years together, then I will be content that you shall buoy up yourselves with the hopes of heaven, though you never use any means to obtain it. But if you have no doubt about that man's folly, then see in it a just picture of your own.
Behold then, I declare to all of you, that the means must be used in order to the end. You must repent, " ploughing up your fallow ground," and " sowing in tears" of deep contrition. You must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the only Saviour of sinners ; and must look to him for " the former and the latter rain," whereby alone the seed of the word can live and grow in your souls. Lastly, you must make it the one labour of your life to prepare for his second coming, that you may give up your account to him with joy and not with grief. If you thus " go on your way weeping, bearing precious seed, you shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing your sheaves with you g :" but if you act not thus, know that you shall reap according to what you sow. " He that soweth to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption ; whilst he who soweth to the Spirit, shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting11."]
e Ps. cxxvi. 5, 6. h Gal. vi. 7, 8.
Jam. v. 9. Behold f the Judge standeth before the door.
OF the Day of Judgment there is frequent men- tion in the New Testament : and so strongly was the idea of it realized in the minds of the inspired writers, that they conveyed to the Church, uninten- tionally on their parts, an expectation of its speedy arrival. This arose indeed, in part, from our blessed Lord himself having blended his description of it with a prediction of the judgments which impended over Jerusalem, and which were to be inflicted upon it before that generation should have passed awaya. Yet, when there was no reference to the destruction of the Jewish polity, the language used respecting it was often exceeding strong. St. Paul, in his first Epistle to the Thessalonians, thus expresses himself: " This we say unto you by the word of the Lord,
a Matt, xxiv, 29—35.