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weighed down with the sore anxieties, labors, privations, watchings, and perils of battle with error, with sin, with hoary and savage superstition, with the relentless powers of unbelief, depraved passion, and fierce persecution. In every age has the blood of her champions been made to flow, and the lives of thousands of her children been sacrificed, in defence of her towers, her bulwarks, and her palaces. Never a victory was gained, but the warfare was renewed in other forms, the struggle made more desperate, and the foe more subtle and more fierce. Day after day for all the period of her history have her fears and perils and privations increased, and the enemy drawn closer and closer upon her intrenchments, whilst her children grew faint and fevered and delirious, and leaned upon each other in their helplessness, dreary, exhausted, and ready to die. From the crucifixion of her Lord till now, has she been drinking of the bitter waters of affliction, sharing with him the woes of the cross, and crying without intermission under the weight of oppressions and sufferings from which none within her lines could deliver her. To this moment we hear the shoutings of her enemies that her batteries are growing feeble, that her strength is rapidly failing, that her foundations are being undermined, and that soon she will be at the mercy of her foes. Even some who once stood up bravely for her have thrown down their arms and given up their exertions, believing that further attempts are but useless. Sick

and distracted, some of the most loving and untiring have prostrated themselves upon the earth, and fallen asleep in their faintness and delirium caused by the perilous strife. And darker and darker shall grow the prospect, and still sterner and sterner the conflict, until the last hope is ready to be crushed out before the gigantic strength of the last earthly embodiment of hell and death. But just when the extremity is greatest and stout hearts are ready to give up for lost, there shall be a shriek, and, with it, a starting up of the faint ones from their long prostration, and a mysterious bending forward, and listening, and straining of ears, to sounds which not every one can hear, and strange, wild, but joyous transformations of the anxious listeners, and a thrilling grasping of hands, and shouting of one to another, "Do you not hear it?-Do you not hear it? It's no dream.-It's the tramp of new armies from the highlands of home.—It's the palm-bearing Hero, with his invincible hosts.—It's the Captain of salvation, approaching for the rescue.-It's the Samson of deliverance, hewing down our foes.-It's the Lord in his power, come at last as he promised. -WE ARE SAVED! WE ARE SAVED! WE ARE SAVED!"

And, in hope of participation in the joyous redemption of that blest day, I here close these comments upon the parable of the ten virgins, commending you who have listened to them, to God and to the power of his grace, praying that what I have said

to you in weakness may not be without its good fruits in the coming harvest of eternity.

"Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Savior, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, now and ever. Amen."

THE

Judgeship of the Saints.

A SERMON.

"Judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts."-1 Cor. iv. 5.

I. THE first point in these words, to which I invite attention, is the implied truth, that the dignities and prerogatives of judgeship do appertain to the saints. It is true that the text is a command against judging. The word is, "judge nothing." But there is a limit to the prohibition. There is a time specified, for which the interdiction does not apply. It is only "before the time" that we are not to judge,—implying that, when the time comes, we are to judge, and to exercise all the high functions denoted by that word.

And what is here implied is elsewhere plainly expressed. As to the twelve apostles, Jesus said, “I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me; that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." (Luke xxii. 29, 30.) But honors of this kind are not to be confined to the twelve, though theirs is to be a position of peculiar

eminence. Paul, in a subsequent chapter of this same epistle, refers to it as a well-understood item of the Christian faith, and as a matter of common expectation, that "the saints shall judge the world.” "Do

ye not know," says he, "that the saints shall judge the world?"-that "the world shall be judged by you?" Nay, more: "Know ye not that we shall judge angels?" (1 Cor. vi. 2, 3.) Of old had the Psalmist sung, that "the upright shall have dominion," (Ps. xlix. 14,) and that the "Great King" "shall subdue the people under us, and the nations under our feet." (Ps. xlvii. 3.) Daniel had also prophesied, “I beheld, until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints of the Most High; and the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom." (Dan. vii. 21, 22.) Even the apocryphal book of Wisdom (iii. 7) had said of the righteous, "They shall judge the nations, and have dominion over the people." Christ himself, in sundry promises and parables, had pointed forward to judicatorial powers to be possessed by his faithful followers, and afterward dictated to be written to the Church at Thyatira, "He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them." (Rev. iii. 26, 27.) And, as was promised, John, in vision, "saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; ... and they lived and reigned with Christ." (Rev. xx. 4.)*

See also Ex. xix. 6; Ps. cxlix. 5-9; Isa. xxxii. 1; Matt. xix. 28; Luke xix. 17, 19; 1 Cor. ix. 25; 2 Tim. iv. 8; 1 Pet. v. 4; Rev. i. 6, ii. 10, iii. 21, v. 10, xxi. 7.

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