aerial regions at the renovation of the earth shall be the abode of the risen saints, and the renewed surface of the earth the happy home and millennial rest of all that are still in the flesh, as we shall show in a future lecture, the only place remaining where the author of all evil and the deceiver and destroyer of the human race can be shut out from all access to man, is that deep cavern under our feet whose walls are perhaps sixty miles in thickness, and all whose openings for light or air are closed with such fastness as no power but the divine can ever again loose. This prison house of woe is as much prepared by divine power for its proper inmates, as the new heavens and the new earth, wherein shall dwell righteousness is for the followers of the Lamb. Hence the Saviour speaks of the kingdom prepared for the righteous as here on this earth; and of the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels which we know to rage beneath it.

State prisons, where prisoners of state are confined, are often adjoining the dwellings of the good and the virtuous. Generally culprits confined for crime, suffer in the same dominions in which they committed their misdeeds. The Tower of London and the Bastile of Paris were within hail of the palaces of St. James and the Tuileries. Rulers, and citizens, and criminals, the happy and the miserable, were all under the same municipality. So, when the Son of David shall establish His royal throne on mount Zion and rule the world in righteousness, not only shall His foes be made His footstool, but that great enemy of His authority, the god of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that worketh in the children of disobedience, and the ringleader

of all rebellion, shall be confined in that subterranean dungeon connected with this earth which for ages has been prepared for him, and where for ages he shall be the great prisoner of state, suffering the torment of hell fire. The world undoubtedly shall know of his doom, and of his place of confinement, and rejoice in their deliverance from his power, and while the righteous under the new heavens dwell on the new earth, in the enjoyment of a millennium of happiness, Satan, under the new earth, shall be confined in the bottomless pit, to endure a millennium of disappointment, rage, and woe; bruised, (as the apostle says,) under our feet.

We may now, in our subsequent discourses, introduce you to more agreeable scenes than those connected with divine wrath and judgment, even scenes of glory and happiness to the human race. The entire exclusion of Satanic agency from human affairs, and the happy riddance of our world from the presence, and power, and intrigue and malice of her most relentless foe, will be such a marked era in its history, that, as an unfulfilled Prophecy, it could not with justice be overlooked. For as the entrance of Satan into our world was the beginning of its sorrow, and his continual instigations the fruitful source of its manifold miseries, so will his expulsion from it be the beginning of its joy, and the dawn of that period when righteousness and truth shall spring up among all nations, and the presence of our divine Redeemer gladden a redeemed earth. As there is now no other event between us and this blissful period, that will necessarily form the subject of our next lecture.

LECTURE X.

THE NEW DISPENSATION.

"Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."-2 PETER, iii. 13.

THE many changes through which our world has passed since the entrance of sin into it, suggests the strong probability that its present condition, which is still a sinful one, can not be regarded as a permanent condition, but that it is still in a transition state, tending to some other condition, either better or worse. What that change will be human speculation can not determine, or worldly wisdom find out; but only He can declare, who has the times and the seasons in His own power.

There are two classes of society who view the future in entirely different lights.

First, those who live in the past, and are always referring to former times and days gone by as so much better than the present period; who look upon this age as a very degenerate one, and see no prospect of its amelioration, but rather anticipate a still further deterioration, until it shall have reached a point of demoralization too awful to contemplate.

The other class consider that there never was an age of greater light, liberty, general intelligence, benevolence, and moral excellence than the present; and that this is gradually leading us forward to a position more exalted

than the human family has ever yet attained. To them the future is bright, and radiant with hope for the best interests of the human race, while to the former it is dark and threatening to the peace and harmony of the world.

Between two theories so entirely opposed to each other the sincere inquirer after truth may anxiously ask, Which shall I believe? Philosophy will give one answer, infidelity another, and divine revelation a third; but as the two former speak only the sentiments of erring mortals, he will turn to the third, whose writers speak as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. This will give him a picture of the future, in which more than all the darkness of the one theory, and more than all the brightness of the other, are commingled, and yet neither is shown to be the whole truth-a future in which clouds full of fury and wrath gather blackness, and burst in storms of calamity and woe upon a wicked and affrighted world, and then break away and reveal a clear and serene sky beyond, indicating a return of calm and sunshine, which shall be as perpetual as it is magnificent and welcome. Our text presents to us the beautiful clearing up after that most terrific storm which shall ever be experienced on earth—a storm in which "the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, the elements melt with fervent heat, the earth, and the works therein be burnt up." After which, says our text, "we, nevertheless, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness."

To see how the apostle reaches this conclusion, let us trace him through his previous argument down to this

point. In the beginning of this chapter he says: "This second epistle, beloved, I now write to you, in which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandments of us, the apostles of our Lord and Saviour. Knowing this, first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the prom 'se of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning." The great doctrine of the Christian religion-that which has been preached from the beginning of Christianity to this day as one of its most glorious and sublime truths— is," the second coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ in glorious majesty to judge the world." This fundamental tenet of the gospel, the apostle informs us, shall in the last days be assailed and reviled. SCOFFERS shall arise and say, "Where is the promise of His coming? for since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning." And is it not notorious that this doctrine, one of the most solemn and fearful as well as the most important of Christianity, is practically ignored by multitudes at this day, some of whom, under the guise of religion, as Swedenborgians, Spirit Rappers, Quakers, Shakers, Mormons, and others, attempt to destroy it by explaining it away? And others, more bold in infidelity, treat it as an exploded theory, or dogma of the dark ages, which will not stand. the test of philosophical scrutiny, or the advanced intelligence of the nineteenth century. The tendency of the human mind to derogate from the transcendent impor