, that men are so easily pleased with themselves, and their situation.

There is an additional reason which baffles our judgment respecting our country, and which is not of quite so innocent a description, as those which I have mentioned above. It is that accursed vanity which will not permit a man to judge justly of himself, or of any thing with which he is identified. I dare say it will be permitted us, to say any thing we please of nations situated beyond the Atlantic; but it might be dangereus to deal in domestic criticism. It is not, however,

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