as correct to say, that truth will not always prevail. The known tendency of the Gospel is indeed to propagation, partly from its intrinsical and obvious truth, partly from the superior motives which it offers to human beings, partly by the superior agency with which it is accompanied, and partly by its enlisting the most powerful energies of human beings in its propagation. Experience teaches us, every day, that the success of the Gospel is made to depend upon the activity and efficiency of human agency, inasmuch as we do not see it successful in any place, independent of that agency; and in every place where the largest share of that agency is employed, the Gospel is uniformly the most successful. And even those persons, whose speculations are opposed to this fact, do nevertheless act upon this very principle, and that in spite of their creed.

This prominent feature of the christian religion, is the very best security for the hearty and personal co-operation of Christians of every country, and of every age, in the propagation of the religion of Jesus Christ. For it has been in consequence of this truth having been lost sight of, in a great measure, by Christians in past ages, that Christianity has hitherto made so little progress in the world. We are called upon to come forward to the help of the Lord against the mighty; and however much the mistaken modesty of Christians may have overlooked the fact, this is the most efficient kind of help which the Gospel needs to give it success among human beings. Let men cease to propagate Christianity, and it will quickly dwindle and die away; but let the christian world be active and hearty in this great work, and every obstacle will, ere long, give way to the truth of the religion of Jesus. It is a distressing fact, that even at the present day, Christianity, in relation to the world at large, is but in its infancy, and at the pace at which it has hitherto been propagated, ages after ages must yet roll along, before the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. Every man must teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord, before all shall know him, from the least unto the greatest; every Christian must ply the sickle with all diligence, if we will reap the harvest of the whole earth, and gather every human being into the garner of the Lord. The apathy of prescience must be merged into an

unbounded zeal for the propagation of Christianity, and the christian world must feel that God has devolved upon us the mighty undertaking of making all the ends of the earth to see the salvation of our God.

We may suppose that God will continue the present world in existence, from generation to generation, until every human being shall know the Lord, without supposing that a certain point of duration is exactly and infallibly determined, when that glorious consummation shall be actually accomplished. For if the period is exactly determined, when every human being on the face of the earth shall become a real convert to the saving power of the christian faith; then every successive and intermediate stage of the conversion of the world, must be alike the object of a certain and infallible determination; and the conversion of every single human being must be alike the object of an infallible determination. Then the period is already fixed when Papacy, and Mahomedanism, and Paganism of every species, shall be finally exterminated from the face of the earth. That these events are objects which the scripture prophecy teaches us to anticipate, there can be but little doubt; but whether the exact period of the accomplishment be matter of a fixed and infallible determination, is the very point in dispute, and is a point which is nowhere revealed in the word of God; and it is perfectly incompatible with the general analogy of revealed truth, and as perfectly incompatible with the rational deductions of the human mind.

Is it not the false and ungrounded assumption, that these are matters of Divine and infallible determination, and consequently the objects of certain foreknowledge in the Deity, that has led so many persons into such wild and enthusiastical speculations on the purport of scripture prophecy, and especially in relation to dates and eras for the accomplishment of scripture predictions, and which has brought such deserved ridicule and popular odium upon speculators and theorists on the meaning of Divine revelation? On an assumption that the events predicted are objects of a chronological and certain prescience, the scripture predictions would not be adapted to call forth the zeal and co-operation of the righteous in bringing about those predicted events; and could not answer any better purpose

on the religious world, than that of exciting the idle conjectures of the human mind, and of producing chimerical calculations on the presumed import of prophetical years, and weeks, and days, and times.

Is it, I ask, for the purpose of amusing the world with speculations on dates and eras, that we have been premonished of the future purposes of God, and the future events and revolutions of the world? or is it to call for and direct the energies of the faithful in promoting the purposes of the Deity; and for the purpose of assuring us of the cooperation of the Divine agency in all our attempts to propagate the knowledge of Jesus Christ in the world? and also for the purpose of promoting the benevolent and righteous designs of that Being, who has promised to give to his Son the heathen for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession?

What solid reason have we for presuming that God, in the pages of Divine revelation, has not revealed the whole of his purposes, in relation to the objects of scripture prediction; and the whole amount of his knowledge, in relation to the same things? Or what solid reason is any man able to suggest, that should induce the Deity to keep back any part of his knowledge, or his purposes, in relation to those particular subjects?

The prophecy of ancient times is generally of a different character from that of the New Testament. Ancient predictions were generally associated with the great promise of a Saviour, whose coming was a subject of absolute determination, and therefore of personal prediction; but New Testament predictions, relate to character and not to person, and are not matters of absolute determination, and therefore they cannot be the objects of a certain prescience. Old Testament predictions relate frequently to events which were chronologically determined, and therefore they were the objects of a chronological prescience; but New Testament predictions are such as refuse to submit themselves to chronological principles; and therefore they cannot be the objects of a chronological and certain anticipation.

The prediction of the deluge, like the predictions of the New Testament, was not of a chronological character; and therefore we are informed, that the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah all the while the ark was in

building, and of consequence, it must be evident, that the prediction of the deluge was only conditional, and could not be absolute.

A prediction of the general judgment was delivered by Enoch, even before the time of the flood; and that awful event is as clearly asserted by Enoch as in any subsequent part of the sacred volume. But it must be evident, that although the general judgment might be certainly anticipated by the inhabitants of the old world, it could not have been to them an object of a chronological determination.

The enigmatical representations of the general judgment and of the end of the world, which are to be found in many parts of the sacred volume, particularly in the New Testament, and especially in the Apocalypse, are a subject which has greatly puzzled the brains of enthusiastical speculators on prophecy. But even on their own hypothesis, and on an assumption that God has purposely concealed the time of those events from human knowledge, it must be absolutely in vain to think of outwitting the purposed secrecy of the Almighty. The real cause, however, of all the secrecy and mystery which hang over the predictions of those events, is to be found in the non-determination of the times in which those events will ultimately and inevitably take place.

If the gathering of the Jews, as converts to the christian faith, and the universal conversion of mankind to the saving knowledge of the Gospel, be events which must actually precede the end of the world and the general judgment; and if the day and hour of the end of the world, and the exact time of the general judgment, be the subjects of a fixed, and absolute, and chronological determination by the Deity; then must the precise time of the conversion of the Jews, and evangelization of the Gentiles, be the subjects of as fixed and absolute a determination by the Almighty. And if the time of the conversion of the whole family of mankind to the christian faith, be the subject of a fixed and absolute determination by the Deity, then must the time of every intermediate event be as absolutely determined; the time of the conversion of every particular country, the time of the conversion of every particular individual, who will ever be brought under the saving influence of the religion of Jesus Christ, from this day forward to the final

consummation of all mundane affairs, must be the subject of a certain and infallible determination with the Supreme Being. The whole of any thing must, of necessity, be included in all its parts; and all the parts of every thing must, of equal necessity, be included in the whole. Let the objector disprove the foregoing conclusions, if he be

able.

We have frequently been reminded, that our blessed Redeemer has said, in relation to the general judgment, and the end of the world, "But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father." Mark xiii. 32. And from hence it has been confidently inferred, that the day and the hour of the day of judgment, and of the end of the world, are already the objects of a certain and infallible determination, or rather, of a certain and infallible prescience. Into the correctness of the foregoing hypothesis, we shall shortly inquire. The passage of scripture which we have already cited, has been commonly supposed to refer to the end of the world, and the general judgment of the human race: but such a supposition must have arisen from a very superficial attention to that notable passage; for a careful perusal of the chapter, and a constant attention to its general design, would quickly and fully convince every reader, that the passage alluded to must refer solely to the destruction of the temple, and the city of Jerusalem, and the final dissolution of the political existence of the Jewish people. It is also evident, from the context, that the terrible judgment, with which that nation was menaced, God had absolutely determined to bring down upon that present generation. "Verily I say unto you, this generation shall not pass away until all these things be fulfilled." Mark xiii. 30. It appears also from the words of our Lord, that a longer period for the continuance of this terrible visitation of Divine vengeance, had been previously meditated, if not determined; and that afterwards, for the elect's sake, those days had been shortened. It is equally evident, that although the time of the continuance of this terrible visitation had been shortened, and perhaps finally determined, yet the precise period when these things should overtake them, had not yet been absolutely determined and hence the disciples are directed to pray, that their flight might