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"because sentence against evil works is not speedily executed, therefore the hearts of the children of men are fully set in them to do evil."

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Smitten by the splendour of a Babylonish garment, Achan, in the face of condemnatory light, hid it among his goods, as a relic of Chaldean genius. But dearly did he atone for that obliquity of heart and mind which caused him to err from wisdom's way. Any want of conformity to, or transgression of the law of God," necessarily brings such a hardening process, that the evils become their own punishment in their re-action. From individual the case rises to national. " Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is the destruction of any people." By indulging a covetous desire, by invading the rights of other nations, much increase of revenue and territory may be obtained, and a mighty name of renown may be earned by the power thus acquired. The pre-eminence of civilization is exhibited in that superiority of craft which circumvents honest simplicity, and in that fraud which employs the basest means to the accomplishment of the desired end. But this is a sandy foundation for the establishment of national prosperity. One generation, like Ahab, slays and takes possession, another revels in the affluence thus procured, another becomes immersed in the corruption which treads on the heels of luxury; the last generation experiences the re-action of the process. Why should we be afraid with amazement, as though some strange thing happened, at the crushing of that cockatrice egg, which preceding generations engendered and fostered? There is no more guilt in the re-action than in the commission of the evil, perhaps less in the sight of God. When the righteous judgments of God are abroad, the inhabitants of the earth will learn righteousness. National calamity, the shaking and dissolution of the securities to which even the religious theorists remain attached, define and assort those two classes, which are termed "the children of this world" and "the children of the kingdom," who are, until then, compared to tares and wheat growing indiscriminately in the same field. Our Lord does not divide these classes into the religious world and the irreligious world: in the religious world the tares and wheat grow together. It is not the semblance of that which is good, but the sound vital principle which forms the distinction; and these are only separated in times of trial, when principle is made the test. The tares collected in bundles, remain attached to the things which are to be destroyed; the wheat is gathered and taken into the appointed place of safe-keeping. As there was the dawn of intellectual idolatry, even so there is its meridian and its even-tide. "Darkness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people." When all is reduced to a mechanical system in religion and science, God necessarily is shut out; and these substitutes, acting on a self-evolving principle, and kept in motion by human influence and secular means, are idolized. It was the children of Cain who first introduced the sciences in a state of estrangement from wisdom and virtue; because in a state of ignorance of the centre to which all knowledge tends, if understood aright. But as it is in vain to reason with a man in a state of intoxication, even so, while the various kinds of machinery are in their zenith of prosperity, it would be idle to expect the minds of those who profit by them to be sufficiently disinterested to listen to the voice of reason. The profits alone are looked at, the coincident march of moral depravity in parents, who sacrifice their young children to slow death, with unseasonable hours, unwholesome atmosphere, over-working, and improper food, not to mention the depravity of morals and manners which are contracted in such places by the elder; all this is left out of the calculation of the votary of Mammon.

We can only be awake to the evils of any system not founded on the authority of God's word, by seeing these evils in their re-action, as at the present time. Who would have been listened to, ten years ago, in tracing the hardening progress of unchecked guilt? The eye was intent only on the service supposed to result to society from expert operators, who have acquired much practical knowledge of the human frame: alas! modern philosophy mistook the night-mare of intemperate science for a real benefit.

Few trust themselves with looking at this hideous birth of Christendom in the face, fewer dare avow it to be the monstrous offspring of godless reason and depraved intellect. Its original sin is borne out by its actual depravity -its trade is in human flesh, dragged in darkness and by stealth from the grave, now no more the place " where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary are at rest." Was all distinction between right and wrong so confounded, as to suppose a science sustained by thieves of the lowest order could be of benefit to the world? Is the standard of French philosophy inverting the law of God and of nature, to constitute stealing no offence, and murder no crime, when subservient to its interests ?

The question with the wretches who make merchandise of human flesh is purely one of expediency; their decision is necessarily in favour of that mode which yields the most profit; and it is easy to suppose that these hardened agents, who have no sense of moral principle, justify to themselves the atrocities of thieving and murder on the ground of being subservient to the interests of the community, in the advancement of science. They are in their own mind exculpated from all sense of guilt.

Britain, at once the corrupter and converter of heathen nations, is thus stained with such horrors as would make the ear of the Eastern Hindoo, and the Western aborigine, to tingle; for with them the grave is sacred to affectionate sympathies and remembrances. They bury their dead out of their sight;" and the sanctuary of the grave is inviolable.

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It has been attempted to ridicule this human feeling implanted by the Creator, as a prejudice confined to those whose minds are unenlightened by education. But notwithstanding the ease with which theorists talk about devoting their bodies to the use of the science, it is, after all, the poor and such as have no helper who are made to satisfy its demands. It is not they who admire, and who consider it an honour, but they who abhor the thought of being thrown, mangled and defaced, into a promiscuous heap of horror: to be huddled into some pit, or otherwise made away with. It is they, who, after a life of privation and misery, languish for the green sod to cover their own remains, who are denied the house appointed for the dead.

The whole existing framework of this world is established on an inversion of the righteous and beneficent law of God. The whole constitution of these kingdoms is on the principle that might neutralizes and supersedes right-that the political end consecrates any means.

The new heavens and earth which shall succeed this inverted order of things is new in the same sense that the regenerated heart is new. Material, in both cases, is divested of its curse and regenerated. "Behold I create a new heaven and earth;" and, "Be ye glad in that

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which I create; for behold I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy." What is the essential newness of this order of things? Righteousness dwelleth therein. "Zion shall be redeemed with judgment, and her converts with righteousness." Keeping the Truth is a synonimous term with righteousness. Open ye the gates, that the righteous nation which keepeth the truth may enter in." The effect of righteousness is peace and assured quiet. It was in consideration of the adverse elements of this present evil constitution and ascendancy our Lord said, that as his personal absence would be matter of sorrow and lamentation to his disciples first, and last, it would afford matter of satisfaction and rejoicing to the children of this world; and that as His coming again was to be matter of joy and rejoicing to the disciples, even so it would disconcert the devices which had grown out of that

absence.

The Heavens connected with this unrighteous state of things shall pass away with a great commotion, and the elements dissolve with fervent heat; the earth, also, and the works thereof, shall be burnt up. Seeing that all this existing framework of society shall be dissolved by the fiery indignation of that Truth whose light has been resisted, what manner of persons ought we to be, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the Day of God?

This day of judgment, the day which brings forth glory to Truth, which hath so long been without fruit, is looked forward to with intense desire by all, whether in heaven or on earth, who have an eye single to the glory of the Redeemer. The subversion of the things that are, and their being brought to nought by those things which are not seen as yet, is involved in their rejoicing. The prostration of that which exalteth itself is as glorifying to the

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