eighth century before Christ,
and threaten it with destruction, so the gospels for this day, and for
last Sunday, speak of the evil state of the same people when our Lord
was upon earth; and the chapter from which the gospel of this day is
taken, contains, as we know, a full prophecy of the destruction that
was, for the second time, going to overwhelm the earthly Jerusalem. We
cannot but fear, therefore, that if our state now be like that of God's
people of old, eight centuries before our Lord's coming, and again like
their state at his coming: and if, after the first period, their city
and temple were burnt, and they were carried captive to Babylon,--and
again, after the second period, the city and temple were burnt again,
and the people were dispersed, even to this day,--that, as the
punishment has twice surely followed the sin, so it will not fail to
find it out in this third case also.

And be it remembered that the people, or church of God, as such, can
receive their punishment only in this world: for, taken as a body, it is
an institution for this world only. We each of us, no doubt, shall have
our own separate individual judgment after death; and, in the mean time,
our fortunes and our character often bear no just correspondence with
each other. But nations and churches have their judgments here: and
although God's long-suffering so suspends it for many generations that
it may seem as if it would never fall, yet does it come surely at the
last; and almost always we can ourselves trace the connexion between the
sin and the punishment, and can see that the one was clearly the
consequence of the other. And thus our church and nation may feel their
national judgments in this world quite independently of the several
personal judgments which will be passed upon us each hereafter
individually, when we stand before Christ's judgment seat.

I have thus ventured to bring the condition of the church as a body
before our minds, although well knowing how much more we are concerned
with the state of our own souls individually. Yet still the more general
view is not without great use; and indeed it bears directly upon our
individual state: our actions and our feelings having often a close
connexion with, general church matters; and these actions and feelings
being necessarily good or bad, according to the soundness of our
judgment on the matter which occasions them. Besides which, it seems to
me that general views, rather tha