answer the purpose of error. Hence, not a good hope through grace. in defiance of the plainest declara- For if by reliance on an arm of tions of Christ, Satan may make it flesh, or by any other display of appear plausible that a martyr's vain confidence, even a true bespirit may be dispensed with-that liever "forsakes the fountain of there is no necessity for plucking living waters, and hews out to himout right eyes or cutting off right self broken cisterns that can hold hands-that all our Lord has said no water," the Holy Spirit is grievabout taking up our cross is a mere ed, God hides his face, and the nonentity-and that the Saviour Saviour places the individual in the used words without meaning when situation of those Corinthians who he signified that whatever conduct were judged in the world, that they we manifest towards his saints, he might not be judged with the world. will treat it as so much good or In such a case evidence of safety evil done to himself. But a day is is withdrawn; and, for want of spicoming when it will be abundantly rituality, even former evidences fail evident, that the meek and lowly to be spiritually recognized. Thus Jesus never spoke at random. He the tempest-tossed soul seems to is God, and cannot from forgetful- have no anchor, and darkness veils ness let his declarations fall to the the skies, till the believer says, ground, or from fickleness alter" Return unto thy rest, O my soul, them, or from want of power fail for the Lord hath dealt bountifully to execute them. with thee." Happy then are those who dig In conformity with these views for truth more than for hid trea- it becomes our imperative duty to sures, and whose investigations are say, Let not him that girdeth on accompanied by an humble, a teach- his harness boast himself as he that able, and a devotional spirit. Such putteth it off." 1 Kings xx. 11. In persons come as little children to the clearer light of celestial day, the approving Saviour, and, like saints will contemplate the bright Mary, choose the "good part," sun of sovereign grace without any sitting at his feet and hearkening to necessity for intervening clouds to his word. But the false professor dim its effulgence. But, in the does not so regard the words of present world, if we would be safe, Christ. He heareth them indeed, we must be imitators of the probut he doeth them not." Not-phets and apostles, and of the noble withstanding his boasted acquisi- army of martyrs. They heard, intions, therefore, he is rejecting the deed, the voice of their Illustrious solid rock, and is building on the Leader encouraging them with the sand a house which, however mag-prospect of final victory. But his nificent it may be, will have a dreadful and irrecoverable fall amidst the conflict of elements and the crash of worlds. Let us therefore try our hope by scriptural tests, and see with what feelings and actions it co-operates. Every man," says John," that hath in himself the hope of being like God, purifieth himself, even as He is pure." 1 John iii. 3 But hope that is not impaired by sin is cheering words had their appropriate effect in imparting additional courage, in stimulating the warriors to renewed efforts, and in conducing to the very thing promised, even that signal triumph over all opposition in which true Christians may say, "In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us." Thus happily does the time of probation proceed and cease with those who are truly wise; and then transitory is even the longest pecomes on a period when their riod of the separate state when blessed spirits are absent from the compared with eternity, that it is body and present with the Lord. nothing, and less than nothing. It But as this view is taken in the is no wonder, therefore, that he preceding parable, in which no ac- who comprehends eternity at a count is taken of the body, our glance, should sometimes speak Lord suppressed what he had just like himself, and account the actual taught, in order to supply what he bliss and woe of separate spirits as had in that case omitted. To lose unworthy of being named, and sight of separate spirits, therefore, should, on such occasions, refer and to contemplate saints and sin- solely to his second coming, as the ners slumbering side by side in the commencement of a period of remansions of the dead, is but to tribution. forego the view of one side of a descriptive medal while we are intently gazing on the other. Under such circumstances, therefore, we are presented with a view of very opposite characters in a state of similarity. For to say that the slumbering and sleeping of the wise virgins is religious declension, is to say that however true Christians may differ from false professors at first, yet that by beginning in the spirit and ending in the flesh, they become like them at last, and that thus the Christian pilgrimage consists in receding from the heavenly country, instead of pressing forwards towards it. But, in confining our attention to the grave, we have facts to bear out the declaration in which it is said, "They all slumbered and slept." For in the house appointed for all living, there is no apparent distinction between the foolish who are to rise to shame and everlasting contempt, and the wise who are to shine as the stars for ever and ever. As on one occasion Jesus spoke of the righteous and the wicked as jointly participating in the resurrection, and as in his representation of the sheep and the goats, all mankind appear to be present at the same time; it might be inferred that true Christians and false professors leave their graves at one and the same instant. But the general account is to be elucidated by the account that enters into detail. When, for instance, we read in Gen. v. 2. "Male and female created he them," we have a general account from which we might imagine that our first parents began their existence together: but the detail in Gen. ii. shews that Adam was first formed and then Eve. So though we read that all that are in the graves shall come forth, yet that general account will admit of two distinct acts of Omnipotence with as much propriety as the expression, "Male and female created he them." The fact appears to be, that after All the slumbering and sleeping, the millennium and the subsequent however, is transitory. "While period of hostility against the saints, the bridegroom tarried," and no the first act of Omnipotence will be longer, "they all slumbered and the resurrection of the PIOUS DEAD. slept." Death, therefore, having, "The dead in Christ," says Paul, like sleep, the prospect of an awak-" shall rise first: and then we who ing, is itself called a sleep. Thus are alive and remain shall be caught our Lord denominated transitory up together with them in clouds death when he said, "The damsel (or prodigious multitudes) to meet is not dead, but sleepeth :" and so the Lord in the air." 1 Thes. iv. Nor does the Saviour come without his reward. "Behold," says he, "I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give to every man as his work shall be." Rev. xxii. 12. Nay, even good men are 16, 17. In reference likewise to rious resurrection the moment the this same event, Paul elsewhere last trumpet sounds: and this reasays, "The trumpet shall sound, diness is so viewed with complaand the dead shall be raised incor- cency by the Saviour, that it is as ruptible, and we shall be changed." if they were prepared with burning 1 Cor. xv. 52. Thus the second lamps, or blazing torches of the act of Omnipotence will be to make east, to produce a delightful and the LIVING SAINTS immortal like brilliant light under the dark canoEnoch, when he went to heaven py of heaven, and at the solemn without seeing death. This change, hour of midnight. moreover, will be effected instantaneously. "We shall all be changed," says Paul, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet." From these views we perceive that the angels who may be sent to gather God's so rewarded according to their elect from the four winds, will take works, that he who receives one them from their unconverted com- pound and gains five, has five panions. Thus in that hemisphere cities assigned him; while he who that may happen to be dark at the receives the same sum and gains sound of the last trumpet, two will ten pounds, has ten cities assigned be in one bed, of whom one shall him. No good man, indeed, will be taken, and the other left to pe- consider this a warrant for envious rish in the last conflagration: and competition with others; but, in in the enlightened hemisphere, two proportion as he is wise, he will shall be in the field, and of them be a competitor with himself, likewise one shall be taken and the knowing that even a cup of cold other left. Then will be seen what water, given in a right spirit to one neither men nor angels ever previ- of Christ's disciples, will not lose ously beheld, an association of all its special reward. Thus at last whom the Saviour will delight to the faithful friends of Christ are honour. For as to the dead that welcomed to the regions of unsulare raised, they are expressly call-lied bliss, and are so honoured by ed "the dead in Christ;" and, as to those who are changed, the apostle gives us to understand that they are to be Christ's companions for ever. "And so," says he, "shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thes. iv. 17. Him in the presence of the holy angels, as would baffle all mortal attempts to describe. This is to be admitted, like the wise virgins, as guests to the splendid marriagefeast, and to be graciously and for ever acknowledged the select friends of the bridegroom. In such a goodly company are comprised the dead, small and But where will the imitators of great, whose names are written in the foolish virgins be all this time? the Lamb's book of life; and, de- Alas! their unfitness to attend the ducting from this risen multitude Saviour will prevent their ascendthe infant race of mankind, the rest ing with the multitude that are to are those persons who are compar- be for ever with the Lord. They able to the wise virgins. Such must wait therefore for another religious professors, therefore, as scene. For when all good men are the real friends of the great that may be living at the last day Redeemer, are prepared for a glo- shall quit this mortal state without seeing death, they will, like Lot, | the way everlasting." Ps. cxxxix. be taken from the sphere of im- 23, 24. The pending vengeance. Death, there- At the conclusion of the parable fore, will not have secured his full of the ten virgins, it is said— number of victims, till the heavens" Watch, therefore, for ye know being on fire, and the elements neither the day nor the hour wheremelting with fervent heat, shall in the Son of man cometh,"* Mat. bring on the world of the ungodly xxv. 13.—and, at first sight, it may a destruction more signal, more seem as if our Lord meant to say, general, and more awful, than the "Don't slumber as the ten virgins fire and brimstone that brought did." But this is to be wiser than swift destruction on Sodom and the wise virgins were; for even Gomorrah and then, it appears, they "slumbered and slept," as and not till then, will the wicked has been already noticed. be prepared for their ignominious truth, however, is, that the foolish resurrection. Not having been virgins were asleep in one sense, ready, however, to join the com- while they were awake in another: pany of the pious dead, false pro- and when our Lord had finished fessors will come to Christ, as Esau the parable, he dropped the special came to his father Isaac, after the figurative language, and adopted irrevocable bestowment of the bless-that common figurative language ing on another party. Thus their which he used when speaking unreadiness will involve in its train without a parable. Thus, as in a fatal lateness, which will be as if Mat. xxiv. 42. the word "watch" their want of oil should have com- does not mean "Avoid temporal pelled them to have recourse first death, or the slumbering and sleepto one and then to another, tilling of all the virgins ;" but it means hindrance after hindrance should "Avoid the conduct of the foolish have precluded them from being sharers in the honours of the expedition. That such mockery of attachment to the bridegroom, therefore, should expose them to his indignation, is no more than what might be expected: and thus we see the door shut against false professors for ever. Consequently, instead of being in the illuminated chamber where the guests are, the external darkness at the midnight hour is the region of their abode, and weeping and gnashing of teeth their employment. How important then is it that we should " prove all things, and hold fast that which is good;" and that the language of every heart should perpetually be, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts; and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in virgins, in being so senseless before the period of sleeping arrives, and in being so careless as to rely on fortuitous aid, and on prospects never to be realized, when, at the same time eternity and all its momentous concerns are at stake." Possibly, however, some one may say, "If a false profession is so fatal, it is better to make no profession at all." But to proceed according to this preference, is not to leave the road to destruction for the narrow path that leads to eternal life. It is only pursuing another track in the same broad road, and, instead of perishing with false professors, choosing the awful noticed in the introduction to the parable of the ten virgins. See the Baptist Magazine for June 1829, page 228, &c. The different comings of our Lord are doom of those who boldly say venly Father give the Holy Spirit concerning the Saviour, "We will to them that ask him." not have this man to reign over us.' Many, therefore, as the paths to Stratford, Essex. J. F. hell may be, there is but one nar row path to heaven; and those ORIGINAL LETTEr of the Rev. Geo. who walk in that path are the very WHITFIELD. Bath. Bath, April 15, 1769. DEAR MADAM, characters depicted by the five To Mrs. Bridget Bethel, in Queen Square, wise virgins. No alternative then remains for him that would be blessed. A man gifted with reasoning powers must either "follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth," AS I know this will find you nearer and thus attract the gaze of the and nearer to, so I doubt not but ungodly; or he must be one for it will find you more and more prewhom it would have been well if pared for, the kingdom of heaven. he had never been born. Those Jesus is the way. He hath been professors, however, whom our your Alpha: he will be your Lord compares to the foolish vir- Omega also. Many, many thanks gins, are the finally foolish: and for your kind receipt, sent after me though to be found in their path to London. Through infinite merfor a single hour is to be so long cy, my bodily strength is in some walking on the edge of a precipice, measure renewed. Fain would I in which there is but a step be- now begin to begin to do sometween us and death; yet as it is thing for my God, even my God in the Holy Spirit that leads into the Christ. Be pleased to accept the right path, the Scriptures do not inclosed, written in his spirit, as a encourage despair while we are on token of most grateful respect, the gospel plains. "If ye," says from Jesus, "being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your hea Dear Madam, Less than the least of all, G. W. |