Ver. 6.-:-No more time. "The angel ••• aware ••• that there ahonld be time DO longer." This word of the angel is capable of being rendered, and has been rendered, in three different ways. Take it as meaning- '!: THE TDIB IS NOT YET OOHE. It is easy to believe that the perseouted people of St. John's day, as often since, might have thought that the judgments which"they · witneaed and the distressell they endured could not but be the beginning of •the ,end. ·our Lord knew-that they would think so, and hence (Matt. xxiv.). warned them that they sbould see and suffer ·much; but "the end " was "not yet." '.l.'hey had asked what should be the sign of his coming, and of "the end of the age." They were eagerly expecting it. At his ascension they asked the like question again. · The apostolic Epistles are full of evidence that the second coming of onr Lord was expected as near at hand. St. Paul wrote his Second Epistle to the Thflssalonians to dispel this idea, or at any rate to moderate its•elfects. An,d when Jerusalem fell, and when the Roman empire fell, it was confidently believed that the end of all things was close at · hand. ; And had we lived in those awful days, it is likely that we should have thought so' too, . And we· know how calculations have been made as to the time of the end. 'l'he iUtistrious Bengel reckoned that it would be in 1836, and his mistake is on record as a-warning to·au who would makEHlimilar rash statements, though eveu y.et the 'WArnin'g is negleeted by Eome. But OUT Lord has told us that it is not for .us "to know th1i times and the seasons " ( Acts i.), and all human calcuhi.tions lU"e. therefore foredoomed' to error. And it is well for us that we cannot know.: "Ignorance is .bU&s" in regard to such a subject. Could we fix the date, those far off from it W0'1ld harden themselves in their sin~ those near at hand would become as the Thessal.on~ did, unfitted for their- daily duty, and would not, as St. Paul ba!le them do, "mind ·their own qusiness." And so in regard to what is to each one of us as the end of all things, the date of our death, we are kept in merciful ignorance of it. And to k~ us,,thereiu God has so ordered onr lives that there is no hour of it in which men may n_ot die, and in which many do not die, E1ni:l no hour of it in which they certainly know that they must and shall, Hence little children die, !Ind young men and maidens, boys and girls, as well as the old end grey-headed. Ruthless and cruel are seemingly not a iew of the visitations of death, cutting do~ youth in the first freshness and' bloom of liJe, often not sparmg the bride and mother in thefulness of their joy, forcing the hot tears fro11;1 the young husband and wife as they mourn hopelessly over the cradle that held the little one whose life was to them dearer than. their own. · Such things are. And to eome they seem horrible and cruel. But it is in order that we all may be delivered from that paralysis of hope and energy which would come upon us, as it com.es- .upon the convicted· felon in the condemned cell, if we knew the actual moment when we must die, and could count off every hour that draws us on to the inevitable doom. Therefore is it well that we do not know the time or the season. And in J'egard to the end of the world, wh!lt mercy is there in the fact that the time is not yet, that "the· master of the house" has not yet "risen up, e.nd shut to the door" l J!'or now many will enter who then will not be able. W _ are thankful that Christ has not yet "accomplished the number of his elect." And they who are his, how much they yet hE1ve to do to learn and to obtain before they are prepared to meet thei.r Lord I " The bride has" not yet "made herself ready ; " but she must and will, and that she may "the Bridegroom " tarries. Therefore, if this be the meaning of the angel's oath, that "the time is not yet," we rejoice in it both for ourselves and for myriads more. II. TlnmE SHALL BE NO KOBE THIE, And this we believe is the meaning here- tha, there shall be no longer delay, postponement, no more weary waiting, no longer any lingering of the accomplishment of God's purposes. So regarded, it was for the Church of St. John's day. a blessed sur81ffl'I, corda, a cordial and good o~; helpng them to endure 11':tiently and to hope on more and more. The " mystery of God" ·ahall eoon "be finished,• 10 IIOOll that, a.a we IIBY " we are come " to any oity when we , tee ita towera and spiree rising before ua, although we may yet be 10me COD11idl!l'abl.e OH, 1:t~ll.] THE .REVELATION OF ST. J01:IN THE DIVINE. 285
dist11noe from its gates; so, because the time is so short, we may say it .is, over, tha waiting-time .is. past-it exists " no longer." And thus: 1. The Chriatian ..ma, com/orl hi,m,d,f. True, the age dr11gs out its weary length, but each individual.Hfe,ia shod, a.tid generally long before even that short life is done the recompenses o f ~ the ear11est and pledge of the yet larger recompenses of eternity, are given. "The LoFd. is not slack concerning bis promises "-how often we hAve gratefully to confess that! Yea; they are so given, even here and now, that the believer is constrained to own, ".Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life.'' Tares are undoubtedly amongst the wheat, to its sore detriment and harm, but they are not always to be there; it is a mystery that they are there at all ; we would like to go and pull them. up, but we cannot; but the harvest draws on, and then the trouble will all be over, But; 2. TM ~ i u of God shoul,d be afraid. The avenging gods--aso the old .pagan world believed-have their feet shod with wool. Men hear not their silent apprOt!,Oh, and they m_ay be upon them, they often are, in a mom-,nt. . The sinner never knows how near God's judgi:nent upon his sin may be. Of many the angel hath aw;orn:that