CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY FROM wrgs.2.Bedell vornell University Libra arV15 olin,anx Second Coming of Christ. PREMILLENNIAL ESSAYS OF THE PRoPHETIC CONFERENCE, HELD IN THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, NEW YORK CITY. WITH AN APPENDIX OF CRITICAL TESTIMONIES. BY NATHANIEL WEST. = Nai épyoua tayh. Api, Epyov, Kipie Incod. Ghicago: F. H. Revert, 148 anp 150 Mavison Street. Publisher of Evangelical Literature, 1879. LS) Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1879, by F. H. REVELL, In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION, - 4 3 zi CaLL FOR THE CONFERENCE, Porm, : 3 ESSAYS. I. Orenina ADDREss. By the Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, Sr, DD. - II. CHRIST’s COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. By the Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, Jr., D.D., Rector Church of the Holy Trinity, New York, - . III. Curist’s Coming: Is 1r PRE-MILLENNIAL. By the Rev. 8. H. Kellogg, DD., Presbyterian Seminary, Allegheny, Pa., IV. THE First REsuRREcTION. By the Rev. A. J. Gordon, Clarendon Street Baptist Church, Boston, Mass., V. THE REGENERATION. By the Rev. C. HK. Imbrie, D.D., Fersey City, - st US Se es! ae VI. Tur Kinepom AND THE CuuRcH. By Professor H. Lummis, Methodist, Monson, Mass., 2 2 VII. Tue PRESENT AGE AND DEVELOPMENT OF ANTICHRIST. By the Rev. Henry M. Parsons, Pastor Lafayette Street Presby- tertan Church, Buffalo, N. Y., - 2 VIII. Tae GaTHERiInNG OF IsrazL. By Bishop W. R. Nicholson, of the Reformed Hpiscopal Church, Philadelphia, - - - = IX. THE JUDGMENT, OR JUDGMENTS. By the Rev. J. T. Cooper, D.D., United Presbyterian Seminary, Allegheny, Pa., ae Us 3 PAGE 11 15 17 22 47 18 108 174 204 222 241 CONTENTS. ao I: PAGE Tur Comrne or THE LorD‘4N ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN Doc- TRINE. By the Rev. James H. Brookes, D.D., Pastor Walnut Street Presbyterian Church, St. Louts, Mo., - + += 270 XI. History oF THE PRE-MILLENNIAL Doctrine. By the Rev. Nathaniel West, D.D., Presbyterian, Cincinnati, Ohio, 313 XII. A SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT IN DEFENCE OF PRE-MILLEN- arranism. By the Rev. John T. Duffield, D.D., Professor of Mathematics in Princeton College, - - - - 405 XIII. Horr or Curisv’s Comine as A Motive To Hoty Livine AND Active Lazor. By the Rev. Rufus W. Clark, D.D., Reformed Dutch Church, Albany, N. Y., - = 429 ADDRESSES. I. Tue RETuRN or Curist AND Forrrcn Misstons. By Dr. W. P. Mackay, of Hull, England, - = =» 456 II. Tue CoMING oF THE LoRD INITS RELATION TO CHRIsTIAN Doc- TRINE. By the Rev. H. R. Craven, D.D., Pastor Third Presbylerian Church, Newark, N.J.. - - + - 462 III. Tue Ture Days’ Frast with Davip’s Son. By Dr. W. P. Mackay, of Hull, England, - - A470 CRITICAL APPENDIX. EXTRACTS FROM The Berlerberg Bibel— Richter’s Erklirte Haus Bibel —Starke’s Synopsis, Neue’s Testament—Theurer’s Das Reich Gottes—Stockmayer-Das Oelblatt—Pfleiderer’s Der Paulinismus — Ebrard’s Christliche Dogmatik — Schenkel’s Christliche Dog- matik — Van Oosterzee’s Christian Dogmatics — Christlieb’s Modern Doubt and Christian Belief— Dorner’s Person of Christ— Luthardt’s Lehre von der Letzen Dingen — Lange’s Bremen Lecture — Auberlen’s Der Prophet Daniel — Kliefoth’s Offenbarung Johannis — Rothe’s Dogmatik— Roos’ Interpretation of Daniel — Schmid’s Biblical Theology — Koch’s Das Tausendjihrige Reich — Steffann’s Das Ende— Moses Stuart on the Apocalypse — Alford on the Apocalypse —Winthrop’s Premium Essay — Jamieson’s, Fausett’s and Brown’s Critical Commentary — The Parousia, Neander, Lechler, Gloag, Olshausen, Meyer, Baumgarten, Hackett, Da Costa, on Acts 3: 19-21—Rev. George Duffield, D.D., Dissertations on the Proph- ecies—Rey. R. J. Breckenridge, D.D., Knowledge of God Subjectively Considered —Diisterdieck’s Offenbarung Johannis. INTRODUCTION. AN anti-chilastic writer of great ability, in a volume of 560 pages, just issued from the London press, thus speaks: ‘“ No attentive reader of the New Testament can fail to be struck with the prominence given by the evangelists and apostles to the Parousta, or ‘Coming of the Lord? That event is the great theme of New Testament Prophecy. There is scarcely a single book, from the Gospel of St. Matthew to the Apoc- alypse of St. John, in which it is not set forth as the glorious promise of God, and the Blessed Hope of the Church. It was frequently and solemnly predicted by our Lord; it was incessantly kept before the eyes of the early Christians by the Apostles; and it was firmly believed and eagerly expected by the churches of the primitive age. It can not be denied that there is a remarkable difference between the attitude of the first Christians, in relation to the Parousia, and that of Christians now. That glorious hope, to which all eyes and hearts in the apostolic age were eagerly turned, has almost disappeared from the view of modern believers. Whatever may be the theoretical opinions, expressed in symbols and creeds, it must, in candor, be admitted that the ‘Second | Coming of Christ’ has all but ceased to be a living and practical belief.” —Parousia. Preface, 1, 2. The solution by the writer is preteristic, holding that the Second Coming occurred at the Destruction of Jerusa- lem, A.D. %0. Another preteristic and anti-chiliastic writer, of still greater ability, in the Anglican Church, and, like the former, abandoning the Whitby- jan theory, shows us to what lengths Preterism is driven. Closing his comment on the Millennium, which he discards, and having shown, as he thinks, the “Unreality of the Second Advent,” he thus speaks of the Apocalypse: ‘ A book which deals in theological invective of a bitter kind; which displays Jewish predilection, in an exclusive and unamia- ble light; which represents Jesus as a tyrannical and sanguinary Mes- siah, and the Almighty Himself as a vindictive and avenging Deity; which abounds in monstrous prodigies, and revels in incredible phenom- ena; which founds the millennial kingdom upon the defeat of the armies of Antichrist, and which connects the Coming of Christ at the end of the world with the calamity which came upon Jerusalem and 6 INTRODUCTION. the Destruction of Pagan Rome— whatever its claim to apostolic authorship or canonical position — can neither be valuable as a predic- tion, nor be regarded as a safe guide for the performance of the duties of this life, nor for the attainment of that which is to come.”—Desprez. Daniel and John, 317. Equally, with these two writers, abandoning the Whitbyian pre-advent Millennium, which rests upon the violation of grammatical exegesis, yet with a nobler purpose, and returning to the evangelical ground of the primitive Church and the Reformation, Canon Ryle, with marvelous simplicity and power, has given to the Church his expression of the true faith, in the following Pre-Millennian Creed, which he holds to be what the Scriptures require: 1. “I believe that the world will never be completely converted to Christianity, by any existing agency, before the end comes. In spite of all that can be done by ministers, members, and churches, the wheat and the tares will grow together until the Harvest; and when the end comes, it will find the earth in much the same state that it was when the flood came in the days of Noah. Matt. 13 : 24, 80; 24: 37, 39. 2. “I believe that the wide-spread unbelief, indifference, formalism, and wickedness, which are to be seen throughout Christendom, are only what we are taught to expect in God’s word. Troublous times, depart- ures from the faith, evil men waxing worse and worse, love waxing cold, are things distinctly predicted. So far from making me doubt the truth of Christianity, they help to confirm my faith. Melancholy and sorrowful as the sight is, if I did not see it Lshould think the Bible was not true. Matt. 24:12; 1 Tim. 3:1, 4, 13. 8. “I believe that the grand purpose of the present dispensation is to gather out of the world an elect people, and not to convert all mankind. It does not surprise me at all to hear that the heathen are not all con- verted when missionaries preach, and that believers are but a little flock in any congregation in my own land. It is precisely the state of things I expect to find. The Gospel is to be preached ‘as a witness,’ and then shall the end come. This is the dispensation of election, and not of universal conversion. Acts 15:14; Matt. 24: 13. 4, “T believe that the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ is the Great Event which will wind up the present dispensation, and for which we ought daily to long and pray. ‘Thy Kingdom come,’ ‘ Come, Lord Jesus,’ should be our daily prayer. We look backward, if we have faith, to Christ dying on the Cross, and we ought to look forward, no less, if we have hope, to Christ coming again. John 14:3; 2 Tim. 4:8; 2 Peter 3: 12. 5. “I believe that the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ will INTRODUCTION. 7 be a real, literal, personal, bodily coming; that as He went away in the clouds of heaven with His body, before the eyes of man, so, in like manner, will He return. Acts1:11; Rev.1: 7. 6. “TI believe that, after our Lord Jesus Christ comes again, the earth will be renewed, and the curse removed; the devil shall be bound, the godly shall be rewarded, the wicked shall be punished; and that, before * He comes, there shall be neither resurrection, judgment, nor Millen- nium; and that not till after He comes shall the earth be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord. Acts 3:21; Isa. 25 :6,9; 1 Thess. 4: 14,18; Rev. 20: 1. 4%. “I believe that the Jews shall be ultimately gathered again, as a separate nation, restored to their own land, and converted to the faith of Christ. Jer. 30: 10,11; 31:10; Rom. 11 : 25, 26. 8. “I believe that the literal sense of the Old Testament Prophecies has been far too much neglected by the churches, and is far too much neglected in the present day, and that, under the mistaken system of spiritualizing and accommodating Bible language, Christians have too often completely missed its meaning. Luke 24 : 25, 26. 9. “I believe that the Roman Catholic Church is the Great Predicted Apostasy from the faith and is Babylon, and the Pope Antichrist — although I think it highly probable that a more complete development of Antichrist will yet be exhibited to the world. 2 Thess. 2:3, 11; 1 Tim. 4: 1,6; (Rev. 13 : 1, 8). “T believe, finally, that it is for the safety, happiness, and comfort, of all true Christians to expect as little as possible from churches, or gov- ernments, under the present dispensation, to hold themselves ready for tremendous conversions and changes of all things established, and to expect their good things only from Christ’s Second Advent.”—Qoming Events and Present Duties. Preface. The Essays, in the present volume, the fruit of the Prophetic Con- ference, held in the Church of the Holy Trinity, New York City, October 30, 31, and November 1, 1878, are given to the church and the world as a testimony in behalf of the same great and solemn truths repre- sented in the creed just quoted. For the views expressed in these pro- ductions their authors are severally responsible. Owing to the extended character and importance of these papers, only part of which, in some cases, were read, but upon whose entire publication the Committee hay- ing them in charge decided, as also to diminish the size of the present volume, most of the “Addresses” are reserved with the consent of the speakers. They are found in the New York 7'rébune Hatra, No. 46, two editions of which, reaching 50,000, have already been issued. The Resolutions passed by the Conference the evening of its closing 8 INTRODUCTION. session, express in brief the views of the large body of ministers who participated in, or were present to sympathize with, its proceedings, and are as follows: Before closing this Conference, composed of brethren from so many different branches of the one Redeemed Church of our Lord, we desire to return devout thanks to the God and Father of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who is our Hope, for the presence of his Holy Spirit and the fellowship in Christ experienced during our sessions, so that we have been as in heavenly peace in Christ Jesus. We desire, also, disclaiming whatever doctrines have been or may be held in connection with the belief of the Pre-Millennial coming of the Lord, which conflict with the faith once delivered to the saints, and received by the Church Universal along the ages, to bear our united tes- timony to that which we believe to be the truth of the Gospel, in the par- ticulars which follow, viz.: ct I. We affirm our belief in the supreme and absolute authority of the written Word of God on all questions of doctrine and duty. II. The prophetic words of the Old Testament Scriptures, concerning the first coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, were literally fulfilled in His birth, life, death, resurrection and ascension; and so the prophetic words of both the Old and the New Testaments concerning His second coming will be literally fulfilled in His visible bodily return to this earth in like manner as He went up into Heaven; and this glorious Epiphany of the great God, our Saviour Jesus Christ, is the blessed hope of the believer and of the Church during this entire dispensation. III. This second coming of the Lord Jesus is everywhere in the Scriptures represented as imminent, and may occur at any moment; yet the precise day and hour thereof is unknown to man, and known only to. God. IV. The Scriptures nowhere teach that the whole world will be con- verted to God, and that there will be a reign of universal righteousness. and peace before the return of our blessed Lord, but that only at and by His coming in power and glory will the prophecies concerning the progress of evil and the development of Antichrist, the times of the Gen- tiles, and the ingathering of Israel, the resurrection of the dead in Christ, and the transfiguration of His living saints, receive their fulfill. ment, and the period of millennial blessedness in its inauguration. VY. The duty of the Church during the absence of the Bridegroom is to watch and pray, to work and wait, to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, and thus hasten the coming of the day of God; and to His last promise, ‘“‘Surely I come quickly,” to. respond, in joyous hope, “ Even so; come Lord Jesus.”’ INTRODUCTION. 9 The following resolution was passed not only unanimously by the conference, but by the vast audience voluntarily rising en masse to its feet—a magnificent spectacle not soon to be forgotten: “ Resolved, That the doctrine of our Lord’s pre-millennial advent, instead of paralyzing evangelistic and missionary effort, is one of the mightiest incentives to earnestness in preaching the Gospel to every creature, until He comes.” I desire to express my acknowledgments to my beloved brethren, Rev. Dr. Nast, once a class-mate with Strauss, but now long a faithful servant of Christ, for his kindness in furnishing me with Starke’s Synop- sis, and to the Rev. Mr. Krebhiel, both of Cincinnati, with both of whom precious hours have been had in discussing Romans, Chapters VII. and VIII.; and also to the Rev. Dr. Tyng, Jr., of New York, Dr. Gordon, of Boston, and Dr. Brookes, of St. Louis, for their encourage- ment during the editorial supervision of this work. Battling, Suffering, Trusting, Praying, Hoping, Working, Watching, Waiting, “till He come,” this volume is sent forth on its mission, with the supplication that God’s blessing may attend it. NATHANIEL WEST. Otncinnati, O., Feb. 28, 1879. CALL FOR THE CONFERENCE. DEAR BRETHREN IN CHRIST: When from any cause some vital doc- trine of God’s Word has fallen into neglect or suffered contradiction and reproach, it becomes the serious duty of those who hold it, not only strongly and constantly to re-affirm it, but to seek by all means in their power to bring back the Lord’s people to its apprehension and accept- ance. The precious doctrine of Christ’s second personal appearing has, we are constrained to believe, long lain under such neglect and misap- prehension. In the Word of God we find it holding a most conspicuous place. It is there strongly and constantly emphasized as a personal and imminent event, the great object of the Church’s hope, the powerful motive to holy living and watchful service, the inspiring ground of confidence amid the sorrows and sins of the present evil world, and the event that is to end the reign of Death, cast down Satan from his throne, and establish the kingdom of God on earth. So vital, indeed, is this truth represented to be that the denial of it is pointed out as one of the con- spicuous signs of the apostacy of the last days. Now, while casting no wo1d of reproach upon those who may differ from us, we can not be insensible to the fact that there has been asad decline in our times from the clear, vivid, ardent faith of the early church in regard to this doctrine. Very many Christians have been taught to think of the coming of Christ as equivalent to their own death; others regard it as synonymous with the gradual diffusion of Christianity. Many, satisfied with this present world, have little desire for the return of the absent Lord; while here and there are those who boldly speak of such an event as only a “ fascinating dream,” destined never to be realized. But while we lament all this, and can but regard it as an alarming symptom of the present state of religion, it is an occa- sion for the profoundest gratitude that there has within the last few years been such a powerful and wide-spread revival of this ancient faith. Looking over the Church of God in all its branches, and listen- ing to the clear and decisive testimony to this truth that iscoming up in such volume from teachers and pastors, expositors and lay workers evangelists and missionaries, it can but appear to us, that after the long 1 12 CALL FOR THE CONFERENCE. sleep of the Church, the wise are at last rising up, and trimming their lamps, in preparation for the coming of the Bridegroom. In view of these facts, it has seemed desirable that those who hold to the personal pre-Millennial advent of Jesus Christ, and who are “ looking for that blessed hope,” should meet together in conference, as our honored brethren in England have recently done, to set forth in clear terms the grounds of their hope, to give mutual encouragement in the maintainance of what they believe to be a most vital truth for the present times, and in response to our Lord’s “ Behold, I come quickly,” to voice the answer by their prayers and hymns and testimony, “ Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” We, the undersigned, therefore cordially invite you to meet with us at the Church of Holy Trinity, Madison Avenue and Forty-second Street (the Rey. 8S. H. Tyng, Jr., Rector), in the City of New York, on the 30th and 31st of October and 1st of November, 1878, to listen to a series of carefully prepared papers on the pre-Millennial advent of the Lord Jesus Christ and connected truths, and to participate in such discussions as the topics may suggest. James H. Brooxs, A. J. Gorpon, 8. H. Tyne, IJr., Maurice BALDWIN, W. R. NicHo.rson, H. M. Parsons, W. Y. Moorgenzap, Rvurus W. CLARKE, Committee. The following-named Bishops, Professors, Ministers and Brethren, unite in indorsing the calling of the conference: T. H. Vail, Bishop Protestant Episcopal Church, Topeka, Kansas. Geo. C. Lorimer, Pastor Tremont Temple, Boston, Mass. 8. H. Tyng, Rector Emeritus St. George’s Episcopal Church, N. Y. 8. H. Kellogg, Prof. of Theology, Alleghany Presbyterian Seminary. J. T. Cooper, Prof. of Theology, Alleghany United Seminary. Jos. A. Seiss, Pastor Lutheran Church, Philadelphia. Jos. Wild, Pastor Union Congregational Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. C. K. Imbrie, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Jersey City, N. J. J. Parker, Pastor South Second Street M. E. Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. L. W. Bancroft, Rector Christ Church, Brooklyn, N. Y. E. T. Perkins, Rector St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Louisville, Ky. J. D. Herr, Pustor Central Baptist Church, New York City. H. M. Saunders, Pastor Baptist Church, Yonkers, N. Y. C. M. Whittlesey, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Spencerport, N. Y. R. C. Matlack, Secretary Evangelical Educational Society, Phil. J. W. Bonham, Church Evangelist, New York City. George R. Kramer, Wilmington, Delaware. T. W. Hastings, Rector Holy Trinity Church, Swanton, Vt. J. P. Farrer, Pastor Baptist Church, Ludlow, Vt. Alfred Harris, Pastor Baptist Church, Westchester, Penn. Joseph Evans, Pastor Baptist Church, Goshen, Penn. CALL FOR THE CONFERENCE. 13 L. Osler, Pastor Advent Church, Providence, R. I. J. M. Orrock, Editor Messiah's Herald, Boston, Mass. yron Adams, Pastor Congregational Church, Rochester, N. Y. . B. Rogers, Albion, N. Y. . W. Flint, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Kingston, Penn. . C. Booth, Rector Episcopal Church of Our Saviour, Brooklyn, N. Y. H. Dana Ward, Episcopal Church, Philadelphia. J. E. Grammer, Rector St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, Baltimore, Md. E. P. Adams, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Dunkirk. C. M. Morton, Pastor Chicago Avenue Independent Church, Chicago, II. George W. Tew. Frank M. Rockwell, Evangelist, Chicago, Ill. George F. Pentecost, Evangelist, Boston, Mass. J. M. Stifler, Pastor First Baptist Church, Hamilton, N. Y. Richard Norton, Lockport, N. Y. Nathaniel West, Presbyterian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio. Jesse L. Gilbert, Pastor Methodist Church, Newark, N. J. J.P. Sankey, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Rochester, N. Y. J. 8. Stewart, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Towanda, Penn. Almond Barrelle, Baptist Church, Melrose, Mass. J.B. Thompson, Pastor Dutch Reformed Church, Catskill, N.Y. D. E. Bierce, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Racine, Wis. C. C. Foote, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Detroit, Mich. . R. Milton, Pastor First Congregational Church, Geneva, I]. . R. Craven, Pastor Third Presbyterian Church, Newark, N. J. . C. Baker, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Camden, N. J. . P. Goodwin, Pastor First Congregational Church, Chicago. -d. 3B Q Gillespie, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, New York. . Lee, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Portland, Conn. . W. French, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Peotone, Ill. 5. B. Reed, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, Tenn. Edwin R. Davis, Presbyterian Church, Chicago, Ill. G. M. Peters, Pastor Cedar Street Baptist Church, Buffalo. : §. R. Wilson, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Louisville, Ky. B. Dubois Wyckoff, Presbyterian Church, Olyphant, Penn. Abner Kingman, Congregational Church, Boston, Mass. George Hall, Methodist Church, Clifton Springs, N. Y. T. W. Harvey, Methodist Church, Chicago, Il. R. F. Sample, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, Minn. T. W. Bancroft, Professor Brown University, Providence, R. I. E. P. Marvin, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Lockport, N. Y. R. A. McAycal, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Oskaloosa, Iowa. AL. P. Welton, Evangelist Presbyterian Church, Minneapolis, Minn. F. E. Towel, Pastor Brighton Avenue Baptist Church, Boston, Mass. Wm. Reynolds, Presbyterian Church, Peoria, Ill. John Wanamaker, Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. Jos. E. Jones, Baptist Church, West Chester, Penn. H. W. Brown, Evangelist Baptist Church, Oconomowoc, Wis. H. N. Burton, Pastor Congregational Church, Kalamazoo, Mich. Henry Foster, Methodist Church, Clifton Springs, N. Y. David A. Wallace, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Wooster, Ohio. W. H. Clarke, Pastor Dutch Reformed Church, Paterson, N. J. R. Patterson, Pastor Presbyterian Church, San Francisco, Cal. nadeiie 14 CALL FOR THE CONFERENCE. T. Beckley, Pastor Baptist Church, Newburyport, Mass. J. Miller, Pastor Baptist Church, Somerville, Mass. J. Erdman, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Jamestown, N. Y. CO. Matthews, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Monmouth, Ill. E. Blackstone, Methodist Church, Oak Park, Ill. B. Galloway, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Clarence, Towa. eorge C. Needham, Evangelist, Pailadelphia. D. W. Whittle, Evangelist, Chicago. Edward 8. White, Baptist Church, Cambridge, Mass. A. Erdman, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Morristown, N. J. QC. Cunningham, Pastor Evangelical Advent Church, Boston. B. F. Jacobs, Baptist Church, Chicago. C. Perren, Pastor Baptist Church, Chicago. F. L. Chappell, Pastor Baptist Church, Evanston, III. J. Romeyn Berry, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Montclair, N. J. W. R. Gordon, Pastor Reformed Church, Schraalenberg, N. J. John T. Duffield, Professor Princetown College. Robert Cameron, Pastor Baptist Church, Brantford, Ont. Samuel J. Andrews, Hartford, Conn. J. 8. McCulloch, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Knoxville, Tenn. H. F. Titus, Pastor First Baptist Church, Ithaca, N. Y. Wn. V. Feltwell, Pastor Reformed, Episcopal Church. H. L. Hastings, Editor Christian, Boston, Mass. W. W. Barr, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. R. D. Morris, Presbyterian Church, President Oxford Female College, Oxford, Ohio. : F, W. Dobbs, Minister St. John’s Church, Portsmouth, Ont. M. B. Smith, Reformed Episcopal Church, Passaic, N. J. R. Newton, Rector Church of the Epiphany, Philadelphia. H. A. Cordo, Pastor Baptist Church, Gloversville, N. Y. Geo. M. Stone, Pastor Baptist Church, Tarrytown, N. Y. GQ. Hayser, Pastor United Presbyterian Church, New Salem, II. W. W. Clarke, Pastor Congregational Church, Painesville, Ohio. Samuel Ashurst, Presbyterian Church, Philadelphia. Francis Russell, Pastor Congregational Church, Mansfield, Ohio. H. M. Bacon, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Toledo, Ohio. D. Mack, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Carthage, Ill. David R. Eddy, Pastor Presbyterian Church, Brockport, N. Y. Wm. P. Paxon, Pastor Presbyterian Church, St. Louis, Mo. John Pearson, Advent Church, Newburyport, Mass. Josiah Litch, Advent Church, Philadelphia, J. J. W. R. W. J. 2 WATCHING. It may be in the evening, When the work of the day is done, And you have time to sit in the twilight And watch the sinking sun, While the long bright day dies slowly Over the sea, And the hour grows quiet and holy With thoughts of me; Let the door be on the latch In your home, For it may be through the gloaming I will come. It may be when the midnight Is heavy upon the land, And the black waves lying humbly Along the sand; ‘When the moonless night draws close, And the lights are out in the house; When the fires burn low and red, And the watch is ticking loudly Beside the bed; Though you sleep, tired out, on your couch, Still your heart must wake and watch In the dark room, For it may be that at midnight I will come. It may be at the cock-crow, When the night is dying slowly In the sky, And the sea looks calm and holy, Waiting for the dawn of the golden sun Which draweth nigh; In the chill before the dawning, Between the night and morning I may come. ‘15 16 WATCHING. It may be in the morning, When the sun is bright and strong, And the dew is glittering sharply Over the little lawn; With the long day’s work before you, You rise up with the sun, And the neighbors come in to talk a little, Of all that must be done; But remember that I may be the next To come in at the door, To call you from your busy work For evermore; As you work your heart must watch, For the door is on the latch In your room, And it may be in the morning I will come. So I am watching quietly Every day; Whenever the sun shines brightly T rise and say— Surely it is the shining of His face! And look unto the gates of His high place, Beyond the sea, For I know He is coming shortly To summon me. And when a shadow falls across the window Of my room, Where I am working my appointed task, I lift my head to watch the door, and ask If He is come; And the angel answers sweetly, In my home— “Only a few more shadows, And He will come.” SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. ESSAYS. OPENING ADDRESS. BY THE REV. STEPHEN H. TYNG, SENIOR, D.D. Dear Brersren:—In the name of our common Lord, I salute you this day. We have met in the name of this exalted Redeemer, as believers in His divinity, His incar- nation, His atoning death, His resurrection from the dead, His abiding intercession for those for whom He died, His future triumphant return to earth as the final judge of man, the glorified ruler, the everlasting portion of those whom He hath redeemed with His own death, clothed with His own righteousness and justified before the throne of His Father and their Father, of His God and their God, in the perfectness of His work of merit and by the glorious fullness of His acknowledged triumph and power. Our personal bond of union is our participation in this excellence and these attainments of man’s Redeemer. Accepting Him in all His offices, in this relation, we par- take together by His gift in all the blessings which He hath obtained by His willing humiliation and His triumphant sacrifice. Our security, our happiness, our fruitfulness, depend wholly upon our personal union with Him. Weare saved not merely by believing facts about Him or truths which He has taught, but by our living participation in 2 17 18 , SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Him and with Him through the power of the Spirit. He is the vine, we are the branches. The living connection which we must have with Him He has thus illustrated: As the branch can not bear fruit if severed from the vine, so- also must we be dead and helpless if separated from Jesus. Our whole spiritual heavenly life depends upon this vital connection with Him, and our participation in the blessings which He has obtained and which He alone can impart. Thus He presents His historic future to His disciples: “In my Father’s house are many mansions; I go to pre- pare a place for you, and I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am there ye may be also.” This future, glorious coming of Jesus is the very life of the hopes and the inheritance of His people. To the soul that really loves Him, where He is, is heaven, “and prisons would palaces prove if Jesus would dwell with us there.” Our relation is to be wholly this personal one with Him, and our hope is always in the assured enjoyment of this. He is “the way, the truth, and the life.” How much the Saviour dwelt upon this personal relation in His last inter- view with His disciples! and how little some portions of modern Christianity seem to realize it! It was laid at the foundation of all His last instructions and encourage- ments to His disciples. They are His disciples who, by the teaching and power of His Spirit dwelling within them, live and walk and act in Him, by His power, for His glory. True religion, under this dispensation, is this living, by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit, in unbroken, personal union with this glorious Saviour. Of this He says: “I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you.” “He that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love OPENING ADDRESS. 19 him, and will manifest myself to him.” This living of our soulsin Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and this living of Christ in us, by the same power, is the reality of true religion, and of this it is that our Lord says: “T will not leave you comfortless, I will come unto you;” “ Because I live ye shall live also;” “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and Jin you.” This divine scheme of spiritual and heavenly relationship has been the history of the true church of Christ through all the succeeding ages of the Christian era. Union with Christ, living in Christ, following Christ, looking forward to the promised coming of Christ and to an everlasting dwelling with Christ, have made up the character, the joy, and the hope of true believers in every age. And these constitute their significant descrip- tion with equal certainty in our day. The lovers of a Saviour are looking for His appearing, longing with in- creasing desire to see Him as He is, to be with Him where He is. And thus He offers for them all the earnest sup- plication, “For all who shall believe on Him through His word.” “That they all may be one, that they may be with Him, where He is.” That they may behold His glory, which He had before the foundation of the world. Thus in the day of His ascending triumph they beheld His glory as a cloud received Him ont of their sight; and while in wonder they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He ascended, angelic messengers addressed them, “This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go into heaven.” In the belief of this coming, the church of Jesus has been one in every age. In the thankful anticipation of this new manifestation of this glorious Saviour, His church on earth has always been in union, believing in His future advent, looking for His appearing, striving to seek the 20 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. things which are above, that when Christ, who is our life, shall appear, we may also appear with Him in glory. In this sure confidence in the reality of this personal advent of the Saviour to the earth, on which He died, in the cer- tainty of the confidence that the time of His glorious advent draweth near, we stand and wait. Many of its preliminary facts have been accomplished. Much that was necessarily antecedent in the history and condition of man has already passed, and every passing year brings this great fact in this history of ‘earth still nearer and diminishes the number of earthly events which are to pre- cede its manifestation. Knowledge and interest in connec- tion with this great event on earth have vastly increased, and increasing multitudes are looking for the Lord’s ap- pearing, with enlarged understanding, with new convic- tions, with constantly brightening hopes. For some of us, necessarily, the interval of hope must be short. Our earthly period of education has come near to its conclusion, and but little more can®elapse before we shall see the Lord in His glory. As a fact in our personal history, it has become almost in sight. But some of us also believe that as a fact in the history of man, involving consequences of immense outspread extent, and of vast relative influence in the welfare of earth and in the eternal conseqnences which are to follow individual experience, this great manifestation standeth at the door, and while many sleep the Son of Man will come. In this solemn conviction we have assembled here, bringing together our several impressions, convictions and studies, that we may individually contribute to the general fund of knowledge, of observation, and of conviction, in reference to this great event in the history of earth—The coming of man’s Redeemer to assume the government which He hath pur- chased with His death, to restore the earth to His own OPENING ADDRESS. a1 dominion, and to gather into one redeemed fold the flock which has strayed upon all mountains, and has been scat- tered, wandering through all the moves of human igno- rance, waywardness, and moral and intellectual degrada- tion. And I close, with the expression of an earnest hope that infinite grace, almighty power, and everlasting love may bless the earth on which we dwell, the land which we inhabit, the nation of which we are part, and the whole race, for which the Son of God was content to die. The Spirit of God has been ready to teach, and the faithfulness of God has covenanted a future restoration and opened the hope of everlasting glory. 22 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. BY THE REY. 8. H. TYNG, JR., D.D., RECTOR OF THE CHURCH OF THE HOLY TRINITY, NEW YORK. WE open our defense of the doctrine of the personal and visible return of our Lord with the presumptive proof of its primitive authority. Whether justified by the language of the Holy Scriptures, or a delusion of man’s enthusiasm, there will be no dispute that the earliest writings of the Christian Fathers recognized it as the current opinion of the post-Apostolie Church. The ancient creeds have crystallized it in confession. The oldest liturgies express it in devotion. The history of heroic achievements by martyrs and confessors claims it as of the highest and most imperative motive. Until the learned Origen, in the third century, introduced his method of allegory into exegesis there is no evidence of a dissent from the traditional expectation. Nor was his system sufficiently influential to resist the consensus of the church in the Nicene and Constantinopolitan councils, which affirmed: “He shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and the dead, whose kingdom shall have no end.” The historian Gibbon is our authority that “the ancient Christians were animated by a contempt for their present existence and by a just confidence of immortality, of which the doubtful and imperfect faith of modern ages can not give us any adequate notion. In the primitive church, the influence of truth was very powerfully strengthened by an opinion which, however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, has not been found agreeable to experience. It was universally believed that the end of the world and CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 23 the kingdom of heaven (by which they meant Christ’s reign on earth) were at hand.” In the theological and moral darkness of the Middle Ages there were not lacking earnest souls who maintained and voiced this truth, which traced its paternity to Apostolic teachers. But our assump- tion is still further strengthened by the fact, which authentic history warrants, that the formulee of faith and the private testimonies of the fathers of the Protestant Reformation give this doctrine a foremost rank. It was primitive in the English, the Scotch, the Lutheran, the Congregational, the Baptist, the Moravian, and all other Christian bodies, which have passed through the fires of persecution. The burden of proof really rests with those who deny our hope. The probability in favor of those, who affirm it, is equal to the accumulated force of the argument that the men so marvelously raised up and qualified for the planting, and the reformation of the church, could not have been mis- taken in the tradition of the single century, that had elapsed since the death of St. John, nor misled in their diligent, delving study of the Bible, as compared with the comments of ancient authors. If the assertion and rejection of this doctrine stand on equal ground before Scriptures, which do not undoubtedly determine the question at issue, yet is the preponderance of probability a deciding factor in the discussion. Waiving this preliminary presumption, we pass to the consideration of three propositions, which are the common ground on which this Conference meets, and will be assumed in the discussion of all succeeding. topics. Both for our present purpose, and for an intelligent reception of all after-instruction, it is of the first importance that these principles should be plainly stated and sustained. 1. The authority of Holy Scripture is the basis of all knowledge that the Lord Jesus will in any wise return to 24. SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. this earth. To His life in the flesh there are a few allusions in classic authors. History endorses sufficiently the story of the Gospels. The philosophy of history demands, as the solution of the problem presented by organized and social Christianity, the fact of His human existence. But no other voice than that of God can absolutely foretell. His hand alone can draw the veil, which hides the things to come. Speculation has no place in this discussion. Philosophy has no permission to deal with the unrevealed future. It may outline the possible outcome of present tendencies, but catastrophes in all ages have rebuked its presumption. Whether, therefore, probable or improbable to the reason of man, the certain knowledge of a fact that is to be depends upon the sole and unsupported Word of God. If Heis silent, we must remain in ignorance. When He speaks, every doubt dies. At the foundation of our faith ig a reverent recognition of the Holy Bible as a revelation from God. Outside of its lids we decline to follow our disputants. They must be brought to this crucial test in connection with the promise of our Lord’s coming. It is a more severe criterion than that presented by miracles, for these may be accepted on human and contemporaneous testimony. But predictions depend upon God’s declaration. If we are mistaken in our Bible, then our doctrine may be a delusion. If these sacred books be “received not as the word of man, but, as they are in truth, the word of God,” then is our confidence rational. 2. The language of Scripture is the source of all information concerning both the matter and the manner of the return of our Lord. Our revelation is clothed in words, “which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” It contains an accurate, authentic and credible account of events, which have their place in the world’s history. To this is added a series of didactic statements of truth, adapted to different difficulties CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 5 and doubts in the current life of those, who submit to their teaching. Promise and precept are interwoven in the web of doctrine, and predictions glisten on every page, illumi- nated by glintings of glory from another world. But faith, hope and obedience turn with equal curiosity to the very words, “which holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” Whether to know “the things freely given us of God” in our Great Substitute, or “the things which God hath prepared for those who love Him,” our search is purely exegetical. We approach, without partiality or prejudice, to learn from words, which express His thoughts, what the Lord God will say concerning us. This postulate implies the rejection of all authoritative interpretations in the assumed teaching office of any church. Every such claim must be tested by the word itself. Still more does it deny all supplementary visions or revelations, as either complements or expositions of our present Bible. The closing verses of Revelation are a solemn charge neither to add to nor take away from the words of the prophecy of this book. Whether they apply to the dog- matic portions of the whole New Testament or not, it is clear that they do imperatively bind us in our reception of prophetic truth. They are God’s seal upon that symbolical book, which by all students is admitted to be the chart of the future. "Whatever be our hope, it must draw its reasons from the written word. 8. The laws of language are the instruments by which we are to construe the written words of God. But for the mystical, spiritualizing school of expositors, we should have no need to do more than state this proposition. It would seem to be involved in the popular character of our Bible. Not in cipher, hieroglyphic, or cabalistic signs, but in the language and dialect of living men, with which grammar, rhetoric, and logic can closely deal, has God made 26 SEUOND COMING OF CHRIST. known his purposes to us. There is no esoteric sense between the lines and beneath the letter. Spiritual dis- cernment is the knowledge by experience, and does not imply a superior intellectualism. Even the symbolic books have their glossary in other and plainer Scriptures. Similes, metaphors, and parables indeed abound, but these are all subject to the rules of interpretation, which control in secular literature. We affirm, then, the law of Bishop Newton, that a literal rendering is always to be given in the reading of Scripture, unless the context makes it absurd. To vindicate this law from all cavil and establish the proposition which it expresses, one need only appeal to the common sense of any casual stranger to scholastic theology. Is it honest to argue with infidels on the basis ot the literal fulfillment of prophecies relating to our Lord’s first coming, and allegorize the predictions connected with these in chapter, verse, and often clause, because they refer to His second appearing? What reason have we for holding, in opposition to the Jew, that it was foretold where Christ should be born, where He should begin to preach, how He should enter Jerusalem, what varied sufferings He should endure, that He should hang upon the tree, that not a bone of His body should be broken, that His garments should be parted and His vesture be transferred by lot, that with transgressors He should die, and yet with the rich make His grave—what possible basis have we for asserting the historical fulfillment of all these prophecies, which the Jews spiritualize, if we, in our turn, spiritualize the plain and closely joined predictions of the glorious Messiah, which they interpret literally? Surely, as a key tied by a string close to the lock, are the scriptural interpretations of fulfilled prophecy. With these at hand, it is not difficult for the serious student to open the secret things of God. But to this consideration may be added, in our appeal to CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 27 the common fairness of the church and world, the fact that, in every controversy with professed Christians, whose creed we hold to be defective, we insist upon a literal inter- pretation of Scripture. What Trinitarian would suffer a Socinian to spiritualize the declarations of our Lord’s supremacy and sovereignty? The whole controversy with Universalism pivots on this principle. Unless the word of God means what it says, the denier of future punishment may have the right. And on what conception of candor do men stand, who are strenuous for the principle of literal interpretation when it suits their theological system, and severe in its denunciation when they can not suborn the testimony in favor of their own dogma? Indeed, let this spiritualizing method be enforced, and all positive lines of division between truth and error are instantly obliterated. The Socinian, Calvinist, Arminian, Swedenborgian, and every other school of theological thought, will spiritualize in opposite ways to suit their several schemes. On this principle any book may be turned into a Bible. A recent reviewer has well written: “Truly quite enough of this sort of exegetical violence has been done to the New Testament. It is time that it should cease, and that a little more of the respect usually paid to authors called ‘profane’ should be rendered to books, which the mass of the Christian world is so well agreed to accept as ‘sacred,’ or as the very ‘word of God.’ In other words, it is surely time that the language of these ancient books should be used in its own sense—the sense which it is manifestly intended to convey—and that modern expositors should cease their well-meant efforts to compel it into agreement with the ecclesiastical systems and theological creeds, which flourish so variously around us, from the so-called infalli- bility of Rome down, through many gradations, to that of an American revivalist.” The German Rationalists, in 28 SHOOND COMING OF CHRIST. their efforts to naturalize the history, are not so untrue to revelation as those in the church, who spiritualize the prophecy of the Bible. These three propositions we affirm and assume as @ Conference: The authority of Holy Scripture is the basis of all knowledge that the Lord Jesus will in anywise return to this earth; the language ot Holy Scripture is the source of all information concerning both the matter and manner of the return of our Lord; the laws of language are the instruments by which we are to construe the words of God, to ascertain the character and circumstances of His appearing. If either one of these can be disproved, our doctrine must fall into doubt. But whenever it is in question, the admission of these principles will instantly take it out of all question. I. It is evident to the superficial student of the Bible that very frequent reference is made by all the sacred writers to “the coming of the Lord.” A careful compu- tation has shown that one verse in every twenty-five, or about three hundred verses of the New Testament, speak of this future event. So constant is the allusion to that, which is to be, at “the coming,” “the appearing,” “the revelation” of the Lord, that all expositors must needs have some theory of interpretation, which will harmonize and explain these passages. The topic of this paper gives the key-note of the creed of our Conference. Whatever else we may hold as true in reference to the translation of the church, the resurrection of the dead in Christ, the coming of the Lord with His saints, and the establishment of the millennial kingdom, this assertion of the personal and visible manner of His return is fundamental to all. Every detail of literally interpreted prophecy pre-supposes His presence in His glorified humanity, made perceptible to the sense of sight. And, indeed, in this definition of CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 29 the doctrine we have no controversy with post-millenarians. Their champion, Dr. David Brown, is as explicit as any pre-inillenarian in his aflirmation of the ocular manifesta- tion of Christ at the last day. Whatever may be our differences among ourselves, or with those who postpone our Lord’s appearing until the world’s conversion, and a thousand years after that consummation, we are here banded in the defence of a common truth. But we have a strangely commingled multitude of antagonists. They have no coherence except their consenting denial of our doctrine. For the negative argument of our present discussion, we group them in five classes, and seek to show that neither one nor all satisfy or exhaust the testimonies, that they quote in support of their varying dogmas. It is held by some that— 1. The coming of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pen- tecost is the sufficient fulfillment of our Lord's promise. Ten days after the ascension of Jesus the Holy Ghost came to the church. The manner of His appearing, the mode of His operation, the ministry of His presence, all combine to mark Him as “another Comforter.” The condition of His gift by the Father was the departure of the Christ. He was to be the Vicar of Christ on the earth and in the church. As such He has controlled in this dispensation of grace. His office-work, as defined by Jesus, has been ever fulfilled. It was promised: “When He is come, He will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment.” “He shall glorify me: for He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.” “And He will show you things to come.” Surely these passages on their very face demand that a distinction of some sort be drawn be- tween the Spirit and the Son, and at the same time indi- cate their relative offices in the development of the divine purpose. The entire ministry of the Holy Ghost is sup- 30 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST plementary to the redemption, and preparatory to the reign, of Christ. How then can they be confounded in their comings? But what warrant is given in Scripture for this strange view? The only text ever quoted in its support is a sufficient answer to the theory. Our Lord said, “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself.” But the time and style of reception is contained in the succeeding clause, “that where I am, there ye may be also.” Is it not too plain even for comment that the coming of the Holy Ghost did not and could not accomplish this last result? It will not do to evade this answer by urging men to look for “larger outpourings” of the Spirit, for the Holy Ghost as a person has come. In His descent were the prophe- cies of the Old Testament as literally fulfilled as in the birth of Jesus. A more reliant recognition of His pres- ence and power will doubtless result in a deeper realiza- tion of His grace and comfort. But this is not another coming. He is here and will remain until the end of the age. One of the serious charges we have to present against this school of spiritualizing expositors is that they diminish the dignity of the dispensation of the Holy Ghost. In seeking to avoid the doctrine of the personal coming of our Lord, they do despite unto the Third Per- son of the Blessed Trinity, who is the Spirit of Grace. 2. Again, there are expositors, who hold that the catas- trophe of the fall of Jerusalem, A.D. 70, and the entrance of Titus the Roman, are the facts to which certain predictions of the coming of the Lord referred. This can only be affirmed in connection with the twenty-fourth chapter of St. Matthew and the parallel passages in St. Mark’s and St. Luke’s gospels. Epistles written to Gen- tile churches and the Revelation to St. John on Patmos can not be supposed to take cognizance of this local event. CHRIST'S COMING: PHRSONAL AND VISIBLE. 31 If the chronology of the books, written at least twenty years after Titus’ coming, did not determine their refer- ence to somewhat subsequent to the fall of the Holy City, surely their scope of argument would negative such a nar- row construction. We are limited, therefore, to the exam- ination of a solitary passage as the locus classicus of this second view. Our Lord was seated on the Mount of Olives with four of His disciples. He had pronounced the prophecy of Jerusalem’s overthrow: “See ye not all these things [the buildings of the temple]? Verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here one stone upon another that shall not be thrown down.” The disciples privately asked Him three questions, which had most naturally been suggested by His words, saying (Matt. 24:3): “Tell us, when shall these things be? and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the age?” Each of these queries was answered by Him in its logical order. A few sentences sufficed to sketch the outline of all events between His ascension and His coming again. And then He added the words found in Matt. 24:30: “And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven: with power and great glory. And he shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet: and they shall gather His elect from the four winds.” It is scarcely conceivable that the Lord would represent the leader of the Roman army, clothed with such a form as this. But the manifest reference in the words to the prophecy of Daniel increases this improbability. Be- sides, at the coming of Titus it is not true that all the tribes of earth did mourn. To put such a false exaggera- tion in the mouth of Jesus is to reduce Him from the rank of a prophet to the ravings of an enthusiast. And 32 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. by what subtle exegesis can the scattering of the Chris- tians, and their escape to little Pella in the mountains, be made the correspondent fact to the promised gathering of the elect? When not only contradictory words but irre- concilable events become identical these expositors may be trusted. The misinterpretation, which we now contro- vert, is made impossible by the remembrance that, only two days after these words were used on the Mount of Olives, they were repeated by Jesus in the High Priest’s palace. In Matt. 26:64 we read: “Jesus saith unto him, Thou hast said: nevertheless I say unto you, Hereafter shall ye see the Son of man sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in the clouds of heaven.” The point at issue was His Messiahship. His claim to stand in this relation was the cause of the wrath of the Sanhedrim. And now, with prophetic words and an emphasis incapa- ble of misapprehension, He foretells His future manifest- ation in glory. Did He speak of Titus to the High Priest? If not, by what principle of interpretation can the same words, uttered forty-eight hours before His arraign- ment, be tortured into such a reference? That the Jews well understood His meaning is made evident by the action of the High Priest. He “rent his clothes, saying, He hath spoken blasphemy; what further need have we of witnesses? behold, now ye have heard his blasphemy.” Many witnesses had before been called, but their testi- mony did not agree. Thus far the evidence was too con- flicting to warrant a judgment. But as soon as Jesus spuke of His “coming in the clouds of heaven,” the case was closed. He was found guilty of blasphemy, and con- demned to death because He foretold His second coming. 3. A third theory, that we antagonize, resolves many passages of the Epistles into what is styled a spiritual com- ing and presence. The supporters of this most mystical CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 33 interpretation make much of His title, as “the Coming One,” and speak of Him as ever holding this relation to the church. But do they forget that the Coming One “came unto His own and His own received Him not?” that when the Baptist sent messengers to ask, “Art thou the Coming One, or do we look for another?” Jesus an- swered by directing attention to the correspondence be- tween His miracles | and the marvels predicted by Isaiah, and that it was in this character that the multitudes wal comed Him, erying, “Blessed is the Coming One in the name of the Lord?” It casts a strange shadow on [lis earthly life to ignore the fulfillment of this title in His days of obedience and suffering. The Coming One was materialized. With a form like unto ours He passed into the heavens. Surely now His promise that He will come again can not imply an annihilation of that perfected man- hood. He must return in His Glorified Body, whether visible or invisible to us, unless His humanity be a myth. But how can these Scriptures of the Apostles refer to a spiritual coming, whatever that may mean, in the face of the Lord’s own assurances: “ Where two or three are gath- ered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the age?” Spiritually the Son of God has never been, and can never be absent from the world or the church. The omnipresence of God is through the redemption a part of our heritage. ‘‘The Lord of Hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.” And in a peculiar manner does the Holy Ghost make real to the believer the Christ of the past on Golgotha, in the Garden of the Sepulchre, and on the Mount of Ascension as a present Saviour. But as the Mediatorial Priest and King it is distinctly stated that His session is still in the heavenly places: “ Whom the heavens must receive wntid the time of restitution of 3 34 SEUOND COMING OF CHRIST. all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.” It sureiy is mani- fest that those times of restoration have not yet dawned. There must be, therefore, something in store for the church beyond the spiritual influences of her absent Lord. 4. Itis held by some writers that the progress of the gospel and the church is the concrete fact, in which the promises of our Lord’s coming combine. There is a vagueness about this view, which makes it most difficult to controvert. If definite passages were quoted in its sup- port, we might dispute the exegesis. But when one is referred generally, and with a wave of the hand, to all the prophecies and promises, it argues distrust of the position in those who affirm it, and it proposes an endless task to those who are its opponents. Let us meet general asser- tions with specific suggestions. In only one text of the New Testament is the church called Christ. St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians (1 Cor., 12: 13), “ As the body is one and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body, so also is Christ.” With this solitary exception, the church throughout the epistles is represented as the body, of which Christ is the head. Undoubtedly the text quoted is in the line of this uniform teaching, but the language identifies the body and its head under the one name of Christ. For the most part, by the apostle the body is represented as visible, and the head as invisible. The growth is upward “into Him in all things, which is the Head, even Christ.’ And the Head is represented as “in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come.” As a visible fact, the church is now headless. It waits for His coming, who shall crown it with His own glorified humanity. From a single par- CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 35 ticular do they attempt to generalize, who hold this fourth theory, whilst the burden of passages bearing on this very illustration is contrary to them. But the second coming of Christ is manifestly somewhat exterior to the church itself. The law of obedience given to the church is, “Occupy till I come.” The symbols of sacramental com- munion are to be used “until He come.” The attitude of spiritual desire is to “wait for His Son from heaven.” In the midst of sloth and sin, it is commanded to “watch, for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” The sub- stance of its supplication and song is: “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.” The coronation of the church is an event separate from its struggle. All its discouragements are cheered by the blessed hope of His appearing. Thus, then, there, shall the church be glorified. The Bridegroom will claim the Bride. 5. To these varying interpretations of our Lord’s com- ing must be added one more, which identifies it with the death of believers. This definition results in a destructive dislocation of Scripture, and an aanihilation of all true hope in the Christian life. That which the law of self- preservation teaches us to dread can not be the substance of our Lord’s most joyous promise or of the church’s puri- fying hope. The saintly Baxter expressed the universal experience of the church, when he wrote: ‘‘ Death appear- eth to me as an enemy, and my nature doth abhor and fear it; but the thoughts of the coming of the Lord are most sweet and precious. Christ’s servants can submit to death, but His coming they love and long for.” Whata perversion is it to reduce all the glad expectancy of His appearing, who “will change our bodies of humiliation that they may be fashioned like unto His own glorious body,” into the dull thought that disease may at some moment seize us, and death assert its sovereignty over us! 36 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. The presumption against such a reading of promise is so strong as almost to discharge us from argument. But to strengthen our defense, let us remember that the vocabu- lary of the Bible always classes death as an enemy. From the first to the last book of the sacred canon this is its uni- form representation. Our Lord Jesus is said to have abolished death, but its physical accidents still remain in all their hideous self-assertion. The sting of death has been extracted, but the serpent survives. It will not be until His coming that dead bodies shall be raised, and the battle-cry, “O death! where is thy sting? O grave! where is thy victory?” be sung without a challenge. Then the last enemy, even death, shall have been destroyed. In the lack of a single passage, which plainly associates death with the coming of the Lord, how dare men, instructed by this exceptionless usage, misread God’s word? The departing believer hastes to be absent from the body that he may be present with the Lord—to be with Christ in Paradise—to depart and be with Christ, which is far better. Time would fail to quote a tithe of the passages which present Jesus as He appeared to Ste- phen, waiting for His saints, and the dying believer as carried by angels into His presence. Never is there a reversal of this relation in the language of God’s word. Moreover, whenever death is represented in imagery the figure is the contrast of the person of Christ. He who rides upon the pale horse can not be the same as He who cometh in the clouds of heaven. Violence is done to every principle of personification by such an attempted identity. Not to prolong our negative argument, we have only to add our Lord’s own discrimination between death and His own second coming, as a final answer to the assump- tions of this theory. When Peter over-curiously demanded in reference to John, “ Lord, and what shall this man do?” CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 37 Jesus saith unto him, “If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that this disciple should not die.” They were beguiled into the very confu- sion of thought, which we have been controverting. “Yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but if I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” The Lord leaves no doubt about the difference between these two future facts. It is only an exploded tradition to con- nect them. And the heat of controversialists, who make this attempt, is far less pardonable than the mistake of the disciples, since subsequent to this interview so much instruction in reference to the Lord’s coming has been given by the apostles. This much is certain: “ We shall not all sleep” (in death), but we shall all be summoned before the judgment-seat of Christ. There will be at least one generation to whom death shall not be the com- ing of the Lord. These five theories do neither satisfy nor exhaust the teaching of the Scriptures in reference to the second com- ing of our Lord. Though it be admitted that, analogically, the facts, which they relate, may be anticipations of His appearing, yet there is somewhat inall the passages quoted, which refuses to be cramped and confined by these inter- pretations. It may be that these incidents stand in the foreground of the unveiled picture of the future, and are foreshortened into a practical prominence, but there is a sublime event looming up in the background, which far transcends them in significance and interest. To the scrip- tural authority of this reserved revelation of our Lord, we have a remarkable testimony from arationalistic critic in a recent number of the Vineteenth Century Review. Though regarding the Messianic kingdom as “unreal and untrue,” he frankly admits that “the men of the first Christian 38 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. generation, including the Apostles and the writers of the New Testament, lived in the almost daily expectation of the Lord and the end of the world.” This witness of Dr. Vance Smith is valuable as that of one coldly unprejudiced in his examination of the sacred text, and avowedly hostile to this truth. That it is justified by exact exegesis, it is now our purpose to demonstrate as the positive argument of this paper. We hope to be able to show that there is a very numerous class of passages, which can not by any expository skill be connected with one or all of the professed fulfilments already disputed, but which imperatively demand, and will brook no denial of, the personal, in the sense of visible, coming of our Lord. To these we turn with undoubting confidence. 1. The nouns substantive used to signify the Advent are first in this line of proof. They are incapable of other definition than a real, personal, and corporeal as opposed to a figurative, spiritual, and incorporeal coming of our Lord. So definite.is the usage of the terms that we may be thus explicit in our statement. The first of these words is Apokalypsis. It occurs in nineteen passages of the New Testament, and is translated in our version, “revela- tion,” “ manifestation,” “ appearing,” “ coming,” and “ to lighten.” It will be recognized in the texts: (1 Cor. 1: 7), “ Waiting for the revelation of Jesus. Christ;” (2 Thess. 1:7), “At the revelation of Jesus Christ with His mighty angels;” (1 Peter 1:7), “At the appearing of Jesus Christ;” (1 Peter 4:13), “ When His glory shall be revealed.” Whenever used in reference to objects or per- sons, which can be recognized by sight, this word requires visibility as a necessary quality. It is introduced to express the discovery of spiritual truth to the mind, but never for the spiritual discernment of Christ. The only instance apparently doubtful is Galatians 1:16, “To reveal His CHRIST’S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 39 Son in (to) me;” but the three recitals of his conversion in the Book of Acts assert that St. Paul heard the voice and imply that he saw the form of Christ. Indeed, it was this personal revelation to him it was which gave him all his rights in the apostolate. The use of the word in Matt. 11 : 27, “Neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and He to whomsoever the Son will reveal Him,” is no exception to our rule, since the person of the Father is ever invisible and can only be spiritually perceived. Indeed, it is only necessary to recall the fact that the last book of the Bible is called the Apocalypse to establish our rule of interpretation. By whatsoever process rendered perceptible, it is evident that this Revelation to St. John was objective, for he distinctly, in the preface to the book, asserts that “he saw” the things which he is about to relate. The second noun employed in this same connection by the sacred writers is Epiphaneia. Together with the verb, from which it is derived, it is found in ten passages of the New Testament. ‘lhe lexicographer Schleusner gives as its classic definition, “The appearance of a thing corporal and resplendent.” He adds that “it was particularly employed by the Greeks to denote the appearance of their gods, with circumstances of external splendor.” In accord with this usage, St. Paul introduces the word (2 Tim. 1:10) to describe our Lord’s incarnation at His first advent. He speaks of the grace that “is now made manifest by the epiphany of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.” Again, when describing Paul’s shipwreck, Luke wrote (Acts 27 : 20), “ Neither sun nor stars in many days epiphanized.” Every other text in which this word is met has reference tu the second coming; as, for example, (1 Tim. 6: 14), “ Keep this commandment without spot, 40 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. unrebukable, until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ: which in His time He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate;” (2 Tim. 4: 1), “The Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and dead at His appearing and His kingdom;” (Titus 2:13), “ Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us.” The unvarying usage of this word in the New Testament sustains the classical defini- tion. .The context of every passage makes any other an impossibility, if not an absurdity. The third and last word, to which we ask attention is Parousia. It will be found in twenty-four texts of the New Testament, with the two meanings of “coming” and “presence.” Seventeen of these passages refer to the com- ing of our Lord. As examples we quote (Matt. 24: 3): “What shall be the sign of Thy coming;” (1 Cor. 15 : 23), “They that are Christ’s at His coming;” (1 Thess. 2 : 19), “Are not even ye at the coming of our Lord;” (James 5: 8), “The coming of the Lord draweth nigh.” Once the word is used in connection with the manifestation of the Man of Sin. In all other passages it is employed to describe the coming of individuals; as (1 Cor. 16:17), “the coming of Stephanas;” (2 Cor. 7 : 6), “the coming of Titus;” and (Phil. 1: 26), the “coming” of Paul. The lit- eral rendering of this term is ‘the becoming present.” It marks the moment when absence ceases, and presence begins. It excludes all idea of a prolonged period, as they who seek to identify the coming of the Lord with death vainly fancy. How contrary to common sense is such a definition will instantly appear on attempting to adjust it to the prophecy, (Matt. 24 : 27), “ As the lightning cometh out of the east and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of Man be.” There is nothing in nature so instantaneous as this. It is now, and in the CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 41 twinkling of an eye it is gone. So shall also the Parousia of the Son of Man be. The word is equally intolerant of the theory of a spiritual coming. It implies personality, and in several passages suggests physical visibility. If the coming of the Lord, to which it refers, be spiritual or figura- tive, so must also the coming of Stephanas, Fortunatus, and Achaicus, who certainly brought substantial help to the Apostle Paul, and must, therefore, have been more than phantoms. These three words, singly and in combination, bear an exclusive testimony to the future real and personal coming of the Lord. 2. We pass from them to consider the pronouns and adverbs, which control and qualify the various promises of our Lord’s appearing. These not only consent to the inter- pretation, which we are now presenting, but greatly strengthen its proof. To attenuate the Second Advent into a figurative or spiritual fact is to oppose Scripture, which seems, in its very texture, to have been arranged for just such an emergency of doubt. Whilst looking up into the clouds, which had shut off from their gaze the ascended Christ, two angelic men recalled the thoughts of the dis- ciples to earth, and with words of promise opened to them a most glorious hope. They said, “This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen Him go.” What a combination of carefully chosen words is this text! It is a mosaic of promises. In opposition to all allegorizers and spiritual- izers, it presents “this same Jesus”—not His influences, but Himself. In contradiction of all theories, that would degrade His coming by identifying it with death, the pass- age presents descent after translation as the outline of His coming, “in like manner as ye have seen Him go.” On every side is this assurance guarded by these qualifying 42 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. parts of speech. It is impossible to wrest such a Scripture from its natural and literal rendering. But the Apostle Paul is not less careful in his collocation of words. The change of living saints and the resurrection of the dead in Christ are works of omnipotence. They can not certainly be separated from a personal act. In foretelling them as the events that shall especially mark His coming, the apostle traces them to our Lord’s personal presence and power, “because the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven.” Surely this pronoun decides the issue. Only one other illustration shall be added to these, though they might be indefinitely extended. The apostle to the Hebrews (9: 28) contrasts His former sin-bearing with the Lord’s future glory: ‘Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for Him shall He appear the second time without sin unto salvation.” Theie is a plain antithesis between “once” and “second time.” The resemblance between the two appearings is asserted to be personality. The difference is equally detined by their contrasted relation to sin and offering for sin. Even the smallest particles of scriptural language protest against the perversions of our doctrine. 3. But to these sources of proof we add the offices and actions, which are connected with His coming, and to which the Scriptures command our reverence. These are all intensely personal, both in their conception and in the mode of their accomplishment. Our Lord warned His disciples against the pretensions of anti-christs. These impostors were clearly to be persons. Their peculiar dogma was to be that they (2 John 7) “ confess not that Jesus Christ is coming in the flesh,” and the substitution of themselves in the stead of Chiist as the object of hope. If His competi- tors were to be personal and visible, surely the language of warning implies more than a spiritual manifestation on our CHRIST'S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 43 Lord’s part. The contrast between Christ and Anti-christ involves the personal coming of the Lord. But all are agreed that the judgment of the saints and the world will be a chief feature in the Advent. How is this office presented in Scripture? Will the law of the survival of the fittest produce the final judgment, irrespective of a glorious Person? Are the discriminating influences of. the Gospel all that is meant by this phrase? Are the “judgment-seat of Christ’ and “the great white throne ” fictions of fancy, which have no corresponding reality? These glosses of philosophy, and spiritualizers, must be brought to the test of the word itself. St. Paul taught in skeptical Athens the truth in words, which anticipate all later criticisms (Acts 17:30, 31): ‘God hath appointed a day, in the which He will judge the world by that man, whom He hath ordained, whereof He hath given assurance unto all men, in that He hath raised him from the dead.” If “that man” is a personal designation, then the Judge will be a person. If the resurrection of Christ was visibly demonstrated, equally so will be His coming again. This isa demonstration of the surface of the passage. Another character, in which our Lord is represented in the day of His advent, is as the Raiser of the Dead. This office He performed in His life of substitution. Again, at His death-cry (Matt. 27:52), “The graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept, arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city and appeared unto many.” Once more is this action traced to Him (1 Thess. 4:16), “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the tramp of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first . . . tomeet the Lord in the air.” To refer this future fact to a spiritual change is condemned as the error of Hymeneus and Philetus (2 Tim. 44 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 2:18), which in the apostle’s day overthrew the faith of some. The passages which prove its physical character will doubtless be presented in a succeeding essay of the Conference. It is sufficient for our present purpose to show that the resurrection of the body has always been and will hereafter be personal and visible. And from this we have a right to argue that “the Lord in the air” will be equally personal and visible. Our conviction is strength- ened by the use of the Greek word, translated “ to meet.” In every other passage of the New Testament, in which it occurs, it has the uniform meaning of a personal encounter. The very term introduced by the Evangelists to describe the meeting of Christ with His disciples in His mortal and risen life is projected as the outline of promise and prophecy for His reception of His church in the day of His appearing. To these offices and actions might be added His relation to the world as the Restorer of Creation, of which His miracles were the earnests, His relations to the Jews as the Shiloh of Israel, and to the Gentiles as the Desire of all Nations, in connection with which designation every prophecy and all philosophy of government demand personality, and His relation to the church as the Bride- groom of the Bride (2 Thess. 1:10), ““ When He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be admired in all them that believe in that day.”” Every term used in connection with these varied functions of His mediatorial sovereignty requires somewhat more than a spiritual manifestation. The token of His real personality and visibility was His risen and glorified body. In this He must come again. Our eyes may be holden that we may not recognize Him, but the difficulty will be in our sight, not in His reality: “We see not yet all things put under Him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honor.” (Heb. CHRIST’S COMING: PERSONAL AND VISIBLE. 4d 2:8, 9.) Finally, to affirm that His appearing will be that of a spirit only is to fall into the very error from which in His risen life our Lord delivered His disciples. We look for our King clothed in glorified flesh. Great confusion has been caused in this discussion by the scholastic associations of the word “person.” We have seen that all the Greek nouns, pronouns, and adverbs, which are employed by the sacred writers in this connection, necessarily imply both a full, real, and individual appearing of our Lord, and that this will be a proper object of sight. But the force of these terms has been clouded by the prominence given to the Latin word “persona.” The dream of a personal as distinet from a visible demonstra- tion of our Lord’s presence is not warranted by the classic use of the word, but is a sequence of the controversy over the distinctions in the Blessed Trinity. Theologians writing in Latin chose this word “ persona,” divested it of visibility among other ideas, and employed it in its modified definition to express the separate relations of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. So in theology the word has come to have a narrow and peculiar meaning, quite distinct from that of its derivation. It is with this battle- axe of an ended conflict that men are found armed in the controversy concerning the Lord’s coming. Let “persona” have its Ciceronian meaning, and the title of this essay will be seen to be tautological. The appearing of our Lord because personal must be visible. To this cumulative argument we simply add, in closing, the unmistakable testimony that Christ’s personal coming will be visible. Thus saith the Lord: (Matt. 26:64), “ Hereafter shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of power;” (John 16:16), “A little while, and ye shall not see Me, and again, a little while, and ye shall see Me, because I go to the Father;” (Rev. 1:7), “ Behold He 46 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, and they also which pierced Him.” To such assurances Christian faith and hope impel the Lord’s people to respond in mutual congratulation: (1 John 8:3), “ Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.” The Christ as He was is the object of faith. The record of His finished work is so realized to holy fancy by the Holy Ghost, as to justify the expression of St. Paul to the ‘Galatians, (3:1) “before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you.” So actual was Christ, so very real to Paul’s faith, as to be almost visible. The Christ as He is is the object of hope. The history of His risen life and ascension gives the outline of the (Titus 2:12) “blessed hope ” that we are (2 Peter 3:11) “looking for” and (1 Thess. 1:9, 10) “ waiting for.” In holy con- templation, the Man from the Glory comes often within the closest circle of our communion. But when hope shall find its divine and human object in the personal and visible Lord from heaven, then in its fulness shall be understood that saying, “ He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.” CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRH-MILLENNIAL. 47 CHRIST’S COMING—IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL? BY THE REV. 8. H. KELLOGG, D.D., PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IN THE PRESBYTERIAN SEMINARY, ALLEGHENY, PA. Taat the Lord Jesus Christ, in his glorified human nature, is yet to return to this earth, is and always has been the faith and hope of the Church. In this article of faith, Protestant and Romanist, Greek and Oriental Christians, are all agreed. That same Jesus which was taken up from us into heaven, shall so come in like man- ner as He was seen to go. The so-called Millennarian controversy has never involved any doubt as to the fact that there is to be a literal bodily return of the risen Jesus in the clouds of heaven to this very earth which witnessed His humiliation and rejection. The undivided Church joins with one accord in those words of the Te Deum, “We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.” Nor is the question before us whether this world shall become subject to Christ. The earth shall be filled with the knowl- edge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. “ All nations shall serve and obey Him.” On this subject Scripture is so explicit that no body of Christians has ever rejected the doctrine. This is the eternal decree of the Father: “Ask of Me, and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Nor is there any question as to whether the preaching of the Gospel shall be a success. There may be, and indeed is, among good men, a question as to what the present preaching of the Gospel is intended to accomplish. But whatever that may be, there can be 48 SEUVOND COMING OF CHRIST. no doubt that the purpose of God in this proclamation of the Gospel shall be accomplished to the very letter. “My word shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.” If, therefore, it be the purpose of God that it shall issue in the conversion of the whole world, then, without doubt, whatever be the difficulties in the way, these instrumentalities now in operation shall yet bring about that glorious result. There is, most assuredly, no lack of power in God, the Holy Spirit, nor of inherent virtue in the Gospel to this end. And if, on the other hand, it be the purpose of God that, in this present dis- pensation, the preaching of the Gospel shall only issue in the gathering out of an election from all nations, then also that purpose of God shall be accomplished, and no more. But it is plain that, in this case as well as the former, the preaching of the Gospel will have been a success. In either case, it will have accomplished all’ that it was intended to accomplish, and that is what we call success. It should be scarcely necessary to remark that the ques- tion before us does not concern the absolute time of the coming of the Lord. Concerning that, the testimony of the word of God is most emphatic. “Of that day and hour knoweth no man—no, not the Son, but only my Father which is in Heaven.” It is a matter of the greatest regret that so many have forgotten the explicit teachings of the Scriptures upon this subject, and suffered themselves to be led aside into deliverances upon this matter, which, asa matter of course, being falsified by the event, have served to bring the most precious hope of the Church into disre- pute, and deterred many good and earnest men from even entering on the consideration of a subject which, to their minds, seemed so fraught with evil consequences to the sobriety of Christian life. We, one and all, can not do CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-.MILLENNIAL. 49 better in this matter than stand firm on the words of one of the great historical confessions: “As Christ would have us certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgment, so will He have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not what hour the Lord will come.” Nor is there any question between Millennarians and others as to the essential nature of that resurrection life upon which all agree that all believers shall enter at the coming of the Lord. Millernarians have sometimes been charged with holding that those who shall rise and reign with Christ when He shall appear will enter upon an earthly life, after the fashion of the life which we now lead in the flesh. Thus an eminent theologian argues against the doctrine of the Pre-Millenialists, that it is inconsistent with what the Scriptures uniformly teach as to the nature of the resurrection body; that it is to be spiritual, and not natural, or flesh and blood. Whereas, according to the writer quoted, “it is an essential part of the doctrine ot the Pre-Millennialists that the saints are to rise and reign a thousand years in the flesh.” This passage rests upon a strange misapprehension of what Pre-Millennialists under- stand the Scriptures to teach upon this subject. It is safe to say that no Millennarian of any repute holds to a res- urrection of the sort suggested in the passage cited. A life of the risen saints in some special connection with this earth, even as it is at present constituted, no more implies that their resurrection bodies will not be in the sense of the Apostle, “spiritual,” or that their resurrection life is to be a life in the flesh, after the manner of this present life, than the undoubted fact that the Lord Jesus Himself, during the forty days after His resurrection, appeared in a body of flesh and bones upon this earth, to men in the flesh, implies that His life was at that time, in the sense of 4 50 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. our author, a life in the flesh. As was the body, and as was the resurrection life of our Lord, so, beyond all doubt, according to the abundant testimony of the word of God, shall be the resurrection bodies and the resurrection life of this people. Still further, in order to reach the truth upon the sub- ject before us, it is important to separate this question from others closely connected therewith. For example, the question before us is not whether or not the kingdom of Christ be as yet, in any sense, present in the world, a question to which, in passing, we may remark the parables in Matt. 18 seem to givean affirmative answer. Neither is the question before usin this paper whether there shall be a first and second resurrection, nor whether Christ shall yet reign personally upon this earth. These questions, indeed, have been and are closely connected with the question of a Pre-Millennial advent, but they are not so closely connected but that, in instances, not a few men have rejected the dvc- trine of a converted world previous to the coming of the Lord, while yet not affirming the doctrine of a first and a second resurrection, nor that of a personal reign of the Lord upon the earth. Such, indeed, appears to have been the position of most of the reformers. In order to clear- ness of discussion, it is important, for the present, to waive all reference to these or any other related questions, and confine our attention strictly to the precise point before us, which we may state as follows: “Does the word of God teach that, prior to the advent of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are to look for the conversion of the world to Him, and a prolonged season of universal peace and prevailing right- eousness, or does it teach the contrary?” According to the opinion of the Pre-Millennialists, which prevails most widely in the present century, and more especially in our own country, the conversion of the world, both Jew and CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 51 Gentile, and the consequent establishment of the King- dom of Christ, is to precede the personal return of the Lord Jesus. By the use of means at present employed, accompanied by unprecedented operations of the Holy Spirit, it is supposed that the world is to be totally trans- formed, and in some sense converted. ‘The Spirit is to be poured out so abundantly that, as the result, righteousness will prevail throughout the whole earth. As to how extensively men shall be individually renewed and con- verted, in the Gospel sense of those words, there seems to be a great difference of opinion. Some have even sup- posed that the expected conversion shall be literally univer- sal. A greater number, probably, seem to think that very many, in the aggregate, may remain inwardly unrenewed, but that, on the whole, the great majority will be truly converted unto God; and that, as the result of this, sin, where it still remains, will be universally restrained, so that “nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall men learn war any more.’ Others, again, seem to expect little more than a merely nominal and outward pro- fession of Christianity by the nations of the world, as such, and the practical recognition of the principles of the moral Jaw in social and political life. As to how far such an issue could, in the Scriptural sense of words, be called a conversion of the world to God, we leave to others to judge. The happy state of things to be brought about, sooner or later, by the preaching of the Gospel, of what- ever sort it be, it is believed, will continue for a very long time, which is called the Millennium. Its duration it is commonly argued from Rev. 20, will not be less than a thousand years. After that it is understood that the Bible teaches that there will be a general apostasy from the faith, ‘thich will be shortly and finally brought to an end by the return of the Lord to judgment, when the present order of 52 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. things will pass away forever. If this is the teaching of the Scriptures, then it is plain that the coming of the Lord is not even possible for more than a thousand years to come, and how much longer no one can tell. As opposed to all this, Pre-Millennialists, believing, indeed, with the Post-Millennialist, that righteousness shall yet prevail over all the earth, understand the Scriptures to teach that this is not to be expected before the Lord Jesus shall return. That although the Gospel shall, indeed, be ever more and more widely spread abroad, yet the word of God gives us no reason to look for any radical and real spir- itual change in the condition of the world till the glorious appearing of the Lord. This, then, in a word, is the ques- tion: ‘Do the Scriptures teach, or do they not, that the world is to be, in any true sense of the word, converted before the return of the Son of Man?” Before entering upon the investigation of this question, it is well that we bear in mind the following two considerations: It is of the greatest importance, in dealing with this subject, as, indeed, with any other question regarding the teaching of the word of God, that we allow no preconceptions of our own, whether derived from the natural reason or from any traditional interpretation of the Scripture which we may have received, even from good and devout men, to deter- mine our judgment in the decision of the matter. The question before us is purely and simply a question as to the teaching of the word of God. Let us, therefore, beware of determiuing, @ priori, what, as regards the gov- ernment of this world, God may or may not be expected todo. The words of the Lord are ever to be borne in mind: “ My thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways.” And, in the second place, it is to be remembered that we can not, in this matter, any more than in many other teachings of the Scriptures, CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 53 demand that all difficulties shall be removed. To insist that every difficulty shall be removed, and every possible ques- tion answered before we shall give our assent to a doctrine of the Bible, is not the part of a wise Christian. In how many matters, even more central and vital than that which is before us to-day, are we shut up toa ehoice of difficulties. Let us remember wel] that, although we may not be able to answer every question or difficulty that may be urged against a doctrine, it by no means follows that we are justi- fied in rejecting it. On this principle, we should be justi- fied in rejecting the doctrine of the Atonement itself. So, in the present question especially, as it seems to me, are we shut up to a choice of difficulties, which ever side we take. We have simply to take that side which is encum- bered with the fewest and least serious difliculties. What, then, does the word of God teach as to the question of a conversion of the world before the coming of the Lord? ARGUMENTS AGAINST THE WORLD’S CONVERSION. It is often charged that the arguments of the Pre-Mil- lennialists, on this subject, rest chiefly, if not entirely, upon the more obscure and symbolical portions of the Scriptures. It is even said by some that their case rests chiefly, if not entirely, upon a certain interpretation of Rev. 20, touching the first and second resurrection. It is proposed, therefore, in the present inquiry, to waive refer- ence to the prophecies of the Old Testament, and the sym- bolical portions of the Bible generally. We shall all agree that in our interpretation of the Bible, the interpretation of that which is obscure or symbolical is to be determined by that of those portions which are evidently to be taken in a literal and didactic sense. Especially must the New Testament be ever allowed to determine the interpretation of the Old, and not the reverse. Onthese principles, all wise 54 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. interpreters of every school must agree. What, then, saith the Scripture on the subject before us? 1. The first notable fact bearing on the decision of the question before us is the utter absence of any statement in the New Testament that any such period of universal con- version and long-prevailing righteousness is to be witnessed previous to the Coming of the Lord. This fact is pecu- liarly notable and significant in the case of the Apostle Paul. In our day the expected conversion of the world is constantly held up as the great motive and incentive to missionary labor. Weare even told by many who ought to be able to judge, that if through the prevalence of the contrary view people shall come to doubt this, a sad decline in missionary activity of the Church must be expected as the inevitable result. But here is the very Chief and Prince of all Missionaries, holding His commission direct from the Master, taught, as He tells, not by any fallible or even inspired man, but directly by the Lord Himself and His Spirit. More than once He tells us of the motives - that urged Him on, and filled Him with a zeal for the sal- vation of men which has been rarely equaled and never excelled, but never does He state that His motive was found in the expectation that the world was to be con- verted by His preaching or that of any other man. He speaks, indeed, of a time when all Israel shall be saved. But that does not affect the precise fact which we now urge, that nowhere does He represent the subjugation of the world to Christ as the motive which was the inspiration of His unequaled labors and sufferings. On the contrary, when He states His motives, He does it in language like the following: ‘Knowing the terror of the Lord, we per- suade men; the love of Christ constraineth us.” 2 Cor. 5:11,14. “Endure all things for the elect’s sakes, that they may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 55 with eternal glory.” 2 Tim.1: 10. “I am made all things to all men that I might by all means save some.” 1 Cor. 9:23. Nor does it appear as if He expected the conversion of the world as the final result of such labors by His successors in the future. “The last times,” He tells, shall differ from the times before only in that they shall be “perilous times.” 2 Tim. 3:1. On one occasion in particular the Apostle had very special reason, if he expected a millennium of peace and holiness before the Coming of the Lord, to refer to the fact. When the Thes- salonian Christians on one occasion were greatly troubled because they had been led to believe that the day of the Lord had already come, Paul quieted their apprehensions— how? By telling them, as was most natural if the modern doctrine were true, “that the day of the Lord would not come except the world should first be converted unto God?” If this were the truth, it was the very thing to say. It were, indeed, simply inconceivable that the Apostle, if he knew anything about this coming conversion of the world as the necessary antecedent of the Lord, should not have said so. But the fact, simply unaccount- able upon the truth of the modern theory, is that he did not. Nay, so far from this, he told them the exact reverse; not that the Millennium must come first, the world be converted, but that “the man of sin’? must first be _ revealed, whom the Lord would “destroy with the bvight- ness of His coming.” 2. But we may go yet further. Not only does the New Testament nowhere state that the intended result of the preaching of the Gospel in this dispensation is the conversion of the world to God, but when that object is formally stated, as it is in two places, it is stated in terms which imply the exact reverse of this. The first passage we may note is in Acts 15:14. The Jewish Christians 56 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. were greatly scandalized that Peter should have preached the Gospel to the Gentiles, or heathen as we should call them, and received them into the Church along with the circumcision. Peter, it appears, felt it necessary to justify himself for this before the council of the Church in Jeru- salem. How natural it were, again, if that preaching of the Gospel to the Gentiles were for the conversion of the whole of the Gentiles to God, that Peter should have said so. But here again we have no hint from him of snch an issue, though, if he knew about it, it was evidently the very thing to say. His language, on the contrary, seems rather to exclude any general conversion. For we read: “God did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name.” But some one may ask, is it not possible that the preaching should go on until all mankind, in an age to come, should be numbered among the people of God? This question is explicitly answered in the other passage, where, according to the usual understanding, the object of the present ministration of the Gospel is formally stated, viz.: Matt. 24: 14, where we read: ‘“ This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world,” not for its conversion. Why did not the Lord say so if that were indeed the object?—“but for a witness unto all nations, and then”—without waiting for a general conver- sion of the nations—“ then shall the end come, all nations must hear, and then shall the end come.” ‘To sum up this argument, we may safely say that in the whole Bible among the formal statements of the object of the preach- ing of the Gospel by Christ’s ministers, there is not a single one which states that object to be the conversion of the world to God. If we are to expect a Millennium of righteousness before the Lord’s return, how is this fact to be accounted tor? 8. Again, any theory which, like the modern Post- CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNTAL. 57 Millennial doctrine, interposes a period before the Advent so long that it should be known as impossible within the lifetime of any individual generation of believers is irreconcilable with the repeated statements of the Scripture that we know not the day “when the Master will return from the far country ” whither He has gone; whether His coming will be “in the first watch or in the second watch, or at the cock crowing, or in the morning.” According to these words, it was far from being certain that He would not come until almost the morning watch; that it was represented as likely enough, for anything that His people knew to the contrary, that He might come even in the first watch of the night. So far from there being any revelation which should warrant any generation of believers in assuming that the Coming of the Lord was a thousand years or more away, this postponement, as it were, of the Coming of the Lord, is in utter opposition to all those state- ments of the word of God that we know not the day of Christ’s appearing. On this subject Archbishop Trench has well and truly said, “It is a necessary element of the doctrine concerning the Second Coming of Christ, that it should be possible at any time, that no generation of believers should regard it as impossible in theirs.” Those, therefore, who fix a time in the distant future before which Christ can not come, equally with those who fix a time in the near present by which He must come, place themselves in conflict with this word of the Lord. 4, And this argument becomes even more forcible when we consider the duty which, in view of this utter uncer- tainty of the time of the Advent, is everywhere urged upon the disciples of Christ in all ages to watch continually, (Matt. 24:42, etc.) We can not refer these words to death, as is sometimes done, because in no place where these words occur is there the slightest reference to death in the 58 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. whole context, but only to the return of the Lord Jesus. Not an instance can be adduced in the whole Bible where the phrase “ the coming of the Son of Man” can be proven to refer to death. Nor can we accept that exegesis which, in certain places at least, refers the phrase to the destruction of Jerusalem. For although undoubtedly the chapter in Matthew’s gospel, to which reference has been made, does contain a prophecy of that event, yet that coming of the Son of Man for which Christ bids His dis- ciples to watch can not possibly be understood of the destruction of Jerusalem, for the simple reason that the coming in question is expressly said to take place “after” that event, and therefore can not be the same thing. It ean only be that glorious coming of the risen Jesus in the clouds of Heaven, which the universal Church expects sooner or later, of which, in the passage cited, we are told that no man knows the time, and for which all believers in all ages are therefore bidden to watch until He shall come. Now, on the common hypothesis that the entire world is to be converted and continue in that happy state for centuries before the Lord can come, how is it possible for any genera- tion of believers receiving that theory as certain truth to watch for the coming of the Lord till that expected Millennium shall have come and gone? It is too often forgotten that theories as to the interpretation of prophecy should never be allowed to affect our attendance to plain precepts. It is quite safe to say that any interpretation of prophecy which makes obedience to any command a moral impossibility is ¢yso facto proven to be erroneous. But is it a possibility for a believer who is assured that the Coming of the Lord is at least a thousand years away, to watch for that coming in his lifetime? If, for example, I take a journey to another country, and on departing tell my son that I shall not return for ten years, or for any other fixed CHRIST'S COMING: 18 IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 59 and definite time, and then tell him to watch for me every day, would I not seem to him utterly inconsistent? If, on the one hand, he believes my assurance that I will not return before a certain appointed time, will it not for that very reason become impossible for him to watch for me till that time is up? And, on the other, would not my charge to watch for me every month and year inevitably suggest to him a doubt whether after all I am sure that I will not return much sooner than I had said? For it is plain that the mental state or act of watching for a person implies not only a general expectancy that the person will come sometime, but, beyond a doubt, involves as a necessary condition ‘the belief that the person may come at any time. Inasmuch, therefore, as no candid person will deny that the Lord does command His disciples in all ages to watch for His coming, it follows irresistibly that the Lord intended that we should think of His advent as always possible, and forbids us to interpose any such fixed period of time between us and His coming as shall make it impossible for us to believe that He may come in our own day. ARGUMENTS FOR CHRIST’S COMING. The ablest work that has been written in defence of the current theory on this subject is probably that of the Rev. David Brown, on the Second Advent. He devotes several pages to the consideration of the weighty argument derived from this command of the Lord to watch for His appearing. His argument is, in brief, after this manner: That the New Testament is full of intimations, as of a predicted apostasy in the church, a universal proclamation of the Gospel, etc., which he says must have compelled the early Christians to believe that the Lord’s Coming was not to be expected in their day because all these developments required much time; nay, he reminds us of what no one 60 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. can deny—that the Lord Himself, while telling the disci- ; ples to watch, gave them distinct intimations that His coming would be delayed. To all which we answer, that although without doubt we do have such intimations of a delay, yet it by no means follows that the Christians of the first century were able to see all this. For there is not a single one of the passages adduced which contains within itself the slightest chronological note which might have guided the early Christians to such a conclusion. Who among them, any more than among ourselves, knew, for example, how much time might be covered by the phrase, “the times of the Gentiles,” in the passage in Luke 21:24, which Dr. Brown quotes as illustrating his - position? Those predicted times, for all we absolutely know to the contrary, may have centuries yet to run before they shall have expired; on the other hand, we know not but that they may even now be closing. And certainly the words could have conveyed no more hint of the time involved to the Christians of the first century than to ourselves. Even the phrase, “a long time” (Matt. 25:19), which is much pressed, has no bearing on the question, which is, not whether an intimation of centuries was conveyed in these words, but whether the words necessarily conveyed that meaning to those who first heard them. The phrase “a long time” is evidently a purely relative term, and may mean either days, years, or centuries, according to the scale of time before the mind. As a matter of fact, in the parable in question, the phrase could not denote a period equal to the ordinary lifetime of a man. “After a long time the Lord of those servants cometh and reckoneth with them.” The whole story of the parable was comprehended in the lifetime of the nobleman who went on the far journey, leaving his servants in charge. But it is stil more to the point, in replying to this OHRIST’S COMING: IS IT PRE.MILLENNIAL. 61 evasion of the argument for an Advent to be regarded as ever imminent, as derived from the command to watch, that as a matter of confessed historical fact, of which Gibbon, for example, assures us, the primitive Christians did mot understand any of these words of our Lord as precluding the possibility of His return in their lifetime. On the contrary, so widely prevalent was the expectation of the speedy return of the Lord in the glory of His Kingdom in the first ages of the Church, that that historian assigns this as one of the various causes which, in his opinion, serve to explain the astonishing progress of Christianity in the first centuries. But the most plausible argument against the statement that the New Testament represents the Advent as ever imminent, and, therefore, to be regarded as possible in any and every generation, is derived from 2 Thess. 2:2, where the apostle exhorts the Thessalonian Christians, according to our version, “not to be troubled * * * as though the day of Christ were at hand.” Here, we are told, the apostle expressly warns the Thessalonians against regard- ing the Coming of the Lord as imminent; so that in His mind, as he had already charged the Thessalonians to watch for the Coming of the Lord, watching did noé¢ necessarily imply that the Advent was possible in the lifetime of that generation. On this objection we may remark first of all, that it is certain that Paul did not mean to contradict himself or weaken in the least the force of the exhortations in the previous epistle in which he had reminded the Thessalonians that “the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night.” Nor can these words, by anyone who believes in the inspiration of the Scriptures, be understood really to contradict the many passages of the New Testa- ment in which the Coming of the Lord is spoken of as imminent. Nor can these words, however they may be 62 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. explained, touch the fact that, according to the common use of the word, no man can be said to watch, except he regard the event for which he watches as at least possible at any time. In the second place, if the rendering of our version be correct, it assumes a state of mind among the Thessalo- nians in regard to the advent of the Lord of which we have no example in the Primitive Church, and which in partie- ular is entirely exclusive of that eager desire to have a share in the coming glories of the Advent which is revealed in the first Epistle. For, according to our ver- sion, it would appear that the apprehended nearness of the coming of the Lord was an occasion not of joy but of trouble to the Thessalonians. But there is not the slight- est evidence that until the defection of the Church from primitive apostolic truth Christ’s coming was ever any- thing but an object of intense desire and longing to His people. When we regard these historical facts, we may safely say that the apprehended nearness of the Advent could by no means have been an occasion of trouble and distress to the Christians of Thessalonica. So far from this, it appears from the previous Epistle that so desirable did the coming of the Lord seem to them that they were in great concern of mind least any of their number who had died might by their death be excluded from participation in the glories of that day. Again, we have from the lips of our Saviour and His Apostles numerous statements as to the condition of the Church between the Ascension and the Second Advent which utterly preclude the common modern expectation in the interim. The entire New Testament uniformly repre- sents the condition of the Church on earth during this period as one not of peace and prosperity, but on the con- trary of sorrow and humiliation. First of all in this con- CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 63 nection we may note those words of our Lord in Matt. 9: 14. The disciples of John had complained that the dis- ciples of Christ did not fast. Christ answers to the effect that fasting, being an expression of sorrow, was as much out of place while He, the Heavenly Bridegroom, was with His disciples, as a piece of new cloth on an old gar- ment; but that days were coming when He, as to His bodily presence, should be taken from them, and those should indeed be for the children of the Bridegroom days of fasting. Here indisputably the entire period of the personal absence of the Lord from His Church is repre- sented as a time in which for them fasting shall be suitable and proper, and therefore, by fair implication, asa time of grief and sorrow for His people. But is a millennium of universal peace of righteousness likely to have been included in this representation of the period in question as one of unbroken sorrow? But in perfect accord with the intimation of this passage are all the statements of the New Testament which refer indisputably to the state of the Church in the present dispensation. In the very beginning Christ sends forth His missionaries, not with the grand promise that their ministry should at last issue in the conversion of all nations of the world to Him, but with the assurance that they have to expect the same treatment from the world that He Himself had; that if they had called the master of the house Beelzebub they would even more surely call His servants the same. He aceordingly speaks of His people, most tenderly, as a little flock; He tells them that in this world they shall have tribulation; that is, as the whole context shows, tribula- tion, not from causes common to all men alike, as sickness, poverty and death, but tribulation at the hands of the world, and because of their personal relation to Him; that as the world had persecuted Him, so it would also, in one 64 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. way or another, persecute them, and be no more ready to keep their saying than it had been to keep His. Indeed, in Romans 8:17, and elsewhere, this fellowship in tke sufferings of a rejected Christ is declared to be the insep- arable condition of sharing in His glory. The ministry of the Church to the world has been, and still is, a ministry of rejection and sorrow. Where in the New Testament is there any intimation that in this present order of things and before the coming of the Lord, there is to come a time when all such representations as these shall be no longer true? We do indeed read much of a time when the Church shall be delivered from her sorrows and tribula- tions, but in perfect accord with that intimation of our Lord with which we began, the promise is always and only placed in connection with the return of the Absent Lord, the Bridegroom of the Church. Rest is indeed to be recompensed to the troubled Church, but only, says the Apostle Paul, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from Heaven with His mighty angels. 2 Thess. 1:7. It is only, according to the intimation of the parable, when the Son of Man cometh, the cry of the widowed Church so long apparently neglected, shall at last be heard. Luke 18: 1-8. How are such passages as these, to the general tenor of which no exception can be found, to be reconciled with the modern theory of a Church of the future in the flesh on earth, victorious over the world before her Lord’s return? V. Again, as the state of the Church is uniformly described in the New Testament as one of rejection and humiliation until her Lord shall come, so also do the same Scriptures describe the state of the world during the same period, in terms which are simply exclusive of any general conversion of the world to the true faith prior to the Ad. vent. This gospel of the Kingdom, saith the Saviour, shall indeed be preached in all the world—but why? For the con rt CHRIST'S COMING: 18 IT’ PRE-MILLENNIAL. 65 version of the world? That is not what He says, but “for a witness.” And may not that witnessing go on until all the ends of the earth shall hear and also obey Him? That again is not what He says, but rather when this witness shall have reached all nations, “then shall the end come.” Matt. 24:14. Thus also in the parable of the sower, which sets forth the various results of the preached word as historically experienced until the present time, we have not the slightest hint of a time when this parable shall no longer be a correct description of the various results of the ministration of the Gospel. Of a time when the seed shall all come up, when birds shall no more pick up the seed, nor thorns spring up and choke it, nor the heat of persecution burn it, the parable doves not contain the slightest intimation. If any one will say that this is merely a negative argument, we have only to read further on the parable of the tares and wheat. In this latter parable, as expounded for us by the Saviour Himself, we are explicitly taught that the tares, or children of the wicked one, are to exist in the world along with the wheat, or children of the Kingdom: that the two are to grow and develop together, each after its own peculiar manner until the end of the aio or age. The Lord indeed represents the servants of the landholder as proposing to do away with this unsatisfactory state of things; but they are answered at once in terms which one would think had been quite sufficient to preclude forever any hope of any radical spiritual change in the condition of the world before the Lord’s return. Let both grow together till the harvest. And the harvest, we are told, is the end of the world or age. Where does this parable leave any place for the interposition of centuries of a universal conversion of the world to God before the Lord shall come? It tells us indeed of a growth of the wheat progressing until the har- 5 66 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. vest; it therefore, in perfect consistence with the foregoing parable of the leaven (if that be taken to represent a contin- vous growth of the Church in the world), suggests the expectation of a fuller and fuller growth in the true and invisible Church as the centuries roll on, until the Lord shall come; it therefore forbids us to join in those incon- siderate and mistaken representations which one some- times hears, as if the Saviour taught that there was nothing in the future of the history of the world but a development of sin. But at the same time, if the parable forbids us to deny a continuous growth of the spiritual Church into fuller and fuller fruit bearing, just as distinctly does it for- bid us to expect that the wheat shall so grow and ‘increase as to choke out the tares. Just as clearly as the words of the Lord point to a spiritual development in the Church, just so clearly do they teach us to expect along with this a continuous development of sin in the world, reaching its final culmination at the same time as the other. The wheat and the tares are both to “grow together till the harvest,” the end of the Avon and the appearing of the Son of Man. How, with an ever increasing growth of evil in antagonism to a growing Church, we are to find any place for a Millennium of universal righteousness and peace, we must leave to others to explain. In entire agreement with the teaching of this parable as to the matter before us is the parable of the nobleman who went into a far country, as recorded in Luke 19:12-27. In that parable the Lord represents Himself, soon to depart from this world to the Father, as a nobleman who went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return. During his absence, we are told there is a great difference in the con- duct even of his servants; some are more faithful, some are less so; some are grossly neglectful of their duty; out- side of his own household, his citizens, we are told, hated CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 67 him, and angrily repudiated his dominion. After a while he returns, rewards his servants according to their several works, and visits the rebel citizens, who would none of his rule, with a fearful punishment. The time of the noble- man’s return, by universal consent, refers to the second coming of the Son of Man for the great work of judgment. This is plain because it is the time when the loyal and the rebellious alike receive their reward. Here, then, we are to observe again that the parable does not give us the slight- est hint that there was any change in the attitude of the rebellious citizens during the whole period of the absence of the king. But is it not plain that if the modern theory of a universal turning of the nations unto God before the coming of the Lord were true, we must needs have had, in this parable, a very different picture? We should have rather read that at last through the earnest labors of the servants of the nobleman, the most, at least, of the rebel- lious citizens were led to submit to that rule which at first they had rejected, and become loyal subjects of the coming king? But that is not what the parable teaches. And if not, then the question is at once forced upon us—How with the mass of men remaining as in the imagery of the parable, at enmity to the Lord and His Christ, we are to find time or place for a thousand years of millennial peace? THE PERIOD BEFORE THE SECOND ADVENT. But we may advance yet further. Not only do the Scrip- tures of the New Testament give these representations of the general state of things in the world during the period between the first and second coming of the Lord; not only do they speak of no general improvement to be expected before the Lord shall come, as the time of His second appearing approaches, but in several passages we have the most formal and didactic statements that “ the last times ” 68 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. shall not be good, but evil times. To this fact we have no exception. Thus in 1 Timothy we read as follows: “The Spirit speaketh expressly that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils.” In 2 Timothy 3 : 1, 5, we read again: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covet. ous, boasters, proud blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce-break- ers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, high minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a furm of god- liness but denying the power thereof.” To the same effect writes also the Apostle Peter, (2 Peter 3: 2,5), wherein he charges the Christians of that day that they ‘‘ be mind- ful” of the words of the prophets on this subject, who had so warned the Church that in the last days there should come “scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, where is the promise of His coming?” So, also, the ' Apostle John declares, in so many words (1 John 2: 18), that the prevalence of many Anti-christs was a sign of the last time. If it be the truth of God that the latter days before the Advent are to be distinguished by a period of universally prevailing holiness, such as is described in the glowing language of the Old Testament Prophets, how are we to account for it that the writers of the New Testa- ment, in all their description of the last times, never once describe them in such terms, but always as times in the last degree perilous to souls? And in view of the expecta- tions which so generally prevail in our day as to the com- ing of a golden age of peace on earth before the coming of the Lord, there is a most solemn significance in the very peculiar emphasis of such phrases as introduce these im- pressive descriptions of the state of the world in the last CHRIST'S COMING: 18 IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 69 days. The Spirit speaketh expressly: “This know, that in the last days perilous times shall come; I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance, that ye may be mind- ful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandments of us, the apostles of our Lord and Saviour.” And can we forget that the Apostle warns the Church that, when at at last the Lord should come, He would find men not expecting Him, but looking forward to years of peace and safety? (1 Thess. 5:8.) Nor can the argument derived from these descrip- tions of the character of the last times be evaded by refer- ring them to that short period after the so-called Millen- nium, when, according to the Scriptures, Satan is to be loosed for a little season, for more than one of these descriptions of the latter days represent evil as continuing to rule throughout all time until the Advent of the Lord. Thus, for example, John, when declaring that the prevalence of many Anti-christs was asign of the last time, tells us, also, that that sign had already begun to be fulfilled in his own day. Of especial importance, in this connection, is the account which the Apostle Paul gives, in 2 Thess. 2 : 1-8, of the rise, development, and final destruction of the apos- tasy and the Man of Sin, as covering the whole time from the date of that epistle to the appearing of the Lord. In that notable passage, he tells the Thessalonians that the mystery of iniquity was already working, even in their day; that something, which he does not precisely indicate, was at that time hindering the full manifestation of the apostasy; that when that hindrance should be taken out of the way, then the Man of Sin would be revealed, and con- tinue his blasphoming and God-defying career until destroyed by the brightness of the coming of the Lord. It will be very clear to all that, if by the phrase, “ the coming of the Lord,” in this chapter, we are to understand His 70 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. personal appearing—which the whole Church expect as certainly in the future—then beyond ali doubt, as the rise, development, and culmination of the apostasy cover the whole time from the date of that epistle to the coming of . the Lord, it is perfectly certain that, during that period, there can be no conversion of the world. Does Paul, then, in this passage certainly refer to the personal appearing of the Lord? In determining the answer to this question, observe first of all that the Greek word parousia, here rendered “ coming,” in every other of the twenty-four places in which it occurs confessedly denotes a real, literal, and not a figurative presence of the person referred to. Thus, for example, in 1 Cor. 16:17, Paul writes that he was “ glad of the coming of Stephanas.” In 2 Cor. 7:7, we read that “some said that the apostle was in bodily presence (parousia) weak. So also it is con- fessedly the word which is elsewhere used to denote the personal return of the Lord to this world, in passages where no one has ever claimed that there was the slightest ambig- uity. Thus we read in 1 Cor. 15:23, that “the dead in Christ shall rise from the dead at His coming.” In the first epistle to the Thessalonians the word occurs four times, and in each instance it is admitted to refer to the personal advent of the Lord. In 1 Thess. 4:15 and 23, it is used in connection with the apostle’s statements as to the resur- rection of the righteous and the translation of the living ~at the Coming of the Lord. In the face of such facts as these, to affirm that the word only refers to a so-called presence or coming of the Lord by the power of His Spirit, is simply to set at naught every rule of sound exegesis. Of this alleged meaning of the word it is safe to say that not a single example can be shown in the whole New Testament. Hence, again, all agree that there can be no Millennium CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 71 of holiness so long as the Jewish Nation remains cast out in unbelief. Do the Scriptures say anything upon that subject which may throw any light upon the question before us? In Matt. 24:15-20, all agree that we have a prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and the consequent scattering of the Jews among all nations, which has been historically fulfilled. And it is important to bear in mind that the prediction in question, which our Lord calls the “ great tribulation,’ comprised not only the destruction of the Jewish capital, as is often assumed, but, according to Luke’s account of the same discourse (Luke 21:24), was to continue, and is, in fact, still continuing in the “Treading down of Jerusalem by the Gentiles, till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.” Keeping this in mind, we are now prepared to understand the words in Matthew’s gospel, which tell us in so many words that “Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and then shal! all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory.” That the coming of the Son of Man here referred to can not be the so-called providential coming of the Son of Man in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman armies, as some have maintained, is plain, from the simple fact that the coming here spoken of is expressly said to be after the destruction of Jerusalem, and, indeed, after the whole long tribulation of the centuries, and, therefore, can not be the same thing. Nay, it follows from the very terms of the prophecy, that this Coming, of whatsoever sort it be, must still be in the future. In fact, it were easy to show that this phrase, the Coming of the Son of Man in the clouds of heaven, first used in the book of Daniel, has a meaning perfectly definite and fixed. Itis by com- mon consent the phrase which is everywhere used to denote 72 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. the future personal advent of the Lord for judgment. And hence it seems unavoidably to follow that whenever the long captivity of Israel shall end—as to the time of which the passage gives us not the slightest hint—immediately after that shall appear the solemn signs which at last announce the near appearing of the Son of Man. Where, then, according to this passage, does this prophecy leave any room for centuries of universal righteousness after Israel’s conversion, and before the appearing of the Son of Man? Once again, instead of representing the Kingdom of Christ as triumphant in the earth before the Coming of the Lord, in several places the word of God explicitly sets forth the triumph of that Kingdom as synchronous with the glorious appearing. We may refer to one notable example. No words of the Scripture are more frequently referred to as precisely expressing the object which every _ Christian heart desires than these—“ the Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.””>, But when we look at the context in which these words occur, we find that this glorious event, instead of taking place centuries before the Coming of the Lord, is expressly said to be synchronous with that event. For we read, Rev. 11:15-18, that it was on the sounding of the seventh trumpet, in which we are elsewhere told that the mystery of God should be finished, that great voices in heaven cried “the Kingdoms of the world are become the Kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ.” Immediately the four and twenty elders gave thanks to God that He had “ taken to Himself His great power and reigned,” and then say “ the nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldst give reward unto Thy servants, the prophets, and to them that fear Thy name, small and great; and shouldst destroy them that destroy the earth.” CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 73 DOCTRINE OF THE PRIMITIVE CHURCH. But the limits of this paper will not permit anything like an exhaustive exhibition of the Scripture testimony upon this subject. As the history of this doctrine is to be presented in another paper, we need only to remark op this occasion that the doctrine which has been argued in this paper, according to the uniform testimony of the best church historians, was the doctrine of the primitive Church. In the first two centuries of the Church’s history, cen- turies distinguished above all others for their record of evangelistic zeal and activity, there is not the slightest hint that the Church was expecting any general conversion of the world to follow as the result of her glorious Jabors and sufferings. A careful comparison of Scripture with Scrip- ture brings us out in accord with the practical belief of the whole primitive Church. Ought not this, whatever difficulties, through our ignorance of the future, may still remain, to lead us to accept the results of that exegesis? Are we not, therefore, bound to conclude that the Advent of the Lord is to be regarded by us always as immediately impeuding, and, therefore, that we are not at liberty to interpose between the present and that event any period of time which shall make the coming of the Lord in our own day a thing impossible? And if this be not a popular doctrine, in the boasting and self-sufficient age in which we live; if, which is still harder, in taking this posi- tion we are compelled to differ with many Christian breth- ren and profound students of the word of God, who are by us, none the less for this difference of opinion, honored and beloved in Christ Jesus, yet it may help us to remem- ber that, on this point, we stand with such men in the Church as Martin Luther, Rutherford, Latimer, with a large part of the divines of the venerable Westminster assembly, and V4 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. many others of equal standing in the Church of Christ. And, if we may be permitted to refer to those who, in our own day, hold to what seems to us to be the primitive and apostolic faith upon this subject, we shall find them not by any means among the ignorant and superficial, but most notably among those who, by common consent, hold the very highest place as learned and devout expositors and preachers of God’s word. We shall find ourselves in such company, for example, as Stier, Auberien, Luthardt and Lange, among the Germans; Professor Godet, of Lausanne, among the French;’ Bishops Trench and Ellicott, Dean Alford, Mr. Spurgeon, and others, among the English; the brothers Andrew and Horatius Bonar, among the Scotch; Van Oosterzee, Professor of Theology in the Uni- versity of Utrecht, among the Dutch—not to speak at this time of well-known names among the living and the dead in our own country. With this we might leave the subject, but perhaps it may not be amiss to refer to two or three of the more com- mon and plausible objections to the doctrine which we have argued. A very common and somewhat influential objection to the doctrine before us is that it “disparages the Gospel,” in that the doctrine of the Pre-Millennial Advent makes the subjection of the world to Christ to be brought about by astupendous display of the Divine wrath on the ungodly. On which has been remarked: “ Wrath never converted a single soul, and never will.” To this it may be remarked in the first place, that the objection rests on a misapprehension. Beyond all question the Gospel heard and received by faith is the only way of a sinner’s salvation, whether in this present dispensation or in any other. Nor, to go further, will any son of man ever receive the Gospel except as he is thereunto disposed and CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNIAL. 75 enabled by the Holy Spirit. But the real question is not upon these matters at all. Here we are all at one. We shall all agree that “wrath never converted a single soul.” The real question is as to the special means which God intends to employ to introduce the Kingdom of His Son. While neither wrath nor the Gospel itself, apart from the energy of the Holy Spirit, can save a man, yet as a matter of tact see that God otten makes use of wrath and various sorrows to awaken men and dispose them under the influ- ences of the Spirit to receive the Gospel in true faith. Now, the Pre-Millennialist simply understands that He intends to bring about the final subjection of the world to the Lord Jesus instrumentally by unprecedented displays of His wrath, and most notably by the revelation of the Lord in flaming fire, taking vengeance on His adversaries. As to what may be the Divine intention in the matter, it is plain that we are not competent to determine this a priort. This is simply a question as to what the word of God reveals on this subject. It will be, for the present, suf- ficient to remark that there is an awful uniformity and emphasis in the numerous representations of the word of God upon this topic. But, it is again urged by many good and earnest Christian men, that it must be admitted that the greatest extrava- gancies and many very grievous errors in doctrine and practice have historically connected themselves with this doctrine of an advent ever possibly imminent. Thus there are many, who, rightly jealous for the integrity of the faith, think that they can see in the train of this doctrine annihilationalism, restorationism, separatism, and a name- less motley brood of such-like hurtful heresies pressing in to disturb the peace and purity of the Church of Christ. They accordingly argue that whatever aman may hold upon this subject, if he is prudent he will hold it in quiet- 76 SECOND OOMING OF CHRIST. ness. All admit that the reception of the doctrine as argued at this time is not essential to salvation. Why, then, not prudently leave the whole question alone? To which we answer—Just because of the extravagancies of which complaint has so justly been made. Had the Church been more faithful of late years in preaching the ascertained truth of the Scriptures concerning this subject, we should have probably had less to mourn over in this matter. As it is, all the more need is there that trained students of the Scriptures, well balanced and settled in the doctrine of the Scriptures and disciplined in the interpretation of the Scriptures, should not leave this most momentous doctrine to be preached only by ignorant, ill-instructed, and fanatical men. For what are the ministers of the word appointed but for the defence of the truth of God from error and misinterpretation? Is it defending the truth, under a mistaken prudence to leave difficult doctrines to be discussed and preached by incompetent men? Because many, for example, pervert the precious doctrine of justifi- cation by faith alone into antinomian licentiousness, are we therefore to be cautious about preaching a free justifica- tion? Is there not all the more need that we preach the truth which is most often and mischievously misunder- stood and thus labor against the abuse of the doctrines of the word of God at the hands of ignorant and fanatical men? Tow are the most of men who have little leisure to study the Bible for themselves, to learn to distinguish the truth of the word of God from the caricatures of that truth, except from the lips of any who, set apart by the Church to study and teach the word, by the grace of God may be enabled to state and hold that truth free from the distortions and perversions of ignorance? With this we conclude our consideration of this most momentous question. In holding the doctrine which we CHRIST'S COMING: IS IT PRE-MILLENNTAL. v7 have argued we admit that many things remain obscure; that many questions may be put which in the present state of our knowledge we may not be able to answer. But, in general, we may urge that this fact does not prove the doctrine not to be taught in the Scriptures. It is of the greatest importance to bear in mind the principle which is laid down by the late venerable Dr. Hodge, p- 527, vol. II, of his Theology: “The only legitimate method of controverting a doctrine which purports to be founded on the Scripture is the exegetical.” Thus in regard to the doctrine of the Pre-Millennial Advent, as every doctrine is affirmed to be taught in the Bible, objectors are bound not merely to make objections and ask hard questions, but in particular to show by the acknowl- edged canons of interpretation, that the passages which have been cited as directly or indirectly forbidding the expectation of an era of universal peace and righteousness before the coming of the Lord, have been misunderstood and misinterpreted. Otherwise they have to show for example how a millennium is possible with an apostasy steadily developing from the days of the Apostles until the “ Brightness of the Lord’s coming.” Or again they have to show how a millennium is possible with the great Jewish Tribulation still continuing, of which we are told that “immediately after its completion the Son of Man is to be seen coming in the clouds of heaven to gather together His Elect.” They have to show how it is possible, if it be really certain that at least a thousand years of universal peace still lies between us and the Advent, for believers to watch for the coming of the Lord. But finally, let us remember that whatsoever our views may be, it must cer- tainly be safe to obey Him who again and again has charged us to “ Watch, because we know not the day nor the hour when the Son of Man cometh.” To this may the Lord give us all His grace. 78 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. THE FIRST RESURRECTION. BY THE REV. DR. A. J. GORDON, OF THE CLARENDON STREET BAPTIST CHURCH, BOSTON, MASS. Tuere are two distinct and radically opposite theories concerning the order of the resurrection, viz.: the theory which maintains that all the dead, the righteous and the unrighteous, will be raised at the same time; and secondly, the theory which holds that the faithful dead only will rise at the coming of Christ, those who have died in unbelief remaining under the power of death for a thousand years longer, at the expiration of which time they in turn will be raised up and brought to judgment. In brief, the first theory is that of one resurrection, embracing as its subjects all who have died from the beginning of the world to the hour of the sounding of the last trumpet; and the second, that of two resurrections, distinctly separated in time, and totally different, both in respect to their subjects and their issues. It will be the aim of this paper to show the ground on which the latter view rests, and to defend with what ability we may be able to command, the theory which it presents. It being purely a question of interpretation, we shall make our appeal solely to the word of God, though we might commend the doctrine very strongly by showing its anti- quity and arraying the great names from all ages and branches of. the Church who have lent to it the sanction of their scholarship. The first passage which we shall con- sider is that in Rev. 20:4-6: And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not wor- THH FIRST RESURRECTION. 79 shipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received Ads mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years, But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy zs he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him a thousand years. Now, it would seem on the face of it that here is an unmistakable statement of two distinct resurrections of the dead, with a thousand years between, in which risen saints reign with Christ. But by a large class of inter- preters this is denied. It belongs to a book that is highly figurative, it is said, and, therefore, the statement must be taken in a strictly figurative sense. Hence the whole scene has been spiritualized, the death, the resurrection and the reign with Christ, and the representation made to apply not to bodily resurrection at all, but to the quicken- ing from the death of sin. Not for the sake of controversy, but in order to present. in the fairest and most candid way the view of the passage most commonly held by the believers in one resurrection, I transcribe the comment of Bishop Wordsworth on the text as given in his Lectures on the Apocalypse. If we shall succeed in answering him we shall have answered the largest and best class of anti-literal interpreters.* He says on the passage: First let us observe that the words are not spoken of the bodies of the saints but of their souls. “I saw the souls of them who have been beheaded for the witness of Jesus.’ This must be carefully borne in mind, because the error of the Millennarians is mainly due to a neglect of this distinction. They imagine a bodily resurrection, whereas St. John speaks of a spiritual one. Secondly, it is not said in the original that their souls lived again, but that they lived and reigned with Christ. * He quotes Bishop Andrews, Archbishop Leighton, Lightfoot, and others as holding the same view. 80 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. It is clear, then, that what is here said is spoken not of a corporeal, but of a spiritual resurrection. Thirdly, it is not said that Christ reigns with his saints, but that they reign with Him. He is in heaven and will there remain till He comes to judge, when all true believers will be caught up to meet Him in the air. Therefore, what is here said is spoken not of an earthly but of a heavenly resurrection. And what pow is the spiritual resurrection of the Christian? * * * * * Our natural condition is one of death. By nature we are spiritually dead; but Christ, who is the prince of life, hath quickened us who are dead in trespasses and sins. Therefore, our first or spiritual resurrection is our death to sin and new birth into righteousness—it is our engrafting into the true vine, our incorporation into the body of Christ.’ Lec- tures on the Apocalypse, pp. 58-9. We wish, against this interpretation, to show why, in our view, the first resurrection, as here described, must be lit- eral and corporeal, and not spiritual. And in doing so we would emphasize just the points that Dr. Wordsworth emphasizes. First—John saw “the souls of them who had been beheaded.” As the word, remetexcouérw beheaded, unhappily ean not be spiritualized, we clearly have men literally dead as the subjects of the quickening. And, therefore, we infer at once that the quickening is a literal quickening. When, as in the Epistle to the Ephesians, we have men described as “dead in trespasses and sins,” and then are told that these have been “ quickened together with Christ,” we infer immediately and rightly that a spiritual revivifica- tion has taken place, because the condition on which the change took effect was spiritual. And so here, the condi- tion of literal death having been so unmistakably pointed out, the inference is immediate and inevitable that the quickening is a literal and corporeal quickening. Secondly—It is agreed that we have disembodied spirits as the subject of the vision, and we are told that these lived. We infer this meant that they lived literally in reunion with their bodies; because this word szoa is THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 81 never applied, in any instance that we can discover in the New Testament, to the soul in its disembodied state, while it is constantly used to describe that reanimation by which the soul is united again to its tabernacle of flesh. In say- ing that the word is not used of the spirit disembodied, we do not mean to intimate the Scriptures teach the non-exist- ence of souls in the intermediate state, or their cessation from consciousness. But the truth would seem to be that the words “life” and “live,” as employed in the Scrip- tures, belong to man in his complex condition as possessed of spirit and body united in one, and are not applied to him in his imperfect dissevered state. We havea striking illus- tration of this idea, in our Lord’s discussion with the Sad- ducees in regard to the Resurrection. They held that there is no resurrection of the body. He replies: ‘If this were so, God could not be called the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob. For He is not a God of the dead but of the living.” Abraham’s soul continued indeed in a con- scious existence, but as Stier puts it, ‘“ Abraham’s soul is not the entire Abraham, and without the body Abraham is not entirely living. Abraham must be raised, therefore, before he can be strictly said to live. So that as we have said the word &noav can not, according to Scripture usage, be ap- plied to man while dispossessed of the body. That the word is employed to denote physical reanimation in contrast from death, a multitude of passages show, ¢. g., Acts 25-27. And, moreover, the cognate verb éwomoi, is the word that runs all through 1 Cor. 15 to signify resurrec- tion from the dead. So we affirm that, if there were noth- ing else to determine the meaning of the passage, the usus loquendi of this verb of itself would fix it as teaching a literal resurrection. Thirdly—Suppose, however, that there were still such obscurity in the statement as to render it impossible clearly 6 82 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. to determine its meaning. We find immediately following an explanatory clause, which defines and fixes this mean- ing—*abry » dvécracic } rpdtn.” ‘© This is Resurrection, the First.”” Here is one of the few instances found in the Apocalypse where the Spirit interprets His own words, tell- ing us explicitly what they are meant to convey. For cer- tainly no word is more definite in its siynification than this word ddcrac, It oceurs forty-two times in the New Testament, and, with one exception, where it is used in its strictly etymological sense [This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel,” Luke 2:34], it always signifies the resurrection of the body. It is nota little strange that Bishop Wordsworth should have overlooked this fact when so confidently identifving this passage with those in Colossians and Ephesians where a spiritual quick- ening is spoken of. The term dvéoraow is used in none of those instances, nor in any other instance in the New Test- ament to denote spiritual quickening. Hence we affirm that the use of the word here, as defining the previous clause, fixes the meaning of the passage beyond question as ° teaching a literal corporeal resurrection. Fourthly—lIt will be noted that we have in the text two resurrections contrasted. In a passage closely connected, a distinction is drawn between one class, who live at first, and another class who do not live till a thousand years sub- sequent. In the latter case, from the immediate connec- tion of the statement with the judgment scene, the opened books, the sea giving up its dead, and the dead, small and great, standing before God, the conclusion is inevitable that the reference is to a literal resurrection. Bishop Words- worth admits this, as do all the authorities whom he quotes in defence of his view. And maintaining that the first resurrection is spiritual, therefore he has the difficult task before him of showing how two things which differ entirely THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 83 in their meaning, can be described in the same connection by identical language; so that in interpreting the passage we must pass from the spiritual to the literal and from the literal back to the spiritual again, with nothing in the terms to indicate or even suggest the transition. This we believe is too adventurous a feat of exegesis for any one to succeed in. It does such extreme violence to the natural and mpst obvious uses of language, that we believe it were far easier to run the spiritual interpretation entirely through the chapter, than to attempt to use words in such a flexible and double sense. The two resurrections are so distinctly contrasted and their descriptions so intimately blended and interlaced, that we believe it is well nigh im- possible to take them in such opposite senses. The meaning of the one fixes the meaning of the other. And to impose a directly opposite meaning on them, can hardly fail to awaken a suspicion of arbitrariness against the interpreter, or of a divided allegiance between the obvious sense of the language and a certain required sense. Fifthly—-We call especial attention to the manner in which this whole Apocalyptic scene is introduced: “TI saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the bottomless pit,” ete. So generally has this been taken as referring to Christ that Bishop Wordsworth says too strongly, “This angel, it is confessed by all, is none other than Jesus Christ, the angel of God’s presence, the angel of the covenant.” But when does Christ come down from heaven? Put this passage with that in Thessalo- nians 4:16, the prediction of Christ’s return to raise His saints, “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven,” says Paul. “I saw an angel descending from heaven,” says the revelator, the words in the Greek being precisely the same. And if you say that the angel does not refer to Christ, but is to be taken as a literal angel, which we are 84 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. inclined to admit, then remember that in Thessalonians an angel is represented as accompanying Christ in His descent to earth. “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” In either case the coincidence of language is so striking as to identify the two scenes almost beyond a question. We have thus given five arguments for the literal interpreta- tion of the passage, any one of which, it would seem, ought to be sufficient to establish the point. And if we have answered Bishop Wordsworth’s theory we answered all others of the same class; for to prove that the two resurrections are literal is to prove that they can not be spiritual —whether in the sense which we have been con- sidering or in any other sense. It only remains now for us to identify in a word the subjects of these resurrections respectively, and then we shall pass on to consider other texts. The words “blessed and holy ” applied to those first raised from the dead, and the words “the second death” as described by the doom of those afterward raised, would appear to fix beyond question the two parties as embracing the righteous dead on the one hand and the wicked dead on the other. But it has been said that, admitting the first resurrection to be literal, it only proves the awaking of the martyrs from their tombs, since it is predicted only of those who have been “beheaded for the witness of Jesus.” To which we reply, that if we have identified the “first resurrection” here mentioned, with “the resurrection of the just,” men- tioned in other Scriptures, we know outside of this passage and independently of it who its subjects are. “The dead in Christ,” whom the Apostle names as rising first at the appearing of the Lord; and “they that are Christ’s at His coming,” whom he elsewhere names as the subjects of the THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 85 same resurrection, every one, we suppose, concedes to mean all the sainted dead who shall be in the grave when the Lord comes. So that if “the first resurrection,” described in the Apocalypse, is the same as the resurrection of the saints at the Parousia which is elsewhere described, the subjects must be the same, viz.: all the faithful dead. And thus by supplementing Scripture with Scripture, we supply whatever knowledge our text fails to give in regard to the participants in the resurrection scene. Summing up the whole passage, then, and bringing it into connection with the twelfth verse of the same chapter, when the “ rest of the dead ” appear in judgment—* I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God,” we see how distinctly the dead are separated in their rising and destiny. There are the dead who live, and the dead who do not live till a thousand years later. There are the dead who sit with Christ on His throne, and reign with Him; there are the dead who stand before the throne to be judged. There are the dead who have immortal bodies; since upon them “ the second death hath no power.” ‘There are the dead who have mortal bodies, since they are cast into the lake of fire, which is the second death. And, as clearly as we discern these two distinct classes, so clearly do we see a thousand years stretching between their resurrections, and putting them as wide apart, in the time of their rising, as in the character and destiny of that rising. The next passage which we shall consider is found in 1 Cor. 15:21-25. “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order; Christ the first fruit, afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming. Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the Kingdom to God even the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.” 86 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Hereis,in the first place, the statement of the universality of the resurrection, ‘As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.” ‘Then the assertion is qualified— éxaotog O& év TH idi réyyate— but every ian in his own order ”—réyya meaning band, cohort or division. The word is a military term, and is applied for example to a brigade or division of an army. So we have the figure of a resurrection host, coming forth in solemn and stately march from the grave, the head of the column having already appeared, and every one of the dead to follow, each marshalled in the corps or grand division to which by his character and works he belongs. Then besides this intima- tion that there will be different bands in the army of the quickened, there follows a statement of their order and sequence—Arapy) Xporic “Christ the beginning. ‘arapyy corresponding evidently to the réyga. This is his rank, “who is the beginning the first born from the dead, that in all things he might have the pre-eminence.” He is alone; the captain of our salvation, leading the van, in himself a Host. Then comes the next division—érea o! rod Xporov—* Afterward, they that are Christ’s at His coming.” These are unquestionably identical with those mentioned in the epistle to the Thessalonians. “ ‘Lhe dead in Christ shall rise first,” and the same we believe as those in Revelation, who receive the benediction. Now, the question may be asked concerning this passage, how do we know that this enumeration of the companies and classes embraced in the resurrection does not refer simply to the consecutive order, without indicating any necessary separation in the time of the resurrection? In reply to this question we would call attention to the par- ticles of sequence here employed—érera and &ra. We think that after having, by the use of réyua, pointed out the fact that there would be divisions in the resurrection THE FIRST RESURRUOTION. 87 host—by the use of these particles the Scripture points out also the fact that there would be considerable spaces of time between the respective divisions: “ Every man in his own order: Christ the first fruits ‘arapyy—afterward, érera “they that are Christ’s at His coming ’—then or next cira “Cometh the end.” Now, since érera marks a period, as we know, of at least nearly two thousand years, the time between the Lord’s resurrection and that of His Disciples, is it not natural to infer simply on etymological grounds that its correlative era marks a considerable period. Also compare the uses of these particles in other passages. Take the instance found in five verses of the same chapter: “ He was seen of Cephas then eira of the twelve: after that érera He was seen of above five hundred brethren at once: after that érera He was seen of James, then elra of all the Apostles.” We know that in all these cases, purticles mark distinct and separate occurrences with considerable intervals of time between; and we judge as a rule such intervals will be somewhat proportionate to each other according to the scale on which they are measured. And since in the instance in question the first interval is known to bealong one, it is fair to presume that the second will be, also. But is there any thing in this passage, which, by com- parison with other passages, will enable us to infer a dis- tinct period between the resurrection of those that are Christ’s at His coming and that of others who come forth afterward ? We reply: . We can not find a solution of the matter in the words elra rd redoe When taken by themselves, because they might mean the end of the present age, or the end of the mil- lennial age, according to the theory which we hold of the dispensations. But these words are defined and limited. “Then cometh the end when He delivers up the Kingdom to the Father.” We are told distinctly, in the Revelation, 88 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. that the saints will “live and reign with Christ.” It would be most extraordinary if they should reign with Him after He has delivered up the Kingdom. And yet we must accept this conclusion if we take the end here referred to to be the end of the present dispensation as the deniers of two resurrections hold; or else we must take it that this reign of the saints has already begun, which certainly can not be, since they are risen saints that share in it. If we- accept the exposition as correct which we have given of Rev. 20, all is clear. The faithful dead rise at the Coming of the Lord; this is the first resurrection. ‘And they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” The rest of the dead live not till the thousand years were finished. Then death and hell gave up the dead that were in them, and they were judged every man according to his works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. “Then cometh the end, when He shall deliver up the Kingdom to the Father; when He shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign till He hath put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” Thus not only does the Apocalypse harmonize exactly with the Epistle to the Corinthians, but supplements and explains it. In its revelation of a thousand years between the first and second resurrection, it gives us the time marked by the cir, in the 15th chap. of Corinthians, or the space between the second and third divisions of. the resurrection host. And thus we find the end to be synchronous with the period of the living again of “the rest of the dead.” We wish now to call attention to a class of passages which are marked by this peculiarity, that they seem to represent the resurrection of believers as eclectic and special. It is plain, if the doctrine which we have drawn from the texts already considered is correct, that the subjects of THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 89 the first resurrection are called out from the general mass of the dead, or, in other words, that the idea of priority in the rising of the righteous involves necessarily the idea of their being gathered out from among the great company of those who have died. And certainly there is nothing in this conception at variance with the general tenor of God’s dealings.* The doctrine of election, which we pro- fess to hold, should not be a mere abstraction of theology; an article of faith which we find it necessary to adopt in order to insure a consistent and scriptural body of Divinity, while we ignore and deny its practical applica- tion. It is perhaps the most solemn and awful of all Scrip- tural revelations. It certainly can only be discussed and preached effectively by us in those rare states of mind when the exquisite balance has been reached between ten- der adoration of the sovereignty and holiness of God, and pathetic sympathy with the helplessness and sinfulness of man. ‘ Who has not known passion, cross and travail of death,” says Luther, “can not treat of this theme without injury to man or enmity to God.” While, therefore, it is the instinct of the truest piety to leave God to carry out what belongs wholly to the domain of His will, it should be equally the care of an exact and loyal theology to note the application of this principle at the various stages of redemption and to speak accordingly. Thus we speak very constantly of our missionary enterprises as destined to con- vert the heathen nations to Christ. The Holy Spirit says. that God hath visited the Gentiles “to take owt of them a people for His name jefe és thrdv raw (Acts 15: 14.) *“To grant a particular resurrection, before the general, is against no article of faith; for the Gospel tells us that at our Saviour’s resurrec- tion ‘the graves were opened and many bodies of saints which slept arose and went into the Holy City, and appeared to many.’ And how it doth more impeach any article of our faith to think that may be true of martyrs which we believe of patriarchs I yet see not.” [Mede, Works p. 770.] 90 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. We speak about the world being converted and brought to Christ. The Lord said to His first disciples what he says to us, and what we will say we believe to the last that shal] be converted under this dispensation. “ Ye are not of this world, but I have chosen you out of the world, égerctauy dude éx Tod Kdcpov (John 15: 19.) We speak of Christ as coming at the last day to a race that has been redeemed and saved under the preaching of its Gospel. Christ, in speaking of that event, says: ‘That the Son of Man will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet to gather together His elect from the four winds,’’ significantly adding that, of two living together side by side on the earth at the same time, “the one shall be taken and the: other left.” We speak of all men being raised up together, at the appearing of the Lord, to bejudged. Christ speaks of those who shall be “accounted worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection out from among the dead.” (Luke 20, 35.) [Tie Gvactdcewg tHe éx veKpau.] Thus throughout the whole extent of God’s dispensations we find this solemn law abiding, and learn that, from the first stage of redemp- tion, the justification of the soul, to the last, the redemption of the body, there is a “calling,” and an “ election,” which we are to strive to make “sure.” In connection with the passage just quoted, take the words of Paul, Phil. 3:11 “I count all things but loss and * * * if by any means I might attain unto the resurrec- tion out from alnong the dead.” [ray eavacraow rH éx vexpav.] The words are very strong in the Greek. We do not see how they can possibly refer to anything else than an eclectic resurrection, a separation and quickening to life out from among the dead. Especially would this seem to be so, when, in addition to the very emphatic language describing the resurrection itself, there is the expression of intense desire and veliement striving to attain it. Why should one THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 91 ‘strive to attain what is inevitable, as Paul’s resurrection must have certainly appeared to be had he held that all men will be raised together? And what can our Lord’s words— “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that age, and the resurrection from the dead” — mean on any other view than that which we are defending ?— the view, viz.: that there is a prior age in which the rising of the saints will take place, and a distinct and special and privileged dispensation of bodily redemption which belongs to them.* And this phase of our argument is set in very strong light by the additional fact that this expression, dvécrace é« vexpav, is so inva- riable throughout the New Testament in its application to Christ as well as to His saints. There is only one instance where the other phrase, avdoracw vexpiv—the general expression for the resurrection of the dead—is applied to our Lord, and that seems to be on account of a special require- ment of the context. He, coming forth from the dead and opening the doors for all believers to come forth with him in the resurrection unto life, is described just as they are, as Tising ex vespov. Hence, very significantly, we find it said in the Acts that the apostles preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead, not the resurrection of the dead. Now we will not dwell on the question whether the eclectic conception is contained in the words to the extent that we have claimed. We find it admitted even by some who oppose the doctrine we are advocating. Olshausen even goes so far as to declare that the “phrase *“ What special meaning,” asks Prof. Stuart, “can this have unless it implies that there is a resurrection where the just only, and not the unjust, shall be raised?’ This expression, as well as the “ every man in his own order”—and the evident “plain prose” character of the pas. sage in Rev. 20, compells the learned man, though a strong post-mille- narian, to concede most fully the doctrine of the first resurrection. Stuart on Apocalypse, I. p. 175-178, 499-379, and II. 856-362, 474. 92 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. would be inexplicable if it were not derived from the idea that out of the mass of the dead some would rise first.” And what if it be affirmed that even in the Old Testa- ment we find distinct traces of the idea of an eclectic and precedent resurrection of the just? The passage in Daniel 12: 2, translated in our common version, “ And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting con- tempt,” is undoubtedly a Messianic prediction concerning the time of the end. This all admit. Some deny, indeed, the application of the passage to a literal bodily resurrec- tion. But we believe with Pusey and Tregelles that the words “sleep” and “ dust of the earth” and “wake” and “everlasting life” connect the passage too closely with the New Testament phraseology to leave much question of that point. Now Tregelles translates the passage as fol- lows, giving us not only the authority of his own accurate scholarship for the rendering, but that of two eminent Rabbis, Saadia Haggion and Eben Ezra, whose explana- tions are quoted at length. “And many from among the sleepers of the dust of the earth shall awake, these (that awake) shall be unto everlasting life; but those (the rest of the sleepers who do not awake at this time) shall be unto shame and everlasting contempt.” Here again, if our authorities are correct, we have the idea of the first resur- rection, with its eclectic and separative character, and its distinct issue in lite, most emphatically set forth. And how solemnly applicable to the literal as well as to the spiritual quickening of men are the words of our Lord: “The dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.” One event awaits mankind: “ Like sheep they are laid in the grave; Death shall feed upon them.” But all will not hear the great first resurrection call. As now, so then, the words of Jesus will be true, “ My sheep hear my THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 93 voice.” As now, so then, only those that have received the spirit of adoption will cry “Abba Father” as the great God shall call to the dead by the mouth of His Son. “If the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you.” That Spirit is the bond of life between Christ and all that sleep in Him and the pledge of their redemption from the grave. The witness, now, of our sonship He is the witness that then we shall be children of the resurrection; responding and waking instantly at the sound of the trumpet. “Thou shalt call and I will answer,” while in “that silence that terrifies thought” the rest of the dead shall sleep on, waiting only in their conscious loss for the Day of Judgment to consummate and manifest their doom. Had we time to take up all the texts bearing on the question, we should wish to notice some passages which represent the resurrection as directly conditioned on faith and regeneration and union with Christ, all which would go to show that the redemption of the body is a distinct inheritance of believers in some sense, and certainly not unlikely in the sense we are claiming. We wish, now, to refer to two texts which have been cited as distinctly and unquestionably contradicting the theory we have advocated. ‘lhe first is in 2 Timothy, 4:1, reading according to the common version: “I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom.” It is said that we have here the living and the dead without distinction or separation, brought together at the coming of Christ. All that need be said in regard to this passage is that, according to the latest text, we have not, xara ry émigavelay “at the appearing,” ete. — but sai. [This is Scholaz’s and Tischendorf’s reading, adopted 94 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. by Alford.] And the words are translated, therefore, according to Alford: “I charge thee before God and Jesus Christ who is about to judge the quick and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom,” ete. This change not only relieves the passage of any seeming contradiction of the doctrine which we are advocating, but makes it bear emphatic support to it. The other text is John 5:28. “Marvel not at this; for the hour is coming in which all that are in their graves shall hear Fis voice, and shall come forth, they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation.” This, it is said, teaches a simultaneous resurrection, since it declares that. in the hour that is coming both classes will come forth to their respective rewards. We answer that, in the first place, we think it is clear that the word hour (da) as here employed, refers to an era or lengthened period of time. This, we know, is not an unusual meaning of the word, as appears by referring to such examples as 1 John 2:18 Rom. 13:11; and, what is more directly to the point, ow Lord had just used the term in this sense in verse twenty fifth: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming and now is when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and they that hear shall live.” This is generally taken to refer to that spiritual quickening under the preach- ing of the Gospel, which began with the time of Christ, and is going on to-day. Therefore, the hour referred to must have continued for at least nearly two thousand years. This is the time for the quickening of the living who are dead in sins. It is evidently synchronous with 1 John 2:18—“It is the last time” [ea]; and covers the whole Gospel dispensation. Next follows, in our Lord’s discourse, a statement in regard to the time of the dead. The two periods are set in contrast, as it would seem. The first, the THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 95. hour of spirituai quickening, had already begun. Hence it is described thus: “The hour is coming and now is.” The second had not yet begun, hence only the words: “The hour is coming” are used with reference to it. Is it not fair to presume that the second era like the first is a prolonged one? We think no one can reasonably deny this. This is the way we take it: At the appearing of the Lord from heaven, the age will open in which ad that are in their graves will come forth; but some at the begin- ning and some at the end of the age. If it be said that it isa strained and unnatural construction, to bring events. which are so far apart, into such immediate juxtaposition, with no intimation of any time lying between them, we reply that it is not at all uncommon in prophecy. Who, for instance, in reading Isaiah’s words concerning the Messiah—“ to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of the vengeance of our Lord” would have imagined that in this single sentence two grand and dis- tinct eras were brought together and spoken of in a breath the era of grace and the era of judgment? But our Lord by His penetrating exegesis, cleft the passage asunder, we remember, as He expounds it in the synagogue, and, break- ing off in the middle of the sentence—“ to preach the accept- able year of the Lord”—He closed the book and sat down, saying: “This day is ¢iis Scripture fulfilled in your ears.” We take it, that, in this prophetic passage of His own, there is a similar conjoining of distant and widely separated acts of the same resurrection drama. _ And we are confirmed in this impression by noting how exactly this passage, with its expressions “resurrection of life,” and the “resurrection of judgment,” corresponds to the passage in the Revelation, these being common points in the two texts—the latter seeming to fill ont in detail what is here presented in outline. And this leads us to remark 96 SHOOND COMING OF CHRIST. that there is perhaps no doctrine of Scripture the references to which are at once so fragmentary and so complemental of each other as this doctrine of two resurrections. Except in the passage in the Revelation it is nowhere presented in a formal and complete statement. But what is very strik- ing is, that almost every scattered allusion to it fits into this passage at some point, confirming its literal signifi- cance, and being itself confirmed by it. Like the famous trilingual inscription on the Rossetta stone, which from having one known language, though it had two unknown ones, gave the clew and interpretation to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, so these scattered texts, from containing some known and unquestioned allusion to the literal resur- rection of the body, furnish a key and confirmation to this much-disputed and, as some say, enigmatical passage of the Apocalypse. For example: All are agreed that John 5: 28, 29, and Luke 20: 36, have reference to the literal rising of the body from the grave. Apply these to Rev. 20:1-6, and note how perfectly they fit it: ‘They that have done good unto the resurrection of life.” (Gospel of St. John.) “They lived and reigned with Christ; this is resurrection the first.” (Apoc.) “ They that shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection trom the dead neither marry nor are joined in marriage, neither can they die any more.” (Luke.) “On such the second death hath no power.” (Apoc.) “They that shall be accounted worthy to obtain the resurrection from the dead.” (Luke.) “ Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resur- rection.” ‘ They that have done evil to the resurrection of judgment” [xpiow] John.) “And they were judged [éxpinoav] every man according to their works.” (Apoc.) We do not see how any candid critic can fail to identify these passages as referring to the same event, the literal resurrection of the body. And putting all these texts THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 97 together we find that one supplies what another omits — the Gospels and Epistles teaching the privilege and pre- eminence attaching to the believer’s resurrection—and the Apocalypse teaching its priority and separateness in time. If now it be asked what is the practical significance of this doctrine, and what its use for Christian edification and hope, we answer, that in order to understand this we must put ourselves back into the position of the early Christians. They seem to have lived with their expectation constantly bent upon the personal reappearing of the Lord. The first resurrection was the immediate and most glorious accom- paniment of this event. Therefore, to keep the command of the absent Lord and to be always watching and waiting for His retarn was to be living in the constant and joyful anticipation of receiving back their sainted dead who were sleeping in Jesus. The difference between their attitude and that which generally prevails nowadays, is this: Now, men wait for death to bring them into the presence and companionship of the departed saints. Then, they waited for the resurrection to bring their blessed dead back to them. Now, they watch for the opening inward of the gate of the grave to let them into the company of the redeemed who, in their unclothed spirit, are with Christ in Paradise. Then, they watched for the opening outward of the gate of the grave that their dead, clothed upon with immortality, might rejoin them in their transformed bodies, and, being caught up together with them to meet the Lord in the air, might be forever with the Lord. The first resurrection being thus inseparably bound up with the Parousia, all the rewards and hopes of discipleship were identified with the personal appearing of the Lord. When his word was heard, “ Behold, I come quickly and my reward is with me,” it was the most exalted and inspiring stimulus to Christian activity and consecration. When his promise was remembered, “Thou q 98 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just,” it was a most quickening and immediate motive to zeal and steadfastness. It can not be denied, we think, that the prevailing habit of our time, so different from the apostolic, of looking for the rewards of our labor so entirely at death, and for the fruition of our hope in that intermediate state to which death introduces us, has put the resurrection into a much lower place than that which it held in the beginning. Indeed, I may say that in the popular apprehension, death has very largely usurped the place that belongs to the resurrection. But death, we must remember, is an enemy. It never was, and never can be, anything but an enemy. It is cruel, repulsive and humbling, “Sin’s great conquest and Satan’s chief work, the fulness of sorrow and affliction, the triumph of corruption, the consummation of the curse.” But how has man learned to idealize this hideous enemy into a good angel! How has he accustomed himself to speak of the grim executor of the penalty of sin as though it were his bony fingers that were commissioned to bring us our reward, and unlock for us the gates of life! How he has canonized him in poetry! “Oh how beautiful is death,” writes Richter, “seeing we die into a world of life!” And the poet Young sings: * Death is the crown of life: Death gives us more than was in Eden lost, The King of Terrors is the Prince of Peace. Indeed, I think it would be no exaggeration to say that, in the apprehension of many Christians, death has been thrust into the place that belongs to Christ himself, and that the crown of welcome which we should ever be wait- ing to put upon the head of Him who at His coming will “swallow up death in victory” is put upon the ghastly THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 99 brow of him who is daily swallowing up life in defeat. “Oh, strange delusion of Satan,” as one has indignantly exclaimed, “ to have made the capital curse of God eclipse the capital promise of God! Satan’s consummated king- dom over the body to take the place in our thoughts which Christ’s consummated kingdom in the body and spirit, even the resurrectiou, was meant to take.” In saying all this we do not ignore the meaning of such passages as “to die is gain,” and “to depart and be with Christ, which is far better,” and “absent from the body and present with the Lord.” Nor do we question for a moment the felicity and blessedness of the disembodied saints. Only when these passages and this state are held up, as they constantly are, as embodying the supreme hope of the Christian, we must put in this caveat from the Word of God: “Not that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.” There can be no question on this point. When we have stood by the grave of Lazarus and listened to Christ’s words to the sorrowing sisters, and when we have heard with what promises St. Paul enforced his exhortation to the Thessalonian Christians that they “sorrow not even as others who have no hope,” it is per- fectly clear what words we are to use in fulfilling the injunction “Wherefore comfort one another with: these words.” Life, not death, is henceforth the believer’s hope; the resurrection, not the grave, is the object of his joyful’ anticipation. And for us to reverse the divine perspective and thrust into the background what God has set so con- spicuously in the foreground is to make sad the hearts whom the Lord has bid to rejoice. But, it may be asked, how does the doctrine of two res- urrections enhance the victory of the blessed over death, above that of one general and promiscuous resurrection? Chiefly in this, that instead of postponing the hour of the 100 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. saints’ triumph to a remote eternity, or placing the scene of death’s subjugation upon the outer and far-off confines of time, it brings it into anear and constantly impending future. It is not that the rising of some of the dead is postponed to a later era than we had thonght, but that the rising of others is brought forward, made a near reward of faith, and the object of immediate comfort and hope. We have, I think, a perfect illustration of this idea in the con- versation of Christ with Martha. ‘To her pathetic words of sorrow and regret over her brother’s death, Jesus answered: “Thy brother shall rise again.” Martha said unto Him: “JT know that he shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day,” her thought seeming to be this: “ Yes, at the last day; but that is a great way off, that is a long time to wait.”* Jesus said unto her: “Iam the Resurrection and the Life. And since I, who have power to raise the dead, am standing here, thou hast not to wait. Even now this great miracle is possible since I am here.” I apply the lesson of the Master to present times. I attempt to com- fort a sorrowing group of mourners with the hope of the resurrection. ‘lhey have never heard of but one resurrec- tion, as thousands have not. And when I say to them, “Thy brother shall rise again,” they reply, sadly, “Oh, yes, at the last day; but that is so far away. The world must be converted first; and then a Millennium of a thou- sand years must elapse before the event can take place. It is such a remote hope.” Butno! I say, Christ is “the Resurrection and the Life.” “The last day,” indeed! but it is the morning star that ushers in the day, and He is “the bright and morning star.” It is the sun that brings the day-dawn. And He is “the Sun of Righteousness.” You have not to wait for the world’s conversion, or for the lapse of a Millennium to bring in the longed-for hope, but * Stiers’ Words of the Lord Jesus, VI., 26. THH FIRST RESURRECTION. 101 only “ till the day-dawn and the day-star arise.” And that may be to-morrow, so far as we know. “ Quickly ” is His promise concerning His coming, and every sign of His appearing is a token from your beloved dead that they will soon rejoin you. In every sound of his approaching footsteps you hear the footfalls of your sainted ones rising up to meet Him as He comes. Say not concerning the child whom you have lost as David said: “I shall go to him but he shall not return to me.” A better hope than this is yours. Say rather, it is possible that even to-mor- row my child may return to me. For the Master saith, “ Behold, I come quickly;” and we know that when Jesus comes, God will bring with Him those that sleep in Jesus. Thus the faith that intensifies and makes real the personal and imminent appearing of the Lord, intensifies the hope of the resurrection, and makes it a practical and immedi- ate ground of consolation. It is useless to say that it is the character alone of the saints’ resurrection, not its priority, that gives it its inspir- ation. That expression that has passed into popular usage, “the morning of the resurrection,” tells more than is gen- erally thought of by those who use it. “I will raise him up at the last day,” Christ says again and again when announcing the rewards of discipleship. But that last day —that Millennial day, has a morning and an evening. Shall we be content to wait till the twilight of that day; till the shadows of impending judgment have begun to gather before we hear our summons to come forth from the grave, satisfied if only our rising be to life and not to con- demnation? Nay, but the Scriptures stir us to emulation by a “better resurrection” than this. Of Christ’s rising we are told that, “very early in the morning ” the disciples came to the sepulchre and found the stone rolled away and the Saviour’s body gone! So we believe it will be in that 102 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. glorious thousand-year day, to which we hasten—“ very early in the morning,” while yet the great careless world is sleeping on, and only the faithful watchers have sighted the morning star ‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,” the great transaction will have been accomplished, and of the dead sleeping side by side in the grave, as well as of the living sleeping side by side in bed, one will have been taken and another left. Inexpressibly solemn is the thought concerning those who are lett behind, but unspeak- ably glorious concerning those who have been taken. The reward so much earlier as well as more glorious than we have dreamed of ! The crown so much sooner as well as brighter than we have imagined! The devout Lavater meditating on this thought exclaims: “How inexpressibly animating to the best exercise of our moral powers must this idea be; to be a thousand years sooner in the enjoy- ment of the full fruition of the blessed. So much earlier—a thousand years earlier—to enjoy personal fellowship with the lovely Saviour, and the noblest of the human family and along with Jesus, the prophets and apostles to superintend the immediate concerns of the Godhead to be already raised, together with Christ on the Great Morning of the general judgment, and triumph over death and be occupied in the judgment of the world; to shine opposite the families of these rising from the dead, and among the unnumbered millions of the heavenly inhabitants; that is a happiness which none other than an insensible, creeping soul can view with unconcern, and can think unworthy of his most zealous strivings.’”’* * Referring to the words of thiseminent man, reminds us of the testi- mony of others on the point indicating how far this idea is from being novel or modern. Chrysostom says, “The just shall rise before the wicked that they may be first in the resurrection, not only in dignity, but in time.” (Comment on 1 Thess. 4:15.) Jeremy Taylor says: “ The resurrection shall be universal; good and bad shall rise; yet not all together; but first Christ—then they that are Christ’s—and then there is another resurrection, etc. Seven on 1 Cor. 15-23. Toplady says: “I am one of those old fashioned people who believe the doctrine of the Millennium and that there will be two distinct resurrections cf the dead; first of the just, and second of the unjust; which last resurrection of the reprobate will not commence till a thousand years afier the resur- rection of the elect.”— Works Vol. III. p. 470. See also, Van Oosterzee’s Dogmatics Vol. II. p. 786; Christlieb, “ Modern Doubt,” p. 452; Olshausen on 1 Cor. 15-23. Lange on Rev. pp. 3438, 845. Auberlin on Daniel, pp. 65, 67, 830, 331, 332. THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 103 The power of the first resurrection, then, as a doctrine, rests on a close and inseparable connection of the event with the coming of the Lord. It can be shorn of this power in two ways: First, by detaching the resurrection from the second personal Advent of Christ. And it ought, we think, to be the occasion of serious solicitude that this is done to so great an extent among orthodox theologians of the present day. Not infrequently have we heard preachers assert that the Christian receives his resurrection body immediately at death; not infrequently have we heard ministers stand- ing over the coftin pronounce the words, “ He is not here, he is risen,” thus actually identifying death with resurrec- tion—a doctrine we are free to say which not only bears no appreciable resemblance to the teaching of St. Paul, but is too strikingly like that of Hymeneus and Philetus “who, concerning the truth, have erred, saying that the resurrec- tion is past already, and overthrow the faith of some.” It is easy, however, to trace the genesis of this false doctrine. The resurrection being so clearly set forth in Scripture as the ground of hope concerning the dead, the perplexity arises of making it a practical hope while connected with a Post-Millepnial Advent, since that Advent can not be brought nearer than a thousand years at least. And so, in order to make the resurrection an immediate ground of comfort, it is cut loose from its connection with the Advent, and brought forward to the nearer event of one’s dissolu- tion, and thus the hour of one’s dying is made the hour of his rising from the dead, and by the illusions of rhetoric, as well as by floral decorations, it is attempted to disguise the odors of corruption, and change them into the fragrance of the resurrection. But how clearly and unquestionably is this event linked in Scripture to the second coming of Christ. Itis not by the power of the Son of Man alone 104 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. that this great transaction is to be effected, but by “the power and coming of Jesus Christ.” As in the raising of Lazarus, which we hold to be typical of the final scene, the Lord did not put forth His quickening power from a dis- tance but came in person to the place of burial, and cried with a loud voice, “ Lazarus, come forth.” So it will beat the resurrection of all the blessed. “The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the Archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first.” 1 Thess. 4:16. And when the trumpet shall have thus sounded at the descending of the Lord, and when the dead shall have been raised incorrupt- ible, and “ when this corruptible shall have put on incor- ruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then,” says the Scripture, shall be brought to pass the say- ing that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” And we must emphasize this word then. Until then, how- ever, the bitterness of death may be assnaged, and however his terrors may be mitigated he is victor over the body, not the vanquished. And let who can shout “ victory,” the grave opens, and the darkness and corruption creep on, and the touch of the icy hand is laid upon the brow; but we are sure that the Scriptures do not require us to commit such a solecism. None can long more than we do to raise that shout, but we must wait till the sound of the trumpet gives the signal; and when the Lord Himself descends from heaven with a shout, then we expect to shout, as we rise to meet Him, “O Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where is thy victory ?” And, again, as we have already intimated, the power of the first resurrection as an influential motive may be weakened by putting the Advent afar off, “by thrusting it from the foreground to the background of the picture, by massing it up with the shadows of eternity instead of THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 105. bringing it prominently forward into the clear field of time; by reducing it to a late effect instead of an early cause in the great history.” It is impossible that men should feel the power of an event which is certainly remote, as they do one that is even possibly near. Push the event of Christ’s return across the period of a thousand years, and by no possibility can it continue to be an event of such startling and solemn interest as when it is known that it may be very nigh. And that which diminishes the power of the Advent diminishes the power and influence of all the events that attend it. And so we give expression to this earnest wish, that if our gathering together in this Conference shall not impress Christians with the duty of fixing their eyes more strongly on the coming of Christ as the great hope of the Church, it shall at least lead them to divide their interest more proportionately between the two elements of that double theme of prophecy—* the sufferings of Christ and the glory that shall follow.’? Profoundly holding that we are nearer to the glory than to the sufferings, we would that that glory were rising on our larger vision, and daily kindling more and more our hope and expectation. Why should it be deemed only safe to speak of the Lord’s epiphany as a far-off event, and only perilous and fanatical to think of it as nigh even at our doors? Surely it is the expectation, not the putting away of that event, that is most conducive to our preparation for it. And we know not that Matthew Henry has put it too strongly in saying that “our looking at Christ’s second coming as at a dis- tance is the cause of all those irregularities that render the thought of tt terrible to us.” At all events we wish that it were possible for the Church to keep the Second Advent as near to her spiritual consciousness as she keeps the first, and that as by the reminiscence of a historic faith “Jesus Christ is evidently set forth crucified among us,” so by the 106 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. transfiguration of a prophetic faith He might be constantly beheld appearing to us with His saints in glory. Surely there is enough of sorrow and woe in the present evil world to make us long for His coming; and enough in the promises and admonitions which He has left behind to made us hope for it. “The night is far spent, the day is at hand.” At each succeeding watch we hear the ringing challenge of the great Sentinel, “ Behold I come quickly.” As watchmen keeping guard with Him over the city of God on earth, we at least ought to be wakeful enough to give back the answer, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus,” and faithful enough to believe that in doing so we are sounding no meaningless watchword and putting up no useless prayer. I close, by holding up before your eyes the glowing beatitude with which my theme is crowned. ‘“ Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.” In that resurrection is the consummation of our dearest hopes, both in respect to Christ and. his mystical body. If in the midst of prevailing error and darkness we shall unhappily lose sight of this hope, or displace it by some other, let us remember that not only the Word of God, but even dumb, inarticulate nature will rebuke us. For resurrection is nature’s hope as well as man’s. “For we know that the whole anor papeners and travaileth in pain together until now.’ : “ Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the oe tion of the body.”—Rom. 8: 22. And how has nature, as though struggling to utter her hope, been silently preaching of the resurrection since the world began? Poets and preachers alike have delighted to dwell on the countless types and analogies which she offers of this great truth—in the flower springing up from the seed which has fallen into the earth and died; in the morn- THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 107 ing opening the vast grave of night and summoning a sleeping world to rise and meet the sun “as he cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber;” in the Spring- tide, calling the earth from the tomb of Winter, loosing her shroud of snow, and clothing her with life and beauty; in all these what joyful parables and prophecies are there — of aresurrection! But let us observe this fact, that so feeble are the voices of nature, compared with those of Scripture, that she has been able to tell us absolutely nothing of our resurrection—the first resurrection. She tells of a resur- rection to be followed inevitably by death. For the flower that blooms to-day fades and dies to-morrow; the morning that dawned to-day will sink into the grave of night again in a few brief hours; and the earth that decked herself with Springtide flowers will soon be wrapped again in Winter’s winding-sheet of snow. And so nature, while she kindles our hopes mocks them by telling ever of a second death. But we turn to Christ, who has brought life and immortality to light in the Gospel, and what a glorious revelation meets us. ‘“ Knowing that Christ, being risen from the dead, dieth no more, death hath no more domin- ion over Him.” And that is not all; we are to have part in His resurrection. ‘ Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power.” Rev. 20:6. “ Werther can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” 108 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. THE REGENERATION. BY REY. CHAS. K. IMBRIE, D.D., OF JERSEY CITY. I am to speak of “The Regeneration ” or “ The Restitution of all things” foretold in the Scripture. It is a great subject; weighty and most interesting. It comprehends the grand result to which all else is but preliminary, the outcome of the promise made in Eden, that the ruin caused by Satan and sin should be fully repaired. It is also a very difficult subject. To prove clearly from God’s word a single step in the process toward its accomplishment, may be done with comparative ease. To show conclusively from the Scripture that the personal and visible coming of the Lord is plainly to precede and introduce the Millennial reign and “the Regeneration ” of all things, is a most important step and opens indeed the door. But behind that door there yet remains the glory beyond—the finished purpose of God in redemption, so far as it is portrayed in the Scripture. And to exhibit this finished redemption, as it shines in the bright lustre of “the world to come whereof we are to speak,”’ and when all is, at last, made new, needs painstak- ing indeed. One must speak with carefulness and modesty. Above all does it need this care, where long cherished pre- judgments are to be met and overcome, and men are, if possible, to be brought back from an interpretation which is supposed to exalt this glory by substituting a dim, unde- fined, though protessedly spiritual, meanin g for the Scripture portrait of this scene, to the acceptance of the plain and natural sense of God’s own words. The anticipation of some sort of blissful change to come THE REGENERATION. 199 upon this sad and sinful earth after its long continued storms and sorrows is, in one form or another, very general. Even those who despise God’s word and rely on human prognostications or scientific researches for their date, pro- phesy with greater or less distinctness of meaning a future Millennium. This belief is indeed so general that the coming of the Millennium has even passed into a current newspaper phrase. With all those who take God’s word for their guide, the expectation of such a time of coming blessedness, in some form, is universal. But what is to be the character of the change? How far is it to affect this earth and the race? What are its attendants and its time? On these points there is the greatest diversity of belief. And yet every one must see that there can be but one true view of the case. For God’s thoughts and plan in this matter are fixed and not changeful or doubtful; and all things are shaping, in the hands of the King, to bring in just the result He has all along intended and none other. It is impossible that a millennium on the earth, and no millennium at all, can be foretold in the Scripture. There can not be two sorts of a “Regeneration” foretold in the Scripture. If the plain meaning of the Scripture then foreshadows a Regen- eration of this earth and of the race upon it, no evapora- tion of the force of the language under a plea for spiritual significations, as being more worthy, can justly put it aside. If the grammatical sense of Scripture portrays the distinct features of such a Regeneration upon the earth, no process of interpretation can justly dissolve these realities and substitute for them, something shadowy and indefinite. God’s thoughts are always best. God’s plans for this earth are best. And certainly He is competent, when He gives us a revelation, to reveal by the language which He uses and not to hide or merely set us a guessing. ° 110 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Surely God is competent and willing to state to our com- prehension just what He means us to expect on the earth, Every one must see, too, how vastly important it is to the church’s peace and patience of faith and hope and joy to get the rivht view. No painstaking can be too great that will lead to this result. For, if God condescends (as He does in His prophetic word) to outline for us His one only design for the earth and its race, how inexcusable must be the slothful indifference which contents itself with ignorant neglect or with mistaken notions under the plea of difficulty in searching into the inspired testimonies. Let no one suppose from this great diversity of views that the Scripture expressions concerning this event are meagre or doubtful. On the contrary, they are very strik- ing and comprehensive. They arrest attention at once. To say nothing just now of the vivid pictures of that bright future day drawn in the Old Testament, and in which the various features of the time are grouped together; the terms used in the New Testament are very strong. It is called first a “ Regeneration” (madyyevecia—Matt. 19: 28) a new creation, a second birth—Palingenesia. Surely this implies a vast and comprehensive and thorough change, and a change on the earth. Again: It is so vast and comprehensive that the whole creation is depicted as groaning and travailing in pain, waiting to be admitted into “the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Rom. 8: 21, 22.) And it is represented as so glorious, that even believers also with the first, fruits of the Spirit are groaning and waiting for this day; the day of the redemption of the body; when they shall be “manifested to be the sons of God.” (Rom. 8: 19-23.) It is called by the Apostle Peter a “ Restitution of all things,” (Acts 8: 21) implying that there is no depart- ment of creation that has been impaired which shall not feel the influence of the restitution. ‘ THH REGENERATION. 111 It is represented both by the Old Testament prophets (Isaiah 65: 17-66-22) and New Testament Apostles (2 Pet. 3: 13—Rev. 21: 1) as “a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness;” a complete, all pervading, blessed, abiding change. And to close all: In the prophecy which foreshadows it as accomplished, the change is represented as total as it is glorious; and we hear the voice of the King on the throne saying, “ Behold I make att things new.” (Rev. 21: 5.) And yet, strange to say, comprehensive and glorious as these Scripture expressions are, the results derived from them by different minds differ greatly. Four principal views of these Scripture expressions have gained currency. 1. Some adjust these glowing descriptions of our future about as follows: The church, as at present constituted, is to make more or less progress in the earth in the future as in the past; sometimes hindred, sometimes triumphing; and reaching possibly in a measure, to all nations. This varying fortune is to last until the Lord comes. Then the earth is to be destroyed, the continuation of the raceis to end and, of course, all further application of salvation is to end. And all these glorious pictures, by the prophets, of our earth’s future and the race’s future are relegated to the scenes of some distant place called Heaven. In fact, according to this view, there is to be no proper Millennium at all, nor any proper Regeneration of all things on this earth. This view, more or less modified, has been held by many since the Third Century; was held with modifications by some of the Reformers; and is still held by a number of persons. It is called the Anti-millennarian Theory. The inseparable objection to this view, however, is that “the Regeneration,” according to Scripture, is constantly idertitied with this earth; and with men and nations living 112 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. upon it. “The earth shall be filled of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the face of the deep.” “Nothing to hurt nor destroy in all God’s Holy moun- tain.” “All nations serving Him.” “The Kingdom under the whole Heaven given to the people of the Saints of the most High.” “And that Kingdom an an everlasting Kingdom.” “God dwelling on the earth and men on earth His people.” And besides, it is impos- sible, upon the principle which supports this view, to decide at all from the Scripture what promises really belong to the earth and what belong to this distant Heaven. 2. The second view admits the “ Regeneration” to refer to this earth; and accepts all the bright pictures of its renovation and glory. But this view makes the race end at the coming of the King, which is said to be the time of general judgment. It simply substitutes this earth renewed, for some differ- ent, distant, sphere as the abode of the righteous after the resurrection. This, with them, is the Palingenesia;—the earth renewed made the abode of the risen holy dead. This view was held by some of the Reformers and others; and is held by some in modern times. The objection to this view is that the Scriptures draw a plain distinction between the nations living in the flesh during the Regeneration, and the Saints raised from the dead. The one class reigns with Christ, the other does not. The one class is spoken of’ as the Bride of the Lamb; the other is not. The one class can not die any more, the other class have not died at all. Besides, the Scriptures state so many things of those living in the flesh, in the Regeneration, which are entirely incompatible with the condition of the saints who have died and been raised again. For example, they who are living on the regenerated earth, continue from generation THE REGENERATION. 113 to generation (Dan. 7: 13, 14, 18, 27; Gen. 8: 12—17: 7); their seed and their seed’s seed continuing thus forever. (Joel 3: 20; Isaiah 59: 21). Whereas, Christ says, ‘“ The children of the resurrection in that world, neither marry nor are given in marriage; neither can they die any more, but are equal unto the angels;” and exactly for the reason that they, unlike the others, are “the children of the resurrec- tion.” (Luke 20: 34-36). 3. The third view also admits the application of these glowing promises to this earth and expects them to be realized only here. But these promises are all supposed to indicate merely certain spiritual changes. The language is taken as all symbolical. Mankind is to become universally Christian, or to a greater or less degree so (for there is a difference of opinion here); and this is to be brought about in the ordinary progress of the Gospel. Suddenly the former law of progress is to be changed and all nations are fully to receive the truth. This view admits also the continu- ance of this blessedness for a long time and calls it a proper- millennium on earth. It is associated, however, with no particular changes in the condition of the earth itself, and, according to some, it does not foreshadow any residence of Israel in his own land, and especially no supremacy of Israel as a people in the renewed earth. And more than all, this millennial day of earth’s glory is to wane away before the return of the King. This view, though widely spread in this country, and in a measure, throughout Great Britain, has been held only about 175 years. It is the Post-Millennial view of the second Advent of Christ. The objections to this view are many, and they are fatal. In the first place, it 1s an entirely modern view—a novelty in the Church. The Church has never until lately known it. Again: It is built upon a total disregard of the plain 8 114 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. grammatical sense of language. The laws of language are ignored in the prophecies on this subject, as is done in no other department of Scripture. This objection, indeed, is largely true of the two former views. A third and fatal objection is, that in Scripture the Regeneration is always represented as effected through the personal presence of the King returned to the earth and dwelling in the midst of His people. Moreover, this view interposes a certain pro- tracted state of blessed rest and holiness in the Church universal between the present time and the return of the Lord of which the Scripture says not one word; and it thus destroys the need of watching at all times for His return; a duty which the Scripture, on the contrary, insists upon with special emphasis. Further: It interposes a state of blessedness upon the earth which may and ought to satisfy the Church with its glory. It thus takes away from the second coming of the Lord the marked characteristic set upon it by the Scripture, that this coming and it alone, is ever to be the pole star of our hope and expectation. No glory for the Church, says the Scripture, till the time of Christ’s return. Great glory, for the Church, says this theory, for a whole thousand years before that time. This view also invalidates the grand words of Scripture regarding the “Regeneration,” so as to destroy their | _. meaning almost entirely. Or, if it insists that these grand promises are to be accepted in all their fulness, and yet that these pregnant words of Scripture are to be really ful- filled before Christ’s coming, it would be hard to say what the Lord’s coming is to effect. The Scripture expressions cover all the ground; and, when fulfilled, they would leave nothing to be desired. What can the Lord add, at His coming, to the Regeneration when every thing is already regenerated ¢ 4. Finally, others take the passages which describe this THE REGENERATION. « 115 Regeneration, in their plain grammatical sense. They interpret the prophetic language (I do not now mean the symbolic language of prophecy) as they do all other Serip- ture language. Hence they understand this “Regenera- tion ” or “ Restitution ” to be a great and blessed change in reference to this earth and the race upon it. They understand it to comprehend the glorious appearing of the great God our Saviour to accomplish this Regeneration; the resurrection by Him of His departed saints, and the rapture of His living saints to take part in His dominion over the living nations; the overthrow and expulsion of all forms of evil trom the earth; the binding of him who is the Prince of evil; the repentance and restoration of Israel in honor aud holiness to their own land; the outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh that shall be spared trom God’s signal judgments sent on the earth; the removal of all physical evils as well as moral; the renewal of the earth to more than its original beauty as the blessed home of the race; finally, at the close of the Millennial period the resur- rection, judgment, and condemnation, of whe wicked dead; the casting of Satan into his own place of punishment; the destruction last of all of death, and then the establish- ment on the earth of the redeemed forever. This is the view of the Regeneration usually held by those who maintain the premillennial Advent of Christ; although the two things are distinct. It was, in substance, held in the Church universally for the first three centuries, if we are to credit history, and it has ever since had a great many adherents among the most learned and faithful in the Christian church. It was received substantially by a number of the English Reformers and the godly and learned men who followed them in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, martyrs and others, and is held by a large number, of high reputation as biblical scholars, in 116 *SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. the present day, notwithstanding it has at times met with opposition and even contempt. What, now, are the Scripture grounds for expecting such a Regeneration ? If we look back at Eden and the fall, we see plainly that the one man’s sin brought death into the world. With death came entire ruin. You have the whole picture in the trial scene of Adam and Eve before Jehovah. This is the result: Alienation from God. “They hid themselves” instead of meeting Him. The curse falls upon the earth; it is appointed to thorns and briars. Labors and pains, tears and toil, are the allotments for man during life. Then the end; body and soul to be sundered by death; and there is the open Grave for the one, and Sheol or Hades for the other. This is the curse brought on man and on his dwelling place, by sin, through the devil. Now, notice: Immediately the Deliverer is promised to destroy the works of the devil. That Deliverer is a human being, the seed of the woman, a coming One whom we know as the God Incarnate, whose delight was always with the sons of men from the beginning (Prov. 8), who was to take on Him, not the nature of angels, but the seed of Abraham, that, by “death, He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver them who, through the fear of death, were all their lifetime sub- ject to bondage.” Take notice, I repeat, that He was to crush the serpent’s ‘ head. That is, He was to be a complete Victor over all the evil which Satan had wrought; gaining for Himself and His brethren with Him a complete victory in all respects. For the devil’s work extended morally and physically to man and also to his habitation. THE REGENERATION. 11? All this was not wrought out at once. It was in the future. It was in hope. Hence man was commanded to believe in this grace of God, and hence the evils just men- tioned, continued. The earth yet groaned. Pains and labors were still man’s lot (not so much now, perhaps, a8 a punishment, as for discipline), and death, even to believers, with the grave and Sheol stillcontinued. The victory over all was sure but future. The believers in God—“ God’s sons ” and the unbelievers, divided; and the world became so corrupt that the earth was laid desolate by the flood. This was not, however, without the sound of the Coming Deliverer, the Judge of the earth, ringing in their ears. Enoch cries aloud of Him and His saints “coming to judge the world.” It is the first clear note as to the tvme of the Regeneration. (Jude, ver. 14:15. Compare Matt. 13: 41-43.) Soon after the flood, the world relapses again into idolatry, and the sudden judgment of God on the plains of Sodom tells of His indignation against the earth’s unbe- lief and crimes and sins. And now a new step is taken. The nation of the com- ing seed, who is to destruy the devil’s works, is fixed, and, further, with Him is associated (as an instrument for con- veying salvation to all the earth from that time forward) another agent, Abraham’s natural seed, Israel. These are the two appointed servants of God for bringing on the day of glory: Christ and Israel. For as the Saviour Himself said, “Salvation is of the Jews.” So God says, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed,” meaning the Christ who is the seed of Abraham. Soin Gen. 18: ‘“ Thy seed shall be as the stars and as the sand on the sea shore, and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blest.” I shall refer to this again. Let me say here only, that 118 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. from this point onward, every prophecy pointing towards the coming “ Regeneration;” every development towards it, is associated with the sorrows or successes, the sins or the piety, the falling or the rising again of that people. “ Theirs is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the law, and the service of God and the promises; theirs are the fathers, and of them as concern- ing the flesh, Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for- ever.” At this point of God’s revelation; inasmuch as this earth (the place of the defeat and the curse) was to be the place for the “ Regeneration;” as the abiding victory was to be achieved here; and as that people were to be forever conspicuous in the “ Regeneration ” and the day of earth’s new glory, God begins to fix the bounds of their habita- tion on the earth, and so speak of this habitation as perpet- wal. Both are made sure by special covenant. “ Arise, go through the land in the length of it and in the breadth of it, and from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates; for unto thee will I give it, and to thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession,” (Gen. 13: 15; 17: 8.) and this is sworn to by God. (Gen. 17.) And when Moses predicts their dispersion for their sins, he still foretells their certain return to tneir own land. It is fixed as their land forever by God’s covenant, and he tells them they shall dwell there as a renewed people “circumcised in heart.” (Deut. 30:6). Very soon after, we begin to see God pointing out the very family from which the coming Victor and King shall rise, and the very place on the earth which He, who shall ruleall the nations, shall make the place of His throne. He is to be of the house of David, the son of Jesse, and the place of His throne is to be the place of the throne of David over Israel. That no solemnity may be wanting, THE REGENERATION. 119 God covenants again and again with David that this shall be. “When thy days shall be fulfilled and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom, and thine house and thy kingdom shall be established forever before thee; thy throne shall be estab- lished forever.” (2 Sam. 7: 12-16.) So in speaking of Sol- omon: “I will settle him in mine house and in my king- dom forever, and his throne shall be established forever more.” So David adds; “ Now therefore let it please Thee to bless the house of Thy servant, that it may be before Thee forever, for Thou blessest O Lerd, and it shall be blessed forever.” (1 Chron. 17-14.) Thus the throne which David occupied over the house of Israel is the throne on earth of the seed of the woman, the Lord Christ. Hence it is always spoken of as the THRoNE or THE Lorp. “ Then Solomon sat on the throne of the Lord instead of David his father.”? (1 Chron. 29:23.) “Solomon my son shall sit upon the throne of the Kingdom of the Lord, over Israel.” (1 Chron. 28:5.) So Isaiah promises of the coming King, that this throne of the Lord over Israel shall have an ever- lasting permanency. (Is. 9: 6-7.) ‘‘ For unto us a child is born, and unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called Wonder- ful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of His government there shall be no end, upon the throne of David and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice, from henceforth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of Hosts will perform this.” So Gabriel utters the same when the King appears in the flesh. “The Lord God shall give unto Him the throne of His father David. Thou shalt call His name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the 120 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Highest; and the Lord shall give unto Him the throne of His father David, and he shall reign over the house of J acob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” Thus, this earth, as an abiding, regenerated abode, and Israel’s everlasting abode upon it, and Israel’s dominion, and the fixed throne of the coming Deliverer, were already settled by Scripture. At the same period God begins to show more plainly that this King’s rule in Zion shall go far beyond Israel, and that all the nations of the earth, amidst peace and plenty, shall share His beneficent dominion. The church of that day sings it in the songs of the Tabernacle and Temple. They sing of “ His dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth.” Yea, that “all nations shall serve Him, and all kings shall bow down before Him.” “There shall be an handful of corn in the top of the mountain, the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon.” And in correspondence with the truth of an everlasting kingdom on the earth; they sing of the “ earth itself that it can not be moved but abideth forever,” of the earth as “given of the Lord to the children of men for their habitation.” Yea, they sing too of the Almighty’s determination (against all the rage of the peoples and the opposition of kings) to set His King on that holy hill of Zion, and to give him a sceptre to dash rebellious kings in pieces, and then to win possession of all nations to the ends of the earth as His inheritance. Thus we have, up to this point of revelation, the earth fixed as the place of “the Regeneration” and as the perma- nent residence of redeemed and renovated mankind. We have designated, for us, the very Seed of the woman who is to be the Victor and Delivercr and King. We have His appointed instruments for conveying salvation to the other nations. We have the permanent place of that Nation THE REGENERATION. 121 established. We have the place of the royal and everlast- ing throne upon the renewed earth; and we have the whole earth of nations united in their homage and their joy in His everlasting reign; while the earth itself in her returned fruitfulness sings in sympathetic joy; “say ye among the nations, The Lord reigneth—the world is fixed, it shall not be moved; He shall judge the peoples with rectitude. Let- - the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad; Jet the sea roar and the fullness thereof. Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein; then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord, for He cometh to judge the earth. He shall judge the world with righteousness and the nations in His faithfulness.” Thus far, up to the reigns of David and Solomon, we have one unvarying view of the matter and one common expectation of the church as to the coming day of glory; as. expressed by all her prophets and sung in all her joyful songs in anticipation of its realization. And let us carefully note that there is not one word or hint to intimate that the church was in error in these expectations, nor that a higher or different meaning was to be attached to these prophetic statements from that which the plain and natural sense of the language conveyed, and was understood to convey. And therefore the church as a matter of course, joined together, as necessary concomitants, God’s emphatic blessing upon the race of Israel—the presence of the King Messiah on the throne—the salvation and holiness of all the race to follow, and as a consequence also, the renovation of the earth itself. And so they sang and so they prayed in their songs. “God be merciful unto us; and bless us, and cause His face to shine upon vs; so that Thy way be known upon earth, in all nations Thy salvation. The nations shall acknowledge Thee, O God, yea, all the nations shall acknowledge Thee. The nations shall joy and triumph 122 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. because Thou shalt judge the peoples in uprightness, and shalt guide the nations in the earth. The nations shall acknowledge Thee, O God, yea, all the nations shall acknowledge Thee. The earth has yielded her increase and God, our own God will bless us; God will bless us and all the ends of the earth shall fear Him.” (Ps. 67). Betore opening the later prophets, let me again recall that one great fact, already alluded to, which pervades the Scriptures. J mean the fact that there are ¢wo instruments recognized by God for conveying His salvation to the nations, and restoring the world at length to His allegiance. Two; the first, and above all, the centre of all, His own Son, the seed of Abraham, the Christ; the blessing of all the nations. And, secondarily, in subordination to Christ, as an external means, God’s first born Son, the seed of Abraham — the national Israel; the blessing to all the nations. And this is true in every successive dispensation; and in the last dispensation emphatically. Just as the promise made to Abraham, “In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, had a primary and pre-eminent reference to Christ, so it has also a secondary reference to Israel. Says Dr. Addison Alexander, in his commentary upon the 42d chapter of Isaiah, “The Messiah and His church (Israel) are the representatives of God among the nations. The term ‘servant’ is applied to both in this sense, and is rendered in the New Testament by raic, pais; a word meaning both son and servant.” “The doctrine taught is that Israel’s segregation from the rest of mankind as a peculiar people was an act of sovereignty independent of all merit in themselves, and not even intended for their benefit exclusively, but for the accom- plishment of God’s gracious purposes respecting men in general.” “Hence the same thing might be predicated to a great extent of both. As the Messiah was the messenger THE REGENERATION. 123 and servant of God to the nations, so was Israel. It was his (Israel’s) mission also to diffuse the true religion and reclaim the nations.” “Not only the Messiah, but the Israel of God was to be a mediator or connecting link between Jehovah and the nations.” “From the very first it was intended that the law should go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.” And he goes on to show how the different applications of this honorable title, ‘““my servant” are to be distinguished as applied to Christ or to Israel, so as to avoid confusion. This commentator does indeed, as is common, after all transfer the word “Israel” in mamy passages to the church in general. But the prophet’s word, and the prophet’s only word is Israel. And it is the fact that the prophets do all along proclaim the Messiah and Israel as God’s two appointed means for blessing the earth with salvation, to which I call attention. That God has thus used Israel in all the past, is by general admission clear both from Scripture and from experience. It is, by general admission, clear in Scripture and experience as to the present also. For all admit that it has been “ Tsrael’s fall which has been the riches of the world,” and “their diminishing which has been the riches of the Gen- tiles.” All admit that the “ casting of them away, has been the reconciling of the world.” And the fact is clear, from Scripture at least, if not by general admission, that in the future also, the receiving of them again will bring to the world, at large, life from the dead. Another consideration before opening the later prophets. Up to this point in the Scripture, Israel, the appointed instru- ment for the conveying the knowledge of salvation to the nations, is in honor and prosperity. But nowcomes Israel’s decadence. Is there then any change to be made in the nature of the future Regeneration or its accomplishment? We open the later prophets, and the scene widens and 124 SECOND COMING OF CHRISY. brightens until the whole earth is filled with glory. Do these later prophets in all this indicate any alteration of God’s plan, or do they clearly maintain the same views respecting the Regeneration? Do they declare that Israel shall be such an instrument of blessing to the nations, not only before Christ’s time; nor only during the time of their own blindness and unbelief, but also in the Messiah’s days, and upon their return to him? To answer this question intelligently, let me, before referring to these later prophets, point you to an inspired declaration on this whole subject. It is a declaration of the New Testament which brings together the Regenera- tion of the earth; the necessary presence of the returning King to accomplish it, and the part depressed Israel is to perform in the fulfillment. It is just the old song which the church had always heard, but now sung in clearer strains and more thrilling chords, under the brighter light of the New Testament dispensation. I refer to the cele- brated passage in Acts 3: 17-21. I shall read this passage, not exactly as it stands in our version, but with an amendment in the 19th and 20th verses, according to the best criticism. This criticism makes the words érwc’av when followed by subjunctives, to mean not “when,” as in the English version, but “in order that.” It is thus that all the best scholars render the passage. Let us observe now, that Peter the Apostle is speaking to the Jewish people. He has charged them and their rulers (that is, Israel as a nation) with slaying the Christ of God. He admits, that as rulers and people they had done it in ignorance; and that by their error, the counsel of God, that the Christ must, according to all the prophets, suffer at their hands had been fulfilled. To this Jewish nation he now appeals; and His words accurately rendered, ran as follows: “ Repent ye, therefore, and be THE REGENERATION. 125 converted that your sins may be blotted out, in order that there may come times of refreshing trom the presence of the Lord; and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was before appointed (rov Tpokeyverptouéevoy duiv Incovv Xpucrdv) to you; whom, indeed, the heavens must receive until (the) times .of the restitution (or restoring) of all things which God has spoken of by all His Holy Prophets, from of old” (ar atdvoc.) Now, taking these words, in their plain sense, they teach as follows: 1. That there is to be a time or “ times” for the restitu- tion of all things; an droxardoraouy— a process of restoring; ‘or bringing these things back from a state of disorder or decay. 2. That it shall extend to all parts of the creation wherein the disorder has been felt; for it is an émoxardoracu TavTO, & rehabilitation of al? things; and hence of the physical as well as the spiritual condition of the earth and of its inhab- itants, the wiping out of Eden’s curse. 3. That this restitution of all things has been a theme upon which God has been dwelling, by the mouth of all His Holy Prophets from the very beginning, hence it must be plainly discoverable and easily identified in the concur- rent testimony of all the Old Testament Scriptures. 4, That this restitution is to take place in connection with the return of Jesus the Christ from heaven; the Christ who was “before appointed” as the Messiah to the Jews, and who having been rejected and slain by that nation, has risen and gone into heaven. 5. That this restitution can not take place before His return; because it is necessary (de) that He should remain in heaven, whither He has gone, until the times for the restoring of all things arrive; and when these times arrive, God will “send Him.” 126 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. 6. That these “times ” of the restoring of all things are clearly associated with certain times of “refreshing,” (as he calls them) which are to come on the Jewish people; (dvapicewe) times of reviving, of bringing up, to life and vigor again, that nation after a decline. 7. That these“ times ” of reviving or refreshing, which are to come on the Jewish nation, are intimately associated with their national repentance and conversion in reference to the national crime of slaying their Messiah. For upon this national repentance and conversion their sins (just spoken of and charged upon the nation) shall be blotted out, and the times of refreshing will come. 8. And finally, that when this national repentance and conversion shall take place, and there come the times of reviving to the nation, God will then send forth Jesus Christ from heaven to that people whose Messiah He had “before appointed ” Him to be, and then shall commence and go on that process of “ Restitution” which extends to the whole earth; the restoration of all things, by virtue of the interpenetrating and glorifying power of the resurrec- tion-life of Christ, when the last vestige of the curse will be removed, and He that sitteth on the throne will say, “ See, I have made all things new.” Let us notice now, very particularly, that the Apostle distinctly declares, that these important events are con- stantly exhibited, and in this same connection throughout all the pages of the Old Testament Scriptures. Certainly then they must be so plain that he who runs may read them there. Upon the surface of the Old Testament Scriptures must lie these very things sanctioned by an inspired apostle in the New. They are such things as would naturally present themselves to any ordinary reader of the Word. They are such as need no additional revela- tion to disclose their true meaning. In a word, that mean- THE REGENERATION. 127 ing can not certainly be different from the plain grammat- ical sense. Do we find these things then thus placed there? Israel recognized as God’s appointed channel for bringing in the day of blessing to all the earth? Israel nevertheless des- cribed so low down as to be below even other nations in blindness and sin; cast out, abhorred by men; and their land a desolation, at the very time when they are associated with the great and final deliverance of the earth? Israel penitent as a nation when lowest down; and then elevated to more than their former glory and holiness? Israel thus revived in the presence of their returned King the once rejected Messiah? Shall we find all this associated with the overthrow of all evil, and the prevalence of blessed- ness and holiness, throughout the whole earth? Finally, shall we find all this presented as the true realization of the day of glory wherein “the heavens and the earth shall be made new?” We are now ready to open the later prophets; and we shall see all these particulars just thus conjoined together and confirmed throughout. We turn first to the prophet Isaiah. I might point briefly to his earlier prophecies, as for example, to that in chapters 24 to 27. There we have a striking picture, in which are set forth several of the features just men- tioned. 1. The scattering of Israel, their great depression, and their prayer in penitence. “Thou hast increased the nation, O Lord; thou hast increased the nation. Thou art glorified. Thou hast removed it far unto the ends of the earth. Lord, in trouble have they visited Thee, they poured outa prayer when Thy chastening was upon them.” (26: 15.) 9. The time of their visitation by miraculous deliver- ance, in order to their restoration and final glory. 128 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. “And it shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, O ye children of Israel, and the outcasts shall wor- ship the Lord in the mount at Jerusalem.” (29: 12.) 3. The vengeance of God against all the nations at that time to prepare the way for His Kingdom. “ Behold the Lord ‘maketh the earth empty, He maketh it waste—the ‘curse had devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate; thercfore, the inhabitants of the earth are burned and few men left; and in that day, the Lord shall punish the host 6f the high ones on high, and the kings of the earth upon the earth.” (Ch. 24.) 4, The visible presence of the King reigning in glory. “Then the moon shall be confounded and the sun shall be ashamed, when the Lord of Hosts shall reign in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem and before His ancients gloriously.” (Ch. 24:23.) 5. The effect of Israel’s return upon the whole world. “He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root; Israel shall blossom and bud and fill the face of the world with fruit.” (27:6.) 6. And, finally, the redemption of all the earth, the com- plete deliverance from the curse, ‘‘And in this mountain shall the Lord of Hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine upon the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined. And He will destroy in this mountain the face of the covering cast over all people, and the veil that is spread over all nations. He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces; and the rebuke of His people will He take away from off all the earth; for the Lord hath spoken it. And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God; we have waited for Him, and He will save us; this is the Lord; we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation. (25: 6-9. I direct attention particularly, however, to what are usually called Isaiah’s later prophecies. These constitute one continued prophecy. They begin with the 40th chapter and run on to the close of the book. This con- tinued prophecy brings out in strong relief all the several features alluded to. It begins with the ery, “Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, saith your God; speak ye comfort- ably to Jerusalem, and say unto her that her warfare is THE REGENERATION. 129 accomplished.” It traces the course of the Church of God and of Israel to the end, and it closes with a view of Jerusalem come up out of her unbelief and sin and sor- row, a praise in “the new heavens and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness;” the mighty and rebellious of the earth, finally, overthrown by God’s judgments; the aboli- tion of all evil from the earth; and the whole Gentile world at last made holy worshippers before the Lord, and rejoicing in Israel’s glory, “ Behold I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoic- ing, and her people ajey. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying. The wolf and the Jamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall bethe serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, saith the Lord. For behold the Lord will come with fire, and with His chariots like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and His sword will the Lord plead with all flesh; and the slain of the Lord shall be many. And they shall bring all your brethren for an offering unto the Lord, out of all nations, upon horses and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring an offering ina clean vessel into the House of the Lord. And I will take of them for priests and for Levites, saith the Lord. For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord.” (Ch. 65: 17-25; 66: 10, 16, 20, 23.) Now, in considering this prophecy, we are to notice how God, in the outset, marks it as a wonder of wonders that depressed Israel should be raised up to be such a means of blessing, as a thing not ohly beyond human contrivance, but a thing deemed impossible even when foretold; and how this prophecy begins, therefore (chap. 40), by showing that Fis almighty power is the only hope for such a change. 9 130 SHOCOND COMING OF CHRIST. “Behold, the Lord God will come with a strong hand, and His arm shall rule for Him; behold, His reward is with Him, and His work before Him. Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand, and meted out the heavens with a span, and comprehended the dust of the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance? Hast thou not known, hast thou not heard that the Everlasting God, the Lord, the Creator of the ends of the earth fainteth not, neither is weary; there is no searching of His under- starding. He giveth power to the faint. * * * They that waitupon the Lord shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” Note, next, how He shows (chap. 41) that He had already done great wonders for ‘Israel in the past (in leading them out of Egypt), and that He would do like wonders for them in the future (by Cyrus in Babylon), and that this would be a pledge of God’s arm being exerted for their final elevation. Then, after introducing His two servants for blessing the earth—Christ and Israel—(chap. 42:1-16), see how He admits the perverse blindness to which His servant Israel would come. “Hear ye, deaf, and look ye, blind, that ye may see. Who is blind but My servant ? or deaf as My messenger that I sent? Who is blind as he that is perfect, and blind as the Lord’s servant ? Seeing many things, but thou observest not; opening the ears, but he heareth not.” (vv. 18-830.) This is exactly that spiritual blindness of which Christ so plainly accuses them—an aesusation which Paul the Apostle again and again repeats. They were “a people who had eyes and saw not, and ears and heard not, and whose heart was waxed gross.” See how He admits and predicts their deep depression, too, as a nation, ruled over without any redress. “But this is a people robbed and spoiled, they are all of them snared in holes; and they are hid in prison houses; they are for a prey, and none delivereth; and for a spoil, and none saith restore.” (vs. 22.) THE REGENERATION. 131 See how He foretells the utter unwillingness of men to admit that this change can take place. “ Who among you will give ear to this? Who will hearken and hear for the time to come? To what? First. To God’s reason for Israel’s depression: “Who gave Jacob for a spoil and Israel to the robbers? Did not the Lord against whom we have sinned, for they would not walk in His ways, nor were they obedient to His law; there- fore, He hath poured upon him the fury of His anger, and yet He knew it not; He laid it not to heart.” (vv. 22, 23.) And, secondly, to the certain assurance, on the part of God, that, notwithstanding their depression and sin, Israel should be restored to honor and blessing which is now so clearly stated in the next chapter : “But, now, thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed thee, O Israel. Fear not; forI have redeemed thee; I have called thee by My name; thou art Mine. When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee; when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee. For I am thy Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour; I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee. Since thou wast precious in My sight, thou hast been honorable, and I have loved thee; therefore, I will give men for thee, and people for thy life. Fear not; for I am with thee. I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth. Even every one that is called by My name, for I have created him for My glory; I have formed him, yea, Ihave made him. This people have I formed for myself; they shall show forth My praise.” (48: 1-6; v. 21.) Note, next, how He marks their sins, and shows that their future pre-eminence was not to be for their holiness. “ Thou hast not called upon Me, O Jacob, but thou hast been weary of Me, O Israel; thou hast made Me to serve with thy sins, and hast wearied me with thine iniquities.” (vv. 22, 24.) 132 SECOND OOMING OF CHRIST. Then comes the same cause for the reviving of Israel; God’s own honor and Goed’s faithfulness shall overcome their grievous unworthiness, and still give them restora- tion, holiness, and elevation. “J, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. Put Me in remembrance; let us plead together; declare thou, that thou mayest be justified. Thy first father hath sinned, and thy teachers have transgressed against Me. Therefore, I have profaned the princes of the sanctuary, and have given Jacob to the curse, and Israel to reproaches. Yet, now, hear, O Jacob, My servant; and Israel whom J have chosen; thus saith the Lord that made thee, and formed thee from the womb, which will help thee. Fear not, O Jacob, My servant; and theu Jeshurun, whom I have chosen; for I will pour water on him that is thirsty, and floods upon the dry ground; I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thine offspring. And they shall spring up as among the grass, as wil- lows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord’s; and another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; and another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, and surname himself with the name of Israel.” (43:25-28; 44:1-6.) And mark, finally, how God predicts that this elevation of Israel will be such a wonder, that when itis accom- plished that redeemed nation shall stand forth before all the earth as the certain proof, the “witnesses” that Jehovah alone who hath done it is God. “Thus saith the Lord, the King of Israel, and His Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts; I am the first, and I am the last; and beside Me there ais no God. And who, as J, shall call, and shall declare it, and set it in order for Me, since I appointed the ancient people ? And the things that are coming, and shall come, let them show unto them. Fear ye not, neither be afraid; have not I told thee from that time, and have declared it? Ye are even My witnesses. Is there a God besides Me? Yea, there isno God; I know not any. Bring forth the blind people that have eyes, and the deaf that have ears. Let all the nations be gathered together, and let the people be assembled; who among them can declare this, and show us former things? Let them bring forth their witnesses, that they may be justified; or, let them hear and say it is truth. Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, and My servants whom I have chosen; that ye may know and believe Me, and understand that THE REGENERATION. 133 Iam He; before Me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after Me. I, even I, am the Lord; and beside Me there is no Saviour. T have declared, and have saved, and I have showed when there was no strange God among you; therefore, ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord, that Iam God.” (44:6-8; 48: 8-13.) From this point the prophecy goes on. He predicts Israel’s certain restoration after their captivity in Babylon under Cyrus, and for the same reason, viz., God’s faithful- ness to that people and God’s power to accomplish it; and as illustrating (not as the main subject of the prophecy) the real theme, their future restoration. (Chaps. 45 to 48.) He then points forward to the time when all the earth, Jew and Gentile, shall be redeemed by Christ. And now he brings forward again God’s two servants for accomplish- ing the work. First, we have the servant Israel speaking. “Listen, O isles unto me, and hearken and hearken, ye people from far; the Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my . mother had He made mention of my name; and He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword; in the shadow of His hand hath He hid me; and made me a polished shaft; in His quiver hath He hid me; and said unto me Thou art my servant, O Israel, in whom I will be glori- fied.” (Ch. 49: 1-3.) Then, we have introduced the other servant, the Messiah, mourning that He had not accomplished the purpose of gathering Israel to God, and receiving the certain promise that He should not ouly do this, but in doing it, should bless all the earth with salvation. “Then I said, I have labored in vain; I have spent my strength for naught and in vain; yet surely my judgment is with the Lord and my work with my God; and now, saith the Lord that formed me from the womb to his servant, to bring Jacob again to Him; though Israel be not gathered, yet shall I be glorious in the eyes of the Lord, and my God shall be my strength; and He said, is it a light thing that thou shouldst be my servant to rise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel? I will also give thee for alight to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be My salvation to the end of the earth. Thus saith the Lord, the Redeemer of Israel, and His Holy One, to him whom man despiseth, 134 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. to him whom the nation abhorreth, to a servant of rulers, Kings shall see and arise, princes also shall worship, because of the Lord that is faithful, and the Holy One of Israel, and he shall choose thee. Thus saith the Lord; in an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee; and I will preserve thee and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages.” (Ch. 49: 4-13.) Next we have Israel’s doubt of the probabilities of such a use being made of him by the Lord, and God’s answer: “ But Zion said: The Lord hath forsaken me, my God hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child; that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold I have graven thee on the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. Thy children shall make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste shall go forth of thee. Thus saith the Lord God. Behold, I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the peoples; and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders; and kings shall be thy nursing fathers and queens thy nursing mothers. (Ch. 49: 14-23.) And now the prophecy lifts the veil and discloses to us the present dispensation. And here we sec predicted in sad colors the coming of the Messiah and Israel’s strange rejection of Him in their unbelief and blindness; and, yet, notwithstanding this, the Messiah’s glory and triumph in his very rejection and death. (Chaps. 52 and 58.) “ Who hath believed our report,” ete. This brings us to the day of the Gentiles profiting by Israel’s fall—our day of grace. IIere at length the tone changes, and the prophet now begins to sing of Israel’s return and engagementand glory. (Chap. 54.) “Sing, O barren, them that didst not bear, break forth into singing and cry aloud thou that didst not travail with child, for more are the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the Lord.” Read it throughout. All the circumstances of this chapter show that it refers not to Gentile nations contrasted with Israel, but to Israel under the old covenant and THE REGENERATION. 135 desolate,—in contrast with Israel under the new covenant, when Israel will be greatly blessed and fruitful. The Apostle Paul (Gal. 4:25, 26) quotes the passage and shows that it refers not to the old Jerusalem and the covenant of bondage, but to the new Jerusalem from above, and the new covenant of freedom. And when the light of that Jerusalem shines on the earth, it blesses all the earth, not only Jews, but Gentiles; for it is the mother of us all; and even we who are believers, and are waiting for that day, have our blessed part in her. (See Meyer on Gal. 4: 25, 26, 27.) It is therefore of that future day, of the “ Regeneration,” to which the prophet refers. Therefore, in order that Israel . may be encouraged to return, he next presents God’s free- ness of salvation and certain mercy to the penitent trans- gressor (Chap. 55.) and tells Israel at the same time (Chaps. 56 to 58.) of his sins and of God’s righteousness in his depression. At last there comes the sight of the returning Redeemer and the day of glory. The “Redeemer comes to Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob.” (Chaps. 59: 16—21: 60: 1—22: 61: 1—11.) Let us observe now that this is the passage which the Apostle Paul declares refers to the national Israel, and testifies that. al/ Israel, (Israel as a whole) is then to be saved. That redemption then is yet future. Paul’s words are (Rom. 11: 26.) “Blindness in part is happened unto Israel until the fullness of the Gen- tiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved; as it is written there shall come out of Zion the Deliverer and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob; for this is my covenant unto them (that is the new covenant, see Is. 59: 21 and Jer. 31:31) when I shall take away their sins.” We now read this prophecy; and let us observe how it places together in the day of Earth’s redemption exactly what the apostle Peter puts together, and declares to be the 136 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. burden of all the propncts as to the restitution of all things; viz.: That it is in the line of mercy, in which all the Earth shall participate in glory and blessedness with Israel, as is shown fully in the following chapters: “Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God and to the Holy One of Israel, for he hath glorified thee.” “ From one Sabbath to another all flesh shall come and worship before me.” “I will make an everlasting covenant with them, and their seed shall be known among the Gentiles and their offspring among the people; and all that see them shall acknowledge that they are the Seed which the Lord hath blessed.” (Chap. 60: 9; 61: 8, 9; 66: 23. et passim). Now in this, the time of mercy to Israel and all the Earth, we have in this prophecy, 59: 16-21, first, The Deliverer, the Lord, arming himself and coming forth for the overthrow of all the ungodly in the Earth. “And He saw that there was no man and wondered that there was no intercessor; therefore His arm brought salvation unto him; and His righteousness, it sustained him. For he put on righteousness as a breast- plate and a helmet of salvation on his head; and he put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as acloak. Accord- ing to their deeds, accordingly He will repay, fury to his adversaries, recompense to his enemies; to the islands (or Gentiles) he will repay recompense. (v. 16-18). Then we have the day of general holiness before the Lord throughout the whole world. “So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west, and His glory from the rising of the sun. When the Enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord shall lift up a standard against him.” (v. 19). Then, the coming of the Lord Christ and His deliverance of repentant Israel. “ And the Redeemer shall come to Zion and unto them that turn from transgression in Jacob, saith the Lord.” (v. 20). Then, the holy consecration of Israel to God; and that, too, through ‘perpetual generations on the Earth. THE REGENERATION. 137 “As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the Lord; my Spirit that isupon thee and my words which I have put in thy mouth shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed’s seed, saith the Lord, from henceforth and for- ever.” (v. 21). And, so also in the following chapter: “Thy people shall all be righteous; they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.” (60: 21). And finally, the attention of all the Gentile world to Israel’s risen glory. “Arise! shine! for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is. risen upon thee; for behold the darkness shall cover the earth and gross darkness the peoples; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shall be seen upon thee, and the Gentile shall come to thy light and kings to the brightness of thy rising.’ “Thy sun shall no more go. down, neither shall the moon withdraw itself, for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. Thy people also shall all be righteous, they shall inherit the land forever, the branch of my planting, the work of my hands, that I may be glorified.” And thus on to the end of chapter sixty-first. (60: 1-8; 20, 21). | Just because it is clear therefore that Israel’s day of joy must first come in order to the coming of the day of joy to. the whole Earth, the prophet now pleads and summons others to plead for the coming of that day of joy to Israel: “ For Zion’s sake I will not hold my peace and for Jesusalem’s sake I will not rest until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof asa lamp that burneth. And the Gentiles shall see thy righteousness and all kings thy glory, and thou shalt be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shallname. (6.) Ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers, keep not silence, and give Him no rest until He establish, and till He make Jerusalem a praise in the Earth.” (Chap. 62: 1-7). At the close of the prophecy we find portrayed the Earth’s final blessedness and permanent state—the new Heavens and new Earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. And here is the picture plain to behold. (Chap. 65: 17--25). 138 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Here is all the Earth restored and made new (v. 17)— Jerusalem a glory in the new Earth (18, 19)—Israel acknowl- edged by all as a blessed seed (v. 23)—the whole world participating in the glory (v. 25)—Earth brought again to Eden’s beauty and harmony (v. 22, 23-25)—God himself near to bless (v. 24). And all this when the Redeemer shall have come to Zion to turn away ungodliness from Jacob. (17.) For, behold, I create new heavens and anew earth; and the former shall not be remembered, norcomeintomind. (18). But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. (19). And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in My people; and the voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her, nor the voice of crying. (20.) There shail be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days; for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being a hundred years old shall be accursed. (21.) And they shall build houses and inhabit them; and they shall pJant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. (22.) They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of My people, and Mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. (23.) They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. (24.) And it shall come to pass, that before they call I will answer; and while they are speaking, I will hear. (25.) The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock; and dust shall be the serpent’s meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, saith the Lord.” And this is final and perpetual; for it is added: “For as the new heavens and the new earth which I will make, shall remain before Me, saith the Lord, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, and from one Sabbath to another, shall all flesh come to worship before Me, saith the Lord.” (66: 22-23.) Thus we see how clearly this long and brilliant prophecy presenting the salient features of the whole of earth’s future, sets forth on its very surface the same features of the Regeneration, and in the same connection, which have already been indicated. THE REGENERATION. 139 How exactly all this tallies with another picture which Isaiah also draws of the same coming day of glory! We have it in the eleventh chapter. Here are grouped together the following. The King Messiah and His character: “ And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow outof his roots. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord; and shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord.” (vv. 1-3.) The Gentiles all acknowledging Him throughout the earth: “And in that day shall the root of Jesse stand for an ensign of the peoples; to it shall the Gentiles seek; and his rest (or residence) shall be glorious.” (v. 10.) His miraculous interposition to bring back dispersed Israel to their own land at that time, as was donein former days from Egypt: “ And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria and from Egypt, and from Pathros and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea. And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and shall gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. And the Lord shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with His mighty wind shall shake His hand over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. And there shall be a highway for the remvant of His people, which shall be left, from Assyria, like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt.” (vv. 11, 12, 15, 16.) The King, striking down His opposing enemies, and especially slaying, by His own presence and power, the lawless and wicked one; as the Apostle Paul predicts of Christ, at His glorious appearing, slaying the Man of Sin. (in 2 Thess., ch. 2:8.) “ He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked one.” (v. 4.) The righteousness of the King’s reign over all the earth: 140 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST | “He shall not judge after the sight of His eyes, nor reprove after the hearing of His ears; but with righteousness shall He judge the poor, and reprove with equity, for the meek of the earth. Righteousness shall be the girdle of His loins, and faithfulness the girdle of His reins. (vv. 3, 4) And the Millennial peace and holiness, and Eden blessed- ness of all the earth and its inhabitants: “The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like an ox; and the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. (vv. 6, 9.) Is it not plain from all this that Isaiah’s prophecies exactly set forth just the very features in “the Restitution of all things,” which the Apostle Peter declares all the prophets have spoken concerning it? Let us now turn to the other prophets, and take their testimony. We have a series of pictures, and in them all the apostle’s declaration respecting “ the Regeneration ” is confirmed throughout. It is the same scene, with thesame actors and events constantly passing before us; God’s uni- form testimony as to the coming day of glory. Here is a picture to show that it is in the King Messiah’s days that Israel and Judah are to be thus blessed; no longer east out, but restored: “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised unto the house of Israel and the house of Judah. In those days, and at that time, will I cause the branch of righteousness to grow up unto David; and He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the Jand (or earth). In those days shall Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely; and this is the name where- by it shall be called to her: The Lord our Righteousness.” (Jer. 83: 14-16.) THE REGENERATION. 141 Here is another plain picture. You see init the Messiah, Jesus, reigning over all the earth, (v. 5.) At the same time, Israel is gathered again from all their wanderings and settled upon their own land (vv. 3, 4,6,)—and the blessedness so great that all former deliverances are for- gotten. (V. 3.) “I will gather the remnants of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they shall be faithful and increase. (v.4.) And I will set up shep- herds over them, which shall feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed; neither shall they be lacking, saith the Lord. (v. 5.) Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shallexecute judgment and justice in the earth. (v. 6.) In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby He shall be called: Taz Lorp our RiaHreousness. (v. 7.) Therefore, behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that they shall no more say: The Lord liveth, which brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt; (v.8) but, the Lord liveth, which brought up and which led the seed of the house of Israel out of the north country, and from all countries whither I had driven them, and they shall dwell in their own land.” (Jer. 23:3-8.) Here is a promise to show that this, being so necessary a part of God’s future plans for the earth, no sin or defection in Israel will ever involve any irrecoverable or final rejec- tion of the nation: “Thus saith the Lord, which giveth the sun fora light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; the Lord of Hosts is His name. If those ordinances depart from before Me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before Me for- ever. Thus saith the Lord: if heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.” (Jer. 21: 35-38.) Here, also, is a picture to show, for the same reason, that the new covenant itself makes it sure that Israel must be thus gathered and made a blessing : 142 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. “ Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man and the seed of beast; and it shall come to pass, that like as I have watched over them, to pluck up and to break down, and to throw down, and to destroy, and to afflict, so will I watch over them, to build, and to plant, saith the Lord. Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not accord- ing to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt (which My covenant they break, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord); but this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel. After those days, saith the Lord, I will put My law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be My people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying : Know the Lord, for they shall all know Me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.” (Jer. 31: 27-34.) Let it be remembered, that it is according to this very same new covenant, as the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us, not only Israel, in hisday of return, but all of us, have forgiveness and salvation—the new covenant in Christ. Could words declare more plainly that, under this new covenant, the nation, as a nation, is to be delivered from its iniquities; and that national mercies, with all other blessings to the world at large, before alluded to, are to follow? How plain Peter’s words, therefore, would sound in Jewish ears: “ Repent ye, therefore, and be converted, that your sins (as a nation) may be blotted out, and the times of refreshing and of the restoring of all things, spoken of by all the prophets, may come.” Here, again, is a picture from Ezekiel of the gathering of Israel and their sanctification, and the return of Eden’s beauty to the earth in that day: “T will take you from among the Gentiles, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean from all your filthiness, and from all your idols will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I THE REGENERATION. 143 give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers, and ye shall be My pco- ple, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your unclean- ness ; and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase of the field; and ye shall receive no more reproach among the Gentiles. And the desolate land shall be filled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by; and they shall say: This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced and are inhabited. Then the nations that are left round about you shall know that I the Lord build the ruined places, and plant that which was desolate; I the Lord have spoken it, and I will doit.’ (Ezek. 36: 21-36.) And all this He declares in the next chapter is to last “forever,” and “ forevermore.” (37: 25-28.) Look, now, at this picture from the Prophet Micah. See how plainly Me groups together the same things, viz.: Zion’s desolation (ch. 3:12). Zion’s elevation again in the last days after her desolation (ch. 4:1). All the nations drawn to Zion as the centre of religious blessings in the earth (v. 2). The King, the Lord’s right hand, overthrowing the opposing nations preparatory to His personal reign on earth (v.38). The subsequent peace and blessedness of all the earth (vv. 4,5). The exaltation of outcast Israel (vv. 6,7). Jehovah Jesus reigning forever in Mount Zion (v. 7). And Israel acknowledged as chief in the renewed earth: (v. 12.) “Therefore shall Zion for yoursake be ploughed as a tield, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as. the high places of the forest. (ch. 4:1.) But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be estab- lished in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, and peoples shall flow unto it. (v. 2.) And many nations shall come and say: Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and 144 SHOOND COMING OF CHRIST. ¢ the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (v. 8.) And He shall judge among many peoples, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. (v. 4.) But they shall sit, every man under his vine and under his fig tree, and none shall make them afraid; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. (v. 5.) For all peoples will walk every one in the name of his God, and we will walk in the name of the Lord our God for ever and ever. (v.6.) In that day, saith the Lord, will I assemble her that halteth, and I will gather her that is driven out and her that I have afflicted. (v.7.) And I will make her that halted a remnant, and her that was cast off a strong nation; and the Lord shall reign over them in Mount Zion from henceforth, even forever. (v. 8.) And thou, O tower of the flock, the stronghold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem.” (Micah, ch. 3:12; 4:1-8.) And behold this picture from Zephaniah. See how grandly and certainly He repeats the same story. Justliearit: The Lord’s coming anger against the anti-Christian nations, in the same day; the united nations of all the earth with one consent then serving God; the redemption and return of outeast Israel; their entire renovation in heart never more to backslide; the King Christ manifest in the midst of them; and evil seen never again forevermore: “Therefore, wait ye upon Me, saith the Lord, until the day that I rise up to the prey; for My determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms to pour out upon them Mine indigna- tion, even all My fierce anger; for all the earth shall be drowned with the fire of My jealousy. For then will I turn to the nations a pure lan- guage that they may all call upon the name of the Lord to serve Him with one consent. From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, My suppliants, even the daughter of My dispersed, shall bring My offering. In that day shalt thou not be ashamed for all thy doings, wherein thou hast trans- gressed against Me; for then I will take away out of the midst of thee them that rejoice in thy pride; and thou shalt no more be haughty because of My holy mountain. I wiil also leave in the midst of thee a humbled and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord. The remnant of Israel shall not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed and lie down, and none shall make them afraid. Sing, O daughter of THE REGENERATION. 145 Zion, shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O daugh- ter of Jerusalem! The Lord hath taken away thy judgments, He hath cast out thine enemy; the King of Israel is in the midst of thee; thou shalt not see evil any more. In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: Fear thou not; and to Zion: Let not thine hands be slack; the Lord thy ‘God in the midst of thee is mighty; He willsave; He will rejoice over thee with joy; He will rest in His love; He will joy over thee with ‘singing. I will gather them that are sorrowful for the solemn assem- bly, who are of thee, to whom the reproach of it was a burden. Behold, at that time I will undo all that afflict thee; and I will save her that halteth, and gather her that was driven out; and I will get them praise and fame in every land where they have been put to shame. At that time will I bring you again, even in the time that I gather you; for I will make you a name and a praise among all the peoples of the earth, when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith the Lord.” (Zeph. 3: 8-21.) To close this testimony, hear the Prophet Zechariah. The gathered nations assembled against Israel in that coming day; and their doom: “ And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all nations; all that. burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the peoples of the earth be gathered together against it.” (Zech. 12:3.) God’s deliverance of Israel; Israel’s repentance for slay- ing their Messiah who was pierced; and the fountain opened for cleansing in that day. « And it shall come to pass in that day that I will seek to destroy all nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications; and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him as one mourneth for his only son, and hall be in bitterness for Him as one is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourn- ing of Hadadrimmon in the Valley of Megiddon. And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart and their wives apart; the family of the house of Levi apart and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart and their wives apart; all the families that remain, every family apart and their wives apart. In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness.” (12: 9-14; 18:1.) 10 146 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. Their trials and their redemption at that time. “ And I will bring the third part through the fire and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they shall call on My name and I will hear them. I will say, It is My people; and they shall say the Lord is my God.” (v. 9.) : Then the Messiah’s appearance for their deliverance, and His overthrow of the opposing nations in the hour of Israel’s trouble. “ Behold the day of the Lord cometh, and the spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nationsagainst Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken and the houses rifled and the women ravished, and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city. Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the East, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the East and toward the West, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the North and half of it toward the South.” (14: 1-4.) The risen saints come with Christ to share in executing these judgments. “And the Lord my God shall come and all the saints with Thee.” (v. 4.) Jehovah Jesus as King in all the earth; those of the nations, who are saved out of the judgments, made a holy and blessed population of the earth; and earth’s blessedness and abiding peace. “And the Lord shall be King over all the earth; in that day shall there be one Lord, and His name one. All the land shall be burned as a plain from Geba to Rimmon, South of Jerusalem . . . and men shall dwell in it, and there shall be no more utter destruction; but Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited . . . . And it shall come to pass that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King and the Lord of Hosts (Compare Rev. 21: 24.) and to keep the feast of taber- nacles, and it shall be that whoso will not come up of all the families of the Hast unto Jerusalem to worship the King and the Lord of Hosts, even upon them shall benorain . . . Inthatday shall there be upon the bells of the horses, IloLINESs UNTO THE LorD; and the pots in the Lord’s house THE REGENERATION. 147 shall be like the bowls before the altars; yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of Hosts; and all they that sacrifice shall come and take of them and seethe therein, and in that day there shall be no more the Canaanite in the house of the Lord of Hosts.” (14: 9-21.) Now, I add to all this testimony the clear declarations of the prophet Daniel, on this subject, so familiar to all, and so clear and full in his presentation of the very same par- ticulars. The bringing near the Son of Man to the Ancient of Days to receive the Kingdom; that Kingdom to come at the overthrow of the present world kingdoms, the thrones set for His saints to exercise dominion with Him; the time come for the deliverance af Daniel’s people, Israel; the kingdom under the whole heaven given to the people of the saints of the Most High; the rule of the Messiah and His holy ones over all the earth, and that Kingdom abiding on the earth “forever, even for ever and ever.” (Daniel 2: 31-46; and 7: 9-27.) We have seen, now, how manifestly all the prophets of the Old Testament speak one and the same language on this subject. One song with varying strings of the harp, but with a never-ceasing harmony, is sung by all of them —the same utterance, as the apostle Peter declares, by “all God’s holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts 3: 21.) Reading, now, on the very surface of these Old Testament Scriptures, what all the prophets have uttered in reference to “the Regeneration,” we see that they are in entire accord in the following particulars, viz.: A renewed Heavens and Earth made like the garden of the Lord; the presence of the King, reigning in glory and the seat of His dominion over all the Earth in Zion; His risen people seated on the thrones of judgment with Him; “an honor given to all His Saints;” nations living on the Earth, spared from the desolating judgments of God, and then blest and made the subjects of the Lord’s rule. Ali these made holy; all 148 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. taught of God from the least to the greatest; Christ’s redemption applied to all on the Earth; the former things, in the presence of this great glory, passed out of mind; Israel redeemed asa Nation and gathered into his own land, and known of all the Earth as the seed whom the Lord has blessed; the reproach, the curse, all gone; and God dwelling, indeed, in the midst of mankind as His own people. And this blessedness of the Earth to last from generation to generation, forever. Let us pause now at this stage. Here are the events respecting the coming day of glory revealed to the Old Testament church; and the faith of God’s people in the Old Testament times so received them, and looked forward to just such a fulfillment of them. There were, of course, then, as there are now, many partly revealed particulars as to time and circumstances which lay yet inthe dark. As to these the prophets themselves searched, to know what time and what events the Spirit of Christ in them did signify, when He spoke of the sufferings of Christ and the glory to follow. But plainly these did not affect the great outline of pro- pheey which set before the faith of the church certain distinct and comprehensible events. And, as such, the church of that day received them. Now, I will ask, Is it conceivable that, by some subsequent revelation, all this could have been declared to be a grand mistake—a delusion practised upon the church for a time, when in its nonage? and that no such expectations by Israel were ever to be realized, on earth, as the Scripture statements had led them to believe? Is it conceivable that the whole hope of the chureh was to be entirely changed, not simply as to degree, but in kind; and that, under the plea, of greater spirituality, all this grand and inspiring vision of the future which all the prophets had, from the beginning, been portraying, in order to animate and stimulate God’s sons and daughters, THE REGENERATION. 149 should vanish away, “like the baseless fabric of a dream,” into some illusive, ideal, and incomprehensible glory, to be unveiled in another sphere? Such a change seems impos- sible. The church of God in every age is one; and her hope so far as it is revealed, in every age isthe same. Why should the church, in our age, be deluded by certain expectations which turn out at last to be only parables foreshadowing some- thing else utterly different and utterly indistinct and unfixed? What shows a change, so radical, to be the more unwar- ranted, is the plea upon which it is based. Is the plea, that there are plain statements, during the dater dispensation, of such a change being necessary? Not at all. If there were such, some good ground would, indeed, be given for insisting on a new view of the whole matter. But not one word of New Testament Scripture calls for such a trans- formation of Old Testament prophecy. What, then, is the plea? Simply this, Gentiles have become believers. As believers they are the spiritual seed of Abraham just as truly as are believing Jews. As believers, Gentiles are fellow heirs and of the saine household of God. All which is true. But from this premiss it is concluded that this fact annuls all the distinctive promises made to the literal Israel, and hence wherever Israel’s name comes in for a prophecy of blessing, Israel is no longer to be understood as Israel, but the spiritual church at large, made up of Jews and Gentiles. And thus all the Old Testament language on this subject of Israel’s future in the Earth, and indeed of the day of glory itself, is sublimated away to suit the fancy and preconception of the interpreter. What could not be proved by such a process? a process never resorted to in the interpretation of any other part of Scripture; never at all in the interpretation of any other writings; and for the plain reason that the laws of language forbid a method of interpretation so arbitrary and unjustified. 150 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. Besides, how ean such an application of these passages to the church at large be made without confounding all language, when in one line the Israel who is said to be brought back, redeemed, renewed, and is presented as dwell- ing from generation to generation in his own land, is in the line preceding spoken of as the very Israel who was cast out, depressed, blinded, and persecuted, by the Gentile nations? Further, how can this interpretation be justly allowed, when, on the contrary, all the sufferings of the Messiah are interpreted as having been prophesied literally; and why not the glory which is predicted? In the very speech of the Apostle Peter, we have quoted, there is another thing besides the restitution of all things, of which he declares all the prophets have spoken. And what is that? It is the sufferings of Christ. “ But those things which God hath spoken beforehand by the mouth of all His holy prophets, that Christ should suffer, He hath so ful- filled” All agree that this record of all the prophets is to be taken in its plain literal meaning; why not the other? And still further. How is it possible thus to transfer Israel’s place to the Gentile church and thus involve every- thing in confusion, when the inspired apostle quotes one of these very declarations (Is. 59: 60) which presents the whole together and declares to us that this Israel, so redeemed, and so made a blessing and a glory in the whole earth, means the natural Israel, and is to be clearly distinguished from the believing Gentile church. (Rom. chap. 11.) But still it is claimed that the language of prophecy is poetical language; is full, therefore, of tropes and figures, and that, interpreted as figurative language must be, the plain or literal meaning we have educed from it, as read on the very surface, is necessarily excluded. But this isa great mistake. For this concurrent plain meaning of the prophecies is not at all excluded by our accepting the THE REGENERATION. 151 really figurative language of Scripture as figurative. There is no objection to our doing this. The History of the Bible is often expressed in language carrying figures. What we object to is, first insisting that language is figura- tive, where there are no figures; and secondly, the inter- preting of language, which is plainly figurative, entirely aside from the known laws of such a figurative language, and in a way adopted for the interpretation of no other poetry or figurative language whatever. The claim that the language should be grammatically, or as some call it, literally, inter- preted, is not by any means a claim that all figures should be excluded. It is only this, that figures should be inter- preted assuch figures are always elsewhere interpreted; and this being done, that the meaning, thus educed, shall be accepted as the true meaning of the passage. The language of prophetic symbols of course stands by itself. I am speaking of the ordinary language of prophecy. By this simple rule, which is applied to all the rest of the Bible, the meaning is plain. It lies on the surface and it gives one concurrent voice in the Old Testament and in the New, for this blessed hope, the coming of the King and the Regen- eration of all things. We hold, then, that the true principles of exegesis will lead us to adopt this natural meaning of the prophets as the true meaning. And this being the case, we see what the nature of that future holy condition of the earth, revealed to the fathers by all the prophets, was understood tobe. And if this was their expectation, it is incredible that this was to be suddenly exchanged for some new hope entirey unheard of before. But now, before opening the New Testament, we pause to say, that if ever such a change in the church’s expecta- tion was to be made, now was the time, at the first advent of the great Teacher, when the views of the church should 152 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. have been rectified. Is it not to be taken as a matter of course, if there had been in the Old Testament church, in Christ’s time, a great and vital misunderstanding of the prophecies concerning the Regeneration; the Kingdom in its future glory, Israel’s position in it, ete, that Ie, com- ing as the great Teacher, and correcting and enlightening at every point on other topics, would surely have disabused the minds of His disciples on these misunderstood points? Would not His Apostles afterwards also have done so? He did nothing of the sort. They did nothing of the sort. For ought He or they have said, the picture of the Regeneration lying on the surface of the Prophetical writings, as we have drawn it forth, remains just as it was received. I am not now speaking of the mistaken notions of many among them, as to the way of entering the Kingdom; of their false ideas as to the saving effect of mere descent from Abraham; their ignorance that the Lord must first rule in the heart before a man, Jew or Gentile, can inherit the Kingdom; nor of their mis- taken ideas as to the time of setting up the Kingdom, nor of the way in which the Gentiles were to be introduced into it. But I refer to their views of the distinctive features of that ningdom in its consummation, as thus portrayed by their prophets; its introduction by the Messiah in person; its presence on this earth under His rule; His glorificd saints ruling with Him; its universality and per- fect blessedness; Israel’s permanent residence under it, in their own land, acknowledged by all as the seed whom the Lord has blessed, and this continuing from generation to generation. Nor am I speaking of the views which the car- nal and wicked among the church of that time may have entertained; nor of the hope such may have cherished to see a Kingdom like the godless Kingdoms of this present evil world. When I speak of the sublimity of the Jewish THE REGENERATION. 153 church I refer to the views wrought into the hearts of the pious among that people by means of the Scriptures; of persons like Simeon and Anna and Nathaniel and others who waited for the Kingdom of God and looked, therefore, for Him who was to be “a Light to lighten the Gentiles and the Glory of His people Israel. It is, to be sure, by no means uncommon, to speak even of these pious souls as. having entirely mistaken their own prophets, and to con- sider the whole church’s views as very worldly and tem- poral and unspiritual, and to represent these Jewish children of faith as looking forward, in their weakness, for some prior imitation of the sinful and ambitious Kingdoms of this present evil world, simply because the Kingdom of glory was in their minds associated with this earth. And it is not uncommon to imagine that Christ’s words were intended to rebuke such expectations of theirs. But where did Christ ever really thus speak of them? And how can His words be so interpreted, except by an exegesis which simply assumes that there is such an intention in them. We call attention then to this fact, that, with these views of the prophecies before the ancient church, and accepted by that church, there is not only, in all Christ’s teaching, not one word of correction as to this impression, but there is not one word even of explanation which suggests the possibility that He knew them to have taken a wrong view. There is a mutual understanding on these points between Him and His hearers. Any man would naturally suppose, for example, whenever Christ alluded to the coming King- dom, as He often did, its time, nature, or concomitants, that He, if knowing they had received false impressions of these things in reading their prophets, would have ‘been compelled to explain His own allusions, and set forth His differing views, and put right their notions in so doing. He does nothing of the kind. What are we to infer, but that He accepted their views as, in the great outline, true? 154 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. This fact is strengthened by the consideration that He did very earnestly controvert and correct their mistakes as to other things preparatory to the glory. For example, they metaphorized away the plain and literal statements as to thesufferings of Christ. He takes the greatest pains all along to remove this error and to show them, from Moses and all the prophets, how foolish and slow of heart they were, not to believe all that the prophets had spoken of Christ’s suffering first before He entered into His glory. Thus we see He corrected them on ¢his point upon which (as Peter puts it) all the prophets had also spoken; and if the church had made a similar mistake, as to the glory, why was Ie silent on that error? Notice still further. That in His correction of their views of the prophets’ words about His sufferings, He by no means convicts them on the ground of their having taken too literal and natural a view of the prophecies. On the con- trary, they had erred by refining away the slain Lamb; the pierced Messiah; the Messiah wounded for our transgres- sions, yielding His soul unto death; and hence had failed to perceive all the prophets had spoken. Nor are we to imagine that, because He did correct their views of the sufferings and noé their views as to the glory, the disciples and others of the time received doth in a spiritual or unliteral sense, and that Christ corrected the one unliteral meaning (as to the sufferings), but left the other stand, because in {hat case the unliteral meaning was the true one. Such a conclusion is wrong. For it is notorious that the Apostles took the plain, literal view of the glory at the very time they took the unliteral one as to the suffering. They show it in all their questions; even their very last one betrays it, when they inquired whether the Kingdom was, at that time, to be given to Israel. Nay, the fact is so plain, that for this very reason they are often represented as carnal and THE REGENERATION. 155 worldly in their views of the Kingdom, as we have already stated. No. Christ corrected their unliteral views of the sufferings, and not only allowed their literal views of the Kingdom and glory to stand, but confirmed their literality in many ways. Still further is it to be noted that when our Lord did make any corrections in reference to the Kingdom and glory, it was not in regard to the Regeneration or the Kingdom itself; but to certain errors in connection with it. For example: As to the time of it. It was not, as they had supposed, tmmediately to appear, but only after the King had gone away and returned. Again, it was not to be given Him without the cross, but in consequence of it, and after which He would draw all men unto Him. Again, He was not to be placed on the throne of the King- dom by the hands of ignorant and svttish men who, in their earnal hearts, looked only after the loaves and fishes; nor by the will of the Devil, on condition that Christ would fall down and worship him; but only by His Father’s hand, and when He had won the throne by the cross, and when His Father’s time for bestowing it had arrived. And again, that it was not a Kingdom of this present age, because it was plainly the one of the “age to come.” We desire that this fact may be properly weighed, viz.: that while there is, throughout our Lord’s discourses, the freest reference made to the future Kingdom itself, there is not one word of correction, nor of explanation given. The record was plain in all the prophets. Why should they not receive what the prophets said? They did receive it. They knew and thought but little of the sufferings; they were scandal- ized by the contemplation of a suffering Messiah. But of the glory they understood much and well. There was never any controversy between Christ and the men of His time on these points. Everything is taken for granted on both 156 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. sides. What, now, I repeat, is the natural inference, but that this view is sealed with our Lord’s own approval? It is the New Testament voice approving these plain pictures of the prophets, as also approving the simple-hearted faith or the church which received them just as they were written, and was waiting like Simeon, and Anna, and Joseph of Arimathea, for that Kingdom of God. Let us open now the New Testament and we shall find how true is all this. Our Lord, for example, speaks of this very theme, “ the Regeneration,” the Palingenesia. (Matt. 19:28.) All the prophets had, as Peter declaies, spoken of it. And the disciples received the commonly held views of the time respecting it. “Verily I say unto you (says Christ to His apostles) in the Regeneration, when the Son of Man shall sit upon the throne of His glory, ye who have followed Me shall also sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” Now, when He spoke thus, the disco- ples at once understood Him. There was needed from Him not a word of explanation, as was needed on so many other points, and He gave none. Indeed, they not only under- stood Him, but they were so eager to enter on the Kingdom and receive the reward, that soon after they begin to contend “who should be the greatest in the Kingdom.” And James and John, with their mother, even go so far as to ask Christ to stipulate beforehand who shall occupy the “ right” and “Jeft” hand places of honor in the Kingdom. Even then He does not correct this view of the Kingdom. Even then He admits there are to be these positions of distinguished honor in it, just as they had supposed. Nay, He declares that there are persons for whom these places are “prepared of the Father.’ He does not pronounce who they are. But He declares that these places will be given to these persons and to none others than they. Even He, Christ the Lord, THE REGENERATION. 157 will not assume the right to give them to any others than those to whom they are given of the Father. But while He does not correct this idea as to the Kingdom, or talk about its being unfounded or carnal, reserving to John himself the glory of picturing it in a bright Apocalypse, He does show them the true way to attain greatness in the Kingdom, viz.: not by means of the ambitious selfishness by which the rulers of this world so often ride into their places of power, but by following the Master in that service of self-sacrificing love, to which He calls them during the present time, and wherein He leads the way, and attains the highest honor of the Kingdom. (Luke 22: 24-30; Matt. 20: 20-28; Phil. 2: 5-11.) There was an occasion when Jesus uttered an extended prophecy concerning all the future of the church and the world, up to the very time of His coming. (Luke, chap. 21.) When Jesus omits entirely all mention of any time of glory up to the day of His coming, and pictures Israel cast out and desolate up to the very day of the King’s return and the expiring of the “times of the Gentiles,” Jerusalem being all this time trodden down, He speaks to His listening disciples, in entire accord with all the prophets had said. For throughout the prophets, the salvation of Israel, the return of the King, the deliverance of the earth from sorrow, and the Kingdom in its glory, all come together. When they asked Him, “Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?” no explanation was needed and none given on either side. Nor did He correct them in any point implying a wrong expectation; but told them simply, that the time was deferred; that it was in the Father’s own power, and pointed them to the immediate work given them meanwhile to do. Let us now pass on to the apostles. And here we shall gee there was the same mutual understanding between them 158 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. and Jewish believers of the time as to the meaning of the prophecies respecting the Kingdom. When Peter, for example, preached the words we have already produced at large from Acts 3: 19-21, in reference to the Restitution of all things: “ Repent ye and be con- verted,” etc., there is no explanation needed or given. He and his hearers were in accord. For it was plain to them all, that all the prophets linked together Israel’s repentance and Israel’s refreshing, the presence of the Messiah, the Kingdom of the Messiah, and the Restitution of all things. When the same apostle afterwards points the hope of the waiting church, in his second epistle, to the new heavens and the new earth, and to the longed-for power and coming of the Lord, he just points back to the canvas on which Isaiah had already painted the same glowing scene of the Regeneration, with Israel made honorable and holy, and all flesh blessed and all the earth like Eden, in the presence of the Lord reigning in Mt. Zion and before his ancients gloriously. It was the plain, though glorious, old picture, known from the beginning. When the New Testament writers all, with recurring earnestness, point the churches, for hope, energy, spiritual mindedness, patience, to the coming of the Lord, it was just because it was already so plain in all the Old Testa- ment Scriptures that the Regeneration, the Restitu- tion of all things, the Kingdom in its glory, is alone grand enough to fill every heart; that the church of God could never see any perfect blessedness until that Kingdom was come; and that it was understood that this Kingdom, so glorious, could never be seen until the Lord Himself was visibly present. When the Apostle Paul declared of certain forms of huge evil (¢. g., of the Man of Sin) that these and he should be destroyed only by the “ brightness of the appearing of THE REGENERATION. 159 the great God our Saviour,” it was just in keeping with the old doctrine of the “ Regeneration” Isaiah had long before portrayed (as I have shown) in his 11th chapter, and where he declares that the Root of Jesse shall “slay the Wicked One with the breath of His mouth.” And when the Apostle John, in the Book of Revelation, foreshows, in symbols with greater distinctness of detail, as to time and circumstances, the King coming with the heavenly warriors and overthrowing the opposing earth powers, the binding of Satan for one thousand years, the Resurrection of the saints and their session on thrones, reigning with Christ, and then, at the close of the Millennial day, the final attempt of Satan, his overthrow, the second resurrection, and the judgment of the rest of the dead, the destruction at last of Death and of Hades, and then the appearance of the kingdom in its completed form of glory, God dwelling with men, men His true people—-pain gone, tears wiped away, death gone, sorrow and crying gone—all the former things passed away and He that sits on the throne making all things new, what is it but a nearer view and only a more distinct one under a fresh prophetical insight of that same “ Regeneration” which has been spoken of, by all the holy prophets of God from the olden time; the one faith and expectation of the church of God, throughout every dispensation. Thus the New Testament and the Old are in accord on this great theme plainly written in all the prophets. And what now, in the presence of all this concurrent testimony, is the objection to this view so plainly written? The objection is, alas! that it is a carnal, earthly-minded, view. Alas! Alas! Yes, says the objector, that plain mean- ing is just the view which the old Jews in Christ’s time held. It isa carnal view, and as such was rebuked by Christ. How strangely must the plain declarations of Scripture lead 160 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. astray, if this be the case! But the objection is unfounded. It is not a carnal view, nor was it ever rebuked by Christ. Is it carnal to look for the return of the Lord from heaven? or carnal to wish to see all the nations walking in holiness before the Lord? or to see Israel pre-eminent in holy ser- vice before the Lord? or the risen saints ruling with Him in holy dignity? or all the earth like the garden of the Lord? What is meant by carnal? Does it mean that all this is associated with this earth, and, therefore, carnal ? If this be meant, and if contact with the earth makes carnal, then Christ must have been carnal in living here; and Adam in his innocence carnal, simply because he lived in Eden on the earth. But the earth was made good by God; and the renewed earth will speak His praise as the dwelling place of His people. If the souls of men are holy, as they will be in the Regeneration, contact with the earth can not make carnal. There was, indeed, a carnal idea which some of the Jews of Christ’s time, and some, indeed, of all time have held. And Jews are by no means.alone in holding it. They expected the Kingdom without any true renovation of heart. They expected to be saved as mere descendants of Abraham without regeneration of soul, without possessing Abraham’s spirit. This carnality Christ rebuked. And so, indeed, all the way through the old Testament did their own prophets rebuke it. In these very prophecies of the future renovation and of Israel’s renewal, return and glory, the prophets told them at every pause, that this glory could not occur at that time, because of the wickedness of the people; and they assured them that it would come only when this blindness and corruption of theirs was removed. But the expectation of the “ Regeneration” such as the prophets painted it, did Christ ever rebuke this? Never! Every allusion to it by Christ and His apostles and His THE FIRST RESURRECTION. 161 prophet John, only portrayed it again with greater dis- tinctness and in brighter colors for faith and hope to dwell upon, so that the Christian heart might be stimulated to patience and duty. This fourth view, then, we think, meets all the require- ments of the Scripture. It accepts the plain and con- sentaneous sense of the Scriptures. It is such as a plain reader of the Bible would naturally infer. It shows a harmony between the faith and hope of the Old Testament church and the New Testament church. It requires no departure from the ordinary rules of language. It brings the Regeneration to the earth, and ¢o man, just as the curse was upon the earth and upon man. It alone meets all the statements recorded in Scripture in reference to “the Regeneration.” It shows the all prevalent curse, here, on the earth, the sufferings to meet that curse endured, here, on the earth; and the glory to be revealed, here, om the earth. Itis elevating in its influence on the heart. It ‘is honoring to God. We may sum up its results as follows: If we are asked what that Regeneration is which the Scriptures foreshow, it seems we must be “slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ” of the glory to follow the sufferings of Christ, if we receive not these things as truth. 1. That there is to be a thorough renewing, physical and spiritual, of the earth and the race; “a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness;” “a Kingdom of God under the whole heaven that shall abide forever.” For so the Prophets Isaiah and Daniel distinctly declare, and the Apostle John sets it forth in symbol just as plainly. 2. That this Kingdom of God, promised froin the begin- ning, is identified with, and must not be expected inde- pendently of, this earth on which we tread. For Isaiah and all the prophets, in every prophecy, speak of Israel 162 SHUOND COMING OF CHRIST. when restored, as abiding here forever. They testify that all the nations of the earth from generation to generation are to worship the Lord in this renewed earth, and the Apostle John in Revelation makes no note of any other condition of things up to the very last chapter. 3. That this Regeneration of the earth is to take place in the visible presence of God’s King, the Lord Jesus, who “shall reign in Mount Zion and before His ancients glo- riously.” For to His presence, not only Isaiah witnesses but Daniel also and Jeremiah and Zechariah, as already shown speaking of Him sometimes as David’s Son, some- times as the true David, sometimes as the Lord our Right- eousness. So does Christ Himself witness, for He says He will personally come to the earth, and will cast out of the kingdom all that offends; and “then the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father.” And none can mistake the Apostle John’s declaration that it is in the visible presence of the returned Christ the reign on earth shall take place. 4. That the saints of God from all ages shall reign with Christ over the nations of the saved, the dead saints being raised in the first resurrection, the living saints changed, and both caught up and glorified. For so the Prophet Zechariah declares: “The Lord my God shall come and all the saints with Him.” So Enoch testified before the flood. (Jude 14:15.) And so Paul declares: “If we suffer we shall reign with Him ”—that is, reign when He reigns. So Christ declares: “ He that overcometh shall sit with Me on My throne.” So John declares: “ They lived and reigned with Christ.” 5. That this Regeneration is to be preceded by a sweep- ing away of all moral evii from the earth—the almighty act of vengeance on the part of the King against the wicked powers of earth. For almost every prophecy I have THE REGENERATION. 163 repeated, and which portrays the coming glory, testifies to the “indignation of the Lord against all nations.” (See the prophecy in Isaiah, chap. 24 to chap. 27.) So also Christ testifies, that at His coming, “He will send forth His angels, and they shall gather out of His kingdom all things that offend and them who do iniquity.” And so Ezekiel shows at length. (Chap. 39.) And so the Revelation testi- fies that Christ, attended by heaven’s army, shall go forth in battle against the Beast and the False Prophet and their armies. ‘Rev., ch. 19.) More especially, that these enemies shall be gathered with intent against Jerusalem and the people of Israel (possibly in the hope of proving the Scripture untrue by the annihilation of that people), and that, there, shall be wit- nessed the Lord’s judgment against them. So Zechariah testifies. (Ch. 18 and 14.) And further, that the last and highest form of evil, Satan’s masterpiece, the Man of Sin, shall then be destroyed. So Isaiah declares. (Chap. 11:4.) And so the Apostle Paul testifies to the Thessalonians. (2 Thess. 2: 8.) 6. That the earth is to be purified by fire. Isaiah the prophet testifies: “The Lord will come with fire and with His chariots, like a whirlwind, to render His anger with fury, and His rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many.” (Chap. 66:15, 16.) The Apostle Peter also testifies “that the elements shall melt with fervent heat,’’ and thence the new heavens and new earth shall emerge. And, lest any should doubt whether God can save any alive under such circumstances, the apostle points, in his second epistle, to Noah saved and to Lot saved amidst a general destruction, in order to show that “the Lord knows how to deliver (jiecSa:é« meipacuov) the godly out of trial, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished.” (2 Pet. 2:4-10.) 164 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. 7. That after the desolating judgments with which the returning Lord and King will visit the nations, there will still be some left when the storm has passed by, who will doubtless form the source from which the nations will spring who shall dwell on the earth during the Millennial era. For so Isaiah testifies as to this spared remnant in the midst of the wide-spread destruction on the earth. (Ch. 24:5, 6, 18, 16, 21,22.) And so Zechariah declares, also, that some shall escape of the nations destroyed of the Lord when they come against Jerusalem, and that these shall afterward serve Him. (Ch. 14:16.) And so John declares in the Revelation: That, after the desolating judgments foretold in chap. 19: 13, 21, there will nevertheless be nations living during the Millennial era, who are not deceived by Satan then bound. (Rev. 20: 3.) 8. That this Regeneration shall be attended by the national repentance and conversion of the Jewish people, their gathering to their own land, and their perpetual resi- dence there, exalted as a people to be a blessing in all the earth. This, many passages already quoted, declare. (See Isaiah 61:7-9; 60: 9-14.) 9. That in the “ Regeneration,” therefore, there will be living men in the flesh, distinct from the glorified saints who rule with Christ, and these men will be organized as nations. For so Isaiah speaks of the remnant who are escaped of the nations after the Lord’s judgment of the ungodly. So John speaks of the nations of the earth (after the curse is gone) as walking in the light of the New Jeru- salem. So the prophets speak of Israel as being a gathered nation from generation to generation; “their seed and their seed’s seed dwelling in the Jand forever.” So they tell us of the nations ever rejoicing in Israel’s joy. (Ezek. chap. 36, chap. 37; Is. 61: 9.) So they speak of the King Messiah reigning “as long as the sun and moon THE REGENERATION. 165 endure;” all kings meantime bowing before Him “ through- out all generations;” and “all nations calling Him blessed.” (Psalm 72: 5-11-17.) 10. That to bring about this blessed condition of things the Spirit shall be poured out in an unprecedented manner on all flesh. So the Prophet Joel declares (chap. 2: 28-32) pointing, by his predicted signs to the end of this dispen- sation of the Spirit, and to the conversion of the Gentiles (that are spared) most probably by Jewish instrumentality, a pregnant prophecy that takes in the whole Messianic time, as one vast period, the beginning and end of which, are foreshortened into one and the same picture. And so Isaiah intimates, as to the times of the new heavens and new earth. “JT will set a sign among them, and I will send those that escape of them unto the nations to Tarshish, Pul and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal, and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither have seen my glory; and they shall declare my glory among the Gentiles.” (Is. 66: 28-20.) And so the Apostle James intimates: “ And to this agree the words of the prophets; as 1t is written. After this I will return and will build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down; and I will build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it up; that the residue of men might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord, who doeth all these things; known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world.” (Acts 15: 15-18.) 11. That Satan, the Arch Enemy, will be then bound so as to deceive the nations no more until the thousand years are past. So the Apostle John declares explicitly. (Rev. 20: 1-7.) 12. That all the nations shall then be holy. So Isaiah says to Israel: “All thy children shall be taught of God.” “None shall say to another, know the Lord, for aii shall know Him.” “They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of 166 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” “All nationg shall come and worship before Thee.” (Is. 54: 18; Jer. 81: 84; Is. 11: 9; Rev. 15: 4.) 13. That the race, on earth then made holy, will continue on the earth, in perpetual generations. For so Psalm 72d intimates, as already quoted, (vv. 5, 7, 8,17.) So God declares that the earth will abide safe from destruction by flood under [is everlasting covenant, throughout “ perpetual generations.” (Gen. 9: 12-17.) So Psalm 145: 13, testifies, that the Lord’s Kingdom continues, as an everlasting Kingdom (Heb. Kingdom of the Ages) “throughout all generations.’ And thus generations continue as long as the Kingdom continues. So Psalm 135: 13, tells us that God's memorial is like His name, forever, even from generation to generation.” So Isaiah testifies, that of the znecrease of Christ’s Kingdom on the throne of David there will be no end. (Is. 9: 6,7.) And as His Kingdom is to embrace all the nations of Israel, and all the nations of the earth, its increase must, in accord with these other Scriptures, be by the never- ending generations which shall come under its beneficent sway. So also Isaiah testifies (59: 31), and Joel with him (8: 20), that Israel shall continue “from genera- tion to generation, forever.’’ So Daniel also declares (chap. 7:18, 14, 18, 27) that Christ’s Kingdom on earth is to be a Kingdom wherein “all peoples, nations and languages shall serve Him,” and that this Kingdom, embracing all nations and languages, “ shall not pass away nor be destroyed forever.” Paul also speaks of “glory. being given to God by the church in Christ, wnto all the generations of the Age of Ages.” The rendering of our version, “ through- out all ages world without end,” is a paraphrase and not a translation. The words are, ’ev rq exxdyoig ev Xpiord "Inood elc méoac Tac yevréde Tod dudvog Tov dovev. (Eph. 8: 21.) The “church” THE REGENERATION. 167 is the one body of believers of Jews and Gentiles, fellow- heirs in Christ, of which Paul had just been speaking. They are to be raised from the dead and glorified together as Christ’s bride reigning with Him over the nations. And Paul tells us that praise shall be rendered to God by this glorified church, throughout all the perpetual generations of men dwelling on the earth. And so, finally, the Apostle John, in the Apocalypse, gives not the slightest intimation of any cessation of the nations on the earth. On the contrary, even after the second resurrection is passed, and Satan cast out, and after the Kingdom is established in its glory, these nations are represented as still walking in the light of the heavenly rule of Christ and His saints symbolized by the New Jerusalem come down out of heaven to earth. (Rev. 21: 29-27; 22: 1-5.) 14. That the curse shall be removed from the earth itself, and inanimate creation made to participate in the joy of the “sons of God.” So testify the prophets. The waste places are to be made like Eden, and the deserts like the gar- den of the Lord. (Ez. 34: 27; 36: 11,29, 30, 34-36. Is. 51: 3. Ps. 67: 4-6.) And so the Apostle Paul represents the case in his account of the Palingenesia, towards which the creature, “made subject to vanity for man’s sake,” looks forward with ardent expectation. (Rom. 8: 18-23.) Thus the Regeneration will be a blessed change affecting the whole earth and the race living upon it. The long Winter has indeed stripped off the foliage and made it for a long time look like waste and barren. But the reviving Spring is soon to come and bring forth a “Summer” of glory, forever. (Luke 21:30.) The centuries of earth’s eurse and earth’s disorders and sins will indeed have been among men endured. That fact must remain forever true. And they “who knew not God, and obeyed not the gospel” 168 SEHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. and died in their sins, must indeed be cast out from God forever. But the race, as a race, is redeemed, and sees at length all nations of the earth walking with God. Christ’s blood avails to the uttermost generation. “None need say to another—Know the Lord, for all shall know Him from the least to the greatest.” ‘All thy children shall be taught of God and great shall be the peace of thy chil- dren.” ‘From generation to generation they shall come up to Jerusalem to serve the Lord.” “For all the ends of the world shall worship God.” So testify Isaiah and all the prophets. Doubtless, time will be needed, after the Lord comes to introduce the Millennial reign, before His glory is com- pleted. God’s word declares so. Peter speaks, not merely of the Restitution, but of the “¢zmes” of the Restitution, —a vast period. And the Apostle Paul testifies “ He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet,’ and that “the last enemy which shall be destroyed is Death.” (1 Cor. 15: 25, 26.) It would seem from this that during the Millennial reign which is, indeed, a far brighter and more blessed era, and immeasurably more glorious than the present; and while all sorrow and care shall then be gone; and, as Isaiah declares, the longevity of God’s elect shall be “as the days of a tree,” (Isa. 65:22) yet Satan isnot completely overthrown until its close, and while other enemies are not destroyed Death must still continue. For, as Paul declares, Death is the last enemy to be destroyed. At the close comes Satan’s final effort, his overthrow, the general judgment, the banish- ment of the wicked dead to hell, and last of all, Death and Hades are destroyed. And then the Kingdom is seen in its final form of perennial blessedness—the Regeneration is completed. Thus the Seed of the woman will have entirely destroyed THH REGENERATION. 169 all the works of the Devil, and the curse, uttered in Eden, is wiped away. At the fall, there hung in hideous darkness over man, alienation from God, a cursed earth, pains and labors and tears, death, the graveand Hades. Nowat last all are gone—even the last enemy, Death, gone forever— and so the triumphant voice of gladness from heaven at last announces its arrival. “T heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold the taber- nacle of God is with men and He will dwell with them; and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them and be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. For the former things are passed away. And He that sat upon the throne said, Behold I make all things new.” (Rev. 21: 1-5.) It is the glorious word of victory uttered by the Son,—démorerdxrac! alt things “ subjected! —yéyove! “ tt ¢s done!” the regenesis is accomplished t Glory! Glory! Eternal Glory! “One song employs all nations; “Worthy the Lamb for He was slain for us. “The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks “Shout to each other; and the mountain tops “ From distant mountains catch the flying joy, “Till nation after nation taught the strain, “ Earth rolls the rapturous hosannah round. “Thus heavenward all things tend. For all once were “Perfect, and all must be at length restored. “Come, then, and added to Thy many crowns “Receive yet one, the crown of all the earth; “Thou who alone art worthy! It was Thine “ By ancient covenant ere nature’s birth; “ And Thou hast made it Thine by purchase since “ And overpaid its value by Thy Blood. “Come, then, and added to Thy many crowns, “Receive yet one as radiant as the rest, “Due to Thy last and most effectual work, “Thy word fulfilled—the conquest of a world.” What a joy does it bring to the heart to contemplate the blessedness which this earth, so long the abode of sin and sorrow, shall one day see forever: True, indeed, many shall 170 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. never lift their eyes on that day of peace and blessing. They are given up to this present world. Christ says, “ Except a man be born again he shall never see the King- dom of God.” How sad to have seen this earth only in its sorrows and never in its bridal day of joy and gladness! But to the holy nations dwelling on the earth in that time of perfected glory, what words can describe the joy which the scenes of that day will yield! What a contrast between the earth at its bestestate now and the redeemed earth then! It istrue, indeed, that even now, while the curse still hangs asa blight upon us, God’s mercy does soften the curse. Like a bright star hung on the horizon, when clouds cover the sky, still giving token of the glories of the concealed heaven, so God’s mercy-drops sweeten the bitter cup even of the present. But what will it be when the light fills all the heavens! Think of the households, for example, of the earth redeemed. Ye mothers of the present world, tried and anxious, think of them. There will be then no fear for that lovely circle around the mother’s knee, for the inhabi- tants of that world shall never say, “Iam sick;” no fear of evil passions springing up within those young hearts, for all temptation and sin will be gone; no doubt of their future character, for “all their children shall be taught of God;” no days of watching or nights of anxiety and weak- ness. All the earth filled with homes of holiness and peace! Oh, glorious day begin! Think of the intercourse of the nations in that day Even now, indeed, we have Christian civilization, and this has meliorated the condition and the intercourse of the world. We go to a foreign shore, and we are sure of restraining laws and of mercy for strangers. We are sure of a guard for our persons and the means of health, and yet how every street and every abode, high and low, tells of sore needs, and of poverty, and crime, and sorrow, and THE REGENERATION. 171 sin. But what a brotherhood will the holy nations of that day present! The wanderer from his own home will only exchange one home and welcome for another. From North to South, from East to West, all nations sing the same song of redeeming love. All bow in fealty to the same glorious King; all show the same fruits of the Spirit. Every appoint- ment of government shall be in conformity with the right- eous rule, to do honor to the King of all the earth and to bless all under its sway. For, “A King shall reign in righteousness and princes shall rule in judgment; and a Man shall be asa hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.” It is a blessedness to us now to know that God’s holy angels watch over us, “ ministers to the heirs of salvation.” But in that day, when the Lord is here, shall not angels visit men as they did in Eden? But even more than this; what must be the blessedness of men to behold their own flesh and blood raised to honor and glory with Christ, and ruling and watching over angels! Nay, even more still; to see God’s own Son in their own nature, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, ruling in the whole earth? And to the Lord Himself, will that day of earth’s Regen- eration bring no special joy? Will He not see in it of the travail of His soul, and be satisfied ? Will it be no joy to behold this earth where Satan so long ruled as Prince of this world, and Christ’s fellow men were ruined, and where His own blessed feet trod the thorny path of sorrow, and where His heart was weighed down with grief for man’s sins, and where He hung on the cross, and where He lay in the grave, become the place of His triumph and the scene of His glory ? And what of that precious blood shed upon Calvary ? Will its virtue be expended in redeeming only a part of the 172 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. race; then to see that race cut short and no further appli- cations of that precious blood? That would be but a partial triumph indeed. Satan would, in this view, have led cap- tive still the great multitude of men in all ages; and death would still reign down to the very last generation. But to see the end of sin on the earth come—to see the blood made availing before God for countless generations, never to lose its power of adding new trophies to God’s grace! That will magnify Christ’s blood and Christ’s righteousness indeed. Men look back to Eden sometimes, and sigh to think that by Adam’s fall the race lost the bappiness they might have enjoyed if Adam had stood. But what, at the best, would this have been? A world standing in its own righteousness, and hence probably exposed in every genera- tion to fall. But the redeemed earth will see its millions saved forever, beyond all fear of falling, for Christ’s blood and Christ’s righteousness “ perfects forever.” (Heb. 10:14.) What God will do with this earth, regenerated, and with its saved race, we know not. One thing we know: He who will sit as King over all in human nature, our Brother, is appointed of the Father, Head over all things—the Head of creation. We know, too, as the apostle tells us, that it is God’s design “ to show in the ages to come the exceeding riches of His grace, in His kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.” (Eph. 2-7.) But who may be the students of these marvels of mercy we know not. God’s word reveals no more. Only let us be sure that a world redeemed by the blood of God’s own Son, and bound to Him, through the requirements of the covenant of mercy in everlasting fel- lowship, is not saved without some object worthy of God who redeems it. Let us then, brethren, bear the voice which comes to us through all God’s holy prophets. Amidst the temptations, and the vain show, and the sorrows of this world, let us THE REGENURATION. 173 cheer our hearts with a believing view of the coming glory, when all the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, and men shall say: “Behold, this land which was desolate is become like the garden of Eden.” Let us pray for Israel, that the Lord may pardon his iniquities and bring in the day of his deliverance. Let us diligently spread the Lord’s glorious “ Gospel of the Kingdom” to all lands under heaven, and by His aid gather out of every nation a people to His praise. Let us keep our garments white, that we walk not naked in the day of His coming, and men see our shame. Let us beware of having “ our hearts surcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and the cares of this life, and so that day which shall come as a snare upon all the earth,’ come upon us, too, unawares. Let us rejoice over our dying ones, that they are soon to come again with the Lord and see the glory of the Regeneration. And let us never cease to pray, as our only hope for the approach of that day of glory, “Come, Lord Jesus; come quickly 1” 174 SHCOND COMING OF CHRIST. THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. BY PROFESSOR H. LUMMIS, METHODIST, MONSON, MASS. TueEreE are, doubtless, words in the Sacred Scriptures that are very imperfectly understood, some that are not under- stood at all. The meaning given in our version, for example, may be the best that is known, and yet no careful student of the Bible can safely accept these temporary substitutes as the strict equivalents of the original words. The words which name the theme now presented are not of this obscure class. They are used so often and in so many different connections that it is not a little surprising to find such divergencies of opinion as to their real meaning. And yet no more so perhaps than in a score of kindred cases where differences depend less on the data than on the point of observation, and on the wishes that fashion results. I do not believe that differing views are both right where they antagonize, but I think I do see why differences and antagonisms exist, and also that they have a ground less in truth itself, than in circumstances. If the Spirit of truth direct us, there is no good reason why we should not arrive at substantial agreement. The word dasileia, uniformly rendered kingdom in our version (with buta single exception, Rev. 17: 18,) occurs in the New Testament 159 times in the received text. Two. of these, Matthew 6: 33, and Mark 1: 14, are wanting in the critical texts, while two, Rev. 1: 6,.(instead of 4asileza, kings), and Rev. 5: 10, are added by the critical texts. This uniformity of rendering is almost remarkable in a word occurring so often, especially when we remember that THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 1% our translators so often varied a rendering for rhetorical effect. Another point worthy of passing notice is, that no word is rendered kingdom in the New Testament. Basileia occurs in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament 248 times as the rendering of some derivative of the root malak of the verb itself. Such a multitude of occurrences under so great a variety of circumstances gives so complete a key to the idea, that any ordinarily bright child of ten years old, if all verses in which the word kingdom occurs were given to it, with this word obliterated, the child’s wisdom would be able to supply the proper sign for the idea. The word as to its root-idea was one of the every-day words of Hebrew life, and one of the common words to the Hellen- izing Jew. That this is true is recognized by the foremost scholars of the age. I quote but one, Dr. E. B. Pusey, one of the very first Hebrew scholars of the English Church. I give an estimate of his scholarship by Dr. J. J. Stewart Perowne, the very able translator and annotator of the Psalms, himself regarded as one of the most competent exegetes in England. Dr. Perowne says of Dr. Pusey, in regard to his Commentary on Daniel: “He has brought to bear on this point (the genuineness of Daniel) a perfect encyclopedia of learning. It is by far the most complete work which has yet appeared, no continental writer having handled the subject with any thing like the same fulness or breadth of treatment.” Dr. Pusey thus speaks concerning the expressions, “Kingdom of God,” “Kingdom of Heaven.” These phrases occur in the gospels as words as well known to the whole Jewish people as faith, hope, charity, worship or any other religious term. They are not explained, but are assumed to be understood. Of these equivalent terms, the Kingdom of Heaven is especially suggested by Daniel’s words: “The God of Heaven shall set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed, as also 176 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. by the contrast with those kingdoms of man which should arise from the earth,” pp. 84-85. “ Daniel foretold, not a kingdom in Israel only, not a conversion of the heathen only, but that He who sat above, in form like a son of man, should be worshipped by all peoples, nations and languages, and that this kingdom should not pass away.” Ib., p. 87. It is generally admitted that the Jews of the time of Christ, and for a time preceding, had been expecting, eagerly, the coming of the Messiah, the establishment of a kingdom on the earth and a sway over the nations. Why should they not? Had there been anything in the prophecies already fulfilled that would lead them to expect a mystical application of those glowing words that prom- ised a deliverer and a king? Look over the pages of prophecy. Ponder the historical record which relates to the fulfillment of some of these. Remember, too, that Israel as a Nation had been witness to many of the most remarkable of them. I quote a passage from Isaiah, 13: 17-22. Take another passage from Jeremiah, 34:2, 3; also 24: 4, 5. Again, God speaks thus through Jeremiah: “Behold I will send and take all the families of the North, saith the Lord, and Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, my servant, and will bring them against this land, and against the inhabitants thereof. . . . And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the King of Babylon seventy years.” (Jer. 25: 9-11.) ACCURACY OF THE PROPHECIES. My limits forbid me to quote at length, as I might, the foretold return; the declaration that Cyrus should perform the Lord’s pleasure in the restoration of Israel; that Jeru- salem should be rebuilt and the foundation of the temple relaid. I note these striking predictions to show that the THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 177 Jews had full warrant to expect a King as literally such as was David or Solomon, and a kingdom as literally such as was theirs. Iam amazed when men talk about the obscurity of unfulfilled prophecy. If in the Book of Daniel and in Revelation there be a difficulty and obscurity, it grows out of the symbols used, and not out of the prophecy. History recorded in symbols would be just as dark and hard to understand without the key to the symbols. If any man is familiar with the history that gives the facts that followed these prophecies, and, as believers in the Bible as a reliable record hold, in fulfillment of these prophecies, he must see the marvellous correspondence with the literal statements of the prophecy and the simple facts that followed. God, through the prophet, declares that He will stir up the Medes against Babylon, and the Medes are actors in the taking of Babylon and the slaughters that follow. ‘The desolations of the land harmonize so fully with the prophecy that one needs only to change the tenses to have the history. This the undersigned testimony of infidel writers fully confirms. The prophecy to Zedekiah that he should see the eyes of the King of Babylon, and yet that he should not see Babylon though he should die there, that he should not die by violence, but that he should die in peace, are literally in striking harmony with the facts of history. To declare as some do that the prophecies are designed in a general way to give consolation and hope to believers under trial by a bright picture of future good, shows an extraordinary ignorance of the prophetic Scrip- tures, which are crowded with minatory as really as with consolatory predictions. The Jews had experienced in detail so literal a fulfillment of the woes and bitterness of long-threatened captivity in case they forgot God, that it would be astounding if they did not read the prophecies as foreseen history. 12 178 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. If it be said that they evidently did misunderstand the prophecies that referred to Christ, it will be fair to ask, “did they misunderstand the prophecy that spoke of the place of His birth?” When anxious Herod heard that one had been born King of the Jews he evidently dreaded inter- ference with his own claim on the crown of Palestine. But when he asked where the Messiah should be born, unhesi- tatingly the Scribes, conversant with the prophets, replied : In Bethlehem, of Judea, for thus it is written by the prophet: “ And thou Bethlehem in the land of Judea, are not the least among the princes of Judea, for out of thee shall come forth a Governor, that shall rule my people Israel.” This place was Bethlehem, the very birthplace of David, literal Bethlehem; the birth was not mystical, but literal; was Israel to be mystical Israel, and the rule mys- tical rule? Later in the history of the King Jesus, they might have read, and some of them doubtless did: “ He made His grave with the wicked and with the rich in His death.” Was the grave a figurative one, was the death figurative? (Isa. 53:9.) Were not all the terms of the prophecy—wicked, rich, grave, death—to be taken in the strictest natural meaning? There was one respect in which the willful and wicked Jews went wrong, but it was not in taking the prophecies that spoke of Christ literally, as lit- erally as if they had been simply written history. They did not clearly apprehend, as they would have done if they had sat at the feet of Jesus in a teachable spirit, and had listened to His unfolding of the plan of His mission, that the glory of the King was not to appear before He should come to His Kingdom. They were right, entirely right, in associating with the Messiah power and great glory, power exerted, glory displayed; but they were wrong in expecting royal dignity in the surroundings of His cradle, and royal splendor in the associations of His boyhood. They over- THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 179 looked the foretold lowliness in the foretold glory. Had they received Him meck and lowly, as it was foretold He should be, they might have seen the King in His beauty, as they will see Him at His return, after judicial blindness and eclipse of their faith for almost twenty centuries. Is it presuming to suppose that if the people of Israel had received their King when He came, and just as He jwas, in the spirit of good old Simeon, that the world would have waited through this long night of wretchedness? Might not the Messiah with His sympathetic, energetic subjects have wrought speedily the work that has been done, so far as it has been done so feebly, so apathetically, so inefticiently, by the Church? Israel delayed, as Chris- tians have delayed, and are still delaying, instead of hasten- ing, the coming of the day of God. No “hastening unto the day of God,” as our version unfortunately reads. It was right that the Jews should expect in the Kingdom of the Messiah prosperity. Stretch that word to its utmost limit—let it comprise all good—it means, it can mean no more than the prophecies implicitly or explicitly foretell. No more than Israel might anticipate under their King, the literal descendant of David, the lineal heir to his throne. Do not let me be annoyed by the suggestions that all bless- ings to the eye, to the ear, to the taste, that Paradise restored on earth must be inconsistent with the spiritual good—higher good certainly—God designs to bring to men through His Son. The tithe of mint, and cummin, and anise was a little thing; that it should take the place of judgment, and mercy, and faith was a shameful thing. But the perfect teacher put each in its proper place. “These,” He says, “ye ought to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” (Matt. 23:23.) The Messianic Kingdom would be incomplete if that good which the pious Jew anticipated, 180 SECOND COMING OF CHRIST. a glorious kingdom on earth, were left out, as, thank God, it will not be. The lofty eyes that overlook all physical good are less broad in their scope than the eyes that look above and below and around, beholding all. Not that seeing part is seeing falsely—it is seeing partially. Arraigning one that sees other parts is judging falsely. Many a visitor has ascended the slope of Mt. Washington, drawn by the . snorting iron horse whose neighings echoed back from cliff and ravine, and has seen that rugged, rock-crowned summit gray with the mosses and lichens of unnumbered centuries, as the misty robe that draped the giant peak was lifted by the careering winds. He has a right to speak of the sub- lime view which he has seen. But he has made only one ascent; he has looked from one position only, although a favored spot it may be, and one that affords the finest view of the monarch of New England hills. But if he forgets or ignores the carriage road up from the Glen House; if he overlooks the bridle-path that winds up through the wooded hills and bending valleys and steep, precipitous acclivities from the Crawford; if he counts not the devious foot-way of the lone pedestrian who, by some hitherto untrodden course, has clambered to the crown of the moun- tain king, he has not a complete picture‘of the loftiest of the White Hills. The modern theologian who, conceiving the Kingdom of Jesus, looks upward and views the bluesky and gold and crimson clouds, and the brightness of the resplendent sun, has a charming picture, even if it be alittle etherial. But to complete its beauty he needs the hills and valleys, flowing as of old in the land of Canaan, with milk and honey, the palace towers of Jerusalem the golden, the white-robed company marching with crowns on their heads and with palms in their hands to strains of celestial music, the opening doors of the royal mansion and the broad table THE KINGDOM AND THE CHURCH. 181 spread with ambrosial viands, fit for the children and the brothers and sisters of a king, and the seated guests, the patriarchs and prophets, and all the godly race. No timid- ity induced by skepticism within the nominal Church of God, or without, shall make me minish aught of what my Father’s legacy warrants me to expect. I shall see the King in His glory, and be fellow heir with Abraham. In com- pany with the meek I shall possess the earth. An humble and unworthy brother of Jesus Christ, I am to have the body of my humiliation made like the body of His glory. A KINGDOM OF THIS WORLD. If there were but a single Old Testament prophecy of this kingdom, one made definite by passing from its picture form in which it was at first given to the great King of Babylon, and afterward to that prince among the seers, Daniel, of the Children of the Captivity, it would establish on a foundation, not to be shaken, the doctrine of the king dom, a kingdom in this world, a kingdom embracing the globe and to be possessed by the saints. A king, a realm, a multitude of subjects are requisite to a kingdom in the strict sense. I give the outline. Nebuchadnezzar dreams adream. It troubles him. He wishes to know its signifi- cation, but before he can state it to his magicians and astrologers and sorcerers, and to the Chaldeans, it escapes his memory. He requires these men to tell the dream and its interpretation. With good reason they reply to this strange demand, that the requirement is beyond human power. In anger the monarch gives orders that all the wise men of the kingdom be slain. As one of them, Daniel is threat- ened by the decree. He seeks the King and asks time, giving assurance that both dream and interpretation will be given. God reveals the dream to the prophet, and he, acknowledging the Most High as the source of his wisdom, 182 SHEVUOND COMING OF UHRIST. states before the King the dream and its signification. In the dream is seen a great image of gold and silver and copper and iron and clay. A stone cut out of a moun- tain without hands smites the image upon the feet. The ‘shock pulverizes the image, and the dust is carried away by the wind, like chaff blown from the summer threshing- floor. The stone becomes a mountain and fills the earth. In telling the meaning of the dream Daniel declares that the different parts of the image represent successive king- doms, the four metals and the clay signifying the strength, and at the same time the weakness of the last of the four sovereignties. Daniel closes his interpretation with these remarkable words: “And in the days of these kings, shall the God of Heaven set up a Kingdom which shall never (to eternity shall not) be destroyed, and the Kingdom shall not be left (transferred) to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume (grind up and make an end of) all these Kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Forasmuch as thou sawest that “he stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces the iron, the copper, the clay, the silver and the gold; the great God hath made known what shall come to pass hereafter, and the dream is certain, and the interpretation thereof sure,” or trustworthy, rendered “faithful” in Dan. 6: 4. The prophet declares to the king that God has made known to him (not that something shall come to pass, but) what shall come to pass.