Just Published,
The Great Tribulation,
SECOND  SERIES.
FORMING BOOK II. OF THIS WORK,
One Vol. 12mo. Price, $1,00.




THE
GREAT TRIBULATION;
OR,
THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH
BY
THE REV. JOHN CUMMING, D.D., F.A.S:E.
MINISTER OF THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL CHURCH,
CROWN COURT, COVENT GARDEN.
FIRS T SERIES.
*A time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation."-DsxN ii 1.
"There shall be great tribulation."
NEW YORK 
RUDD & CARLETON, 130 GRAND STREET,
LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY.
M DCCC LX.








CONTENTS.
LECTURE I.                   PAGA
THE GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE..... Dan. xii. 1.     19
LECTURE II.
THE DOOMED CITY.........  att. xxiv. 1-6. 30
LECTURE III.
THE GREAT CONVULSION, OR SHAKING OF
NATIONS............       Haggai ii. 6-8. 48
LECTURE IV.
THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.... Matt. xxi. 12. 64
LECTURE V.
EVENMNG CLOUDS.........    t.  i. 24. 86
LECTURE VI.
THE LAST WITNESS......    Matt. xxiv. 14. 103
LECTURE VII.
PHENOMENA IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.. Matt. xxiv. 29-31 115
LECTURE VIII.
THE LATTER RAIN......... Joel ii. 28-32.. 130
LECTURE IX.
EVENING LIGHT......            Zech. xiv. 7.. 142




vi                   CONTENTS.
LECTURE X.                   PAGS
THE STA)INGm  MmaOcL...Mat. xxiv. 34. 156
LECTURE XI.
THE FINALLY SAVED.                Matt. xxiv. 18. 166
LECTURE XII.
THE LAST CONLAGRATON...... Matt. xxiv. 27. 179
LECTURE XI.
NEARING DELIVERAN......   Roman  xiii. 11. 192
LECTURE XIV.
THz DAY AND HOUR....Ma..  xxiv. 36, 37 206
LECTURE XV.
THB WORLD'S FLEETING FASHION.... 1 Cor. vii. 31.. 222
LECTURE XVL
TIE SLEEPING CHURCH......  Matt. xxV. 5.. 285'LECTURE XVII.
READY.............  att. xxiv. 44. 243
LECTURE XVIII.
CoB, YE BLESED.                       a.......  Matt. xxv. 31-40 252
LECTURE XIX.
DEPART, YE CURSED........    Mat. xxv. 41-46 265
LECTURE XX.
THE GLORY-FILLED EARTH.....  Palm lxXii[ 19. 280




PREFACE.
IT is impossible for the most thoughtless to overlook
the impressive and almost unprecedented character of
the age in which we live. Events, as rapid in their
succession as they are startling in their magnitude,
splendour, and consequences, chase each other like
waves on the sea, or fall on us like falling stars on earth
of a winter evening.
I stated in " Apocalyptic Sketches" that the last
vial-that is, the symbol which denotes the source and
measure and duration of the "Great Tribulation"was, in all probability, poured out in 1848, from which
time to 1867 we may expect to feel its intensest effects.
Subsequent observation, and comparison of facts as
they evolve with the " sure word of prophecy" as it is
written, have served to strengthen my conviction of the
accuracy of this deduction; and in this volume it is my
object to show that the prophecies of the Redeemer
enunciated on the Mount of Olives, and other predic.




VIII                 PREFACE.
tions referable to the same category and era, are being
daily translated into history. It is under the action of
the last vial, which, in order to denote the universality
of its effects, was poured " into the air," that we dis.
cover those abnormal, physical, political, and social
conditions, which persons ignorant of, or hostile to all
prophetic investigations, allow to have an intensity and
universality, to say the least startling.
Disease, during the last ten years, has steadily struck
with destructive blight the potato and the vine, men
and cattle, with a force and frequency surely unusual;
and the only explanation scientific investigation has
arrived at is just that stated in prophecy as the effect
of the last vial, a morbific taint or influence in "the
air." I do not say there never was before cholera, or
diphtheria, or miasma destructive of vegetable life;
but surely these influences, all of them the subjects of
prophecy, have recently been developed with an in'
tensity, a continuity, and to an extent, and with a concurrence at least most unusual.
Diseases of various types, from the consuming fever
of Lisbon in 1857 down to less marked degeneracy of
physical health, have been noticed and commented on
by physicians. Frequently do they remark that some
change, probably in the air, or its ozone, or its electricity, has taken place, followed by a weakening of the
springs of life.  So real is this alteration, that the




PREFACE.                   ix
medical treatment which was proper some ten years
ago, is not applicable now.  It is no solution of all this
to say similar events have occurred in previous years.
There is at present an area accumulation and intensity
of morbific agencies in the air which no previous year
has witnessed. This is, I believe, a fulfilment of the
effects of the seventh apocalyptic vial; and men who a
few years ago sceptically and scornfully treated this
solution, begin at length to recognise at least its high
probability.
We have regarded the effect of the pouring of the
seventh vial into the air as purely physical. This, however, is but one part of its action-a universal influence
is the dominant idea. Has any disturbing action been
manifested in other departments of social life?
Let us call to mind the Russian war, of which the
Crimea was the centre, while all the European nations
either looked on or took part. Here we had the social
intercourse and bands and links of nations suddenly
shattered, and streams of sorrow and suffering and distress transmitted to countless English firesides. These
were alike mysterious and unforeseen.
No sooner was the Russian war covered up, if not
quenched, than a quarrel with China, followed by a yet
more recent one, that may rise to the dimensions of a
great national conflict, broke out. Scarcely had the
clouds darkened the sky there, when the most terrible
1*




X                   PREFACE.
shock our empire ever received cecurred in our eastern
provinces. A hundred thousand trained and disciplined
sepoys, the subjects of the Queen, rose simultaneously
against our authority in India, and opposed by a mere
handful of heroic men, it seemed doubtful if India
could be held. Massacres and murders and barbarities
have been inflicted on British men and women and
children of unparalleled brutality and cruelty. Never
did so many families suffer so severely. Never did a
more crushing stroke reach the heart of our nation.
Thus, from the pine forests of the North to the palm
groves of the East, has the social atmosphere become
charged with irritant and disturbing elements, which
explode in succession.
Nor is the commercial air less convulsed. During
1857 a commercial panic, called in the Times newspaper
"a commercial earthquake," smote Europe and America, and house after house, alike old and prudent and
reliable, fell. Banks exploded one after another. The
prince-merchants of yesterday are penniless to-day; and
widows and orphans innumerable have been reduced
from comparative competence to absolute beggary.
Let us combine all these shocks, and then reflect if
there be not enough to vindicate the interpretation we
have endeavoured to establish, that a universal derangement of social and national life,-and, if one might
enumerate the incessant murders, suicides, and poison



PREFACE.                   Xl
ings with which the papers teem,-of moral life also, is
the condition of our world at this moment.
The great earthquake that accompanies the pouring
out of this vial occurred in 1848, when Europe reeled
like a drunken man, and kings were thrown from their
thrones, and even the Pope projected by its force from
the Vatican. The disturbances in France, Belgium,
Spain, Italy, and Austria, constantly recurring, are its
vibrations,-or lesser earthquakes in divers places, not
unaccompanied with literal ones also,-as in Naples,
Dec. 1857, in which were 9000 killed and 5000 mutilated. These convulsions, graphically and briefly stated
as the effects of the pouring out of vial seventh, are
enumerated in detail in the prophecy of our Lord on
the Mount of Olives. In fact, Matthew xxiv. is the
evangelic exposition of the apocalyptic prophecy. This
great earthquake, of which that at Naples is only a prefiguration and premonition, is expressed in another
shape: " I will shake all nations."
What nation is perfectly quiescent at this moment?
Is not France rocking from Boulogne to Bordeaux?
Is there not expressed by its rulers, and implied in their
stringent enaptments, a sense of insecurity? The desperate Attempt of Orsini did not create the disquiet-it
merely revealed what was suspected and feared. Italy
heaves with fires worse than volcanic. Naples is on
the eve of insurrection. The partisans of the Pope are




KU                  PREFACE.
already contemplating the removal of the Poj edom tc
Jerusalem. Belgium is agitated with intestine differ
ences. Germany is ill at ease. Russia, recovering from
one war, is simply sharpening its sword for another
Turkey dies quietly-incidental spasms disturbing its
deathbed.
Great changes are passing over the aspect of our
own country. China is again stirred to its depth, and
its disintegration is begun. Persia enjoys a lull. India,
recently torn in pieces by a mutiny become rebellion,
and the insurrection of an army, almost the revolution
of an empire, has felt effects that must last long. Had
we no uneasiness of our own, the scenes of the Crimea,
and the more recent events in Lucknow and Delhi and
Cawnpore have projected their gigantic shadows, and
left a chill as of death on many a warm heart.
What throne in Europe has not felt these successive
shocks? What nation on the Continent can be named
which is not now undergoing organic change? Everywhere we see the loosening of social bands-the rocking
and tilting of thrones —the thirst of change-the restlessness of mind-apparently the throes and agonies of
nature groaning and travailing with the birth of a new
and nobler genesis. Russia, repulsed, as indicated in
Ezekiel, is preparing for her next and victorious march
over Constantinople and the seven churches of Asia into
Palestine, at that time to be the scene of stupendous




PREFACE.                  XIIU
marvels and judgments. France, the great actor m the
prophetic outline, flushed with her Italian conquests, is
reposing in her short bivouac, in order to enter on the
arena refreshed and strong as a giant to fulfil her destiny.
Austria, furious at defeat and disappointment, longs to
avenge her wrongs, and tries by sacrifice to conciliate
Hungary.  Italy is one huge volcano, still, perhaps,
making ready to receive into her fiery bosom the papacy,
with all its spoils of plundered nations, and injured
kingdoms, and violated rights, and all its sins and its
crimes inexpiable for ever.
Our own beloved land may soon be girdled with a
belt of fire. Her freedom, her faith, her prosperity, her
accessible asylum for the-refugee and the oppressed, her
gigantic power, her outspoken independence, her trea
sures, and her triumphs, are the hate of despots, the
envy of courts, and the provocatives of hostility on the
part of nations that remember her past superiority, and
long to measure swords with her once more. No ordinary events are looming up from every point of the
European horizon, like strange birds of evil omen. All
the ten years that have passed away, and the seven that
still remain of the era of the " Great Tribulation," will
cover a time of trouble unprecedented since there was
a nation. It is the time when there "shall be great
distress of nations, with perplexity," political, social,
commercial, and moral-the disintegration of political




ZXV                  PREFACE.
party, the distrust of trade, the dereliction of moral
obligations, confusion of principles, and collision of
passions, " the sea and the waves roaring." There also
shall be fulfilled and felt what is written in St. Luke,
"Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking
after those things which are coming on the earth, for
the powers of heaven shall be shaken."
But Christians are not to be alarmed. "When these
things begin to come to pass, then look up and lift up
your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh." Our
brightest and best things are in reversion. A glorious
morning will one day break upon the earth; a rich
inheritance will take the place of what will soon pass
away. The waves of the "Great Tribulation" will
all subside into that quiet bay, on which no tempest
shall ever beat, and on whose bosom the sweet sunshine?
shall sleep for ever.
The lull that now exists among the nations of Europe
is very much like that of 1851. It is the eve of more
terrible disturbance, and the time of preparation for it.
Science and art, and national resources, are tasked in
all directions, in order to make the most formidable
weapons for offensive and defensive war. The discoveries of modern science, as embodied in the iron rail,
the ocean-steamel;, and the electric telegraph, will lead
to such military gatherings, such concentration of
troops, such lightning-like rapidity of action, such




PREFACE.                 XV
shocks of armies, as never were equalled in the history of the world. Everything seems to make ready
for no common crisis, no ordinary issue. In the words
of Daniel, "there shall be a time of trouble, such as
never was since there was a nation." In the words of
St. Matthew, "there shall be great tribulation, such as
was not since the beginning of the world to this time;
no, nor ever shall be."  On some, we are told, " wrath
is come to the uttermost."
But we must not overlook, in the midst of the
coming tribulation, those rays of glory stricken through
the clouds, which relieve the density of the night, and
indicate beyond the sunshine that sleeps unbroken on
the everlasting hills of the heavenly Jerusalem. However sure the tribulation, there are those that " come
out of it," and stand resplendent " in white robes," who
" shall be purified and made white and tried," who
shall "rest and stand in their lot at the end of the
days." Of these I have not been unmindful in the
lectures which make up this volume. These compose
that true Church, the age of which no time tells, the
magnitude of which no space includes, and the adherents of which no figures can sum up.
If the first portion of the following lectures deals
with the nature and the marks of the " Great Tribulation," the last half has respect to the character, and
condition, and hopes, and happiness, and destiny of




xvi                 PREFACE.
them who, Dan-el tells us, are blessed,-" Blessed is he
that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days." There will be found in
this part much to cheer and animate, and sustain the
people of God in circumstances of unprecedented
trouble.
I have shown in previous works, and intimated an
opinion not unfrequently in this, that the steady
decay of Mahometanism in Europe-that desolating
Euphratean flood which several centuries ago overflowed Eastern Christendom-was one of the premonitory symptoms of nearing fulfilment of prophecy.
The following description of this is from the Times'
correspondent in Sept. 1859:
"The alarming state of the Ottoman empire, which
country seems going through a succession of financial
somersaults, from which, however, somehow or other,
it manages to alight with only an additional contusion,
renders the accounts from the provinces truly deplorable; extra taxes being levied on the unfortunate populations, to be redeemed by the imports of future years,
while hordes of Albanian Irregulars render the provinces bordering on Greece insecure, and expose the
poor inhabitants to every species of extortion and injustice. It is not to be wondered that the old feeling of
hatred to the Turkish yoke, which dates from the day
that Mahomet II. took possession of Byzantium, should




PREFACE.                 xvii
be as much alive as ever. The Christians are replacing
everywhere in the East, by a constant and unperceived
effort, the Mahometans, who are disappearing; and,
under these circumstances, those of the Christian ele.
ments which offer some guarantee for the future must
naturally attract the attention of Europe.  Owing to
their religion, the Christian populations of the East consider themselves specially placed under the protection
of Russia, and the influence of that power with the
Greeks has been generally considered all-powerful."
I have also frequently referred elsewhere to the consuming judgment that now wastes the great Roman
Apostasy, and foreshows its nearing ruin. On these I
do not dwell in this work.
I hope soon to publish a photographic sketch of the
Millennial state, as a companion to this volume.
I need not add that, like all my previous volumes on
prophecy, this will receive plenty of that style of secular criticism which consist in scoffs, ridicule, and caricature. The world cannot endure the truths of prophecy.
Its argument is, " all things continue as they were."
Do not disturb our comforts, our gains, and industry.
On such the day of our lord cometh as a thief in the
night.
But "to them that look for Him, He will appear the
second time unto salvation."
Lord Carlisle, in his little work on Daniel viii.,




XV11i                 PREFACE.
expresses his belief that we are nearing the close of our
present dispensation; a remark he is not likely to make
unless under a deep conviction of its truth. Such an
observation ffom his point of view ought to make secular
writers suspect that there is ground of investigation,
not matter for merriment and invective, in so sacred
and interesting subjects of study.




THE
GREAT TRIBULATI O N;
oR,
THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH., *
LECTURE I.
THE GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE.
" And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince
which standeth for the children of thy people  and there
shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there
was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy
people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found
written in the book. -DANIEL xii. 1.
I ACCEPT the generally-received opinion of commentators,
that Michael, the prince that standeth for the ancient people
of God; is not a created angel, but our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ. The prophecy seems to imply that having
long been seated on his throne as Mediator, interceding in
behalf of his own, that man's extremity will become his
opportunity; and that he will stand up towards the close of
this present Christian economy, amid miracles, and stupendous phenomena, and great and startling issues, in behalf of




20            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
his cast off, but not finally cast-out people, the remnant of
the house of Judah and of Israel. It is plain from the language, "thy people," addressed to Daniel, an inspired prophet, and yet an enthusiastic and patriotic Jew, that the
interposition of Christ on this occasion will be primarily in
behalf of that remarkable race still preserved, often assailed,
but never crushed; like their own burning bush, always
blazing, and not consumed; and that the time will come
when they, so long cast out, shall at length be grafted in,
and restored to their own land; for a Deliverer, as quoted
by the Apostle in the Epistle to the Romans, shall come out
of Sion, and shall turn away ungodliness from all the children of Jacob. " Thy people," therefore, are primarily the
Jews. Nobody can read their history without seeing they
are the standing miracle of the age; the inexplicable phenomena of Providence, unless beheld in the only light which
casts splendour on the past, and a gleaming and brightening
glory on the future, the sure word of God's prophecy. The
Jews are found in every capital on earth; least at home in
their own; having property everywhere, except in that land
which is theirs by title-deeds, in comparison of which those
of England's proudest and mightiest noble are but of yesterday; and when one sees them on our streets, or, as I have
done, joined with them in singing the beautiful Hebrew
Psalms of David in their own synagogue, one cannot help
seeing even on their faces an air of melancholy, as if it were
the shadow of a great ancestral crime, which eighteen hundred years of suffering have been utterly unable to wash
away. They speak all tongues; they are found on the
banks of the Thames, the Danube, the Rhine, the Tiber, the
Mississippi, the Missouri, the Ganges-everywhere; and yet
they never seem to be at home; they are what the poet has




THE GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE.           21
called them, "the race of the weary foot," running from
themselves, as if to get rid of the recollection of some deed
of blood that has stained their hands, and left its indelible
imprint upon the hearts of even the most benevolent of them
all. If we read the treatment they have received, we see
how willing man is to fulfil prophecy where he has no business. When the priests of Rome have been asked, Why do
you so maltreat the Jews? when some of our ancient kings,
who extracted their teeth in order to extort their gold, were
questioned why they did so, they devoutly, or rather hypocritically said, Why, God has pronounced a curse upon them,
that they shall be a by-word and a scoff among all people.
In other words, man's own lusts, and passions, and thirst of
gold made him particularly anxious to help God to fulfil his
prophecy, but left it very inconvenient for him to obey the
precepts of mercy and of loving-kindness.
There is no place upon earth, I believe, where at this moment they are worse treated than in that very city in which
sits a personage most uncomfortably situated at the present
moment, who calls himself the Vicar of Christ. There the
poor Jews are thrust into a wretched, miserable quarter of
imperial Rome called the Ghetto; they are made to pay a
heavy tax every year in order to be suffered to exist under
even the shadow and in the miserable dungeon of that socalled Holy City and capital of Christendom. A maidservant, who did not know the meaning of the words she
uttered, took hold of a young child, Mortara, dropped a
little water on his brow, and uttered in Latin, "I baptize
thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost." The moment that the parents, who were
Jews, went to get their child, what were they told? The
Inquisitor-General told them that the mark of the Redeemer




22            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
was upon that child's brow, and that no power upon earth
could compel them to give it back. Sir Moses Montefiore,
much to his credit, went as a deputation from his own
Church to Rome; got an audience from Cardinal Antonelli;
asked him if he would interpose, for he is the real Pope;
the other one behind the scenes is a poor, helpless, old
man. Antonelli told him to call again; put him off-that
is the diplomacy of that latitude; he would see about it.
Sir Moses had to wait week after week, hoping against hope;
at last he asked if he could have an interview with Pio Nono.
At once Antonelli told him it could not be given; that the
child was a Christian; that it never could be restored to its
mother; she may see it through iron bars, or through a
window; but she never can indulge the instincts of a
mother, and clasp to her bosom the boy that she knows and
feels to be her own, Such is the conduct of the Vicar of
Christ, so called, in that capital which one would think
would be the most illustrious in the world for its justice and
its mercy; but in reference to the Jew it seems to be the
most cruel, proscriptive, and persecuting of all. We of
England are only second better off; for our own prince, the
Prince of Wales, nobly thinking that when in Rome English
people ought not to be ashamed of being English peoplegave a fine contradiction to the wretched sophistry, that
when we are in Romle let us do as Rome does, and in Constantinople as Constantinople does-the Prince of Wales,
instead of doing as Rome does, went to his English Church.
And where is it, do you think? In an old stable outside the
walls of Rome; it being thought a pollution to that sacred
capital that an English Protestant Church should be suffered
within its walls. But this, however, refers to us; we can
bear the persecution; the poor Jew cannot so well bear it.




THE GLOR OUS DELIYERANCE. 2.
At this period of trouble Christ interposes; having no
sympathy with him that assumes to represent Him, and
stands up amidst stupendous miracles of mercy and of unobliterated love in behalf of a people persecuted, a by-word,
a scoff, and a hissing among all nations; restores them to
their land; replaces them in their ancient and illustrious
capital; and oh! it is a sight that one would travel from
London to Jerusalem to see-a whole nation restored to
Palestine, prostrate at the feet of the Prince of Peace; and
in their own magnificent tongue-that mother-tongue from
which all others are but distant and debilitated progeniesand with their own deep, musical, Oriental voices lifting up,
as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great
thunder, and as the voice of many peoples, those words of
the English Liturgy, " Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ.
When thou tookest upon thee to deliver mankind, thou didst
not abhor the virgin's womb; when thou hadst overcome the
sharpness of death, thou didst open the kingdom of heaven
to all believers. Thou sittest at the right hand of God the
Father. We," children of Israel, "believe that thou wilt
come to be our Judge. O Lamb of God, that takest away
the sins of the world, take away the sins of thy people
Israel;" and where our fathers said "Crucify him!" we
shout " Hosannah!" and where they said, in their ignorance,
"Away with him!" we will join and lift the anthem peal
that will never cease, " Blessed is he that cometh in the
name of the Lord. Lo, this is our God; we have waited
for him. Hosannah in the highest!" Such will be fact.
My expectation is not fancy, but the inference from the
soberest, the barest, the most frequently-repeated prophecy.
But when this takes place, there will be a time of great
trouble. " At that time there will be a time of such trouble




24             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
as has not been on the earth since there was a nation;" and
which is stated in the New Testament to be a time of such
trouble that there never will be any trouble equal to it.
We have that time of trouble delineated in St. Matthew,
where, after some portraits of the judgments upon Jerusalem,
he gives a reference, clear and unmistakeable, to the close
of this present economy. The great time of trouble began
in 1848: in other words, it synchronises with the pouring
out of the seventh vial; at which the first shock of the great
European earthquake occurred: its succeeding shocks still
steadily occur, year after year. Review at your leisure the
events that have transpired since that time. Why, we are
no sooner out of one trouble-I mean the world-than we are
plunged into another. In 1849, Europe, -Asia, America,
were desolated by an overwhelming pestilence; in 1850,
Rome, anticipating its ruin, made its last spasmodic grasp or
clutch at the sceptre of England, if perchance it might retain
a last footing before it goes down into the depths of ruin.
In 1851, we had a bright glimpse, by way of symbol, earnest,
or type of millennial peace. Then, after that, we had the
first hint of the complications in the East; then, from 1854,
a war which has sent streams of bitterness into many a
happy English home, and left cold shadows upon many a
once-bounding English heart. The dead that sleep in the
distant Crimea will not soon be forgotten; and I trust the
memories of the brave that fell there will never come before
us without thanks and gratitude for those that so heroically
fought, and many of them so hopefully and piously fell.
No sooner had the Russian war been closed, than the
great Indian storm burst upon Asia; an empire was in peril;
and again how many homes have lost their brightest lights
in consequence of that cruel, atrocious, and murderous out



THE GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE.             25
burst. of a deceived, infatuated, and misguided native population! No sooner had that been lulled, by God's blessing
on the heroism of our troops, and the sagacious diplomacy of those who had to rule the storm, than, like a
thunder-cloud, we saw all Europe mustering to battle; and
upon the beautiful plains of Italy half a million of men meet
in deadly conflict, and thousands are numbered with the
dead. I stated before, what many thought was impossible,
that Russia's destiny was the East. We read in some of the
papers, on what authority I don't know, but I infer from the
quarter it must be right, that Russia now combines with
France; and two such powerful autocrats would seem to be
a match for the whole world.
I believe that our own land, whatever be the combination
that girdles-even as if it should girdle it' with fire-is
destined to emerge comparatively unscathed from the conflict; and old England's sun will not set till it mingles with
the splendours of that sun that shall have no cloud and no
western declension. We separated from the great Apostacy
at the Reformation, and God has blessed us ever since, and
God will bless us still; and I believe, with all our faults —
and we dare not deny them, and we would not conceal them
-there is in the depth of our nation a piety, a living religion,
unprecedented in its history, and with which no other nation
in its spiritual condition can for one moment be compared.
What a change has passed upon the nobility, the middle
classes, and through the instrumentality of city missions,
ragged schools, and all the noble instrumentalities that God
in his great goodness has called into play, upon the poorer
classes also! All these things are the commencement of a
work that neither Russia, Austria, nor Fralnce, nor the whole
world, will be able to crush; and if ten righteous men in
2




28             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
Sodom could have saved it from the flames, ten times ten
thousand in the heart of our country will shield it in the
great tribulation that is coming on the nations of the earth.
I may mention as a very striking proof of the position we
now occupy, that in Rev. xix. there is a picture which I
think refers to that very restoration of the Jews, of which I
have been speaking. We read first of all that the great
corrupter of the earth, the Romish apostacy, is judged;
and when her smoke rises up for ever, the nations sing,
Alleluia. The Rev. Mr. Elliot observes, that this is the first
Hebrew word that occurs in the songs of the Apocalypse,
and he thinks from that word being introduced on this occasion and at this date it indicates that the Jew is present
with the Gentile praising God for all his mercies and his
judgments. And then a voice, we are told, came out of the
throne; a recitative, to use a musical expression; a single
voice comes out of the throne, addressed to Jew and Gentile:
" Praise our God, all ye his servants, and ye that fear him,
both small and great."  Then hear the grand response:
" And I heard as it were the voice of a great multitude,"
the grandest music of all. To hear ten thousand people
sing the 100th Psalm, or even five thousand, or two thousand, is far grander than all the organ stops that were ever
let loose; the voice of a great multitude is the grandest and
most thrilling music of all.  " As the voices of many
waters." Did you ever stand upon the beach, even on a
summer evening, and listen to that deep under tone of the
ocean praising God? Did you ever stand upon the rocks
and hear it when it lifts its great waves to the sky, and they
like white-robed choristers unite in praising God? "As the
voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluin;" here again the Hebrew word; " for




THE GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE.            27
the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." Now at this very
time, mark you, when the judgments come upon the great
apostacy, where you hear the voice of the Jew clear and
unmistakeable in the great anthem peal, you will find at the
close of the chapter a picture of the tribulation which
Daniel makes synchronous with these two grand events.
"I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he
that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in
righteousness he doth judge and make war. And he was
clothed with a vesture dipped in blood:" the language of
awful conflict. "And out of his mouth goeth a sharp
sword, that with it he should smite the nations; and he
shall rule them with a rod of iron; and he treadeth the
wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God."
And then mark what takes place: " And I saw the beast"the wild beast, the symbol of the great western apostacy"and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered
together to make war against him that sat on the horse,
and against his army."  And what was the issue? "And
the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet"-the
exponent of his voice, the priesthood —" that wrought
miracles before him. These both were cast alive into a
lake of fire burning with brimstone." The word brimstone
is derived from the German, and means simply burning
stone. " And the remnant were slain with the sword of him
that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of his
mouth." Now, that chapter seems evidently to synchronise
with the verse on which I have now been commenting in
Daniel xii. Well, then, "All thy people shall be delivered;"
that is, in the midst of the judgments which I have delineated, or rather, which I have read, God's ancient people,
if this refers to the Jews, as I think it does, as well as the




28             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
first clause, " shall be delivered."  And the Apostle, speak
ing of this very event, makes the striking remark, "If the
casting away of the Jews has been the reconciling of the
world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the
dead?"  All Israel, he says, shall be saved; and God shall
turn away ungodliness from Jacob. The branches that
were broken off shall be grafted in, and God's goodness as
well as severity shall be exhibited in their case.
But if we refer this to God's own people, which I think
we may safely do, then " all shall be delivered that are found
written in the book." What book? First, the book of life,
impenetrable to us; that secret and mysterious record no
human eye can see, no finger can touch or turn over. All
attempts of men to specify who are the elect of God have
always recoiled upon themselves in disappointment and confusion.  Secondly, the book of remembrance.  Malachi
speaks of a book of remembrance. What is written in that
book? Every cup of cold water you have given a disciple,
every tear you have shed for Christ's sake, every prayer you
have offered, every effort you have made, every donation
you have given to make the world wiser and happier for
your having passed through it. And then, thirdly, the book
of revelation. In it you do not find your names; but you
find what is far better, your character. If you find yourselves among the meek, among the merciful, among the
holy, among the trusting, among the believing, you need not
doubt that your name is written in the mysterious book of
life.
So then, from the whole of this tribulation the people of
God are safe. " Neither life nor death shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus." When
these things begin to come to pass, when the great tribula.




THE GLORIOUS DELIVERANCE.             29
tion comes, when the earthquake rolls, and dyr.asties are
smitten from their thrones, and scattered as drift-wood upon
the streams and currents of time, you are not to be afraid,
but lift up your heads, for your redemption draweth nigh.
While you listen on the ground, and try to hear in the distance the tramp of approaching conflict, remember that the
world's greatest tribulation is the hour of the Christian's
most magnificent deliverance. Preparing for that age, lay
up in your hearts a capital of sunshine; when dark days
come that sunshine will brighten you; and in the darkest
night and at eventide it will be light with you. Let us
learn that nothing we desire to preserve, or that God has
made, will be injured in that great tribulation. Sin will be
expunged; who wants to keep it? Sickness will disappear;
who desires to retain it? Sorrow will flee away, and hearts
that are now broken will then be bounding; who wishes it
to be otherwise? All that God has made, from the star in
the sky to the flower upon the field, from the ephemeral
insect in the sunbeam to the archangel that worships by the
throne, all shall be retained; what has gone wrong shall be
made right, what Satan has usurped shall be taken from his
grasp; and this weary world of ours, that has wept, and
groaned, and suffered so long, shall be emancipated from its
thraldom, reinstated in more than its pristine magnificence
and beauty, and the world close with a paradise vastly more
magnificent and beautiful than that with which it began.




LECTURE II.
THE DOOMED CITY.
We read in the inspired Record of the glory and the
gloom of the "City of the Great King"-the joy of the
whole earth, Jerusalem.
"Jesus went out, and departed from  the temple: and his
disciples came to him for to show him the buildings of the
temple. And Jesus said unto them, See ye not all these
things? verily I say unto you, There shall not be left here
one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.
And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples
came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, when shall these
things be?" &C. —MATTHEW xXiV. 1-6.
IT may prove conducive to the comfort and edification of
many, if I now direct attention to some of the leading truths
of that grand prophecy, spoken under the shadow of the
temple by the Great Prophet, seated on the Mount of Olives,
and surrounded by his disciples, half instructed in the
nature of the kingdom, but not insensible to their need of
additional light.
In this prophecy is much relating to scenes long passed
away-the fall of Jerusalem, the joy and the beauty of the
whole earth; and the destruction of her magnificent temple,




THE DOOMED CITY.                 31
not eclipsed by the Parthenon, the glory of ancient Greece.
This prophecy consists partly of predictions relating to the
ruin of the temple and the city of Jerusalem; and partly
of prophecies at this moment passing into history, and partly
of predictions of events, near but still future; and closing
with that great epoch when the Son of man shall send his
angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and gather his elect
together from the four winds, fiom one end of heaven unto
the other. It appears to me, that the design of our Lord's
discourse is to convince the Jews that the end of their
polity was not the end of the world. For this purpose he
shows that far more stupendous phenomena will usher in the
last great catastrophe of the earth. This is not the common, but it is no less the true explanation. The question
of the disciples naturally divides into three parts. In verse
third they say, "Tell us, when shall these things be?"
What things? What he had stated in the previous chapter,
where he says, in the 36th verse, "All these things shall
come upon this generation;" while he breaks forth into one
of the most tender and touching appeals to the very inmost
heart of Jerusalem, that ever fell from divine or human lips.
"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and
stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I
have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth
her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold,
your house is left unto you desolate. For I say unto y ou,
Ye shall not see me henceforth "-implying that they wc lld
see him one day-" till ye shall say, Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord." The disciples, haring
heard the startling announcement, that the glory of Jer~-salem should fade, and that the magnificent temple should be
laid in ruins, ask three distinct questions:-First, "Tel! us,




32            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
when shall these things be?" secondly, " What shall be the
sign of thy advent, and the signal of thy personal presence
and appearance?" and thirdly, " What shall be the sign of
the eIld of the world; —the sign of the finishing up together,
the ending up together, of this dispensation?" in which we
play a part, being preliminary to that dispensation, when,the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the whole earth as
the waters of the ocean cover the channels of the great deep.
The Great Prophet proceeds to answer these three questions; and a very careful scrutiny of the whole chapter will
show where he responds to the one, and where he replies to
the other; although sometimes the approaching lrin of the
Jewish economy seems to interlace with and to embosom
foreshadows of the approaching ruin of the Gentile economy,
and the establishment of Christ's kingdom over all the
kingdoms of this world.  In the first six verses there is
sketched the prophetic portrait of the ruin of the temple
and city of Jerusalem. Previous to that, "Many shall come,
saying,'I am Messiah,' whom the Jews were looking for;
and they shall deceive many. And ye shall hear of wars
and rumours of wars; see that ye be not troubled; for all
these things must come to pass, but "-referring to the last
of the three questions-" the end is not yet." Then he
proceeds from the 7th verse to the close of the 14th, to tell
them what shall be the fore-signs of the end of the dispensation. He says, before the end of the temple you will
hear of wars and rumours of wars, but the end of the world
is not yet come. "For," he says, —mark the word, the illative, in the 7th verse-" for," that is, previous to the end of
the world, "nation shall rise against nation; "-very different fiom "wars and rumours of wars;"-"and kingdom
against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pesti



THE DOOMED CITY.                 33
lences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are tho
beginning of sorrows;" that is, the beginning of tha travail
which the apostle alludes to, when he says, "All creation
groans and travails in pain, waiting to be delivered."
" Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall
kill you;" that is-for he is speaking to the Christian disciples, not to the Jews-" they shall kill you; and ye shall be
hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall
many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall
hate one another. And many false prophets shall rise, and
shall deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the
love of many shall wax cold. But," he adds, " he that shall
endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." And then
he gives what may be called the very alarm-bell that sounds
the last epochs of this dispensation; and shows that the
last sands that have sparkled so long as the suns of time are
about to run out; "This gospel of the kingdom shall be
preached in all the world,"-not, and all the world shall be
converted; that is not said;-but it shall be preached in all
the world "for a witness unto all nations: and then," the
moment this is accomplished, " shall the end come." From
the 15th verse down to the 20th, he returns to the approaching catastrophe of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity,
where he says, " When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand
in the holy place, then let them which be in Judea flee into
the mountains; let him which is on the house-top not come
down to take anything out of his house; neither let him
which is in the field return back to take his clothes. And
woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give
suck in those days. But pray ye that your flight be not
in the winter, neither on the Sabbath day." But he-shows
2*




34            THE GREAT TRIBULA rION.
that thesesthings are nothing to the great events that shall
usher in the last and closing catastrophe; "for then," he
says, "shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the
beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.
And except those days should be shortened, there should no
flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be
shortened. Then if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here
is Christ, or there; believe it not. For there shall arise
false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs
and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall
deceive the very elect. Behold, I have told you before,
Wherefore if they shall say unto you, Behold, he is in the
desert; go not forth; Behold he is in the secret chambers;
believe it not. For," he says, the advent of Christ shall be
of this sort, " 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. Immediately after the tribulation of those
days" —he has given you the beginning of sorrows,"shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give
her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken; and then shall appear
the sign of the Son of man in heaven;" —they asked, "What
shall be the sign of thy coming?"-" 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 together his elect from the
four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."
After employing a parable in the 25th chapter to illustrate
this great event, and showing the practical instruction which
the anticipation of it should leave, he refers back, as in the
31st verse, to the 31st verse of the 24th chapter; the inter



THE DOOMED CITY.                 35
rening passage being altogether an illustration. Passing
from the 24th chapter at the 31st verse, to the 25th chapter
at the 31st verse, he says, "When the Son of man shalP
come in his glory, and all the holy angels, then shall he sit
upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be
gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one
from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the
goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the
goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his
right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
Thus we ascertain the three great answers to the three great
questions; first, " When shall these things be?" of which I
will briefly speak; secondly, " What shall be the sign of the
approach of thy presence?" and thirdly, "When shall be
the end or the winding-up of that dispensation which thou
hast come to introduce into the world, and to reveal to thy
church?"
In the following observations I will first illustrate the
desolation predicted to overtake Jerusalem and its magnificent temple. That temple was one of the great wonders of
the world. Nations came and gazed with admiration on its
magnificence. Its roof was covered with plates of burnished
gold, reflecting the sLi. beams with so great splendour and
intensity that it was said no bird could light upon it or bear
the excess of glory. Some of the stones with which it was
built were forty-five yards long, and many of them of the
purest and most beautiful marble. Knit together with all
the skill of a master-builder, it appeared to the disciples and
to the Jews impossible that any force which man could wield,
or any undermining that ingenuity could employ, would ever
succeed in reducing to ruin so glorious a structure —so




86             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
gigantic an edifice, strong in its material grandeur, and
stronger in the affections of a people that loved and almost
worshipped it, and stronger still as they believed-but most
mistakenly believed-beneath the everlasting protection of
the God of Israel. For our blessed Lord, a man of sorrows
-despised by the great ecclesiastical officers, denounced by
the Sanhedrim —chief in a group of fishermen and taxgatherers, to seat himself under the shadow of that ancient
and gorgeous fabric, and to launch this prophecy upon the
winds-" In forty years not one stone of it, forty-five yards
in length they may be, and of weight inconceivable, shall be
left upon another that shall not be thrown down" —was
either the evidence of fanaticism, or of the words of the
mighty God, the Prince of Peace. In forty years we read
all that the Saviour said came to pass; the walls of the temple were levelled with the dust; the plough-share was
literally drawn with numberless horses through the ruins of
the illustrious fabric; and that remarkable race, long forsaken but not yet forgotten, projected by the terrible convulsion in countless fragments over all the world, are at this
moment to be found everywhere, disorganized-disintegrated
vet distinct-each fragment reflecting unspent rays of a glory
that has passed away, but prophetic, also, of a splendour, a
glory, and an elevation that eye hath not seen, and tongue
hath not told, and heart hath not conceived-their heritage
in reversion. The most depressed amid the nations of the
earth now, they shall be the glory of all nations, and their
city Jerusalem once more the beauty and the joy of the
whole earth, and Palestine the most prolific and pre-eminent
of all lands, This will be accomplished in the outset, in all
probability, by human means, Britain taking a leading part.
Who does not sometimes gather from the teeming years




THE DOOMED CITY..3 
as they pass presentiments and earnests of the apprcaching
deliverance?  The war that closed at Sebastopol began
about Jerusalem. The supposed sepulchre of the Prince of
Peace became the source of a war that convulsed all Europe.
If it be true, as prophecy seems to indicate and history to
attest, that the great river Euphrates-that is, the Mahometan flood and superstition-is rolling back to its source, and
that Turkey in Europe is to be a Christian nation, and the
mosque of St. Sophia to ring with the accents'of Christ and
him crucified, if not glorified-when that dynasty is dissolved, Palestine, which is now the property of the Sultan,
will be somebody's; and who has so great a right to it
as th.at princely race who at this moment wait, and long,
and pray, and write upon their tablets in their synagogues
the prayer that the Messiah would soon come and take
Israel home, and make Jerusalem again the city of the
Great King?
Without entering upon this tempting subject, I would
specify some of the lessons taught by this most remarkable
prophecy of the fall of Jerusalem and its Temple. How frail
is the greatest fabric that man can build; how sure is the
least word that God has spoken! The Parthenon, the glory
of Greece, is now a crumbling ruin; the gigantic monuments
that the Pharaohs left to be their burial-places are sinking
day by day in the sands of the desert; the temple of Jerusalem, that took ages and the wealth of princes to build,
retains scarcely a fragment of its magnificence, if we may
except, perhaps, one huge stone close by the Mosque of
Omar, between thirty and forty yards in length, and demonstrably one of the stones of the ancient temple, worn hollow
by the kisses of grey-haired and venerable rabbis, who year
after vear kneel at it and kiss it, as if to fulfil the prediction




38             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
of the Psalmist, "Thy saints take pleasure in her stones,
her very dust is dear to them." What is thus proved true
of material glory is no less true of all social greatness
unsanctified by Christian grace. What is Tyre, the princess
of the ancient commercial world? A bleak rock for fishermen to bleach their nets on. What is Rome, whose very
name made barbarians tremble?  To say, "I am a Roman
citizen," was to assert immunity and protection everywhere.
The seat of a superstitious and fanatical despot priest. What
is Athens, once the eye of Greece-the university of the
world, the haunt of men of taste, and genius, and scholarship? A mere nest of bandits, that cannot appreciate its
magnificent ruins, and would sell them all as readily as Esau
his birthright for a'mess of pottage. Our own nation has
no immortality apart from character. With all its sins and
its faults, it has, I think, a brilliant destiny before it. At
the Reformation it separated from the ten kingdoms under
the papacy; it has been the great protesting country ever
since, where freedom finds a foothold, humanity a champion, and religion the holiest and the purest altar. It is a
happy hope-God grant that it may be a true one-that the
sun of Britain may shine with advancing splendour until its
beams mingle with the rays of the millennial sun, and it
ceases to be Britain, Great Britain, only because it is absorbed in the greater glory of the Church and the kingdom of
Christ.
It is the sins of nations that sap their strength and dim
their glory. What ruined the temple? Not Titus and Vespasian, but the sins of them that worshipped by its altar.
What laid in ruins Babylon, Tyre, Rome, Athens?  The
sins of the people that were in them. What overturned
the Seven Churches of Asia?  What destroyed the once




THE DOOMED CITY.                 39
prosperous Church of Africa? what has made the Church
of Rome a wreck, a mere miserable wreck? The sins of
them that were its rulers and its people? What can ruin
us? Not all the Cossacks of the Don; not all the Russians
from their steppes; not all France, and Germany, and Austria; not savage Mussulman, and infuriate Sepoy, nor the
wide world combined against us. Let us be true to our
religion, our Bibles, our responsibilities, our duties, and our
God, and our country will flourish in immortal youth.
The whole earth itself is to be involved in a yet greater
catastrophe than that which overtook Jerusalem, and Rome,
and Athens, and Tyre, and the Seven Churches of Asia.
Peter tells us, "The day of the Lord cometh as a thief
in the night, in which the heavens shall pass away with
a great noise and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat, and the works that are therein shall be burned up;"
and then he adds that most practical lesson-" Seeing then
that all these things must be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness',
When the disciples asked, " What shall be the sign of the
end of the world? " our blessed Lord did not say, " That is
a curious question that you have no right to ask;" on the
contrary, he accepted the question as legitimate, and he
proceeded to answer it. The only answer he did not give
was the day, the hour, the date; these he did not specify:
but the moral signs and prefigurations of the approach of
that era he lays down with a minuteness so specific that he
that reads may run while he reads. He says, before the
destruction of Jerusalem, "Many shall come in my name,
saying, I am Christ." Open the page of Josephus, the historian, and you will find it stated that Jerusalem swarmed
with pretended Messiahs, all of whose testimony was one



40            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
namely, that if the Jews would only believe in them, they
would deliver them from the Romans, and from the impending destruction by Titus and Vespasian. This seems to be a
great law of God, that men who reject the truth are given
up to believe a lie; men that refuse Christ, the only Messiah,
are found to accept the most monstrous absurdities. A greyhaired and aged skeptic, whose wild theories for the regeneration of the world have given him a notoriety not to be
envied, after denouncing Christianity in language too severe
and unhallowed to be repeated, gave himself up to what he
thinks the more rational religion of consulting what is doing
in heaven above, and hell beneath, and in the future ages to
come by table-rapping and spirit-divining. The men who
profess to be so rational that they will not accept the pure
and sublime faith of Jesus, become the victims of such irrationality that they believe in old wives' fables, lying legends,
and delusions that common sense must reprobate and scorn
Our Lord foretold that before the fall of Jerusalem there
should be "wars and rnmours of wars."  These took place,
for we read that province rose against province, governor
against governor, and internal and internecine quarrels were
rapidly depopulating that once populous and magnificent
land. But these words, " Nation shall rise against nation,
and kingdom against kingdom," were not fulfilled previous
to the ruin of the Jewish dynasty. "Rumours of wars"
related to the downfall of Jerusalem; but " nation rising
against nation, and kingdom against kingdom," did not take
place previous to the fall of Jerusalem. Greswell, who writes
upon the New Testament with all the skill, the learning, and
the sobriety of an accomplished scholar, one of the ablest
living divines we have, observes, "There is no instance of
any war answering to this description " —namely, " Natior




THE DOOMED CITY.                41
shall rise against nation, and kingdom' against kingdom ""prior to the rupture between the Jews and the Roman
government, which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem,
and that war happened too late in the period to serve the
purpose of a sign, besides being the very event which every
sign beforehand enumerated was designed to specify and to
forebode." Therefore we are satisfied that nothing occurred
previous to the destruction of Jerusalem at all sufficient to
exhaust the prophecy, " Nation shall rise against nation."
Our blessed Lord proceeds to another section of the chapter, and- tells us what should. precede the destruction of
Jerusalem, namely, "When ye shall see the abomination of
desolation, spoken of by Daniel." This prophecy occurs in
Daniel ix. 26, and it might be literally translated thus,"Upon the battlements shall be the idol of desolation," as,
indeed, it is in the margin, which is always the most close
and accurate rendering. Now, says our Lord, " the moment
you shall see Daniel's idol of desolation upon the battlements of your cityv, then let them which be in Judea flee
into the mountains; let him which is on the house-top not
come down to take anything out of his house; neither let
him which is in the field turn back to take his clothes.
And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that
give suck in those days." Now this fact we find literally
fulfilled. The Roman eagles were the standards of that
people; they were also the idols and the gods that they
gave worship and adoration to. Now, we read in heathen
and pagan story, that in A.D. 64, the Roman general encompassed Jerusalem, and so far penetrated into the city that he
planted the Roman eagles on the very walls adjacent to the
Temple itself; that then, owing to some event not explained,
he suddenly retreated, after he had planted the eagles upon




42             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
the walls of Jerusalem; and it was during his retreat and
the withdrawal of his army from the siege, that all the
Christians then in Jerusalem rushed out, recognising the
predicted sign of Daniel, and found shelter in Pella, till the
desolation and the tribulation had passed away. This part,
therefore, was strictly and literally fulfilled, and relates to
Palestine alone. In the parallel passage of the Gospel of
Luke-for each Gospel gives us as it were its own peculiar
and characteristic account of each transaction-in Luke xxi.
24, we read that " the Jews shall fall;" that is, when Jerusalem falls, "by the edge of the sword, and shall be led
away captive into all nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be
fulfilled." The moment that Jerusalem fell the Jews were
carried away captives; and upon the arch of Titus at Rome,
at this moment, well known and frequently alluded to as the
triumphal arch, there is the picture of the sacred things of
the Jews, raised to commemorate the triumph of Rome over
that obstinate and rebellious race, and the utter desolation
of all its glory by the removal of its most sacred and solemn
symbols. And then "Jerusalem," it says, " shall be trodden
under foot."  Now what is its condition. Once it was the
most fertile land in the world; its wine, its corn, and its oil
were all but proverbs everywhere; its mountain sides were
arranged into terraces; and the fruits of every clime, from
those of our own northern to those of more favoured southern
lands, were raised upon its terraces in succession upwards
to the skies. Palestine seemed to retain lingering on its
bosom the last unshaded beams of Paradise, and to have
mingling with its air the very atmosphere of Eden, yet
unexhausted and undestroyed. But what is its condition
now-speaking from the testimony of others? All its fer



THE DOOMED CITr.                 43'ility is gone; its terraces that rose up its mountain sides
are rent and torn by the lightning and the earthquake; its
rocks are exposed and laid bare, and its soil washed away
by floods and storms; its early and its latter rain at this
moment is literally powder and dust; the plagues of the
land that were predicted are realities; its cities are cities of
the dead; there is but a thin and a scattered population
anywhere; the Arab robber is its actual governor, the Sultan its nominal one. Commerce will not embark its capital
in Palestine; emigrants find safety anywhere than there.
What a change has passed upon that glorious land since
Moses looked upon it from Mount Nebo, and since the spies
brought from it the grapes of Eshcol, that struck, with admiration those that for the first time beheld them! If we
turn to its people, literally, in the words of the prophet, they
are plucked off from the face of the whole earth.
Chateaubriand, who visited Palestine, and has written
perhaps the most eloquent picture of its present desolation,
uses such language as the following respecting it. "If I
should live a thousand years I can never forget that desert
when Jerusalem first appeared, and which seemed still inspired with the majesty of Jehovah. When the guide
exclaimed,' Behold the holy city —Jerusalem!' I did not at
first know what it was. I believed it to be only a mass of
shattered rock."
"The flaming monotonous sunshine above, and the rocky
wastes beneath realize too faithfully Deut. xxviii. 3.'Thy
heavens over thee shall be as brass, and the earth under thee
as iron. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder
and dust.' No river nor any stream flows by, no fertility
surrounds it, no commerce seems able to approach its walls,
no thoroughfare of nature finds the way to it. Her palaces




44            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
are ruins, her hotels dreary convents, and her chief boast
and triumph is a tomb."- The Crescent and the Cross.
Robinson says, " The houses of Jerusalem are built on
mountains of rubbish twenty or fifty feet above the natural
level. Nobody seems to make repairs as long as his dwelling does not absolutely refuse him shelter. If one room
tumbles about his ears he removes to another, and permits
rubbish and vermin to accumulate in deserted halls."
Lamartine says, "Jerusalem is the Queen of the Desert.
Every local name retains in it some mystery, every cavern
speaks of futurity, each rocky height reverberates the accents of some prophecy. The wasted rivers, the cloven
rocks, and the yawning tombs attest the prodigy. The desert seems still stricken dumb with horror, as if it had not
yet dared to break the silence which was felt when the voice
of the Eternal had been heard."
Such is the portrait of Jerusalem. Now if I were to
quote prophecy after prophecy predicting its ruin, and were
to translate the prophecy of the future into the history of
the past, you would conceive that I was reading an actual
account of what some traveller had witnessed in 1859, rather
than predictions uttered two or three thousand years ago.
The people are a standing miracle. Ever since the glory departed from between the cherubim, and the Temple fell, and
Jerusalem was laid in ruins, its people appear truly phenomenal. A race insulated from all the nations of the earth,
mingling with them, yet never absorbed into the mass and
made one with them. Where is the ancient Greek?  As
likely in Austria as in Athens. Where is the ancient Roman? He is not represented by the sensual and effeminate
Italian of the present day; he is more likely here or in
Moldavia than in Italy; at all events, Greek and Roman are




THE DOOMED CITY.                 45
merged, and lost, and absorbed, amid the mass of the
nations of the world. But in every capital you will heat
at morning dawn that deep-toned, rich bass voice, its tone
indicating its Oriental origin, and not silent also to a
suggestive mind about its future destiny; you will find the
Jews princes and pedlers, the usurers and the bankers of the
world; and while hated, scorned, mocked at, a byword, yet
kings do homage to them, and emperors draw near to them
with obsequious bows, and the exchequers of nations depend
upon their word for prosperity or the reverse. The lava
that spreads around Vesuvius no more indicates the fact of
an explosion, the fragments projected from an earthquake
no more indicate that earthquake than these Jews projected
from Jerusalem amid some dread convulsion, and scattered
like drift of a glorious wreck, refer back and tell you that
they were once the children of the great King, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people, the very favourites, while now the forsaken, of the Most High. Persecuted always and everywhere, they prosper still. Except
the flying fish, which is persecuted in the air and persecuted
in the water, there is no other creature that typifies the oppression, the crushing oppression to which the poor Jew is
subject. How absurd, I repeat, to hear professing Christian
people say, when they insult the Jew, proscribe and maltreat
him, spit upon him, and doubt if a Jew feels, " Oh, it is all
perfectly right; did not God predict it would be so?" What!
It is your duty to do justly, to love mercy, and to do to
others as you would be done by. God will take care of his
prophecies, do not you trouble yourselves to fulfil them; He
fulfils the predictions He has uttered; your duties remain
unimpaired-to show mercy, and to love thy brother as thyself. Instead of being honoured by persecuting the Jews,




46             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
you provoke a curse; for God has specially said that he will
bless them that bless Israel, and they that curse them shall
be lightly esteemed.
Yet all the persecution they have borne, all the severe
pressure they have been the subjects of, has not effaced or
expiated that strange memory they feel of a great ancestral
crime, nor extinguished them or their hopes. They are
found, as we have stated, scattered throughout every land,
transacting the business of every capital; breathing the air
of east and west and north and south; they drink of the
Thames, the Missouri, the Mississippi, the Ganges, the
Danube, and the Rhine; they are everywhere increasing in
numbers and influence, seizing the colleges of the continent
of Europe, becoming' the ablest scholars; and by a great
peculiarity, their property consists chiefly of what is called
floating capital, they have no hereditary lands as a general
rule, they carry their capital in their purses. Why so? Why
are the Jews the great money-lenders, money-brokers, and
capitalists? All their property is floating that they may be
ready when the signal is displayed in the skies to depart,
and domesticate themelves in their own home, Jerusalem.
They are insulated, separated from the nations, because they
are reserved for a great and a glorious destiny. Some day
we may yet awaken and hear the tidings of a mysterious
rush, when those you are trying to invest with dignities at
home will laugh at your contemptuous offers, and depart to
that better land which is kept by the Mahometan merely as
the servant keeps the empty house for the sake of airing it,
till the lawful and rightful inhabitant is ready to take possession. And when they return to Jerusalem-and when in
those very streets in which they once cried with execrable
scorn, "Away with him, away with him; crucify him, cru



THE DOOMED CITY.                  47
cify him-they shall shout "Hosanna, blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord!" surrounding nations, witnessing the strange spectacle, inexplicable upon any of the
ordinary laws of human experience, will receive an impression that Paul says will be to the nations of the earth as
if it were life from the dead. If God has fulfilled the prophecies that related to these things minutely, let us learn
not to hesitate to believe that prophecies yet unfulfilled He
will minutely fulfil too. As the pilgrim gazes on Jerusalem,
and studies its ruins, let him think not that it was more
guilty than all the capitals of the world; but unless we repent
we shall all likewise perish. Jerusalem says to us what
we would do well to hear-'My day of grace is sunk in night,
Our time of mercy spent,
For heavy was my children's crime,
And great their punishment."




IECTURE III.
THE GREAT CONVULSION; OR, SHARING OF NATIONS.
Hosea anticipates the great Apocalyptic Earthquake of
the seventh Vial.
" Thus saith the Lord of hosts; Yet once, it is a little
while, and I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and
the sea, and the dry land," &c. —HAGGAI ii. 6 —8.
ONE feels a difficulty in supposing that the Mahometan,
the Pagan, and the Hindoo, can in any sense be said to
desire the presence, or the knowledge, or the glory of
Christ. Christ by name, and as revealed in the Gospel, is
not desired by all nations; but that desire which lies deep
in the heart of humanity-the sense of want, and yearning
for satisfaction, nothing in the world can satisfy but Christ.
He is the living.bread for the hungry; living water for the
thirsty; and all in all to them that trust in his blessed name.
He only can satisfy, even when men know it not. For instance,
an infant wakes from its sleep, cries in its cradle; its desire
is nutriment or food: it does not know what it wants; and
yet its cry is the evidence of a want its proper nutriment
alone can remove. Even so it is with humanity: it does
not know what can meet its want.  There is a restlessness,
an aspiration upwards, and a groping round and downwards




THE GREAT CONVULSION.                40
in quest of something to satisfy its deep desires, which it
even now puts forth. It is the evidence of man's ruin that
he seeks to satisfy those wants from fallen nature; it is the
evidence of the infinite capacity and greatness of his soul
that no created thing in the universe is able to satisfy it.
This promise has sometimes been applied by learned
divines, in this instance I think erroneously, to the first
advent of our blessed Lord. No one surely can venture to
assert that when Christ came, 1859 years ago, all nations
were convulsed. The very reverse was the fact. The temple of Janus was shut; there had been a respite from war
for years; and amidst the peace of a world not at peace
with God, but enjoying a momentary calm, the Prince of
Peace was born. But the prediction here is an express
declaration that he will shake all nations, that he will shake
the heavens and the earth. If we refer to the New Testament, and therefore inspired comment upon this prophecy,
we shall find it still remains to be fulfilled. The Apostle
Paul says, " Whose voice then shook the earth; but now he
hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth
only, but also heaven." Paul quotes this very prophecy as
unfulfilled sixty-four years after the birth of our blessed
Lord. If we refer to Peter, we see at once what he alludes
to: " The day of the Lord will come, in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements
shall melt with fervent heat. Seeing then that all these
things shall be dissolved" —that is, dislocated, convulsed, the
heavens and the earth shaken. We read in the Book of
Revelation, that at the pouring out of the last vial of judgment, there was a great earthquake, ds~dpo's, shaking of the
earth, or shaking of all nations. It is, therefore, evident
that this prophecy remains still to be fulfilled, and that such
3




50            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
a convulsion as it contemplates will precede that magnificent morn, when the future Paradise, with tenfold the
beauty of the last and departed Paradise, shall return to our
world, add there shall be high eternal noon; 9-day without
a cloud, and without an end; " a thing of beauty and a joy
for ever."
Let us turn our attention for a little to the existing condition of the missionary cause, as indicated in recent
reports, as a foretoken of the dawn of the future day;
secondly, to the removal of obstructions in the shaking and
dislocating of nations, empires, thrones, and principalities;
and thirdly, the preparation that seems to be more and
Piore advancing-that preparation expressed in the Apocalypse by the beautiful phrase, the bride making herself
ready; that is, the church of Christ making ready for that
great epoch when she will lay aside her own garments, and
put on her Easter robes; when she will leave behind her
her worn and wasted robes of decay, and put on her coronation dress, and be introduced to the King, and heaven and
earth proclaim in songs, " the marriage of the Lamb is
come, and the bride hath made herself ready."
The British and Foreign Bible Society continues to
advance.  It is most remarkable in the history of this
institution that though there has been a wide-spread commercial convulsion in every nation in Europe, and poverty
has overtaken so many, the receipts in 1859 were larger
than at any former anniversary. In India its depots were
consumed, and hundreds of thousands of Bibles utterly
destroyed; yet it seems to have gathered force from resistance,
riches from losses, and to approximate in its action nearer
than before to that day when, as its Apocalyptic symbol
indicates-the angel holding in his hand, the everlasting




THE GREAT CONVULSION.                51
Gospel-shall go forth to carry it to all nations. With its
increased funds it has instituted a special fund for circulating
the word of God throughout the length and breadth of
Bengal.
The various missionary societies that have recently held
their anniversaries-the City Mission, with its home action
among the crowds of city Arabs, as they are called, and
convicts, and fallen, and, alas, forsaken and forgotten females
in this metropolis; the Church Missionary Society, with its
vast organization; that excellent society, first in the missionary field in 1793, the Baptist Missionary Society; the
Wesleyan; the London Missionary Society-are more prosperous than usual. They have all come through years of
great social and national distress to many; but the gold and
the silver are the Lord's, and the gold and the silver have
been poured into their coffers more largely and more liberally
than at any former year of their history.
Another interesting trait in all great anniversary missionary meetings is a tone of solemnity most refreshing.
Sometimes one has been pained at being forced to hear
humorous and mirthful declamations when the interests of
souls, and the extension of a Saviour's name, were the great
subjects. But last May, as if every man felt that the time is
short, that the day is far spent, and the night is at hand,
every man seemed to speak with a deep sense of solemnity;
not sadness or despondency, but solemnity suitable to the
subject, and expressive of the deep feelings that Christian
men entertain in this momentous crisis in the history of our
country and of the world. I was also refreshed by noticing
at all the meetings no uncertain sound as to what the
Gospel was. There was no sympathy expressed with that
misty rationalism which has exhaled from the swamps of a




52            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
portion of Germany, and foated on the winds inte too many
English and Scottish pulpits; a system that makes Christ
a great feature, his death a grand example, but ignores the
distinctive truth of living Christianity-Christ and him
crucified, the only foundation of a sinner's hope. And there
was as little sympathy expressed with that otber system
occupying the opposite pole, that borrows from the mint of
Rome in order to improve the ecclesiastical currency of
England; that mixes up the alloy of the Vatican with the
pure gold, the unsearchable riches of Christ. In all the
societies there was less rejoicing in the one crotchet that
distinguishes the one from the other, and more rejoicing in
the ninety-nine essential truths in which all are heartily
agreed. There was also apparent in them all a far more
hopeful feeling, and less disappointment with results. They
seemed to feel that promises, like the blossoms in spring,
were ripening into fruit; and that prophecies long forgotten
were beginning to pass into performance; and whilst there
was nothing boastful, there was everything in their tone that
was eminently hopeful. A century ago. a Russian Czar set
up a post, and inscribed upon the signboard, "The way to
Constantinople!" and the heart of Russia has had its polarity
in that direction ever since. Eighteen hundred years ago
there was set up on a hill in Palestine called Calvary a cross,
and on that cross the Son of God was crucified; and over it
there was unmistakeably written, "The way to heaven!"
and the heart of Christendom feels it deeper, and is sustained by it more at this moment than it ever felt it before.
When you hear of missionaries speaking as if gold could
convert the world, or talking as if they were putting off
their uniform, instead of putting it on, it is too probable
that there is no good there. But when you see a humble




THE GREAT CONVULSION.               53
reliance on the Spirit of God; when there seems to be
worked into their innermost experience the conviction that
the victory will be obtained " not by might, nor by power,
but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts;" and that the
gold and silver are his, and that the work will be prospered
by his blessing only, and that blessing to be had by prayer,
there is the augury of approaching and rapid success.
Such, then, is a resume' or sketch of the more striking
incidents noticeable upon the surface of the various missionary meetings recently held in London in the month of May
-the missionary month.
Let us turn to the obstructions that are being daily removed in all directions for the action of missions and the
spread of the everlasting gospel. The most startling incident of 1858 was the vast revolution that has taken place
in India; the disruption of that colossal superstition which
has darkened the very sky, and crushed the liberty and
oppressed the bodies of thousands-millions, rather, I
should say-for so many generations past. It was the
Hindoo belief that their system was about to die; they say
at Benares there is a pillar of which the Hindoo believes
when it sinks into the earth, or becomes reduced to within
a foot in height, that their religion will then disappear.
In some of the distant parts of India many of them were
known to say to missionaries, "Come speedily," believing
that their system was at an end, and that Christianity was
now to supersede it. The Iindoos recently thought their
superstition was rapidly disappearing, and that we, the
cause of its disappearance, should be extirpated from that
peninsula. The Moslem, cherishing his ancient and unextinguished hate of Christianity, joined with the HIindoo,
lashed into mutiny the fanatics of Bengal, and together




54            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
they kindled that gigantic conflagration which has watered
with sorrow many an English hearth, and left traces indelible till the judgment-day. But the result of all this is the
subversion of the very system it was designed to prop up;
the system itself is utterly disorganized; the nightmare of
centuries is lifted up; and now there is hope in the consistent, fair, and upright conduct of our country not establishing Christianity in India, for that would be a very great
mistake, but while not disavowing Christianity, leaving it a
fair field, and no favour. There is in India at this moment
opened up a door for the entrance of missionaries and for
the spread of the Gospel unprecedented since it became an
appanage to the British crown. When the mutiny first
broke out, every paper said, "Lo! that is the effect of the
missionaries;" they have lived, however, to recall that, and
now it is demonstrable that just where missionary action
was most successful, there peace has been least disturbed.
The proud Brahmin we petted, and scarcely ventured to
convert, not the miserable and degraded caste we were the
means of bringing to Christ, has been the real disturber of
that empire. There is a shaking and a breaking up
throughout India at this moment that will leave a magnificent field for prudent, discreet, spiritually-minded, unpolitical
missionaries, who will preach simply the Gospel, and leave
the dead of this world to bury their dead in the world. In
that spirit, and with these missionaries to enter India and
sow the seeds of truth, there is no doubt we shall yet some
of us live to see the golden sheaves of a glorious harvest,
and thank God that while many a missionary sowed the
seed with the tears of weeping eyes, and with the blood of
a warm heart, in God's good providence we have entered
into their labour, and reaped where they sowed.




THE GREAT CONVULSION.               55
We may refer to another great empire which this convulsion, whatever it may prove, has also reached. China
was the impenetrable land of past ages: there was no access
to it; all inside was wrapped in mystery; a very few missionaries upon its outskirts and sea-board were all that
laboured for the regeneration of hundreds of millions of
human beings. By what has taken place a door of access
has been opened; the missionary may now penetrate heretofore inaccessible fastnesses; we may live to hear of the Gospel sounding even in the streets of Pekin. God grant that
no wind may fill the folds of England's flag that does not
reverberate with the words of England's Christianity; and
that our British ships may never sail further, and that our
armies may never penetrate where there shall not be a Bible
in the hands of the colporteur, or the Gospel on the lips of
the faithful missionary, to show the most benighted of the
earth the way to heaven, to happiness, and to God. We
used to think China an exception to the rest of the heathen
nations; and many people reported they were such a lovely,
sentimental, and delightful people, that they were evidence
that a nation might be very good and very great, and yet
not be Christian. But what is the discovery?  That China
is not an exception to the Psalmist's statement, "The habitations of the heathen are full of horrid cruelty." This very
amiable people, that had so many apologists amid sentimental latitudinarians, is now found out to be as depraved, as
cruel, as impure as any Pagan tribe of savages we ever had
to do with. We are thankful, not that they are so, but that
the entrance of our armies and our ships has revealed what
they are. It will only be a stronger incentive to carry into
their homes, and their streets, and their temples, and their
hearts, that blessed Gospel which possesses the exclusive




56            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
prerogative of instilling that righteousness that exalteth a
nation.
Years ago I stated that the great river Euphrates, the
symbol of the Mahometan power in Europe, was soon to be
dried up, and that its drying up began under the apocalyptic sixth vial, or about the year, as far as we can ascertain,
1821. Now, what has been its condition since? Read the
history of the Moslem in Europe, and you will find that for
the last thirty years the symbol in Scripture of the drying up
of a river is the exact expression of what is taking place;
and, singular enough, every effort to put the "sick man"
upon his feet again has been like every prescription of an
empiric-it has hastened his decay, and made his death more
definite and near. At this moment, as is ascertained by the
reports of the American missionaries in Turkey, the Turks
are fugitives from Europe, crossing the Bosphorus, and seek
ing graves in Asia for themselves and their children; the
crescent is waning in that sky that begins to brighten with
the cross of the Galilean, destined to be the symbol, as it sets
forth the only way of salvation for mankind. The Turks
are, many of them, appreciating Christianity as they never
did before. In Palestine and Turkey, and at the sites oi the
Seven Churches of Asia, it is not the Mahometan but the
Christian who is sunk deepest in superstition. If I had to
choose between the Romanism of the Western Church and
the superstition of the Russo-Greek Church, I should be
tempted to take Mahometanism in preference; for with all
the awful errors of the Mahometans they have never yet
worshipped idols. It was the universal idolatry of Christendom that provoked God to raise up the Mahometan scourge.
When the Mahometans see men bowing before idols, and
pictures, and images, they see something they recoil from




TIHE GREAT CONVWULSION.             5 7
with all the instincts of their hearts. A Mahometan mosque
is much more like what a Christian church should be than
the Greek cathedrals, and churches, and chapels. And
when the Mahometans saw for the first time the simple worship of the American Presbyterians, who have been the
most successful missionaries there, they said, " Oh! but this
is not Christianity, this is Protestantism;" they thought it
was a totally different religion. Recently when the Church
of England resolved, and most nobly resolved, to build a
church in Constantinople, it has been laid down as the law of
its existence that there must not be a bit of stained glass, nor
a painting in a window, nor a picture of anything that can
be construed into the likeness of anything in heaven above,
or in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth.
This is a most wise step, and it is the only way in which
you will bring the Mahometans to entertain the subject of
Christianity; for as long as it is associated with idolatry, so
long they recoil from what is so repugnant to all their
deepest feelings. Mahometanism is disappearing, the crescent is waning-the Euphrates drying up, and converts are
being daily made. The railway is in Smyrna; missionaries
are preaching on its streets the everlasting Gospel at this
moment, and all over the East there are those scattered rays
that lead many a faithful watchman on the towers of Zion
to say, "The morning cometh." If we turn to Western
Europe, we find the Papal nations in a state of bewilderment; every nation looks to every other with trepidation,
many with dismay, and all seem to see over all the Continent the hopelessness of efforts to patch up and keep things
quiet, and prevent the yet more fearful explosion that rends
Europe into atoms.
And what is the cause of this? Rebellion and insubor3*




58            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
dination are always sin; but that which is waking up the
mind of nations to a new hope is the dissemination of God's
Word. The Bible Society is in one sense, but not an
obnoxious sense, the greatest revolutionist in Europe.
Christianity is in one respect the greatest revolutionary
action among nations; for in proportion as the peoples ot
Europe become acquainted with the contents of the Word
of God, they will see that obedience to rulers, but struggles
for truth and for liberty, are the duties of enlightened
Christians. Few fail to see that the Papal system has been
smitten with a stroke that reverberates throughout the
length and breadth of Christendom. Those not remote
events-the Papal aggression, the Austrian concordatwere merely the spasmodic clutches of a dying power to
avert a doom that is absolutely inevitable. The vicar and
representative of Christ has been long shored up by two
timbers, and those timbers creaking and cracking the longer
that he leaned upon them; and now the certainty of utter
desolation and destruction stares the trembling pontiff in
the face. In the city of Rome, there is a priest for every
seventy people, a teacher of some sort for every thirty people; there are three hundred and sixty-five churches in a
city with a population not equal to that of Edinburgh; so
that if the people are disloyal it cannot be from want
of the means of teaching them the religion of the country,
for it is most effectually taught and brought home to every
man's bosom and business. In London we have not a
teacher of any sort for every ten thousand people; so that
if London were the most disloyal and tumultuous city in
Christendom you might say it is not the fault of the religion, but the want of means to bring it home to the people
of London; yet it is peaceful, celebrating the anniversaries




THE GREAT CONVULSION.               59
of its great missionary institutions in peace-as a whole,
fearing God, and loyal to our beloved Queen. But in Rome
the people Are restless, watching every moment for a chance
to send about his business the vicar of Christ, the infallible
teacher of Christendom. There is evidence irresistible that
one-third of them are Protestants, that another third of
them are disloyal, and that all of them would be thankful
to be rid of him who is the centre stone of Papal Christendom, the great ruler of the world, and who professes to
speak infallible truths, and to rule with infallible results.
The magic of the name is gone —the spell is dissolved; and
during the last fifty years, literally nine hundred thousand
of the clergy and teachers of the Church of Rome all over
Asia, America, and Europe, have fallen away.
How shall we explain what is taking place in India, in
Mahometan countries, and all over Papal Europe? How
can we explain this vibration of continents, this waking up
of millions from the sleep of ages-this upheaving of deep
foundations-this unsettled and discontented state which
makes men yearn, and long, and cry, some of them in
agony, for calm, for consolation, and for peaces  Visions
of approaching revolution are passing at noon and night
through Vatican, Congress, and Divan; the wheels of time
seem to revolve with more terrible rapidity-the lines of
Providence seem to converge as if approaching some crisis
of great intensity.
We Christians know the result and wait patiently: though
the earth be removed, though the mountains be carried inte
the midst of the sea, we will not fear; for we have a river
whose streams make glad the city of our God. Sometimes the ocean is stirred by subterranean volcanic action
to its very depths; no vessel can approach the scene while




6.0            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
the disturbance lasts; we wait a few weeks, and after the
convulsion has ceased, a beautiful isle emerges from the
water and sleeps on the bosom of the deep: br-and-by it is
clothed with verdure and fragrant with flowers, and there is
heard in it the hum of a busy capital and the songs of happy
Christian men. So will it be when this great seething, this
great shaking of the nations of the earth has ceased. There
will emerge from it, by a regenesis more magnificent than
the genesis of old, a "better country," a " city that hath
foundations," that shall never be disturbed by a storm, agitated by a revolution, or torn by the chariot-wheels of war.
Let us notice amid these convulsions the evidence of the
Christian Church making herself ready. The Gospel moves
over all terrestrial lines with increasing speed. This the
reports of Missionary Institutions show, everywhere and
always throughout the world. Our religion spreads with a
never-retreating and an ever-extending empire. Christianity
makes no compromise, and offers no armistice; and yet in
sunshine and in shadow, in storm and in calm, it continues
to advance; and the record of to-day is Christian converts
still added to the Church of such as shall be saved. We
see another feature also very interesting, in increased additions to the funds of the Bible and Missionary Institutions
of our country. It seems as if Australia and California had
been discovered for this purpose: it begins literally to be
fulfilled what was said in ancient prophecy, " To Christ shall
be given of the gold of Sheba."  While there have been
such losses, and so severe fiscal and financial convulsions, as
we have referred to, missions have maintained more than
their usual prosperity, and their progress has been wider and
further than before. We see another striking preparation
for the universal spread of the Gospel, in the compression




THE GREAT CONVULSION.              61
of the earth into the dimensions almost of a manageable
little kingdom. Edinburgh and Glasgow are as near to London in 1859; as Birmingham was in 1839. New York is
nearer London to-day than Inverness was half a century ago.
What is this for? It is God dissolving the barrier of distance: it is an approach to the predicted era in the Apocalypse, when there shall be "no more sea;" great continents
are becoming neighbours, vast capitals are grouped and
clustered together. Wherefore? Not for enriching men,
but for saving souls. The mysterious whispering-wire is
connecting the most distant capitals of Asia, of America,
and I may add Africa, and Europe; may it not be that it
also is given in Providence, that it may be sanctified by
grace, and made an instrument of good? I delight to look
upon the multiplying brilliant discoveries of science, as preparations for a grand issue, as the acts approaching the fifth
of a magnificent drama; as the tuning of the instruments
preparatory to a grand and glorious jubilee.
Nor is what is now taking place in America, and Ireland
also, unsuggestive. Our American brethren, like ourselves,
have many peculiarities; some we do not like. We do not
prefer their form of government, nor some of their stereotyped courtesies; but still they are a magnificent nation;
and one earnestly prays that the two great Protestant nations of the earth-Great Britain and America-may long
live and love, sisters in arms, rivals only in renown. Suddenly a wave seems to have swept from one end of the continent of America to the other; and churches, chapelsPresbyterian, Episcopalian, Independent, Baptist, Wesleyan
-have been filled every day to overflowing; till halls, and
rooms, and even theatres were seized and crowded with people,
that met together to pray, and to hear the glorious Gospel




62            THE GREA. TRIBULATION.
So impressive has been the spectacle presented by America,
that the Jews have crowded into Christian temples; and
more Jews have been baptized during the last twelve months,
than probably for a hundred years before in America. And
what is so remarkable, the Roman Catholic papers of America say, what to me is the most striking proof of all, " Whatever these people may be, and whatever may be in this matter, that a tremendous change of great depth and solemnity
has passed upon all the population, is manifest and undeniable." What is also remarkable, those petty things about
which Christians squabble are all fused or dissipated in the
heat and warmth of this-shall I call it?-Pentecostal effusion of the Spirit of God. Episcopalians, and Presbyterians, and Independents, have met and worshipped in the
same place, and in each other's churches, forgetting the little
things which after all divide us, and rejoicing in the magnificent things which throughout eternity will unite us. Let
us, however, recollect, that whenever we see forged money,
it proves that there is good coin in existence; there cannot
be a forgery unless there preceded a real article also. Whenever there is a work of God, the devil will get up an imitation of it. The goldsmith cannot work gold without alloy;
we cannot yet have a perfect work of God upon the earth.
What we want is a little charity, to see the predominating
goodness in every Christian, and to forgive his little defects,
to forget his oddity in his great work; and not to deny it
because we see grievous declensions in the midst of it. But,
taking it as it stands, what judgment can we form? Men
ir New York and in Belfast have left their shops, the market, the counting-house, and gone day after day, during so
many hours, to pray; and men that never thought of religion have been overwhelmed by a sense of the startling




THE GREAT CONVULSION.               63
magnificence of the crisis. God grant that the clouds that
have fallen in such sweet showers upon America and Ireland
may revisit our country; and that we may have all the excellence that is there, with none of its defects.
I look upon these things, then, as the first shaking of the
nations, preparatory to a good issue. Blessed hope; happy
expectancy! Pagans that know nothing of the Gospel will
soon begin to believe it; deserts that are unbeautified by a
single floweret shall soon blossom like the rose; oceans on
which is said no prayer, and sung no hymn, shall soon be
vocal with the praise of the King of kings. Homes that
bave no worship, and hearts that have no love, shall not be
strangers to it any more; truth shall follow truth, and joy
shall multiply upon joy, as star flashes upon star on a clear
frosty evening, until the whole heavens are telling forth the
glory and the praise of God. For, for the brier shall come
up the myrtle-tree, and for the thorn shall come up the firtree; and it shall be to the Lord for an everlasting sign, that
shall not be cut off. This must one day be; when it shall
be, I am no prophet, and cannot predict; but that the signs
of the approaching era are thick and multiplied around us
is what a reflecting mind cannot deny. But why should we
be sorry when it comes? Can you be sorry that you shall
be happy; sorry that there shall be no more head-aches, nor
heart aches, nor tears, nor crying? Sorry that all the devil's
triumphs shall be expunged, sin's havoc put an end to; and
that glorious morning dawn when the whole earth shall be
covered with the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the
channels of the great deep 




LECTURE IV.
THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.
The Great Prophet of the Church predicts, as premoni
tory of the closing days of our present Economy, earthquakes, and famines, and pestilences, and also
" Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wa.t
cold."-MATTHEW xxiv. 12.
EVIDENCES of our approaching the Saturday evening of the
world's long week multiply on every side: the shadows of
twilight begin to gather firom every point of the horizon;
and hence the cry should become more imminent, urgent,
and emphatic than ever, "The Bridegroom cometh; go ye
out to meet him." I dare not speak in the language of
dogmatism or rashness, where human frailty has so often
foundered, and human imperfection has been so often illustrated. I may, however, refer to the facts as presignificant
signs of the beginning of the Great Tribulation. What is
all history 8 Prophecy passing from the past into the present. What are Alison and Macaulay? what are the newspapers that appear every morning? Simply amanuenses in
providence, recording what God has predicted in his inspired Word; so that we seeing the prophecy of what shall
be, and reading the unconscious record by men who do not




THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.            65
think of the prophecy, of what is, are constrained to feel,
"0 God, thy word is truth."  An early sprinkling of this
predicted baptism of sorrows is "nation rising against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom." It is not difficult
to particularize in 1859. Look around-after a peace of
forty years, secured by the genius of that great hero whose
name has become a household word-dark and sombre
shadows began to creep up and the war-clouds to gather
and deepen in intensity, and statesmen to prophesy disaster.
At length it burst upon the shores of the Euxine, and in the
heart of the Crimea, in unprecedented terror and firy; and a
war commenced and closed accompanied by horrors personal
1nd physical on earth and ocean, of portentous significancemen's hearts failing for fear. We were no sooner relieved
from that war, than news arrived as predicted in Ezekiel
xxxviii., xxxix., that Russia is moving eastward as rapidly as
it can; at war, its old war, with the Circassians, embroiling
us with Persia, and ever seeking and searching a pathway
to our Indian possessions; we have no sooner settled in some
degree, if settled it can be called, than we find ourselves at
war with the colossal empire of China; a war chronic, but
no less r Xmarkable and suggestive, when viewed in connection with prophecy. During the last seven years you have
heard of that empire dividing into twain, from internal
causes; and it is most singular that some of the ablest commentat )rs upon prophecy have the impression that all the
ten tribes are in China; that the land of Sin into which
they were carried, or the land of China, may contain the
ancient Ten Tribes, of whose history and existence we have
had no record for the last two thousand years; this may be
error. Whether that war was right or wrong, expedient
or not, it is not my province to pronounce; I speak of it as




66            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
a fact; what is the issue of it?  The opening of an impene
trable empire to the glorious Gospel, and the approach of
the truth to Pekin itself. The rebels in that empire have
some way picked up a knowledge of the Gospel perfectly
marvellous. While much has occurred that some may deplore, much may have taken place that some may differ
from; yet I have not the least doubt that, as in olden times,
the sword is the dread pioneer of the olive-tree. That kingdom must be convulsed by war before it overflow with those
rivers that make glad the city of our God; and see erected
in its bosom that kingdom which is righteousness, and
peace, and joy, in the Holy Ghost.
What an awful, and piercing, and heartrending fulfilment
of this prophecy has been sweeping over India!  What
atrocities, what sufferings, what desolating judgments are
on the earth! Those that derided the reiterating warnings I
have so long given, now recognise the solemnity and awfulnesf of the year 1857. All Europe watched each act of
that Eastern tragedy, itself a seething volcano. Turn next
to Italy. A war was kindled, the ultimate limits of which
no man can guess. Every nation trembles —there are lulls,
but there is no peace,-and all the nations of Europe learn,
amid the sprinklings of the last vial, that prophecy has
passed into fact, " Nation rising up against nation, and kingdom rising against kingdom."  The "Times" observes,"The chronicles of the last forty-two years are fresh in the
minds of all, and how many of those forty-two years have
not been mainly illustrated or ensanguined with the military
achievements of one nation or another? It has been the
fashion to speak of forty years at least of this period as
years of peace-but what peace! Now the Spanish and
now the Italian Peninsula has been red with the blood of




THINGS COMING ON THE IEARTH.           67
contending armies; now the Turkish fleet has been sunk
beneath the quiet waters of Navarin; and now the Russian
hordes have perished like flies in the autumn time, as with
ever-diminishing strength they staggered on to the diplomatic haven of Adrianople. At one time the cause of'liberty,' at another that of'order,' has been effectually
vindicated at Paris, as the red gutters of the time could
show; at another'tranquillity,' that Russian idol, was
enthroned at Warsaw in a very solemn way. The smoke
of the opposing cannon has scarcely yet curled away from
off the wide Hungarian swamps. Need we speak of England's share in these peaceful transactions? The NorthWestern Provinces of India, the banks of the Indus and of
the Irrawaddy, have been the witnesses of our military
glory. The fleets and armies of this country have already
dealt one downright blow at the power of the Tartar
dynasty in China, and even now the sword of England is
bared, and about to fall in the same quarter with sharper
effect. The story of the great contest which was waged in
the Crimea may be passed over with but a passing remark,
for that is generally admitted to be a stern parenthesis in
the loving record of the nineteenth century. The French,
however, for twenty-five years of that time have been
steadily pccupied in pursuing the African hordes from one
mountain pass to another, while at the other extremity of
that great continent we ourselves have waged two contests
of extermination amid the bush of Caffreland. So far of
the peaceful history of the Old World. In the New, peace
can scarcely be said to have reigned during the piping times
of that murderous miser Francia, in Paraguay; nor precisely
along the course and at the mouth of th6 River Plate; nor
among the republics on the racific sea-board of South




68            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
America; nor in Mexico, where of late the sturdy pioneers
of the Northern States drove before them the hybrid popu
lation of that lovely region, pretty much as of old the steelclad followers of Cortez swept before them the Indian hosts,
as the wind might have swept away the feathers with which
they were adorned. It is idle to talk of peace in the past,
and a dream to reckon upon it in the future."
We are told also that preliminary to the great period
there shall also be "famines in divers places."  I will not
specify, lest I should be accused of dogmatizing, where positive assertion is so difficult; but is it not fact that during
the last ten years, not in one country, but in every country,
not even excepting America, famines have prevailed to a
very great extent? Ireland was almost desolated by one;
our own expenditure and taxation exceedingly increased in
consequence. The fairest lands of Europe have recently
felt the effects of famine, and failure of the harvest, and
deficiency of the crops. India moves from war to famine.
The money-market of America was convulsed; there is
bread, but no money.
Our own country also felt the storm.  There "shall be
pestilences in divers places."  In 1849 a pestilence burst
upon England, travelling from the East through Germany
and Austria to our shores; and instead of the average mortality being about a thousand, it rose to three thousand per
week. In 1854 it returned, and fell upon some districts of
the country with fearful fury; in Golden Square it fell like
the blast of the pestilence itself, where men, strong at ten
o'clock in the evening, were carried out to be buried at
twelve o'clock. And the morbific agencies which originated
that pestilence are still in the air.  Some unknown and
peculiar type of it prevailed on the shores of France last




THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.            69
autumn, carrying off whole families at a stroke, and on the
shores of our own country creating sad havoc; pestilences
smiting the vine, the roots of the earth, the corn in the
field, the cattle also, among which they are now talking
about the introduction of a new type of disease.  It looks
like all the plagues of Egypt crowding into the last half of
the nineteenth century; giving token that the dread mysterious vial has been poured out into the air, and nations
own by their painful experience that God's predictions are
truth. Again, it is said there shall also be " earthquakes in
divers places." During the last three years there have been
more earthquakes than during any twenty-five years during
the last eighteen centuries; and some of these attended
with such desolating effects that capitals have been swallowed up, whole cities reduced to ruins, thousands of the
population destroyed.
From the " Times" of December 30, 1857, I take the
following extract:
"NAPLES, December 22.
"The reports which have been received of the damages
occasioned by the earthquake since I wrote are of the most
alarming and' disastrous character.  I shall for the present
confine myself to the details given by the official journal.
The private information-under the circumstances, perhaps,
approaching nearer the truth-reports the disasters to b.
far greater.  At Bari the two awful shocks on the night of
the 16th had crushed the barracks of gensdarmes and
filled the people with terror, who passed the night in the
open air. At Ricigliano, a commune of Campagna, ten
houses had fallen, five or six persons had been dug out of
the ruins, and two persons had been killed.  In Caposelle




70            THE GREAT TRBtULATION.
and Senerchia a man and a child had their legs broken in
attempting to escape.  In many other communes, houses
and churches had been split, and the cupola of the church
of St. Gregory had fallen in.  On Saturday morning two
shocks had been felt at six and ten o'clock, A.M., and stair
cases had fallen, while many of the houses had fissures in
them.  Potenza, the capital of Basilicata, however, and the
neighbourhood seem to have suffered more than any other
part. The shocks there were continuous, and not a single
house remains which is habitable. Now Potenza possesses
a population of upwards of twelve thousand souls. The
palace of the prefecture, the military and civil hospital, the
barracks of gensdarmes and of the reserve, the college of
Jesuits, the churches, and especially the cathedral, are all
rendered useless, and'no one can, without danger, cross
his own doorway.'  They were continuing to disinter the
numerous victims, the number of whom was unknown.
The whole population, who had been in the open air, were
beginning to take shelter in wooden barracks erected for
the purpose. From other parts of the province very afflicting news had arrived.  Tito (a township of near ten thousand souls, near Potenza), Marsico, Nuovo, Laurenzana, and
Brienza were almost entirely destroyed.  Two-thirds of
Vignola had perished.  Immense are the disasters in Viggiano, Calvello, Anzi,'and Abriola; and more than immense
is the terror and desolation of the inhabitants.  The pen
falls horror-struck from one's hand, so says the Government
reporter.  With regard to Naples, several lighter shocks
had occurred after the severe ones of Wednesday night;
but on Saturday, at five and half-past six o'clock P.M., others
were felt, which in some parts raised the fearful cry of'Earthquake! Earthquake!' and again a great number of




THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.             71
persons rushed into the streets.  The movement appeared
to be almost vertical, as the ground swelled beneath my
feet, and the table rose and fell.  The same scenes might
have been witnessed as those I described in my last, and
again, for the fourth night, many people spent the night in
their carriages in the open squares.  On Sunday morning,
at ten o'clock, another shock was felt, slight indeed, but
sufficient to alarm, and to lead to the idea almost that the
earth was in a continual state of vibration.  The Government has sent assistance in beds, medicine, lint, food, nurses,
and wood for barracks to the site of the disasters, as also
engineers, to see what can be done to repair and restore.
" I have been told, however, that one or two of the intendants have come up to say that the orders of the Government to throw open the communal treasuries cannot be
obeyed, as in many instances no cash remained; the drain
has been too great for other purposes. I shall give later in
my letter any further reports which may arrive.
" I mentioned a short time since that General Sabbatelli
had gone through the course of the Puglia railway, as royal
commissioner, to enforce the payment of arrears on shares,
and to encourage fresh subscriptions. His success is said to
have been very considerable.
" Fresh information from the scene of the recent disasters
has just arrived. I give it as official, premising by saying
that according to general belief the actual amount of destruction has been much greater.
" The ruinous violence of the recent earthquake appears
to have been limited to the two provinces of the Principato
Suteriore and Basilicata. Up to the 18th, nineteen bodies
had been dug up in Potenza, and more were being sought
for; three hundred had been dug out of Polla. Monte



'72           TIHE GREAT TRIBULATION.
fusco, the corporal of gendarmerie, was taken out alive; so
also was the judge of Saponara, but his wife and two children perished beneath the ruins, from which he was dragged
smashed and crippled. Lagonegro, on the same night, experienced three shocks in seven hours. None of the inha
bitants perished, but almost all the buildings, as well public
as private, were cracked, and three are falling, among which
are the church of the Capuchins, and the electric station.
The shocks continued up to yesterday at this point, though
they were slight. The entire population were living in barracks hastily erected in the middle of a great plain. In the
commune of Carboni twenty-one have perished, and nineteen have been wounded, not to speak of the damage done
to the buildings. In Castelsano, which is nearly levelled
with the ground, four hundred persons have perished. The
same misfortune has happened to Sarconi, where thirty persons have been killed. The other communes of the district
of Lagonegro which have suffered damage in the houses
generally, and particularly in the churches, and from which
no returns of the dead have been made, are, Maratea,
Lauria, Castellucio, Rotonda, Vigianello, Sant' Arcangelo,
Calvera, San Martino, Castro Nuovo, and $enise, From the
remaining communes of the district no intelligence had as
yet been received. It is impossible, therefore, to calculate
the number of the dead.  The popular voice makes it
amount to many thousands. I have heard as many as
fifteen thousand, even twenty-two thousand, stated. It is
very clear that, according to official information, several
thousands must have perished. Commissions have been
formed in the suffering localities for the relief of the suffering. Government has sent down fresh supplies of beds,
linen, and wood for the construction of barracks.  Tele



THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.'73
graphic communication had been re-established as far as was
possible.  Nurses, sisters of charity, and priests had also
been sent down, and everything was being done for the
comfort of the many thousands who, not only from fear, but
from necessity, are now encamped in the open air. Persons
who have fled from the awful scenes, and have arrived in
the capital, give yet more heartrending details; but the
official journal evidently fears the effect of them upon the
public mind. No sooner was the shock of last Saturday
felt than a horde of thieves and assassins rushed towards
the Toledo, but the gensdarmes soon put them down with
their drawn swords.
"All is now quiet, and the weather, which has at last taken
a turn, inspires people with more hope and courage; still
shocks are not unfrequent, and twice since I began this
letter have I felt them. It is a feature in the state of things
not to be omitted in this painful narrative, that the lotteryoffices all last week were placarded with favourite combinations of figures, and that the people rushed eagerly to play.
Again, another phase of the national mind was exhibited in
the superstitious agony with which all called upon the
saints for protection, and, above all, in the reported miracle
by their favourite protector, St. Januarius. His blood is said
to have boiled, to have been examined by the authorities,
and a procession was thereupon formed, in which an image
was carried; so I have been told this morning.
"This letter must not leave without my adding, that in
these painful circumstances the Government has acted with
considerable promptitude in relieving the sufferings of the
unfortunate people, and with equal promptness and moderation in preserving public order.
4




74             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
" December 23.
"I had no sooner finished my letter of yesterday than
many were alarmed by another shock of an earthquake.'Resina,' says a resident,'is in a continual state of vibration, and so will be the whole country probably for some
time to come.' Some families have left Naples in consequence, and others have been resolving to do so; but such
a step appears to me to be one of great folly, for, on the
principle that a road is never so safe as after a robbery, so
Naples is now doubly assured. This city, too, has never
within record suffered any great disasters from earthquakes,
though they have desolated the neighbourhood. Vesuvius
is doubtless a great protection to us. On the night of the
earthquake, and shortly after, a large opening was made at
the bottom of the cone, and a great quantity of smoke and
stones were ejected; ever since, it has been unusually
active.
"I hasten to send you the report which the Government
published last night, of intelligence from the scene of ruin.
It justifies all that I have said of the indisposition of the
Government to tell the whole truth, and as to the probability of private reports being true.'The mind,' says the
official writer,'shudders to contemplate the details —they
surpass beyond measure what has already been published.''In Polla alone, two thousand victims had been disinterred,
aud they were still at work. Pertosa, Atessa, Auletta,
entirely destroyed, suffered next after Polla. Then Padula
and St. Pietro, and afterwards Sala, Diano, Sassano, Montesanto, S. Arsenio, and Sapri. In all these places the numbei
of dead as yet brought to light is two thousand six hundred! The official journal cannot and will not enter into
details, but mentions Melfi, Barile, Avella, Venosa, in the




THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.            75
Basilicata, where houses and churches were thrDwn down,
and people killed and wounded.
"The same of Vallo, Matera, Majori, and Tramonti, in
Principato Citeriore. Intelligence had been received from
the province of Bari, but not given. Canosa suffered deplorable disasters, but they are not narrated. In Principato
Ulteriore, houses were thrown down and people wounded.
Abruzzo Ulteriore Secundo suffered less; the same may be
said of Capitanata, Molise, and the three Calabrias. I
believe the disaster is vastly greater than we have any idea
of; but take only the admissions of the'official journal,'
and yet how awful! It was on Sunday last that the
reputed miracle in the blood of St. Januarius took place,
and that the procession walked."
Naples is not the last sufferer. The slight vibration once
or twice touched our own shores, indicating something very
like one of the signs of the beginning of sorrows. I know
the objection occurs in many minds the moment they read
these things. They say, " But there always have been wars;
there always have been famines; not a century has passed
away without there being'earthquakes in divers places.'
This proves too much, because it would prove that our
Lord's prediction is absurd; if it be not a characteristic
sign of the end, then the prediction is altogether impossible,
and nothing can ever satisfy you that this prediction has
passed into fulfilment, because your constant reply will be,
"There have always been earthquakes, there have always
been famines, and there have always been wars." Jesus
knew these facts and phenomena, as characteristic of every
age, just as well as we do; and yet, knowing this, he predicts
them as a presignificant sign of the end; pestilences, earthquakes in divers places; the beginning of sorrows. The




76             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
distinctive peculiarity of the fulfilment of these would seen,
therefore, to be that all these shall come in clusters, and in
rapid succession, or with simultaneous effects in various parts
of the world, and within a very limited period. And as soon,
therefore, as these signs come to be concentrated,'and exhi
bited in clusters, and in rapid succession, we are to conclude,
not that the end is now come, but that the beginning of
sorrows, the birth-pangs of nature are begun, introductory
of that birth of a new heaven and a new earth, wherein
dwelleth righteousness.  I know also that all that can occur
will be explained by the man of science as perfectly natural.
Men tried to explain the cholera; one said, "It is the want
of ozone in the air;" another said, "It is a sort of magnetic
influence in the earth;" another said, "It is a severe epidemic borne hither by the wind;" but they were; just as
wise at the end as they were at the beginning, that is, they
knew nothing about it. When an earthquake comes, many
will say, " It is only the gaseous element that has become
too powerful for the crust of the earth, and has caused an
explosion;" and when a famine comes they will show you
the insect by the micioscope that causes it; but all this is
only tracing phenomena a step higher.  Who sent this
insect? who sent this gas in the earth? who inflicted this
pestilence. You do not solve the difficulty, while you only
encourage the atheistic feeling which vents itself in the language of St. Peter: " Where is the promise of his coming,
for all things continue as they were since the beginning?"
and forgetting that as a snare shall it come upon them that
dwell upon the face of the earth. These are the presignificant signs of the approaching twilight of this present dispensation -; or what our Lord calls, in the eighth verse, "the
beginning of sorrows."




THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.             tI
Our Lord next states what is one of the great moral presignificant signs, to which I proceed to call attention, namely,
that " iniquity shall abound;" and therefore, as the result of
it, "the love of many shall wax cold."  Now, can it be said
at the present day that iniquity abounds? Before proceeding
to answer this question, I must admit that truth abounds,
piety abounds, pure and lofty morality abounds. One thanks
God for it; and we pray that these things may increase more
and more. But the characteristic of the end will be that,
with an intenser exhibition of true morality by the Lord's
people, there will be an intenser exhibition of degeneracy,
and wickedness, and crime. As far as we can understand
the age in which we live, does not society seem splitting
into two great sections? Tractarianism,.Puseyism, Jesuitism,
concentrating around Antichrist as their congenial centre;
all true religion, whether Church or Dissent, concentrating
around Christ Jesus as our living and our glorious Head;
men who are truly Christians becoming more intensely so,
and men who are thoroughly worldly becoming more intensely so; shams and masks scattered'to the winds, and all
standing out either as Satan has tempted them or as God's
grace has transformed them. If so, we may expect that
iniquity will abound. Let us notice some spheres in which
it is impossible to deny that iniquity does abound.
Begin first with the visible Church in every branch
throughout the United Kingdom: in one''section, presentations to benefices are sold to the highest bidder, and advertised in the newspapers; rights the most sacred prostituted
to party or personal predilections: in another section, internecine disputes about the appointment of miliisters, ending
in separation, alienated feeling, envies, jealousies, and all
uncharitableness, injurious to practical religion. Here we




18            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
see the growth of a dark and deadly superstition, there a
system of rationalism pervading numbers of preachers, and
true religion pining or perishing, or excommunicated from
many whose morning promised a brighter and a nobler day.
I do not deny that there are signs of the Tractarian system,
which was so deadly and so dark, not disappearing, but at
least going to its own place; and no one, to whatever section of the Church he belongs, can hesitate to bless God for
recent episcopal appointments, as of " light at evening time;"
where men are selected for the chief places in the Church of
England, not because their antecedents have been noble, nor
because they are very learned, nor because they are men
that have minded nothing, nor troubled nobody, and good
enough to be Bishops, but for their piety and usefulness.
But one can see the correlative of this no less forcibly and
defined in other parts of the country: we find churches
turned into camps, sickles beaten into swords, zeal burning
where there should be indifference, and indifference freezing
where there should be burning and enthusiastic zeal. I do
not like to find fault and fulminate censure; but one can
see, with the increase of true religion in every section of the
Church, a corresponding increase of superstition, of scepticism, of infidelity, of apathy, sufficient at least to justify the
prophecy of iniquity abounding in the Church. If we turn
to another department-the State-is there no iniquity there
in high places also? How often do we see the ascendancy
of party valued more than the ascendancy of great principles; how frequently do we witness patriotism sacrificed to
party, and men more anxious who shall rule than what shall
rule and dominate? If we pass into the warehouses, the
counting-houses, the shops, the markets, the marts of merchandise, what do we witness there? Is not the competition




THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.            79
of commercial life at the present day more or less marked
by this simple brand, making haste to be rich? Is not the
great anxiety in some of our houses of business what shall
bring the quickest return, and how they shall obtain the
largest profits 8 Speaking to commercial men, let me ask,
in an affectionate spirit of sympathy, would your ledgers
and account-books bear to be inspected by God, and judged
according to the maxims of the sanctuary, not according to
the aphorisms of trade? What your neighbours do never
can justify wrongdoing on your parts. No inveteracy of
precedent can ever be a warrant for iniquity and injustice.
No doubt, there are merchants in our country and tradesmen who are content to be honestly poor rather than to be
iniquitously rich; such men are beautiful before God, ornaments and blessings to the market, and indeed to mankind.
But when one reads of the scenes that recently appeared, of
fearful crimes and dishonesties that burst forth in quarters
where they were least expected, shall I be uncharitable if I
express my fear that these were incidental ebullitions of a
state of things seething and corrupting below, of which other
evidences and exponents will appear?  If we turn to social
life, is there no abounding of iniquity there? Deeds of violence, thought to be the characteristics of barbarous times,
are, alas! too characteristic of civilization: murders and
appalling crimes are not incidental, but continuous. You
cannot look into the east end of this great metropolis without seeing a contrast that shames, and should rebuke, and
ought to awaken the sympathies of the west end. Read, as
all sometimes, I dare say, do, the wills proved in the courts
appropriated for that purpose; read in the newspapers of
men dying fabulously rich, possessed of sums one can scarcely
realize; and at their very doors, and whilst they have been




80            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
amassing these vast sums, lie pinching poverty, pining dis.
ease, miserable children nursed in the lap of crime, and
ripening for the penal colony and for the judgment-seat of
God. May not the crimes of the lower classes be retribution
on the heads of the higher? May not' the deepening sense
of the precariousness of property which the crimes of many
have generated be a call to those who have neglected the
perishing and the destitute to feel more sympathy and to do
something to succour and relieve them? You never can
wind a chain around the hand of another without winding
the opposite end around your own; you never can do wrong
without suffering wrong; you never can suffer ignorance,
and crime, and iniquity, to grow up like weeds at your door
without the atmosphere that you breathe being sooner or
later poisoned by them.
It is most melancholy that, while men are fighting about
systems of education, thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands,
are passing to the judgment-seat of Christ that literally do
not know their right hand from their left, and have no fear
of God and no reverence of mankind. In the midst of all
this-I repeat it again-men die unprecedentedly rich. I
should not like to die worth two or three hundred thousand
pounds. What an awful thought, to have had so much
wealth in a world where so many mouths want bread, and
so much poverty and so much ignorance and misery are
festering at your very threshold! In vain have we renounced
the Pope, in vain have we beaten the Czar, if we are now
the victims of Pope Mammon, and the serfs of a Czar more
terrible than the Autocrat of all the Russias-imperious and
insatiable Self. Iniquity abounds in social life. Avarice
grows strong beside pining hunger, and man, apparently
thinking that the chief end of man is not, as our good old



THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.            81
fashioned Catechism says, " to glorify God and to enjoy him
for ever," but to make a fortune, secondly, to make a will, and
leave your money to heirs, however remote. That man is
not most to be admired who comes into the world born to
riches, or to rank, or to greatness; but he who goes out of
the world over whose grave thousands shall stand and say,
"He made many a heart happier by his munificence, his
liberality, and goodness." An excessive homage is given to
wealth in the present day. Is not money made,,in the City
at least, and I fear in the West-end too, if you would
acknowledge it, the test of respectability  I4 not the first
inquiry about every man, not what he is, but what he has?
Do not men often test character not by the creed, not by the
moral conduct, but by the balance in the banker's hands?
Surely, surely, nothing is more degrading than to admire
and respect a man because, not by his own merits, but by
the aid of others, he is accidentally rich. There is something
chivalrous and noble in showing due reverence to ancient
antecedents, to historic greatness, dignity, and descent; but
there is nothing but all that is mean and unworthy in worshipping gold, and shouting hosannas to him who is simply
the lucky possessor of it. It is not purple, it is not fine
linen, but men that fear God, that love their brothers as
themselves, that are the strength of cities, the ornaments of
the Church, and are entitled to our veneration and esteem.
Honour is due to a good man who sweeps a crossing; only
pity to a man who is rich in this world's wealth, but poor
towards God. Integrity in rags is beautiful; Vice, in purple and fine linen, ought to be execrated with all the execration of hearts that love God and admire the character that
reflects his glory.
We see iniquity abounding, too, in those forms which
4*




82            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
have been recently exposed where there has been loud pro.
fession, vast pretence, ostentatious parade, aid given to every
charity connected with religion and beneficence, but all
these made to cover designs incompatible with the will of
God and inconsistent with the character of a true Christian.
How many will rob their employers in order that they may
appear in the class of those whose outward appearance
seems to indicate their occupying the high and brighter
levels of the world! Fashion is the Sinai and the Gerizim
of some, the law and gospel of others; and to have equipage, and pomp, and splendour, and retinue, they will be
selfish towards the poor, unjust towards their employers,
dishonest, and ultimately, as recent events have shown, turn
out convicted felons, because they sacrificed their duties
towards God to their miserable and contemptible thirst for
gaud, and show, and equipage. While I would not needlessly brand our age, one cannot but acknowledge that there
is a great deal wrong, that there is much room for prayer
for the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit, and for that transforming influence which one day God will give to His
Church, when she has cried and sighed because of the abominations that are done in the land.
But if we look abroad to other lands, to Spain, the land
of historic greatness, the people that are above the soil seem
almost as dead as the people that are below. Italy, long
crushed and held down in darkness and the shadow of death,
unable to endure longer, lifts up its hands and strikes for
freedom. How many of her dungeons still echo with the
groans of the crushed and the oppressed! What a state of
things where civil liberty is crime, where religious liberty
is heresy, and where the circulation of a Bible, or the assertion that you believe it, is visited by the inspection of the




THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.            83
police, and probably with imprisonment for years or fir life.
If we take the picture of France, sketched by one of its
bishops the other day, what a terrible state is hers; what
ignorance! You speak of France being Roman Catholic;
the fact is, it is no such thing. The last statistics show that
out of six and-thirty millions inhabiting France, there are
only two millions that go to confession and take the sacrament in the Church of Rome. What does that prove? By
the laws of the Church of Rome, if any one does not go to
confession and take the sacrament once a year, he is ipso
facto excommunicated; so that upwards of twenty millions
are excommunicated by this alone from the Roman Catholic
Church. It is not a Roman Catholic country-it is, to a
very great extent, I fear, a sceptical country. Austria is the
great dungeon of Europe. In Russia, the great mass are
slaves, and the few over them tyrants; and scenes are enacted there and deeds done, at which humanity must shudder,
and from which religion cannot but recoil. But we are told
by an Apostle that all this we are to expect; for, says Paul,
"This know, that in the last days perilous times shall come,
for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous,
boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection? truce-breakers,
false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are
good, traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more
than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying
the power thereof."  Such is the dark catalogue of those
who are to live in the last days.
Now, what is the result of this upon the Christian Church?
That "the love of pmany shall wax cold."  God's people
suffering frpm those that are his enemies discourage those
Christian people that are witnesses of the scene. Speing




84            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
Christianity clad in a sackcloth, many a Judas betraying
with a kiss, many a Demas forsaking, having loved this
present world, true Christians come to be discouraged, and
begin like David in the seventy-third Psalm to doubt if
there be a God, if there be a Providence, if the ways of
righteousness, after all, be ways of pleasantness, and of peace.
And then, the last days will load the whole atmosphere with
social evil; Christian people breathing that atmosphere will
be infected and tainted by it. Who does not know that if
you go and live in Paris, or in Vienna, or in some other
corrupt capital, insensibly its moral influence contaminates
you? You go there resolved to maintain the sacredness of
the Sabbath, to keep np your habits of public worship, to
read your Bible, to avoid what is sinful, but insensibly and
imperceptibly the warmth of your own Christian character
evaporates or goes down to the zero of the atmosphere you
are obliged to breathe; and you find it literally true that
the abundance of social immorality around you makes your
love to God in your own heart begin to grow cold. And
how does this cooling love exhibit itself? Less sense of the
value of Christian truth, of the necessity of pure and scriptural doctrine, and the popular feeling becoming predominant-it does not matter what a man believes if his life only
be right: a maxim as. scripturally unholy as it is logically
untrue and absurd. This cooling love shows itself in less
love to the house of God, less desire to listen to the preaching of the Gospel; little things will prevent you occupying
the accustomed place, and many things about which you are
troubled will deaden and diminish the effects of the great
truths that you hear preached and addressed to you.
Another effect of this cooling love will be less given, less
done to spread the Gospel, to educate the ignorant, and to




THINGS COMING ON THE EARTH.            85
Jo good among all that are about you. * And as prayer is the
very breath of the Christian life, there will be less prayer,
less sense of the need of it, less frequent and fervent appeal
to God that He would pour out his Spirit upon you, and
raise your love to the height it once stood at, and make you
zealous in all that is holy, and just, and beneficent, and good.
Let us then pray, that if iniquity be abounding, our love may
be preserved in its morning warmth and purity notwithstanding; let us pray that the Spirit of God would quicken
our dead hearts, would warm our cold affections; and
would enable us, in this chill, freezing atmosphere of an
atheistic world, to maintain that warmth and glow of spiritual life which God will keep burning until it mingle with
the splendours and the glories of everlasting day.
What is wanted, therefore, on all sides is intense sympathy with truth, intense love to God, fervent prayer for the
pouring out of his Holy Spirit, and the conviction deepening and growing that religion is a reality; that what I am
speaking is not fancy, is not fable, but a solemn and an
efficacious truth. Do you love God? Is that love shed
abroad in your hearts? May we be preserved amid the evil
days; may our love burn and glow with ever-brightening
flame; and when the evening of this age shall come, should
we be spared to see it, may we be among those spoken of
by the Apostle, when he says, "We that are alive shall not
prevent them that are asleep, for we shall all be'changed;"
and, unlike the five foolish, we shall be like the five wise
virgins, having our loins girt, our lamps burning, and ready
to go out and meet the Lord.




LECTURE V.
EVENING CLOUDS.
UFor there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and
shall show great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it
were possible, they shall deceive the very elect,"-MATTHEW XXIV. 24.
OUR Lord lays down in these words one of the great characteristics of the approaching close of this economy. We
are led to believe, from the words he employs, that before
the end of this dispensation all forms of evil will assume an
intenser shape, and all systems of error be more fully developed. There shall be seductions, temptations, signs and
wonders, charms and fascinations so terrible, so overwhelming, that they would deceive and destroy, were it possible,
even the very elect of God,
I do not venture at the present moment to say that there
is any system yet, which in intensity and magnitude rises
to the height to which this prophecy points; but certainly
there are in the present day, looming up at every point of
the horizon, strange and portentous forms of error; notions
as new as they are strange; doctrines fitted to beguile, con.
firmed by signs and wonders, so successful, such as they are,
that they have beguiled and are beguiling thousands and
tens of thousands; and would, if it were possible, deceive




EVENING CLOUDS.                   87
the very elect. In the Eastern Church, there is nothing at
present to startle. It seems to be dead, its air laden with
superstition, its light quenched, its love cold. It is not even
galvanized into anything like ecclesiastical activity, if we
may except incidental bursts of fanaticism. The churches
of Holland, one of the most Protestant lands in former
times, are sunk to a fearful extent in rationalistic apathy.
The young men of Germany accept the myths, or as they
might be called the whims of Strauss, and the still later
speculative spirits who have there turned Christianity into
caricature, and reasoned everything like fact-if such may
be called reasoning at all-out of existence.  What is
called the Pantheistic system  spreads; it has been inaugurated by some master spirits, at the head of whom is Carlyle in our own country, and Emerson, one of the most
gifted and eloquent men in America. This system is the
reaction of absolute atheism; atheism was the denial of
God, pantheism is the very opposite; it is the assertion that
everything is God, and everything in nature is part and parcel of God. About this system there is a great charm; it
commends itself to abstract and reflective minds; it is
adopted by others as evidence of genius. Aspiring and
vain young men are more or less tainted with this form of
heresy.
In England, there has sprung up what is called the Tractarian error, where certain clergymen have long tried to
balance between the Church of Rome and the Protestant
Church of England, and have found it impossible. They
have left behind them, as a legacy most instructive to future
generations, the lesson-that we cannot mix and mingle
perfect antagonisms; and that the result of every attempt to
assume a half-way position is of necessity either repentance




88            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
and return, or progression ending in being precipitated into
the Church of Rome. One laments to hear of duchesses,
and countesses, and nobles, and members of parliament, and
nearly two hundred clergymen, passing over in succession to
the Church of Rome by the kind offices of the Tractarian
system; for in every instance it has been the bridge across
the chasm from Protestantism to Rome. There is the Mormon community of Utah adopted into the sisterhood of
States; and now under the government of one of the most
hardened profligates, one of the most wicked villains that
ever reigned, or rather tyrannized over a people-the head
and chief priest of the Mormons. It is almost humiliating
that Liverppol, Glasgow, London, and Dublin, should furnish
thousands of emigrants to this nest of impurity, this scene
of abominations, of tyranny and despotism; under a vulgar
impostor, if he be not a lunatic. He is illiterate, coarse,
sensual, overbearing; and yet at this moment he exercises a
power unprecedented in similar circumstances, over a large
population that believe in him. This system too spreads, not
from its intrinsic claims, but by ministering to all the vile
appetites, disease and grovelling passions of the human heart.
It acquires power by pandering to crime. It builds a gigantic empire of imposture upon the ruins of morality and social
virtue. It is an emanation from beneath. And then as if
this cloud were not enough to darken the horizon, I have
been shocked at hearing of the accounts of the spread of a
system, known as spiritualism, that attempted a lodgment
here, and was laughed out of society by every sensible man.
It has settled and rooted itself in America, and counts its increasing thousands of followers. It traces its succession most
legitimately to the witch of Endor; like her it professes to
hold communion with spirits in heaven and in hell; and pre



EVENING CLOUDS.                  89
tends, blasphemously pretends, to bring dowr. from heaven
by knocking on a table, the spirit of any one who has died,
from the commencement of the Christian era down to the
present moment. It is difficult to believe that such nonsense
can flourish out of Bedlam; yet the other day I read in an
American paper, that "this spiritualism is spreading over
the country; already its adherents are great and respectable
in number, above mediocrity in talent, and are found chiefly
among the upper classes of America; among men influential
in the Church, and in political life, and in literature; many
others, like Festus, are half persuaded; and some come
Nicodemus-like,"-that is a mistake; it ought to have been
Saul-like; for it is for the same reasons that they come.
These spiritualists have four or five newspapers of great iniluence and circulation; the proprietor of one previously a
clergyman.  They have twenty-five thousand adherents
secret or open in Boston alone; more than ten thousand are
avowed believers, or, as the orthodox phrase is, professors in
spiritualism; they have three places of worship in that city
open every Sunday; they have service in different halls,
which they have hired throughout the country; their literature is on the increase, some of their books have a large circulation; and a judge upon the bench has adopted it publicly; and some of the preachers of the spiritualist doctrines
have congregations and meetings three times a dayin connection with this horrid heresy.
How unexpected, how startling, that this system so utterly
baseless, so utterly inconsistent with the Word of God, should
be taken up by reflecting minds! Does it not suggest to us
at least the possibility, shall I say the probability, that these
things may be the first sprinklings of the fulfilment of the
awful prophecy in my text, that before the end arrive there




90             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
shall arise false prophets?  These false spirits-" They shall
shew great signs and wonders."  I need not allude to the
signs and wonders that those men to whom I have just now
referred show; some of them seem startling; but I cannot
believe, even with those who have minutely investigated the
matter, that there is anything supernatural in spiritualism.
I do not believe that they can summon a spirit from heaven
or hell; or that Satan would employ so bungling a system
to carry out his own purposes and schemes. I have seen no
evidence of it. Satan is in it in this sense, that he is in everything that is bad, in everything that would corrupt and contaminate the truth and arrest its progress among mankind,
and in this delusion supremely; but in any other sense I
cannot believe, notwithstanding all that has been said, that
he is there; and still less can I believe that God would send
a spirit from its happy home to gratify the itching curiosity
of a fool who pretends to have communications with heaven,
while he has never sought to have useful communications with
his own corrupt and depraved heart. But while it may be
nothing as a reality, it may be a presignificant sign, a partial
fulfilment of the prophets; and as such alone I regard it.
"There shall be false prophets."
Various predictions in the Word of God lead us to suppose that there will be great signs and wonders in behalf of
error before the close of the present economy. For instance,
in speaking of the great Antichrist, it is said that, "His
presence will be with all power, and signs, and lying wonders;" the words "lying wonders" being literally translated
not " false wonders," but " wonders that go to prove a falsehood," wonders that are allied to and enlisted on the side
of what is falsehood. Then the evangelist John tells us in
his Epistle, " Believe not every spirit, because many false




EVENING CLOUDS.                  91
prophets are gone into the world;". and he calls upon us to
try the spirits, and he lays down the great law and test by
which you may know, whatever be their signs, or wonders,
or miracles, whether they are or are not from God. In 2
Peter, we are told that many false prophets shall come into
the world. And in Rev. xiii. 8, it is predicted very plainly,
"And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him,
whose names are not written in the book of life of the
Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. And he
doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down
from heaven on the earth in sight of men." And again, we
read in Rev. xvii. a similar prediction.  "The beast that
thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the
bottomless pit, and go into perdition; and they that dwell
on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in
the book of life;" "shall wonder," that is, wonder at what
he does, at the great and stupendous feats that he accomplishes and performs upon the earth. And thus we have
scattered intimations throughout the whole Word of God,
that signs, wonders, or miracles, will be done, in our text expressly asserted to be so startling, so striking, that if it were
possible, they would deceive the very elect.
Here is our safety, here is what you may fall back on if
ever we should be tempted by apparent or real signs and
wonders. I need not state that the whole history of the
Church of Rome sparkles with miracles; I mean miracles
so called. You cannot read the biography of one of its departed saints without seeing that he moves through the
world like an electric jar, radiating sparks of light and brilliancy upon the world always and everywhere; his miracles
are so profuse that every act is a miracle, and they are
miracles wrought on the most fantastic occasions, for the




92            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
most absurd and fantastic. ends, involving, however, their
own condemnation by the very objects for which they are
supposed or pretended to be wrought. This book is finished
and complete; it is now literally and strictly true, "If we or
an angel from heaven preach to you any other gospel than
that ye have received, let him be anathema."
Every miracle wrought by our Lord, or by the apostles,
was wrought to sustain a definite doctrine or a distinct and
heavenly mission. On every occasion the miracle was not
a freak of power done to startle, but omnipotent power put
forth in order to hold up an inspired, a sublime, and a
glorious truth. If one suppose that real miracles, as some
divines think, have been done in the Church of Rome-and
I do not see why we should deny that some supernatural
deeds have occurred in it; for if Satan can penetrate the
recesses of my heart, and whisper in its depths what is evil
without consulting me, it is not supposing more than is
reasonable that he may be able to do outward deeds that
will startle the senses by their splendour, and indicate, if not
a superhuman certainly an infra-natural inspiration and
origin. It is not impossible that Satan, who ig capable of
penetrating man's heart, should be capable of doing deeds
marvellous and startling in their brilliancy, and super- or
infra-natural in character; and therefore I would not deny
that some real supernatural things have been done in the
Church of Rome. But suppose its greatest priest, its very
pontiff himself, were to come into this capital, and perform
what was an indubitable miracle, how should I deal with
him and that miracle? I would not turn him out; I would
not burn him; I would not persecute him; I would not call
him bad names; all of which treatment does no good, and
has often done a great deal of harm. But I would bring




EVENING CLOUDS.                 93
him and his miracle, the wonder and the wonder worker, to
the law and the testimony. Suppose he were to enter the
nearest churchyard, and were to speak to the silent dust of
some dead saint or Christian that rests beneath the green
turf, and were to bid that dead one step forth from the grave
after he had lain in it ten, twenty, thirty years; and in
obedience to the pontiff's command the dead dust were to
come forth,-I am not saying it is probable, I am only supposing it possible; and I am taking the very strongest
manifestation of supernatural power in order to illustrate
and to enable me to display the test by which we are to try
it-I would instantly turn round to Pius IX., and say, " You
have done a miracle, confessedly a miracle; you have raised
the dead; I cannot deny it. But as every miracle in the
New Testament was wrought to prove a definite doctrine,
and to attest the divinity of the mission that preached that
definite doctrine; let me ask you, what doctrine do you
mean to establish by this acknowledged feat of superhuman
power?" His answer would probably be, that the Virgin
Mary is immaculate, the last dogma that he defined, and the
newest d: covered doctrine; and secondly, that she ought to
be worshipped as she is worshipped in St. Bonaventura's
Psalter, where all the Psalms are sung to the Virgin Mary,
together with the Litany and the Te Deum; and she is
praised and worshipped, and magnified as the Queen of
Heaven, and practically the great personage in the upper
world. I would instantly ask, Is this doctrine in the Bible?
If it be, I accept the miracle as from above, and I regard
the doctrine as sealed to be divine. Being a new doctrine,
and not being stated in the Bible, of course it would need
miracles to attest it; but if it be directly contradicted in the
Bible, repudiated clearly and plainly there, no splendour of




94             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
miracle, no deed of power, no act above the Luman for one
moment would make me accept as from God what the Bible
denounces as untrue. I read of Mary that she, Christian
and beautiful character as she was, said, "My soul doth
magnify," not myself, the Queen of Heaven, but "the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour."  Who
needs a SaviourI Not a saint, not an innocent, unfallen
being, but a sinner. More blessed are they that hear the
Word of God and do it, than she who was the mother of
the humanity of our blessed Lord.
When I recollect that Scripture so clearly condemns all
saint worship, that the mediation of Christ does not need, but
utterly rejects it, that Mary herself does not acknowledge
herself to be what she is called by the Roman Catholic
Church, then I call to mind the man of sin, whose coming
is with all signs and lying wonders; then I remember that
there shall be false prophets and false Christs, who shall show
great signs and wonders, that if it were possible they should
deceive the very elect; I should recollect, "If we or an
angel from heaven preach to you any other gospel than that
ye have received let him be anathema;" and I would instantly turn round to Pius IX., after he had raised the dead,
and say to him, " Get thee behind me, Satan; it is written,
Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt
thou worship." I at once feel that no splendour of miracle, no
stupendous phenomenon, be it supernatural, be it above the
level of the human, can ever convince me that a doctrine is
true which this book in one single text reprobates and
condemns.
We are told that there is one class that will be exempt
fiom the seductive success of all this. They are called the
elect. Who are the elect; can we discover them? What




EVENING CLOUDS.                   95
are the characteristics of this happy class exempt from all
deception, as these characteristics are stated in the Word of
God? In every instance in which the doctrine of election
is spoken of in the Bible, it is stated, not as in catechisms,
confessions of faith, and compendiums of theology, a dry,
hard, difficult dogma; but always in connexion with personal
character, and practical godliness. Election, in the Scotch
Confession of Faith, is like a flower that has been, as you
know, by a new process of maceration, stripped of all its
vegetable matter, and the skeleton, exquisite in its tracery,
very beautiful, but very dry, is all that remains. But election
in this holy book is like a thing of life, and of power, and of
beauty, embosomed in all that adorns, elevates, and sanctifies
the conduct of man. " Chosen of God through sanctification
of the Spirit, and belief of the truth;" and "Chosen of God
that we should be holy." Mark the distinction; not chosen
because you would be holy, but chosen in order that you
might be holy; chosen in Christ before the foundation of
the world that you might be holy. In the Word of God,
election is always embosomed in practical duty. There is
no ground, therefore, for asserting that the elect are safe,
and borne into everlasting happiness by an irresistible force,
do as they like, walk as they may; on the contrary, the route
of the elect is through Christ, the road they traverse is paved
with holiness; and on either side of that road there grow
plants and flowers, full of and giving forth aromatic and
delightful fragrance. God, in other words, has chosen the
elect in order that they may be holy; and any definition of
election, as with ultra-Calvinists-which holds out heaven
without character, safety in spite of sin, and says you ought
to look into God's secret book to find your name there,
instead, as we tell you, of looking into your heart to find




96             THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
Christian character there-is a caricature and perversion of
tile doctrine of election altogether. The very nature of the
doctrine makes it a holy force. If it be true that God
chooses me before I choose him; that my love to him is but
the response to his prior love to me; if it be true that he
looked upon me in my ruins, and without any claim on my
part lifted me by his grace to the hopes of glory, I must be
humbled, I must be abased, I must lie in the very dust before
him. And who does not know that if humility be not the
mother of the Christian graces, certainly iti s the soil in which
graces grow and the flowers of Christian character blossom
most beautifully 8
As matter of history, Churches that have held the doctrine of election have been (it is a strong statement, but it is
a true one) the most devoted, the most consistent, the most
holy; and Churches that have denied it in name and in
substance have been the least holy and vital, vigorous and
consistent. Even in the Church of Rome, the Jansenists,
who held the Augustinian doctrine, were men of high moral
worth; whereas the Jesuits, who hold the ultra-Arminian
doctrine, and deny the doctrine of election altogether
have been notorious for their diplomacy, equivocation, and
practical ungodliness. Election is not fatalism: this is the
doctrine of the Koran; this was the belief of the Stoics.
On the contrary, it is election through means to a great, a
glorious, and a blessed end. But some Christians have great
difficulties in understanding how God can act impartially, or
the creature be left with any freedom of will at all if election
be true. Admit that God does all, and there can be no difficulty in admitting that he decreed long ago to do all that
he does. If it be right in God to do a thing to-day, it was
right in God to decree tens of thousands of years ago to do




EVFNING CLOUDS.                 97
that thing. As to the objection, God's decree interferes with
my freedom, I answer, it is untrue and impossible. The
decree is an abstract thing in the great archives of the past;
it does not begin to touch at all till it comes into action; and
if the decree that God meant to make you a Christian, and
to leave another as he is, not to alter him, has not yet come
into operation, you have no right to conclude that it interferes with your freedom or responsibility at all. No decree
to save Peter or to pass by Judas exercised the least restriction or coercion upon Judas. In every instance the sin
springs from our own will, the election, which is sovereign
grace, comes from God. But, you say, is there not at least
partiality when God passes by some and selects others? Let
me try to explain it. Suppose there be in a prison twelve
murderers condemned to death, and justly so, and ordered to
be put to death in the course of a few days. The king, or
sovereign of the country, opens the gates of every cell, tells
them in the most unmistakeable terms that if they will bow
down before him and acknowledge their rebellion, and their
murders, and their crimes, and seek his royal pardon, every
one of them shall be allowed to come out and mingle again
with the nation at large. Suppose that the whole twelve
spurn the offer, pour contempt upon his proffered royal
kindness, upon his tenderness and his mercy-what is to be
done? If the whole twelve are executed, there is only done
to them what their crime has deserved. Suppose they are
perfectly inaccessible to the appeals of mercy, to remonstrances, to entreaties, eloquent and reiterated, and the whole
twelve resolve to die on the scaffold rather than own crime
and seek pardon, you would say at once, if the whole twelve
are put to death, no injustice is done. But suppose that
sovereign has the power, which human sovereigns have not,
5




98            THE GREAT TRBULATION.
to touch the hearts of six of these, and by an impulse from
on high to bring those hearts to melt, and bow, and acknowledge their sin, and seek from him his royal forgiveness, and
these six come out and do so, and the six others remain,
where is the injustice, where is the partiality? They are all
guilty, all deserve to die, and all would die did he not by an
act sovereign and gracious touch the hearts of six and bring
them to repentance, and restore them. But, you add, is not
God partial? does he not respect persons?  I answer, does
he not do so always and everywhere? One man is born a
noble, another is born a commoner: that is in God's providence. One man is born with a sickly and a tender frame,
that feels every wind that blows, and suffers under every
frost that bites; another man is born with robust health and
strength, and is strong, equally strong, in winter and in
summer. One man is so prospered in the world that everything he touches almost turns to gold; and another manand it is a fact that everybody can attest-never succeeds in
anything he attempts. One man is gifted with genius from
his birth; another man has no genius at all. Now who
makes these differences? Unquestionably, God. When
you object that in election God is a respecter of persons, you
must urge the same objection, if you believe in the existence
of a God, irrespective of revelation, for you find the very
same respecting of persons, or, if I may use the expression
without offence, arbitrary distinctions, in all the varieties of
human nature, and in all the scenes of life. I look upon
election, therefore, as the interposing of God to prevent the
whole world going to destruction; and if God did not choose
some in Christ from the foundation of the world, none would
be saved,
There is a class of excellent and active Christians who




EVENING CLOUDS.                 99
hold, if I may use the expression, much milder views of the
doctrine of election. Many of them do not like the word
predestination; they do not like much the word election.
But if you come to talk with them, you will find that whilst
they disclaim the word, they rejoice in and accept the thing.
Ask you that most excellent and venerable patriarch, whose
name will not be forgotten in the annals of the Christian
Church, Dr. Bunting, "Do you believe that God must
touch my heart before I choose, or love, or rejoice in him?
Do you believe that God must speak to me before I answer
him? that God must draw me before I follow I" His answer would be, " For sixty years I have preached that doctrine, and nothing else." Then you and I need not quarrel;
onr difference is about words; you hold predestination only
in substance, and I hold it in name and substance both: we
are at one, and there need be no strife between us, for we
are brethren. In short, a right view of God's sovereign
grace-nay more, a right view of God's providential dealings-necessitates belief in election.  What brought you
first to the house of God where you heard and felt the Gospel  It did not originate from your own heart; it was
some touch or impulse from on high, which led you to
think first about real religion; it was something external to
yourself. In providence we find election; in grace we find
election; in fact, God is sovereign, and his sovereignty is
election, and election is grace in its sovereign action upon
individuals.
If you ask, Can you reconcile this election of God that we
should be holy, or this touching the heart of one-which is
the same thing-and not touching the heart of another,
with the universal overtures of the Gospel of Christ? I
answer, I believe both: I believe that no man comes unless




100            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
God draw him; that is election: but I believe, at the same
time, that there is nothing preventing every individual, the
youngest and the oldest, who hears the Gospel, from instant
pardon, instant acceptance, instant salvation through the
blood of Christ, except what is in that individual's own
heart. And when you stand at the judgment-seat of Christ,
I remind you again, you will not dare to plead, and there is
no record that a single individual has pleaded there, " I was
not saved because I was not elect;" and if a lost soul finds
itself in hell, this will be its awful and its ceaseless torment,
I am a suicide; I came here because I would; nothing
drove me here but my own lusts, and passions, and sins, and
wickedness."  Now, if you.sk me, however, to reconcile
the universal overtures of the Gospel with this sovereignty,
this election, this grace, I tell you candidly I cannot; and
the longer that one lives, the more one learns how many
things God has revealed which we believe because revealed,
but cannot reconcile one with another. But when I find a
fact in nature which I cannot reconcile with a previous classification of phenomena, I do not deny it as a fact, I lay it
aside until I get light which will enable me to classify the
phenomena properly. So, when I find a text in the Bible,
or a doctrine which I cannot reconcile with another text or
doctrine, I do not deny that the text is inspired, but I lay it
aside in my memory till the time comes when I shall be
able to harmonise it. For instance, we all know that there
is a sea called the Mediterranean Sea. Into that sea the
Nile, the Orontes, the Po, the Rhone, the Ebro constantly
flow; the Atlantic itself rushes into it, the Black Sea pours
into it through another mouth, or channel; three continents
— Europe, Africa, and Asia-are all drained into it. Now,
where do all the waters that pour in millions of gallons into




EVENING CLOUDS.                101
that sea go? This was the question that puzzled Europe for
centuries. One said there was a subterranean channel, and
that the waters went into the very bowels of the earth;
another said that there was a contrary current below from
what there was above that neutralised the constant flux of
water into it; every one had his own theory of an outlet,
but nobody thought of denying the fact that this sea
received the waters of three continents, though nobody
could explain how they escaped. The curious men gave all
their own explanation; the cautious and the thoughtful men
waited until light should dawn. And at last a chemist in
the city of London discovered the solution —that the clouds
receive the surplus: evaporation accounts for all. Some
such discovery will harmonise those doctrines that we cannot reconcile. You may give a solution now; I may
attempt an illustration here; but depend upon it, if these
doctrines be here they are everlasting facts; and if they
have the inspiration of God, there is harmony, though we
see it not, and what we do not know now, let us wait, and
we shall know hereafter.
Now, these elect, who are thus characterised by practical
godliness, we are told, will never be deceived. Our safety
from delusion in all its phases is vital, experimental, heartfelt religion. In other words, if we be Christians —oh,
magnificent prospect! —neither life, nor death, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love
of God that is in Christ Jesus. We may see all systems of
error writhing in terrible and intermingling floods, but they
shall not touch the soles of our feet; we may see all sorts of
signs and wonders wrought to attest and to give splendour
and gilding to the most deadly error. But hear, 0 believer!




102          THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
however lowly, however humble, hear the glorious promise
of Him who is to come like the lightning in the clouds of
heaven with power and great glory-" I give unto them
eternal life; and none shall pluck them out of my hand."




LECTURE VI.
THE LAST WITNESS.
A very sure but to the world unnoticed token of the
arrival of the world's Saturday evening is the fulfilment of
the prophecy that"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the
world, for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the
end come." —MATTHEW xxiv. 14.
TRANSLATING these words literally from the Greek, they
read thus: " And there shall be proclaimed as by a herald's
voice or trumpet, this the Gospel of the kingdom.... in
all the habitable globe.... for a witness"-that may be
accompanied, as the word indicates, with martyrdom-" for
a witness to all the nations;" or " unto all the Gentiles," as
distinguished from the Jews, " and then the end shall come."
The Greek word for " Gospel," literally rendered "good
news," is the same as our English, or rather Sapon word
"God-spell;" the word "spell" meaning "news," and
" God's-spell" meaning " God's news;" that is, the information that God has to tell us. Every time, therefore, we hear
the Gospel, we hear news which God makes known to us.
What are these news? If I were to state that there is an
El1 Dorado discovered in Surrey, or a California in Kent,




104            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
millions would rush from London across all its bridges in
order to explore the mine, to collect the gold, and become
suddenly rich. I have better news than these; but, unhappily, news not always and everywhere popular. The very
fact of our hearts not being thrilled by their announcement
is evidence of something cold, dead, insensible to what is
the greatest glory, the richest happiness. The best and
brightest things that ever vibrated on human ear, or thrilled
human hearts, are these. Here is an epitome of the news:
that there is for us orphans an everlasting home; for us
exiles a country whose beauty and blessedness no tongue
can tell, and no heart can conceive; for young men and
women, weary in the shops, exhausted in the streets, sorrowful, depressed, dejected, a rest perfect, everlasting, and complete-the rest that remaineth for the people of God. To
hundreds it comes as an old story. " Oh, how often," will
it be said, " have we heard that!-it has been told us Sunday after Sunday; we have read it in our Bibles; we have
been taught it in our schools, and we have committed it to
memory from our catechisms."
This insensibility amid light is just the dreadful state of
man's heart that we have to deal with. Familiarity with
the message takes away its edge, and blunts its impressions.
If the lost could only hear that there is a home, and a
heaven, and a rest accessible to them; if the poor savages
in Africalsand in Labrador, and in Greenland, and in China,
could but learn or hear for the first time, and accept the
message while they hear it, that this life's close is the commencement of a more glorious one, what a thrill of ecstasy
would rush through every heart!  Alas! the very exuberance of our blessings makes us insensible to them. This is
one of the strangest phenomena, and yet one of the most




THE LAST WITNESS.                 105
common, that the more we are familiarized with mercies,
the less we appreciate them. Were you a traveller in the
distant desert, beneath a burning sky, and on a parched soil,
weary, exhausted, scorched, and parched with consuming
thirst, oh, with what thankfulness would you welcome one
sweet cold spring! you would value it infinitely more than
all the wine that the richest and choicest cellars of the
greatest and the noblest can furnish. But pure spring
water is so common that we do not value it. Fresh airperhaps in London somewhat corrupted-is so universal that
we are insensible to its excellence. Our greatest blessings
are scattered on the high road, and because they are so we
neither appreciate nor are thankful for them. The greatest
mercies, the brightest hopes, the noblest truths, the most
thrilling prospects, that ever tongue told or ear heard, are
those heard every Sunday; but they are so familiar that
they pass from the ear into the air again, as the wind passes
through a ruined archway, creating a murmur in its transit,
and leaving, instead of an impression, the silence of death.
That this world is not the end of us; that this body, with
its aches, and its pains, and its fevers, and its sicknesses, and
its weaknesses, is not our lasting tabernacle, as it now is;
that there remaineth a rest for the people of God, an everlasting home, an inheritance of glory, a crown of joy that
fadeth not away —is surely glad tidings. Oh, blessed revelation! oh, bright hope! The ancient heathen hoped that
there was an Elysium, but he could not prove it; the Mahometan fancies, on the authority of his Koran, that there
is an everlasting harem, where his sensual passions will be
gratified to the utmost; but as his conscience becomes pure
and his mind enlightened, he grows sick of the sensuous
prospect. But we have not to prove the existence of a
5*




106            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
heaven; it is not a corollary, nor an inference, nor a logica.
conclusion; it is a revelation from that God who dwells in
it, and comes to us in all the certainty of an absolute and an
indubitable truth. Has the thought of heaven ever cheered
you?  Has the prospect of a home ever made your fireside
brighter, and your heart bound with joy? Have you sat in
the country at eventide, and gazed upon the last rays of the
retreating sun, and the emerging stars that begin to sparkle,
and the quiet beauty of the moon as she mounts to her
midnight throne? Have you ever thought, if not of the
words, at least of the sentiments of the poet"There is a heaven o'er yonder skies,
A heaven where pleasure never dies;
A heaven I hope and long to see,
Where Christ prepares a place for me."
The amount of hold that truth has on man's conscience,
the joy it creates, the impulse it gives, is the measure of
your belief and reception of it. Thus, the very first news,
good news, is a home beyond the stars, a rest for the weary,
when time shall be lost in eternity; a city that hath foundations; a better country, whose sun never sets, whose sky
is never covered with a cloud, where the flowers are amarantalne, where the trees never lose their foliage, where all is
beauty and blessedness, and the heart has its deepest feelings and its highest longings gratified to the utmost. Is not
this good news?  But some one says, "We know not the
way; how do we get to this heaven?" Hear the good
news: there is a way to this heaven. When man sinned,
his sin, like a disruptive earthquake, rent this place we call
the earth from that grand continent which we call home and
heaven. In that tremendous chasm which disruptive sin




THE LAST WITNESS.               107
dug between happy heaven and our poor, lost, stray, sinful
earth, a broad, deep, moaning sea rises and beats against
each strand continually. How can that chasm be crossed?
Ask the infidel, and he will tell you you must take a leap in
the dark; if you miss the opposite shore, you must perish.
Ask the Romanist; he will tell you the church is the bridge
that will carry you across. Ask the New Testament, ask
the Son of God; and in his own majestic and emphatic
accents, he replies, "I am the way; no man cometh to the
Father, but by me." As God, he touches the shores of the
great continent of heaven; as man, he touches the opposite
shore of the disrupted and broken-off island of time; as
God-man, he unites the twain into one; reaching the very
heights of God's throne; so that the most depressed, the
most forsaken, and most guilty sinner, has but to enter upon
that better than Jacob's ladder, which will carry him from
the lowest depths to which sin has sunk him to the greatest
heights to which God's love can possibly raise him. Is not this
good news? And this way is not a new one. It is in one
sense the old way; it is in another sense always new. By a
new and " living way," says the apostle; that word " new "
is applied to all things that never lose their freshness. For
instance, of some piece of music you can say, " It is always
new;" and yet it was composed by Mozart or by Handel
some forty, fifty, or a hundred years ago. You may say of
this way, it is a new way; and yet it is an old one. It is
old, because it was preached in Paradise; it is new, because
it has all the freshness, from the deep interest attached to
it, of a first and early discovery. This way has been trodden
by many of your fathers, and your children have trod it, and
have entered into the everlasting rest. And if you examine
it, in one part of the road you will find riches; in another




108           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
part you will find rank; in another part of it beauty; in
another, crowns, and coronets, and purple robes, and g:eat
learning, and vast genius, and lofty attainments; in another
part, the tear of the weeper not yet dried, the blood of martyrs, as if it only had been shed the other day; all these
having cast off the world like a loose garment, and dropped
it on the road, that they might tread more unembarrassed
the path that leads to God, to glory, and to happiness; in
other words, counting all but loss for the "excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord." You have not a way
to strike out; no mountains to cleave, no rocks to blast, no
vast hills to tunnel through, no deep valleys to raise to a
level, no broad oceans to cross. It joins the Pacific of time
with the great Atlantic of eternity, without the difficulties
of a Panama'mid the passage, to detain you for single hour.
What a blessed way! what good news! what glad tidings,
that there is a heaven, a home, an everlasting rest, a joyful
retreat. The way to it is so plain that carping scribes may
miss it, critical divines may let it go, bitter sectarians may
mistake it; but a wayfaring man, that is, an honest man,
that wants to find out in the Bible the way to heaven, never
can possibly err therein. It is a way, too which has a chart
ever directing you, the Spirit of God ever explaining it to
you; and so crowded with those that beat it of all classes,
ages, complexions, and colours, that no man goes alone to
heaven. A great multitude, out of every nation, kindred,
people and tongue, whose backs are on the world, and
whose faces are Zionward and to God, goes with him.
This good news, this Gospel, is not the discovery of a
day: like a sweet stream, it broke forth from the Delectable
Mountains in Paradise: it has often been hidden; it is now
traceable not by its brawling waters, but by the belt of ver




THE LAST WITNESS.                 109
dure which its streams create in theii course. At times it
is swollen to a majestic river, reflecting the sheen of great
capitals, and the splendour of spires and towers that shine
in retreating and dawning suns. Oftentimes this stream
has been infected by the currents of superstition and of the
world; but only that it might eliminate its waters from the
impurity of them all. Oftentimes it has been resisted; but
the result of all attempts to resist its majestic current has
only been to swell its flood, and to carry it on to the infinite
and endless main with a more majestic and irresistible
career. It is the Gospel that was preached in Paradise,
that was believed by Abraham, that was gloried in by
Isaiah, preached by Evangelists, written by Apostles, sealed
by the blood of Christ, that was loved by Luther, gloried in
by Calvin, enunciated with all its first freshness by Knox,
and preached by Chalmers, and in thrilling eloquence proclaimed by Whitfield; the everlasting Gospel, the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever. And this Gospel shall
spread faster and farther every year. Wherever God's light
shines its truth shall be heard; wherever God's heat is felt
his love shall glow; wherever the winds of heaven whisper,
there God's spirit shall breathe; wherever the flowers blossom, there his grace shall grow; wherever there are.sinners
wandering through the world, there shall be white-robed
saints finding an everlasting home; and whenever death has
carried off his victim, there the angel of the resurrection
shall sit waiting for the rosy dawn of approaching day, and
giving testimony prophetic of its approach, when the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, and the living
shall be changed; and the green vales of earth shall be
covered with imperishable verdure, and the mountain peaks
shall burn with rosy sunbeams that never fade; and the




110           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
islands of the earth shall blossom like Eden, and the continents of the world like heaven; and all height, and depth,
and space, and time, shall bless God and be blessed in him
Such are the good news-a heaven; such are the good
news —a road to it; such are the encouragements to the
belief of its universality and its spread. "This Gospel of
the kingdom shall be preached." It is not merely a Gospel'
good news, but a Gospel of something very specific —of a
kingdom. This kingdom is composed first of moral and
next of personal elements. "The kingdom of God," says
the Apostle Paul, "is not meat nor drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy." Did all ministers, bishops,
priests, and deacons, recollect this, we should quarrel much
less. God's kingdom is not meat or drink, is not fasting or
feasting; is not keeping Good Friday or not keeping it; is
not observing Easter or ignoring it; is not a surplice or a
silk gown; is not ceremonial or form; it is something
higher, far more precious: it is "righteousness, peace, and
joy in the Holy Ghost." Who are the personal subjects of
this kingdom?  Men of every rank, and every clime; some
living under republic, some under despotism, some under
limited monarchy; some called Churchmen, some Dissenters, and not a few called Roman Catholics; for we cannot
think that every Roman Catholic will be lost. It would be
an awful thought. There is a virtue, a vitality in God's
eternal truth that penetrates the eclipse of Babylon; and
touches antd transforms many a humble heart in it, not of it,
looking for the kingdom and the glory of the Son of God.
There are men of every rank, and class, and degree; of
every sect, denomination, and party. Dare I exclude the
poor, despised, persecuted, ill-treated, proscribed child of
Israel and of Abraham? No, no. Often have I cherished




THE LAST WITNESS.              111
the thought-and if I cannot prove it, I will indulge the
thought in itself so sweet-that many a Jew has seen and
clung to, and held fast Christ the Saviour, as revealed in
Isaiah liii.; while he did not receive him as proclaimed in
the New Testament —the Light to lighten the Gentiles, and
the glory of his people Israel. It is a delightful thought
that the Gospel is not so cramped as we sometimes think.
All those petty distinctions that men glory in and erect into
shibboleths, depend upon it we may live to be ashamed of
in this world; and at the judgment seat of God we shall
wonder how we made lines of demarcation where there
should have been none; and how we were far quicker to
mount the judgment seat and hurl anathemas, than to bow
at the throne of grace, and implore grace and lasting blessings.
Now this kingdom, thus composed, shall overflow all
kingdoms. Heathendom is gradually dying out over all the
world? Livingstone, the indefatigable traveller, and excellent missionary of that noble Society, the London Missionary
Society, has penetrated the depths, explored the rivers, and
opened new channels of access to hitherto untrodden and
unknown lands of Central Africa. Our ships have touched
the Pole, and made the North-West Passage. China is
every day opening up, it may be amid tears, and bloodshed,
and at terrible expense; and God is ruling and overruling,
where he does not employ, all means actually contributing
to this end. If we look round again upon other forms of
error, we shall find that Mahometanism is almost gone; the
crescent wanes over all the earth. There is actually a bank
established in Constantinople; what is still more remarkable,
colonists are courted from France and from England to take
up their abodes and residence in Constantinople.  The




112           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
Gospel may be preached where it could not be preached
before; and as if to crown the last proof of the waning
crescent-oh, terrible blow to the bigoted Moslem, the
Sultan actually gave his arm to the lady of the representative of our sovereign in Constantinople; conducted her
either to or from the ball, I forget which; a scene such as
was never known in Constantinople or in Turkey for three
hundred years. Its outbreak in India will prove its destruction. There is abundant evidence of the waning crescentthe drying up of the waters of the great river Euphrates,
that the way of God's ancient people may be prepared. As
to Romanism, I have no more belief that it will gain the
ascendancy in our country than that Mahometanism will.
Its top branches are all withering in the air; its trunk is
rotten to its very core; its roots have lost all their vitality;
and some morning we may waken and hear like glad music
reverberating from earth to heaven, and from heaven to
earth, "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, is fallen." And
shall we be sorry for it? Shall we grieve over it t If we
dared to do so unmanly a thing, our sympathies would rush
back to the dungeons of Naples, or to the oppressed of
Austria, or revisit Smithfield, and the glens and grey moors
of Scotland; and witnessing the bloodshed and the martyrdoms perpetrated by it in Christ's injured and desecrated
name, they would come back to us armed with indignation,
and instead of bidding us deplore the ruin, they would urge
us to join with the anthem-peal that rings from heaven to
earth: "Rejoice over her ye angels and ye holy saints; for
the oppressor of the brethren is gone; and there shall be in
it the light of a candle, and the voice of the bridegroom
and of the harper no more at all." And then "the kingdom,
and the dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under




THE LAST WITNESS.              113
tho whole heaven, shall be given to the people of the Most
High, whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and endureth through all generations."
This Gospel-these glad tidings of a kingdom-we are
told shall be preached to all the world as a witness. It shall
be preached to al nations as a witness; not to convert all
nations. Some of our Christian brethren believe that the
Millennium is to be the product of the present missionary
agency; and that the preaching of the Gospel will end in
the conversion of all nations. I do not see this; I believe
that it is to bring a people out of the world to God, and to
be a witness to all, not the conversion of all.
This prediction is all but fulfilled. The Bible has been
translated into every spoken tongue, and the word of God is
preached at this moment in earth's countless dialects. I
appeal to the Bible Society, where you have a specimen of
the Bible in every language spoken under heaven. This
glorious Gospel has penetrated the long unvisited Crimea,
and awakened accents that will never die on the margin of
the Euxine and the Caspian Sea; it has been preached in
the Kremlin, and proclaimed upon the steppes of Tartary;
it has been heard on the banks of the Don and the Dnieper,
by the barbarous and savage inhabitants that are there; on
the Caucasus and amid the Ural mountains; over all the
North and the North-Eastern nations of Europe. It has
penetrated Pekin, it has been heard in Canton; and the roll
of cannon and the reverberations of the war-drum, however
much we may deplore them, will prove the pioneers of its
march and its progress. This Gospel is not unknown in
Persia; it has been heard amid the mountains of Afghanistan. The Thames, the Tiber, the Don, the Mississippi,
the Euphrates, the Ganges, and the Nile, have reflected its




114           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
glad sunshine, and re-echoed its grand truths. And perhaps
we stand upon the very margin of an age that will witness
all these floods and all their populations assembled together,
and shouting with a voice that will swell to heaven and
never cease on earth, " Hallelujah! the Lord God omnipo.
tent reigneth."




LECTURE VII.
PHENOMENA IN HEAVEN AmND EARTH.
"Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the
sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and
the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens shall be shaken: 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 together his elect from the
four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."-MArr.
xxiv. 29-31.
IN order that we may be in possession of all the varieties of
expression descriptive of this great eclipse, let us turn to
other Evangelists; Mark describing it in these words, Mark
xiii. 24: "But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun
shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her Jight,
and the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in
heaven shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son
of man' coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together
his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the
earth to the uttermost part of heaven."  In Luke xxi. 24,




11e            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
we find these words: " They shall fall by the edge of the
sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations; and
Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the
times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs
in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the
earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the
waves roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and' for
looking after those things which are coming on the earth:
for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. And then shall
they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and
great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass,
then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption
draweth nigh."
Now, whether we are to accept in all their literality the
very startling and awful phenomena here predicted, it is extremely difficult to decide. In all probability, judging from
predictions already fulfilled, the fulfilment of these will be
partly material and literal, partly moral and figurative.
Almost all such predictions have a moral and material
accomplishment-the latter the shadow of the formerimpressing on the senses of mankind the arrival of the predicted judgment. The best way to ascertain the exact
meaning of these words will be to compare and collate passages where similar figures are already employed. That
these expressions are employed, at least occasionally, in a
strictly figurative sense is perfectly clear.  For instance,
Solomon  says, in  the book of Ecclesiastes, "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the
evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou
shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; while the sun, or the
light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor the
clouds return after the rain." Here expressions almost




PHENOMENA IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.           117
synonymous with those in our Lord's prophecy are employed to denote great distress, feebleness of body, darkness
and affliction of mind. We shall also find that the same
phrases are employed by the prophets in the Old Testament
economy to describe moral, and not merely material phenomena. Isaiah, in his prophecy, uses this very phraseology:
"In that day they shall roar against them like the roaring
of the sea; and if one look unto the land, behold darkness
and sorrow, and the light is darkened in the heavens
thereof." In Isaiah xiii. 10, we read, "For the stars of
heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their
light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the
moon shall not cause her light to shine." In Ezekiel xxxii.
7, we find similar phraseology used to denote national or
wide-spread disaster, where he says, "And when I shall put
thee out, I will cover the heaven, and make the stars thereof
dark; -I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall
not give her light. All the bright lights of heaven will I
make dark over thee, and set darkness upon thy land, saith
the Lord God." Now, in all these passages, and there are
many others that I might quote, unquestionably the impressive figures of the text are employed as the back-ground
from which to reflect, with sharper outlines, moral and
spiritual retributions. It may therefore be possible that all
this expressive and graphic imagery is employed to describe
the terrible perplexity, the deep distress, that shall possess
the hearts of all nations, when the commercial crisis of
America shall be that of all the earth, and the consternation
of thousands in 1857 shall be that of millions paralyzed with
terror and presentiments of evil. But at the same time it
is impossible to deny that they have also a material, and not
merely a figurative meaning. Haggai, speaking of the close




118           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
of this dispensation, says, " Yet once, it is a little whils, and
I will shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and
the dry land: and I will shake all nations, and the desire of
all nations shall come:" a prophecy that we are told by the
Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews, is yet future:
"Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he hath
promised," writes the Apostle Paul, sixty-four years after
the birth of Christ, "now he hath promised, saying, Yet
once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven.
And this word, Yet once more, signifieth the removing of
those things that are shaken;" that is, material phenomena;
" as of things that are made, that those things which cannot
be shaken may remain." It would seem, therefore, that we
are justified in taking both explanations, that there shall be
signs in the sun, obscuration in the stars of heaven, celestial
phenomena so startling and unprecedented-so wide-spread
and portentous-that the most sober and reflective will feel
that we stand on the margin of some great crisis, while
Christ's believing and expectant people will recognise in all
the warning'sign, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; the
time of your redemption draweth nigh."
At the same time, we shall find that nothing can occur
in the shape of material phenomena, however unprecedented or extraordinary, which men will not explain away.
I have no doubt that many of the cotemporaries of Noah,
while they saw him building the ark, derided his folly, and
described Noah and his project in the Charivaris and caricatures of the day as an antediluvian lunatic, while they
contemptuously smiled at the stupid old man who dreamed
that any force we are acquainted with could raise the ocean
from its oozy bed, and cause it to overflow hill and valley,
and leave not a living thing over the face of the whole




PHENOMENA IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.          119
earth. Up to that very morning when the fountains of the
great deep burst open, and the windows of heaven poured
down water, the philosophers and the astronomers-royal of
the age demonstrated with mathematical accuracy that a
universal flood was a physical impossibility, and that Noah
was, beyond all dispute, a fool and a fanatic, whose requests
to the people to enter into the ark ought to be treated with
the contempt such counsels deserved.  When phenomena
shall overtake this world that shall be the divinely-appointed
pioneers of the great and final convulsion, demonstrations
in leading articles, and letters, and essays, will appear thick
as dead leaves in November, showing that all is explicable
from electricity, or the polarization of light, or other natural
law, and that it is very wrong in Christian ministers to disturb weak nerves, and alarm timid minds; pleading, also, as
they did of old, " All things continue as they were from the
beginning until now:" not knowing that thousands of signs
are pre-signifying the exhaustion of an age in which we
play so momentous a part, and the approach of a glorious
dispensation, in which I trust and pray that we shall be
found heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Jesus Christ.
Immediately after all these things, on which I do not
now dwell, there is one prediction that has occasioned not
great dispute, but certainly great variety of opinion.  It is
this: "Then shall appear the sign of the Son of man:"
some sign that is to usher in the advent of the Son of man.
What is it? All I can do is to let you hear the opinions I
have gathered, from the earliest writer, Chrysostom, the
Archbishop of Constantinople, down to the most recent
interpreter of prophecy. Some say that the sign of the Son
of man means simply the advent of the Son of man. But
the sign is distinct from the thing signified; and if it be a




120           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
sign, it surely cannot be what the sign signifies-the advent
of the Son of man.  Another class of interpreters believe
that this sign is to be the appearance of the glorious and
radiant resurrection body of our blessed Lord; and the
ground on which they say so is, that "To this faithless
gei.eration shall be given no other sign than the sign of
Jonah the prophet."  What was that sign? Christ's resurrection. And as the sign of Jonah was appealed to by him,
so the sign set forth and spoken of by the Son of man will
be, these interpreters think, the appearance of the glorious
and glorified body of the Son of God. But then this, again,
seems to me to confound the sign and the substance, or the
thing signified, and therefore not a true and natural exposition of it. The third class of opinions was the most common during the earliest ages of the Christian Church.
Almost all the Greek Fathers of the fourth ceutury, and
one or two of the Latin Fathers,-and their agreement
here is singular, whether it be true or superstitious-Chrysostom and his cotemporaries, almost to a man, think that
the sign of the Son of man is to be a gigantic luminous
cross that will appear in the firmament, covering a space
wide as the widest horizon; so brilliant, so overwhelming
in its splendour, that no scientific solution, no optical delusion, no resource of astronomy, will be able to explain it or
exhaust its meaning.
I do not believe that this is the correct explanation. I
merely state it as an almost universal belief in the fourth
century of the Christian era. I think it arose in some degree from that incipient superstitious veneration of the cross
which has culminated into the rankest idolatry in the Roman Catholic Church. For, after all, the cross, as a material
thing, is nothing; it was a Roman instrument of punish



PHENOMENA IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.          121
ment, and that instrument was used because it was the legal
and the prescribed one at the time. It is the moral glory
of the atonement that is the cross of Christ. That in which
Paul gloried was not the wood on which Jesus hung, but
the sacrifice which Jesus made and perfected there. Others
think that the sign will be the approach of an illuminated
cloud, something like the chariot of fire on which the prophet of old ascended into heaven, careering through the
sky, and borne on the willing winds, interpenetrated with
beams of intense splendour, the sign of the approach of the
chariot-wheels of Him who comes to reign, and whose right
it is. Other interpreters think it will be the very star that
stood over the manger, which, with greater splendour and
brilliancy, and subject to a more universal notice, shall stand
over that spot on which the feet of the Son of man shall
stand, and where Jew and Gentile shall gather together to
praise, to adore, and to worship him. A star of almost
supernatural brilliancy hung over the Mount of Olives during
the summer of 1857. Jew and Gentile were powerfully impressed by its appearance; the former thinking it the sign
of the Messiah, and the latter the " sign of the Son of man."
Others think that this sign of the Son of man will be the
shechinah; that which burned between the cherubim in the
holy place; that moved like a pillar of bright flame in the
desert before the hosts of Israel: and when this glory shall
burst upon the world, the light of the sun, and the shining
of the moon and the stars will all grow pale in the intensity
of that splendour of unearthly brilliancy and glory. It seems
to me very doubtful how far these have any foundation in
truth. The most probable (for I can only speak of probabilities) interpretation is, that " the sign of the Son of man "
will be the accomplishment of all that has preceded. After
6




122           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
the Gospel has been preached as a witness to all nations;
after there shall come false prophets, deceptive and delusive
in their doctrines, captivating, because teaching a lax morality, putting up pretensions to miraculous powers so plausible
that, if it were possible, they would deceive the very elect:
after the lightning begins to burst from the east in increasing
splendour to its lair in the distant west; after all these have
come to pass, we shall have the sign, or the assurance, that
the coming or approach of the Son. of man draweth nigh.
When he comes it will be with power and great glory;
and "then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds with power
and great glory." Just before he ascended into heaven, he
said, " All power is given to me in heaven and in earth;"
and so when he comes again he will come armed with that
power as a fact which he announced at his ascension as a
prerogative and a gift. This power will be felt in the graves
of the dead; it will be seen in the gathering and separation
of the startled and the agitated living; it will be seen in
the paling sun, in the waning moon, in the hiling stars; it
shall then not be disputed, but felt as an incontestable fact,
that all power in heaven and in earth is his. And he will
be accompanied, it is said, with angels. These will constitute his retinue, and form a portion of that great glory with
which the Son of man shall come. We have this described in
the prophet Daniel five hundred years before these words
were pronounced: " I saw in the night visions, and behold,
one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven,
and came to the ancient of days, and they brought him near
before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory,
and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages should
serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which




PHENOMENA IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.           123
shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not
be destroyed." And very beautifully and very exactly it is
said in the Acts of the Apostles, " Ye men of Galilee, this
same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven," that is,
in a cloud, " shall so come as ye have seen him go." And
in the opening chapter of the Book of Revelation it is said,
"Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see
him, and they also that pierced him; and all kindreds of
the earth shall wail because of him." More glorious than
on the mount of transfiguration, with more angels than he
appeared on Sinai, he cometh to judge the earth.
We have in the next place the accompaniments of his advent. First of all, we are told in 1 Thess. iv. that "*The Lord
himself shall descend from heaven with a shout;" all going on
as it was, the market full of activity, the exchange crowded
with intensely interested and anxious men, the sail and the
steamer on the ocean, the train rushing along its iron road,
the tradesman behind his counter, the merchant in his counting-house, the judge upon the bench, the senator pleading
about taxes about progress, and about reform; at once and
without a warning, shall be heard a sound louder than all
the parks of all the artillery of earth, or the severe thunders
of heaven, whose reverberations shall reach to the highest
heaven, and descend to the deepest hell, and cover with their
crashing echoes the widest space of God's startled earth and
agitated world. When that shout shall be heard, men's
blood will grow cold almost at their heart, the pulse of nature for the first time will stand still, and the most sceptical
will believe that whatever be the nature or the issues of the
scene, a new and startling era has arrived in the arrangements and the providential purposes of God.
On turning to the book of Revelation, we read there that




124           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
the angels that accompany our blessed Lord whet he comes
again in power and great glory, will have each angel his own
specific and important mission. One angel, we are told,
will cry, lifting up his hand to heaven, and swearing by Him
that liveth for ever and ever, that time shall be no longer;
all the means of grace have ceased, all opportunities of salvation are gone, grace now must merge into judgment.
Another angel will take up a great stone, large as a mill
stone, and cast it into the depths of the sea; and thus, with
great violence, shall that city Babylon be thrown down, and
shall be found no more at all. Another angel will cry with
a loud voice, "Thrust in thy sickle and reap the harvest of
the earth;" and another will say, "Thrust in thy sharp
sickle and reap the clusters of the vine of the earth. And
he gathered the vine of the earth, and cast it into the great
wine-press of the wrath of Almighty God." At the close of
all this, another angel shall be heard, whose voice shall sound
louder than the loudest trump, ringing from heaven to earth,
and from earth to heaven, " Arise, ye dead, and come to judgment." We can scarcely realize for one moment that solemn,
but to a Christian joyous and hopeful scene; when the
trumpet shall sound and the dead shall hear. Look at that
churchyard; suddenly the green sods begin to heave as if
quickened with some strange vitality. Hark again, in that
ancient abbey! marble mausolea rend and split, and monuments of bronze seem to crumble before that mysterious
breath, almost like spiders' webs. Look again; and the
great ocean'that has slept so calmly begins to heave and
writhe and be convulsed, sending up that deep and moaning
cry as of a wounded creature in great pain. Some subterranean earthquake heaves its foundations from their deepest
depths. And out of the sea, and out of the green church



PHENOMENA IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.           125
yard, and out of the ancient pyramids of Egypt, and out of
monuments of bronze, and out of mausolea of marble, myriads of living beings come forth, fresh like Adam from the
hands of God, fair as the angels of the sky; and friend recognizes friend, and brother bids welcome to brother; and
all congregated together are presented by Christ to himself,
a glorious church, without spot, or wrinkle, or blemish, or
any such thing.
But this is not all: not only shall that trumpet voice raise
the long sleeping and silent dead, but all Christ's people
that are living shall instantly be changed. There are some
people-no, I do not say there are, but there will be some
people-that will never die. We often read the text, " It is
appointed unto all men to die;" but it is we that put in the
"all;" it is not the Spirit of God. Open your Bibles and
turn to the text, and you will find, "It is appointed unto
men to die;" it is not appointed unto all men, for a day
comes when the whole earth being covered with living men,
one half of them shall be changed, lifted up in the cloud,
and ushered into heaven; and the other half shall be overwhelmed in the last and crushing catastrophe of a world in
flames. When the dead shall be raised, Christ's people that
are living shall not die, but be changed. And what a strange
and mysterious separation will then take place! Our blessed
Lord himself tells us in very solemn and very striking language, "Two women shall be grinding at the mill," one a
Christian, the other not, "one shall be taken," changed,
lifted into the glorious cloud, "the other shall be left," to
perish in the wreck and ruin of all things. And again, he
says, "Two shall be in the field," sowing, or reaping, or
ploughing, the world going on as it was, "one shall be
taken," changed, translated, "the other shall be left," and




126           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
share in the great catastrophe. In which class shall we be t
Among those who will hail the drooping sun, the hiding
stars, and the obscured moon; and hear only music in the
roll of the last trump, and right joyous words in that great
shout that rends heaven and earth; for to us, if we be
children of God, will come a voice the sweetest and the
most musical that can descend from heaven into waiting and
willing hearts, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the
kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world."
" Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they
shall see the Son of man."  The word " earth " is translated
often in the New Testament "the land;" and in many
instances unquestionably refers to the land of Judea. The
epithet " tribes " is not applied to the Gentiles, it is the distinctive appellation of the Jews. This is the prediction of
the fact that the Jess, gathered to their own land, and
there attempting to build their temple, and to offer up their
sacrifices, shall be converted instantly and in a day by the
pouring out of the Spirit of God; and then they shall see
Christ, and mourn. Zechariah, speaking of them at this era,
and describing great phenomena that are to take place on a
day, called " the great day of God," says, "In that day will
I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people; all
that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though
all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
In that day, saith the Lord, I will smite every house with
astonishment."  Then in the sixth verse, "In that day I
will make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire
among the wood."  And in the eighth verse, "In that day
shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he
that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David;
and the house of David shall be as God." And he says in




PHENOMENA IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.            127
the ninth verse, " And it shall come to pass in that day, that
I will seek to destroy all the 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 mewhom they
have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth
for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one
that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day shall
there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of
Hadadrimmon, in the valley of Megiddon. And the land
shall mourn." These words, "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," are most significant. What do they show?  That
the Jews will be replaced in Jerusalem, divided into tribes
in their own land, when their repentance occurs, for each
tribe is to mourn apart. I believe that splendid prophecy
in the last eight chapters of Ezekiel, with its temple, the
allocation of the tribes, their distribution throughout the
land, will be strictly realized.
A person suggested to me that the whole picture of the
temple of Ezekiel in the last eight chapters could be erected
only in one spot in the land of Palestine; and that the proportions were so perfect, and their geographical relationships
so exact, that a skilful architect might easily draw out a
ground plan, and the structure of the edifice itself; and show
that it was not a figure to be fulfilled in the bulk, but a literal
erection to beautify the coasts and the fields of Palestine.
I got a rough sketch prepared by an eminent architect in




128           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
my congregation. In my schoolroom I asked some one tc
read the verses of the last eight chapters of Ezekiel in succession, while I pointed with a rod to the picture. Nothing
could be more exact than the coincidence between the
inspired words and the drawing. This great temple will be
raised in Jerusalem, and into it the glory will come in
another way than it came into Solomon's temple, when God
will pour out his Spirit upon all the tribes settled in various
districts of the land; and they shall look upon him whom
they have pierced, and they shall discover that Jesus of
Nazareth is the Son of God, and they shall mourn, and be in
bitterness of heart. Palestine shall have the precedence of
all lands, and Jerusalem be in a far higher sense the beautiful metropolis of all the earth.
"He shall gather his elect from the four winds of heaven."
In other words, the moment this sign of the Son of man
comes-and perhaps the most suggestive and eloquent sign
of all will be the return of the Jews to their own land-he
will gather his elect people from every end of the earth.
Africa, Asia, Europe, and America will pour forth from
every point of the world's wide circumference their responsible myriads; all rushing to that great central spot, all
with beating hearts, some with broken, others with bounding
hearts, to answer for the deeds done in the body, whether
they be good or whether they be evil. The Jew shall start
from his synagogue, the Arab shall come from his tent, the
Moslem emerge from his mosque, the Cossack from his
steppes, the wild Indian from his wigwam, the bishop from
his cathedral, and the presbyter from his church; all shall
hear his voice, and under an attraction that some woulId not
resist if they could, and that others deprecate and would
resist if they could, shall appear at the judgment seat of




PHENOMENA IN HEAVEN AND EARTH.           129
Christ, there to receive the unalterable sentence of endless,
and to some glorious retribution. Such, then, will be the
phenomena of that day.
Are we in the number of the elect? Are we itashed in that
Saviour's precious blood? Are we regenerated by his Holy
Spirit? Are we born again? It matters little comparatively
what church you prefer, what chapel you worship in, what rites
you love, or what sermons you dislike; if you bear the royal
signature of Christ, if you are made new creatures. Two eternities are struggling to have you, but one only will embosom
you, that eternal joy which is in reversion for all them that
love God, and are the called according to his purpose. Happy
are the people who are in such a case! On your graves,
the bleakest of them all, the heart's-ease may blossom; and
on their lintels and on their door-posts the morning of the
resurrection already begins to break. It matters little when
you die, it matters nothing where you die, or where your
dead dust may be laid; this only is the great thing, that
you are found in Christ, washed in his precious blood.
Come judgment, come tribulation, come the rending earth
and the shattered sky; come darkened sun, and clouded
stars, and hidden moon; "I," says the Saviour, "give unto
such eternal life, and none shall pluck them out of my
Land."




LECTURE VIIL
THE LATTER RAIN.
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out
my Spirit upon all flesh;" &c.-JOEL ii. 28-32.
WAs this prophecy exhausted when the Holy Spirit, at the
day of Pentecost, was poured out upon the Apostles? I believe not. No phenomena occurred at Pentecost adequate
to fulfil the whole prediction. In the 24th chapter of
Matthew we find that the phenomena predicted by Joel are
also predicted by our Lord to occur when he shall come
again, to put the sheep upon his right hand, and the goats
upon his left, and apportion each an eternal destiny. It
therefore seems that Pentecost was the first sprinkling of a
great shower that is destined yet to saturate and refresh all
portions of the world's long, bleak, and very thirsty wilderness, the early rain to be followed by the latter During the
Christian economy, that is, during the last days, from Christ's
birth to Christ's second advent, Joel's prophecy has been fulfilling. The first shower, the April shower as it were, or the
early rain, began at Pentecost; there were incidental showers
in every succeeding century; but the great and copious baptism that is to prepare a people for the coming of the Lord,
or, in the beautiful language of the Apocalypse, to make
the bride ready for the bridegroom, remains still to come,




THE LATTER  RAIN.              181
and will be the token of that great day when all things shall
be made new, and the world shall be restored and regenerated. If this were my peculiar or singular opinion, I should
scarcely venture to assert it with such confidence; but Calvin, that acute and able scholar, averse to all that seemed
extravagant, says: " Joel views the whole kingdom of Christ,
its beginning and its end; and what he predicts is to occur
between the first day of Pentecost and the last day of the
resurrection of the saints." Howe, the great and eloquent
Puritan, whose works are so rich in precious theology, says
in his work on the Holy Spirit: "It is plain Peter did
not intend that this at Pentecost was the completion of the
prophecy."  These two divines, and many others I could
quote in more recent times, concur in looking at the Pentecostal effusion, eighteen hundred years ago, as only the first
and copious shower of what is to occur in the end of the
age.
In order to ascertain clearly and plainly what would be
the effects of this pouring out of God's Holy Spirit, I think
the rational way is to ascertain, first of all, what this Holy
Spirit is predicted or asserted to do in individual cases. The
Holy Spirit is a person, a divine person. We believe that
the Father is God, that the Son is God, that the Holy
Spirit is God. If we are asked to explain this, I answer, I
cannot; if it be asked do we comprehend it, I answer, No.
But there are many more things incomprehensible in our
experience than our philosophy will sometimes bow itself to
admit. Ten thousand things are about us, and in us, and
over us, that we accept as facts, though we cannot comprehend them as mysteries. Now, then, this Holy Spirit being
a person, and a divine person, is promised by the Saviour as
his substitute, and so far representative, throughout the




132           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
whole of the Christian economy. Therefore, when we heal
of any priest calling himself the vicar of Christ, we feel the
thing is monstrous. The Holy Spirit only takes the place
of Christ. " I will send you," he says, "another Comforter,
that he may abide in you for ever." That Holy Spirit is to
abide in the hearts of believers till Christ come, making
them meet to welcome to our world their King, their Saviour, and their God. The Holy Spirit's work is delineated in
the Gospel of St. John.
By ascertaining what this Holy Spirit is to do in each
individual, we shall thereby be able to infer what he will do
in the wide world at large. Our Lord says in John xiv.,
" The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father
will send in my name; he shall teach you all things, and
bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
unto you." Then in the xvth chapter, " But when the Comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father,
he shall testify of me." In the xvith chapter, " When the
Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you unto all truth; for
he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear
he will speak; and he will show you things to come."
These are the three passages that most expressly and vividly
state what the Holy Spirit is to do. He is called the Comforter; but before he assumes that name he is called the
"Spirit of truth;" "the Spirit of truth, the Comforter."
All true Christian comfort must be based upon truth. There
is no comfort in a lie; there may be an opiate, or there
may be stupefaction in it; but the truth, the Spirit of truth
alone, is the Comforter. As long as he comforts he will tell
you the truth; and he will tell you the truth in order to
comfort you.




THE LATTER  RAIN.                133
This Spirit of truth is predicted in the first place to guide
unto all truth. There is an instinct in our nature that
prompts us to ascertain what is truth. What is all literature   Man searching out for truth.  What are all the
investigations of science? Man wanting to get at the heart
and truth of things. We should seek to know religious
truth just as we seek to know scientific truth, only that
many keep in their hearts lodgers that they will not cast
out, and cherish in their practice habits they will not abjure;
and therefore do not want, because they do not like the
truth to reveal what they are conscious will not bear the
light of truth. No man likes to undergo a painful operation; but when he is convinced that the operation is necessary to a cure, he will submit to it. No man likes the truth
to come into contact with something which he knows should
not be there; but if you are persuaded that to know the
worst of the matter is the only way to get at peace and
happiness, then you will submit to it. He will teach you
all the truth; the truth about God, the truth about yourself;
the whole truth about what you were, are, and will be. We
do not mean to say that he will flash splendour from the
skies, and so fill your souls with supernatural sunshine, or
that he will place a tongue of flame upon every head; but
that he will make so plain to you God's word, by removing
from your mind the dark prejudices that prevent you seeing
it clearly, that in his light you shall be able to see all
light.
This being the effect of the Holy Spirit's possession of an
individual heart, we have only to transfer the personal and
the local to the universal, to see what will be the effect of
this Spirit poured out upon all flesh. The moment this
takes place, all words will be truth, all thoughts will be just,




134            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
all ways will be straight. Instead of those flickering rays
of sunshine that we, in our ignorance, dignify with the name
of summer, there shall burst upon the world Eden's own
bright, cloudless, lasting noon, and all the earth shall be
filled with the glory of God, as the waters cover the channels of the great deep. The crescent that now wanes in
the eastern sky shall then give place to the great glory of
redemption, Christ, and him crucified. The vast continent
of China shall be no longer oppressed by the horrid superstition of Confucius, or stained and marred by crimes that
dare not be mentioned; but bask in the sunshine of eternal
day. India shall no longer be the victim of Brahmin and
Buddhist, and lie beneath a upas tree that spreads death
wherever its shadow falls. The years 1857 and 1858 will
be recollected one day by millions of that population as the
most unhappy and deplorable chapters in their history; and
whilst they deplore in tears the past, they will bless God
that he has taught them to see their crimes and renounce
them, and to rejoice in the blessings and glories of an Indian
Pentecost. Austria and Italy, those magnificent lands, will
come forth from the grave of a thousand years, their mists
cleared away from their eyes, and they shall no longer sit
amid the swamps of the Papal superstition, but beneath the
shadow of the Rock of Ages and the Tree of Life. Russia,
so degraded and debased by a superstition little better than
that of Italy, shall open its eyes and see a brighter and a
new day. All mysteries to us shall be made plain; the
light of the Spirit shall then be in every understanding;
the Sun of Righteousness shall then rise with healing under
his wings; and all shall be blessed in his light; they shall
no more teach every man his brother, saying, "Know the
Lord;" for all shall know him, from the least to the greatest.




THE LAITrER RAIN.              135
Such, then, would be the effect of the fulfilling of what God
has predicted.
This Holy Spirit, in individual cases, is also represented
as the Comforter. This is a very blessed thought-that our
religion is not, as some people think it, a creed in one hand
and a thunderbolt in the other;' or, as some imagine, merely
prophesying evil and troubling the camp of Israel; it is a
religion of joy; a spring of the highest and most enduring
happiness; and if you be not happy, depend upon it it is
not your Christianity that makes you unhappy, but the
want of it; for as sure as you get the Spirit to teach you
the truth, so sure you will get that Holy Spirit to give you
comfort, or happiness and joy, in such measure as may be
most expedient for you. How delightful it is that we have
a Comforter! There are times when we cannot help being
depressed; depression however arising not always from
spiritual and religious springs, but from those troublesome
concerns that we call nerves. Hence many a person searching out a comforting word, would do well to go to a physician and ask him for a prescription. You must not always
attribute to religion what is attributable to other and subordinate causes. But when you need consolation, arising from
your misapprehension of Divine Truth, how delightful it is
that we have One who can comfort us-that we are capable
of comfort! The lost in misery are incapable of it; but we
are capable of it. We have in the Spirit one who can comfort us. We all know what numbers there are in this world
of Job's miserable comforters. You have lost a near and a
dear one, perhaps you are sorrowing over some one who has
found a soldier's grave amid the burning sands of India.
Some person comes to you with a great deal of ostentatious
piety, and a very long face, and a voice transposed to the




136           THE GREAT TRIBMULTION.
minor key; and tells you, you should not sorrow, you should
not weep, you should not feel grieved; it is very sinful of
you; it is very wrong of you. How harsh and cold is such
advice! Why, Jesus wept; the Son of God had sorrow.
To rebuke me for having human nature is to rebuke God for
having made me. It is as natural to weep as it is to smile;
it is as natural to feel sorrow as it is to feel joy. To go to a
sufferer sorrowing in the shadow of a bitter calamity, and to
say, "Do not weep; do not be sorrowful; it is sinful to be
so," is to aggravate the s,rrow, which you had much better
let alone. Another comes with some dry, worthless common-place, and says, "It is all very natural; you cannot
help it;" and they give this miserable consolation just as a
nurse in a sick-room often presents a cup of medicine, she
heartily detests, to the poor patient that needs it. But this
Comforter presents the right consolation at the right moment; he knows what spring to touch, what note to sound,
what word to speak, what leaf from the tree of life to apply
to the bleeding heart; and then, "Comfort, comfort ye my
people," becomes no more a prophet's vision, but a Christian's deepest and innermost experience. It may be asked
now, how does he comfort?  Not by bringing a new revelation; nor by adding one chapter to the Bible. It is a great
mistake, into which many Christians fall, when they speak
of the Spirit's work, as if He takes off some film from the
sacred page, or adds some words to the sacred testimony.
That is a great error. The Holy Spirit takes of the things
that are Christ's and shows them unto us; he brings all
things to your remembrance whatsoever Christ has said unto
you. In other words, when the Holy Spirit comforts you
he does not brighten the truth; but he sweeps away the
cobwebs from your minds-the mists, and films, and preju



THE LATTER RAIN.               137
dices from your vision-the distorting and diverging passions from your heart; and thus he enables you to see and
draw comfort from that truth which he presents to you.
Who has not felt infinite comfort in sorrow when some
long-hidden truth flashed suddenly upon his mind?  Who
has not felt as if an angel touched him when some unknown
but seasonable and consolatory truth came suddenly within
the horizon of his mind? Who has not felt as if he had
been transported back to Paradise when some flower of
Eden, long shrivelled and withered within him, suddenly
burst into all its Eden bloom, and shed the very fragrance of
heaven over the sorrows and the sufferings of a heavy human
heart. Thus the Spirit comforts not by something altogether
transcendental and unknown; but by bringing the truth he
has inspired into contact with the heart that needs it. This
is his peculiar and sovereign power. A preacher can speak
to his audience-their ears drink in his words, and their
intellects understand them; but many a truth distinctly
heard, and many a proposition clearly understood, does not
reach the heart or the conscience; it stops short in the head,
or lies cold in the memory. The Holy Spirit of God can
preach to the inmost heart, just as man preaches to the outward ear; and make the heart feel just as easily as the
preacher can make the people hear. Thus he can comfort
in a way that man cannot attain.
It is the office of the Holy Spirit also to give life. This
gift is eminently the prerogative of Deity. The world can
give a new dress, the sovereign can give a new title, the
humblest minister can give a new baptism; but the Holy
Spirit of God alone can give life to the heart. By life is
not meant excitement; excitement is cheap enough; it can
be had at a small price anywhere, and on any occasion.




138           THE GREAT TRIULATION.
Religious excitement may be fever, which is not health, but
the reverse of health. Nor is it outward conformity to outward things; that is not life. The Holy Spirit can quicken
the dead heart, stir the stagnant tides in the veins and
arteries of that heart, and raise by a mysterious touch the
whole temperature of the soul and heart within. There may
be no eloquence; there may be no outward, visible, startling
phenomena; yet there may be a secret penetrating life flowing through many hearts, and originating in each, not the
fever of fanaticism, but the life of true religion. Life is not
a violent thing. When a man is extravagant in all his ways,
and acts, and deeds, and movements, we set him down as a
lunatic; but life makes the footstep firm, the heart beat
steadily, all the organization and action of nature healthy;
it makes no-noise, shows no sign of extravagance; and yet
is the mightiest motive force that God vouchsafes to his
intelligent creatures. Were each individual throughout our
world inspired by this life, what would be the result? Valleys of dry bones would become countless hosts of living
men-dead and withered branches would be weighed down
with fruit fragrant, beautiful, and ripe. Outward acts would
have an elevation, and a purity, and a sublimity that they
never had before. Prayer would cease to be a mere form;
praise would cease to be a mere song; public worship
would cease to be a mere propriety; and while the church
would neither be a theatre nor a convent, it would be that
floor on which would be transacted interests that stretch
into everlasting ages, and stir the spirits that are in heaven
with deep and kindling sympathy with what is experienced
in this world.
A distinctive characteristic of this Holy Spirit is holiness;
that grace whose standard is the law, whose subject is a




THE LATTER RAIN.                139
Christian, whose authorship is the Spirit of God. Not outward beauty, not ecclesiastical decoration, not gorgeous robes,
not resplendent ceremonies; but the simplicity of worship,
the purity of truth, the moral grandeur that God the Spirit
inspires within and develops without. The drunkard would
become sober; the miser would become liberal; evil would
flee like a shadow; Satan would be cast out; and Paradise
would end the world as Paradise began it; and if trade
should be continued, it would be like a liturgy; and if the
counting-house should exist, it would be as a sanctuary;
and if parliaments were in existence, statesmen would not
follow the dictates of expediency but of duty. The priest
would give up his breviary; the hypocrite would resign his
mask; and whether we eat or drink, or whatsoever we do,
we should do all to the glory of God.
If this Spirit were poured out upon the individual, there
would be power; for what is he called? He is called " the
power of the Holy Ghost?" Why does many a sermon fail
to have effect t It may be truth, it may be brilliant, it may
be eloquent; but the result is exactly that of the tinkling
cymbal and the sounding brass. Why? The power of the
Holy Ghost is not in it. Why do we read the Bible very
often, and derive very little good from it? The power of
the Spirit of God is not sought. Why do Christians quarrel
among themselves, and Churchmen hate Dissenters, and Dissenters hate Churchmen? Because they have not the cementing power of the Holy Spirit of God in their hearts. When
we see men quarrelling about baskets, we may depend upon
it they are not very hungry; when we see ecclesiastics
quarrelling about crotchets, we may be very sure they have
no very deep conviction of realities. As often as you see
men disputing about one little jot on which they differ, and




140           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
forgetting the ninety-nine magnificent things about which
they are at one, they need the Holy Spirit of God to teach
them better things. What is wanted in the present day in
every sermon, in all our worship, and work, and way, is the
power of the Holy Ghost.
How striking is the extraordinary feeling that at this
moment spreads all over the United States and the northern
parts of Ireland!' When I first heard of it I thought it
might be spasmodic, or be excited and kindled by those
things by which we are sometimes, perhaps, rather unhappily distinguished. I would not say, mark you, that these
scenes will not be characterized by many things detracting
from their beauty; I do not mean to say that there will not
be extravagances. Satan crept into Paradise; Judas went
among the Apostles; Peter even denied his Lord; Demas
forsook Paul. Wherever there is a work of God the devil
gets up a counter work of caricature; this you may expect;
that there will be much alloy you may be sure. But now
am I pronouncing hastily, am I speaking rashly, when I
express my conviction that the calmness of this movement,
the subduedness of it, not created by exciting preaching, not
even created in the church at all, but among the thousands
outside of the church, is something like a wave from on
high? May it not be as the first sprinkling of the last
shower? And at all events, if there should be much in this
that we may not be able to fall in with, is it not a blessed
thought that they have lost altogether those unhappy ecclesiastical distinctions that split people asunder; that there is
one vast brotherhood that has lasted for months? and we
hope it will last long. All that we can pray for is, that all
the good of what is taking place in America and Ireland,
without any of its alloy or its defects, may visit us too; and




THE LATTER RAIN.              141
that God may hasten that day when he will pour out his
Spirit upon all flesh; and not the Church, but the world;
not ministers, but the people; not a sect, but the Church
universal, shall be refreshed with the dews of God's blessing
and with the influences of his Holy Spirit.




LECTURE IX.
EVENING LIGHT.
"At evening time it shall be light."-ZECHARIAH xiV. 7.
IT seems to be implied that our present economy is light
and cloud, sunshine and shadow; neither the brilliancy of
the perfect day nor the blackness of the absolute night; yet
more of darkness than of light; but the promise accompanies the blackest day that at evening-tide there shall flash
forth, before the sun sets in his couch in the west, a burst of
more than compensatory splendour. At evening-tide it shall
be light. Why should God leave us in this economy with
so many unsettled questions, unsolved difficulties, or, to use
figurative language, with so much darkness intermingling
with so much light? Why does he not shed down light
upon every problem, give a solution to every difficulty, and
enable us to see the past and the present, the infinite and
the eternal, in all their unclouded magnificence and glory?
The first answer to this is, that it does not arise from any
unwillingness in God to show us light, as if he delighted in
darkness, or preferred the clouded day to the bright sunshine. His works, in as far as they are not marred by sin,
are replete with beauty; his word is light; "God is light;
and in him is no darkness at all." The Holy Spirit is the
teacher of all light; Lis people are called the children of




EVENInTG LIGHT.               143
light; and light is employed as a figure to denote all that is
beautiful, and pure, and holy, in the experience and world
of man. There is no evidence, therefore, that God delights
in darkness. What does it arise from? We are not ourselves sufficiently prepared at present to know all; for cloud
and sunshine, darkness and light, so intermingle and interpenetrate, that we must wait for evening-time to see light
cast upon all, and be content at present with a day which is
neither light nor darkness, but a mixture of shadow and of
sunshine. We can see at once that the reason why we do
not comprehend all is, not because God is dark, but because
we are unenlightened. He is the Infinite, the Eternal, the
Omnipresent; we are the finite, the limited, and the creatures of a day. How shall a finite vessel contain infinite
good? How shall the finite grasp and comprehend the
infinite, the eternal, the incomprehensible?  How shall we,
creatures of recent origin, understand even the event that
sweeps past before us, when we know that the present event
has links with the past, and interpenetrates with the future,
and has relations in the height and in the depth that
should make the most gifted humble, by teaching how little
he really comprehends, and how limited is the horizon of
the mightiest genius God gives to mankind. Our difficulty
in comprehending and seeing all may arise from the very
recency of our existence. The dynasty of man is only six
thousand years old. What is this to epochs of which
geology gives clear and distinct intimations. We have
recently stepped upon a stage where everything is more or
less new to us. Hence we are constantly correcting today
the mistakes of yesterday, and constantly unlearning tomorrow what we learned and acquired to-day, and discovering more and more what even a Sir Isaac Newton needs to




144           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
learn, what archangels may still learn-the vast chasm that
there is between the most gifted of created intelligence and
him who is the high and mighty God, who dwelleth in light
inaccessible and full of glory. But were our finite capacity
the only reason why we do not comprehend all, one would
not be so humbled; there is another reason: the heart has
lost its true polarity; it is infected by sin; and the understanding has to look through the hazy atmosphere that is
around the heart in order to see the light and noon of God's
eternal day. How can we expect to see the sun reflected
from a muddy pool? How can we hope to read through a
lens that has been broken or smoked? How can we see clearly
through an atmosphere dim and disturbed; not only dimmed
by sin, but disturbed by tempests of passion?  How can we
see all clearly when, within the compass of our own horizon,
there is so much disordered, deranged, and obscured? Well
does the Apostle say, "The understanding is darkened."
Why? "Because it is alienated from the light of God,"
and because of "the blindness of the heart;" the blindness
of the heart having much to do with the dimness and weakness of the understanding.
In order to show you that this mingled light and darkness
is not confined to any one sphere, province, or department
of our experience, let me adduce two or three in which it
may be illustrated. Let us look into creation. It is really
wonderful how little we understand it. The language of
the Patriarch upon the plains of Shinar is as fresh and applicable to us in the present day as it was in his own, when
he asked, "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words
without knowledge?  Gird up now thy loins like a man;
for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where
wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? de



EVENING LIGHT.               145
clare, if thou hast understanding. Whereupon are the
foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner-stone
thereof? Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake
forth, as if it had issued out of the womb?  When I made
the cloud the garment thereof, and thick darkness a
swaddling-band for it, and brake up for it my decreed place,
and set bars and doors; and said, Hitherto shalt thou come,
but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed?"
Then he says again, "' Hast thou entered into the springs of
the sea? or hast thou walked in search of the depth!
Where is the way where light dwelleth? and as for dark
ness, where is the place thereof?  Wilt thou hunt the prey
for the lion? or fill the appetites of the young lions, when
they crouch in their dens, and abide in the covert to lie in
wait?  Who provideth for the raven his food, when his
young ones cry unto God?" These are questions we cannot
answer; these show that the day of our knowledge of nature alone is darkness and light. We talk of light, and
heat, and electricity, and gravity, and chemical attraction;
but what are these?  Clouds to conceal our ignorance.
And when we have reached a great truth in science we have
only got a stage deeper into the dense and impenetrable
darkness that is beyond; till at last we discover that the
more we know in nature the more remains to be unknown;
and that the known is merely the illuminated title-page of
the unread, unknowni There is not a flower on the wayside, there is not a mineral in the earth, there is not a drop
of water, there is not an atom of light, there is not a flash
of lightning, there is not a peal of thunder, that are not
shrouded in mystery: incidentally the cloud is riven, and a
flash bursts through it, to show how little we know, and
how thoroughly our ignorance should hide pride from man.




146            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
Let us look into providential history; I mean providence
as developed in the world at large. Is it not a tangled skein?
Do we not often find in it a labyrinth, with no thread equal
to guide us through it? What explains the sufferings of
good men, and the incidental success of bad men? How is
it that often'" The good die flrst,
And they whose hearts are dry'as summer -dust
Burn down to the sockets I"
How is it, I ask, that we see sin rampant here, sickness
there, pestilence elsewhere? You answer, and you answer
very properly, It is sin that explains all. So it does; but
this solution only sends us further back. Why is sin t If
God be omnipotent, why did he not prevent the intrusion
of it? If God be omnipotent now, why does he not crush
it? The deeper we think, and the further we penetrate,
like Milton's angels, we are the more in wondering mazes
lost; till the deepest thinker, like the highest Christian, always sits down the humblest man. We have read two
chapters, one in creation, one in providence, where the day
is neither night nor day; though in both is the hope that
at evening-time it shall be light. Let me narrow the chapter of providence into a paragraph; that paragraph a personal one.
Let any one, however lowly the level that he treads, ask
himself, why am I here 7  How have I come to be what I
now am    Who shaped and rough-hewed my. history I
Who has brought me hitherto?  Showers of troubles and
bursts of sunshine have fallen upon you in your life's April
day, and if any one trouble had been omitted from the
shower, or ray from the light, your course had been alto



EVENING LICGHT.               14
gether reversed. Have not what the world calls accidents,
but what we may call providential incidents, overtaken you
-sometimes overwhelmed you-till you felt as a flower
beaten down by the hurricane and the storm?  And yet
that shower was meted out by God; and it did not come
one drop too few, too light, or too short; it had its mission,
and that mission was merciful: it had its errand to you, and
that errand has left you where you are. There is not an
individual who cannot look back at some little eddy in the
current of his life, and say, If there had not been that eddy,
my whole relationship, character, and course, had been
revolutionized. It was the turning of a corner that made
you the husband of that wife, the wife of that husband, or
has lifted you to prosperity or honour. What explains all?
The only explanation is, God superintending all; and though
we cannot see the why, the wherefore, or the end, and
though we often repine and fret, yet the optimist approaches
nearest to the Christian who feels that, whatever comes, God
is always in the right: where there is anything wrong, it
lies at man's door.
Let us look at another chapter, revelation. Creation is
full of inscrutable wonders; providence in its every chapter
is replete with impenetrable mysteries. Are there no difficulties in revelation? What is election? what is God's
sovereignty? what is the incarnation? what is the resurrection? what is free will? what is grace? what is regeneration
of heart? Words that express glimpses of great truths,
dimly understood. If you ask me, Has God fixed the current of every individual's life? I say, Yes. Do you ask,
then are we Mahometan fatalists? No; your duty is to act
as if all depended upon that act; and yet Christians are
chosen Christians before they were born. Do we compre



148           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
hend that? can we explain it 8? No. It is true, " No mar
can come unto me unless the Father draw him?"  There is
God's sovereignty: is it equally true, "Him  that cometh
unto me I will in nowise cast out  "  Both are equally true.
Can you reconcile God's sovereignty with- my free will? I
answer, No, I cannot, and it is of no use attempting it.
Again, we speak of the Trinity. The Father is God, the
Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God; and yet there is
but one God. Do you ask me to explain how there can be
three, and yet one? I cannot; and the more I look at it
the less I comprehend it. But, does that prove that the
Bible is wrong? It only shows that it is in harmony with
all God's other provinces. Creation is full of impenetrable
mysteries; providence is full of impenetrable mysteries; and
God's book is full of impenetrable mysteries too. And therefore it is no evidence that the Bible is not true because it has
perplexities; it is only true that, like creation and providence,
it has depths that we can never sound, and heights that we can
never climb. Take the events that sweep past us. If anybody will be at the trouble to go over the history of the last
six, or the last ten years, probably the most startling epoch
since the beginning of the Christian era, he will find far more
than he can comprehend.  War breaks out here, peace suddenly closes its wounds there; nations seem as if struck by
an electric shock, to become instantly convulsed; and then
as if some mighty power laid the influence, they become
again composed and quiet. The tempest broods in the East,
war-clouds gather in the West; till one leading daily reflector
of public opinion says, only forty-eight hours ago, that all
Europe is now gazing at the black electric cloud in the skies
charged with elements of destruction and ready to burst and
overwhelm the earth. Who can explain these things I




EVENING LIGHT.                149
Go back some seven or eight years ago, and you hear
nothing but prophecies of peace. In 1851, when that fairy
vision, that beautiful creation, the Crystal Palace, burst like
a gleam of heaven's sunshine upon the earth for a little,
every one was congratulating his neighbour. Armies might
be disbanded; navies might be burnt; nothing was to reign
but peace; nothing to be reciprocated but love and brotherhood. Oh, what miserable prophets we were! How truly
have facts contradicted the predictions! At this* moment,
look abroad on Europe. Let a reflecting mind, that can
look below the surface, study it at this moment. God only
knows into what tempests it may soon burst, into what quiet
bays its troubled waters and its restless surf may ultimately
settle; the only thing we know, is that after all, it is but
the surface that is troubled; just as in the ocean the heaviest storm that beats upon it, thirty or forty feet down all is
calm and untroubled. Come storm, come tempest, come
convulsion, come war, come pestilence, come plague, the
Lord reigneth; he sitteth above the floods; he holds the
reins. Not an atom can fall, not an injury can occur, not
a convulsion take place, which he does not permit; and
though we cannot see the why of the present troubled
state, be still, be patient: at evening time it shall be light.
This leads to the last clause-the prediction of what
shall be the issue of all: at evening time it shall be light.
What does this prediction teach us? That there is light,
though at present we cannot see that light. In other words,
the world is not chaos, though it often seems to us to be so;
and the instant that the light settles upon what is taking
place, we shall see that it was not chaos, nor confusion, but
"all things working together for good to them that love
God, and are called according to his purpose." There has




150            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
not been an accident on earth from the days of Adam and
Eve in Paradise; and what seem to us accidents are, as they
will be seen to have been at the evening time's light, the
emissaries and the missionaries of God. In the second
place, this idea, "at evening time it shall be light," teaches
us, if we apply it to individual life, that it is but a day.
The longest life has its morning, its noon, and its night. As
long as we are under forty years of age, time feels rather
heavy. The schoolboy thinks the holidays will never come;
but when he comes to be a youth, he finds that the wheel
revolves a little faster; still he thinks it will be a long time
before he is settled in the meridian of manhood. But when
he has reached forty-five he has reached the top of the hill;
he then begins to descend, and he soon discovers how rapid
the descent is, till at last, as we look upon month succeeding
month, and Christmas following Christmas, we exclaim,
"Who could have thought this is 1859?" Our life is but a
dream, a tale that is told, a fugitive shadow; the grass that
flourisheth and fadeth, or is cut down at noon. But there is
an evening time, when it shall be light. Be patient. What
God does, you know not now, but hereafter, at evening time,
you shall know. Then do not murmur and repine, for there
will be an adjustment of all that is wrong, and the explanation of all that is difficult. Rest in the Lord, wait patiently
for him; fret not because of evil doers; all things are just
as they should be. Our conceptions are often in the
wrong; God's works and ways are always in the right.
"At evening time it shall be light" teaches us another
lesson, namely, the unexpectedness of God's solution of
difficulties, and our extrication out of troubles. When the
evening time comes, we expect the sun, to use the common
language, to descend more and more, till we see but the




EVENING LIGHT.                151
mere rim of his disc above the western horizon, and at last
he disappears. Then what do you expect? You expect
the cool and enveloping, but dark shadow of night to settle
on the earth. But instead, to your surprise, at evening
time the order of nature seems reversed, and there breaks
forth light.
Now, such is the exact expression of what our experience
often is. A knock conies to your door; you think it is
the hand of poverty: at evening time it is light-it is the
hand of one that tells you of a fortune. The postman
brings you a letter; your expectation is that it will be sorrowful and sad tidings from the gloomy East-it brings
news that your son is promoted, that victory is in the van of
your country's armies. A night of weeping overtakes you,
and that night of weeping breaks in a morn of joy. You
look up into the sky under the shadow of a great calamity;
all is cold and dreary within, all is black and ominous without; not a star in your sky, nor a taper in your home, nor
warmth on your hearth; you look still, and the great black
cloud that was threatening to burst upon you, in the cold
shadow of which you pined and were sorrowful, begins to
turn out its lining of purple and of beauty and of glory; and
if one sun has left you-the sun that shines from the meridian
of day-ten thousand suns take his place, as stars in the sky,
"Ever singing, as they shine,
The hand that made us is divine;"
and you learn how sinful it is to forebode and distrust; how
truly the prophet spoke when he said, "At evening time it
shall be light." This is true in the case of each and of all,
and in the experience of all. You have lost, perhaps, what
was dear and precious to you. God in his providence has




152           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
taken from you your wealth, your property, your estates;
much that made life sunny and the heart happy. Your
present construction of it is, "All this is unmingled calamity." You see the cloud only, the dark and shaded day.
If you live long enough, you will see there was no chance,
but an errand not only of wisdom, but of mercy and love.
Many a soul in heaven will bless God through eternal ages
that he was confined for years to a sick-bed, or was deprived
of the property he made his god; for the loss dimmed the
sheen of terrestrial things, made heaven seem nearer and
earth appear more worthless, and weaned the heart from a
world it was clinging to too closely. The key-note of many
a joyous anthem in heaven will be, "It was good for me
that I was thus afflicted." Or perhaps you have lost your
nearest, dearest, and best beloved. You sit down under the
cold shadow of this great calamity, and you see no light;
you walk, or rather you sit in darkness; you ponder, you
seek direction from God, you look up to him for light, and
you find at the evening time of life's saddest and most sorrowful day there breaks forth light; you discover you have
got a new grave in which you have an interest on earth,
but over it a new mansion, in which you have an interest in
heaven. You have lost one tie that knit you to this world,
and you have gained another that lifts and attracts you to
heaven. Often in our individual, spiritual, and Christian
experience, we find the same thing, especially in the evening
of life. Youth is the morning, manhood is the noon
and the meridian, old age is the evening of life. The
shadow becomes longer, the weight becomes heavier; a
thousand things begin to show, whether we like to look
at it or not, that man is going to his long home. What
a happy thing if, as the heart begins to stand still, it




EVENING LIGHT.                153
ponders more deeply upon better and brighter things! if the
grey hair be the reflected light of the better land! When
you take a retrospect at that evening time of the past, do
you not often discover that your bitterest cup was your
best; that your heaviest sorrow was God's greatest mercy;
that your protracted illness was wholesome medicine; that
your disappointments, aches, and cross winds, the obstructions, the rugged road, and all the difficulties you met in
your long journey, were all as wise as they were well; and
your evening is so light, because God never forsook you in
your morning, or left you to yourself in meridian dayft
And when we come to that hour that comes to all, when
the body shall go the way of all the earth, and the spirit
shall go the way of all souls, to be able then in a light that
we see for the first time, the evening light, to look back
upon the whole of life, and to discover that in the variegated web of life, not one thread in its warp or woof is out
of place; that there was not one tear that was not expedient; that there was not one pang that was not of God
and from God. Oh, what a blessed and beautiful evening
light will that be, when one can say with Paul, " I am now
ready to depart; I have fought a good fight, I have finished
my course; henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness; which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will
give me at that day!"
And when the evening light of this world shall comefor I believe that as this dispensation draws to its close, the
light that will shine upon it will be its brightest-when we
shall see the last chapter of its history, and read it in that
soft and holy evening light, we shall then find that, after all,
right was might, and truth was victory; we shall see nc
more through a glass darkly, but face to face. Then crea



154           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
tion shall be lifted out of its shadow, and we shall * Lderstand
its mysteries; inexplicable events will be made plain; sore
tribulations will be explained; our disappointments will be
set in their true light; we shall see that God was always in
the right, that our suspicions and murmurings were always
in the wrong. Then mistakes will be rectified: we shall
miss many a loud professor in that blessed light of whom
we were sure that he was going to heaven, and taking many
with him; and we shall find many a happy possessor there,
who said little, but did much; who also bent the knee in
prayer, but as often moved the foot in duty and in obedience
to God's word. We shall there, too, discover that many,
who thought themselves antagonists, were working in the
same harvest-field, and binding up the same sheaf for the
Lord of the harvest; and that blows that we thought struck
for a party were overruled by God for the good of all mankind. Then we shall see that the worst was well; we shall
see why He gave, and why He took away; why that generous man was poor, and could not give; and why that selfish man was rich, and would not give; why the worthless
were spared, and the brightest and best were taken. We
shall see that under the splendid prosperity we envied, there
were abysses we did not know; and that the sorest trials we
deprecated were the seals of affection, the tokens of love;
and that the heavy storms, and the hard rough road, and all
the ills and aches we encountered, were sent of God to
quicken our journey home.
Let us learn humility and submission. Our ignorance
fails to comprehend, our impatience frets because we cannot
do so. We wrangle with Providence; we complain of our
position; we dispute about our difficulties; we think the
ways of God are wrong. It is our ignorance that is dense;




TEVENING LIGHT.               155
it is our impatience that is fretful; it is our ways that are
crooked. Trust where you cannot comprehend; lean on
an Omnipotence that you cannot now grasp. Cease to
charge God foolishly. God is ever right, even when He is
inscrutable. Never forget God is love to-day; He will be
to us love to-morrow; and when we shall see the love that
God is to-day in the light of that blessed evening of to-morrow, our greatest grief will be that we ever murmured and
complained; and our greatest thankfulness that we could
say over the grave that received our dead, "The Lord gave,
and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the
Lord:" after the hurricane that swept our homes, what the
Patriarch could also say, "Shall we receive good from the
Lord, and not evil?"  And then we shall see the whole of
creation, the whole of providence, the whole of individual
life, the whole of Christian life, the whole of revelation, no
longer a mystery, no longer light and shadow, but a brilliant transparency, where all is light and love, and we the
happy possessors of it for ever and ever.




LECTURE X.
THE STANDING MIRACLE.
There is a great feature which accompanies the procession
of the ages to the very end of the age. It is
"This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." —MATTHEW xxiv. 34.
WHAT is the generation specified here?  We have a key to
it in the previous parable of the fig-tree. The fig-tree was
used as the symbol of the Jewish nation; as such our Lord
blasted it. He found it without fruit, though clothed with
magnificent leaves, such as ought to have embosomed fruit;
and finding it so he blasted it. Now, he says one of the
tokens of the approaching eve of the world's long week will
be the budding of the fig-tree. In the buds of spring you
have the young prophets of the approaching summer. As
soon as you see the shoots begin to peep out from the dark,
hard bark, you have a token of the nearness of the sweet
sunshine; not of the summer of England, lost in the cold
and dreary winter, but of the everlasting summer, whose
sunrise shall have no western setting. Who is meant by
this fig-tree? The Jews; and therefore it is predicted of
them that this race, or generation, shall not pass away till
the end. I admit that of this place many critics have taken




THE STANDING MIRACLE.                157
an opposite view. The common opinion and interpretation
is that "this generation" means a race of forty years. ysvea
is used occasionally in classic writers in this sense; but it is
used also in classic writers, and always in Hellenistic Greek,
to mean a race, a nationality, a class. I do not quote pas.
sages that every scholar is more or less familiar with.
But the real use of yEVsa, here translated "generation," is
to be gathered not so much from classic as from scriptural
use. The Greek Septuagint and the Greek New Testament
are in this matter our proper guides to what is the exact
interpretation of the passage. Stier, the most eloquent and
evangelical of all the German critics of the present day,
asserts that beyond all dispute the yveva that is not to pass
away —the generation that is to outlive all these things-is
the Jewish race. I was no less pleased to find that the
Dean of Canterbury, Mr. Alford, in his "Critical Commentary," thinks it is beyond critical dispute that ysvsa here
means the Jewish race, and in no degree the arbitrary interpretation of a race of thirty or forty years, as held by some
unripe scholars. Let us see some of the grounds on which
we come to this conclusion. We notice, first of all, there is
not one previous word about the Jews or Jerusalem when he
introduces this verse. If he had at that very moment been
speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem, of the dispersion of
the Jews, and the fall of the Jewish dynasty, one might
refer it to an existing generation; for it is a fact that forty
years after these words were spoken, Jerusalem was laid in
ruins, and the Jews were dispersed. But the subject he has
been speaking of is as follows:-" Immediately after those
days shall the sun be darkened; then shall appear the sign
of the Son of man; then shall the tribes of the earth mourn;
they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven




158           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
with power and great glory. He shall send his angels with
a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together
his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the
other. Now learn a parable of the fig-tree; this generation.
shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled."  If "this
generation" means the forty years' race that were living then,
what must we infer?  That all these things have been fulfilled. Has Christ then come like the lightning? Have the
angels gathered his elect from the four winds of heaven?
Have all the tribes of the earth mourned? Has the sign of
the Son of man been seen? Has the lightning-splendour
that heralds the approaching Lord burst upon a world that
expected it not?  The man would be insane who would
assert that all these things have come to pass. But this
generation, we are told, is to outlive them all, to be cotemporaneous with all the events that are here described; and
only to be absorbed in the collective nationalities of mankind, that is, in the Church of Christ, when all these things
have occurred, and the Son of man has come in the clouds
of heaven with power and great glory.
Another argument to me conclusive in favour of this
interpretation is the thirty-sixth verse: "But of that day
and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven,
but my father only." If you ask many readers of the New
Testament, they will quote that text as a reason for not
studying the chronology of Scripture prophecy; and they
will say, "Of that hour knoweth no man," which is quite
true, "except my Eather in heaven."  But if this yEvEa
meant the race then living, who were to live thirty yearsthe average length of a generation-then, instead of no man
knowing the day and the hour, our blessed Lord must have
announced it, for he said it would take place in the limits of




THE STANDING MIRACLE.             159
a generation; and the Jews to whom he spoke these words
knew it, for they knew what was the average length of a
generation. Our blessed Lord would be represented, if the
interpretation be true, as contradicting himself; first saying
it will take place within the limits of forty years, and then
saying that the day and the hour, meaning the time, no man
knoweth, no, not the angels that are in heaven. Therefore
I infer that Dean Alford's interpretation is the true one. I
may state that Strauss, the infidel German writer, takes
y'vsa in the sense in which Barnes and Matthew Henry,
most excellent men in their way, and most sound in doctrine,
though not good critical interpreters of difficult passages of
Scripture, have taken it; and he argues, with irresistible
effect, that our Lord was contradicted by the facts of the
case. Strauss says, Jesus predicted that that generation,
which would live thirty years, should not pass away till all
these things were fulfilled; but, Strauss says, history proves
that all these things have not been fulfilled; that the Son of
man is not come like the lightning, that he is not come in
the clouds of heaven; that the angels have not gathered
together his elect; and his inference, if the interpretation be
correct, is most logical-namely, that our blessed Lord here
contradicts himself. The last argument I adduce against
the common view is this-that long after Jerusalem had
sunk in its ruins, and the ploughshare of the Roman had
passed through its magnificent remains, the Apostles and
the Christians constantly looked and prayed for the second
personal coming of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
When did John write the Apocalypse? It was begun in the
year 96; but the year 96 was some sixteen years after the
destruction of Jerusalem. If, therefore, this referred entirely
to the destruction of Jerusalem, and all these things were to




160           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
transpire then, and Christ was then to. come, what does
John mean by saying, sixteen years after that event, "He
cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him? " And
what does he mean by closing that magnificent Apocalypse,
which has all the grandeur and procession of a gorgeous
drama, but all the reality of sober and of literal fact, by
saying, " Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly," if so be that he
had come within the limits of the generation that had already passed away?  I cannot quote all the passages illustrating the use of this word, but I may mention one or two
where it unquestionably means not a generation of thirty
years, but a race of men; or, as we should call it in modern
phrase, a nationality. For instance, in Matthew xxiii. 36,
he says, "Verily, I say unto you, All these things shall come
upon this generation." The Greek word is ysvsa. What
things were to come upon it? -"Behold I send you prophets, and ye shall kill them, and ye shall scourge them, that
upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the
earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of
Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew." That generation did not slay these martyrs; it was the Jewish race that
existed from the beginning, and slew these martyrs. And
therefore our blessed Lord, in this passage, lays to the charge
of that generation the slaughter of Zacharias, and the
slaughter of men, from the blood cf righteous Abel downwards; showing that he employs the word 7evse, not in the
sense of an existing generation, but of a race or nationality
of people. In a passage of Psalm xxiv., David speaks of
the righteous, " This is the generation of them that seek
him, that seek thy face, 0 God of Jacob."
"This generation" is exactly parallel to another phrase
used by Luke, in chapter xxi. 23, where he says, " Woe




THIE STANDING MIRACLE.            161
unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck
in those days! for there shall be great distress in the land,
and wrath upon this people." Now, here is one evangelist
calling "this generation" "this people;" the very commentary that we want; and proving therefore, incontestably, that
the generation is the race of the Jews, whose existence shall
be coeval with the fulfilment of all the prophecies recorded
in this chapter, outlast and outlive them all, till absorbed in
the universal church, when Christ and Christian shall be all
in all.
Let us look now for the fulfilment of this. First, the Jew
exists in every land in all the intensity of his first insulation;
his look and countenance demonstrative beyond dispute, of
his eastern origin; and that full, deep, rich-toned, thoroughbass voice, so unlike the cracked voices of northern nations,
indicating his birth-place also. His thoughts, his hopes, his
affinities, his sympathies, have outlived the rush of eighteen
hundred years; and the Jew on the streets of London, is
strictly and literally the descendant of Abraham, of Isaac, of
Jacob, and the patriarchs, and Moses, and Aaron; and there
is not a poor ragged Jew in London that cannot boast of an
ancestry in comparison of which that of England's proudest
nobles is only of yesterday, and scarcely to be spoken of in
the same breath. His identity has never been nor can be
disputed. The language which he still loves, the language
of his prayers, his praises, and his hopes, is that in which
the law was thundered, which sounded in the songs sung by
the captives in the midst of Babylon, when they hung their
harps upon the willows; the language I have heard and
joined in in his synagogue, in singing the psalms, with a
reference, however, that would to God he had in his heart
also-a reference to Him who is the light to lighten the




162           THE:GREAT TRIBULATIrON.
Gentiles, and the glory of his peope Israel. That language
was heard in the temple; it gleamed from the stones upon
the breast of the high priest; it echoed in the glorious strains
of David; it was heard in the synagogue; it was the sacred
vehicle of the sublimest thoughts-the most ancient and
majestic of human tongues. Who can deny that the Jew
upon our streets retains all the identity of his connection with
the Jew of: eighteen hundred years or two thousand years
ago?. Let us mark, what is so striking, the contrast he
presents to all other races;-the Greek, the Roman, and the
Carthaginian are gone; there are more descendants of
Caesar and Regulus probably in London than in Rome at
this moment. The wild Albanian is scarcely the descendant
of Homer, and Sophocles, and Euripides, and Socrates, and
the heroes of Marathon and the conquerors of Thermopylae.
These nations cannot produce one single fragment of genealogy to demonstrate their national succession; or any sheet
of parchment or tablet of stone in which they can trace and
prove their national family. These streams are merged in
the great river of humanity, and are sweeping onward to the
boundless and absorbing main.- But the Jew is unmistakeably the descendant of those that, alas! crucified the Lord of
Glory; but he is also the father of those that will shout;
"Hosannah! blessed is he that cometh in the name of the
Lord."
In order to show the Lord's prophecy fulfilled in every
detail, mark this singular fact-no nation has been so persecuted, so ill-treated, as the Jew. He has been branded
with every vile epithet; his name is synonymous in the
popular speech with all that is vulgar, avaricious, and mean.
If you ask some of these men, Why do you thus treat the
Jew?  I have heard Christians answer by referring to the




THnE STANDING MIRACLE.            163
predictions about him, It is predicted that he is to be a slave,
to be crushed, to have no rest for the soles of his feet, among
all lands; and we are only doing what-prophecy prescribes.
I answer, precepts of charity and loving-kindness belong to
us; God, who gives the prophecy, will look to its fulfilment;
He does not require our aid to enable him to fulfil his promises. Let us quote commandments for our duties; let us
leave predictions of man for the God that inspired them.
In poverty, in wealth —under republic and despotism-the
Jew has been persecuted. From the Czar of all the Russias
to the Republic of America, the Jew has been persecuted.
Like the flying-fish that has no peace in any element, the
Jew, whether rich or poor, whether under republic, limited
monarchy, or despotism, has been equally persecuted and
maltreated. The fire and the faggot have been used under
royal countenance before now; imprisonment and torture
were his common treatment in the middle ages. The only
lands where the Jew has been sympathised with in his ruin,
though we never doubt that he has inherited a curse that he
cannot shake off till the great Curse-Bearer shall take it
away-the only lands where he is not persecuted-are those
where a pure and Protestant Christianity prevails. And
singular enough (I hope you will not think it is taking to
one's own country more than belongs to it) the Jew quotes
Scotland as the only country in which he has never been
maltreated in his past. Singular enough, also, those people
that quote the prophecies of his curse, and ill-treat him,
seem purposely to omit the prophecies of his restoration,
which embosom this, that they that bless him shall be
blessed; and that God will bless the man that tries to lighten
the load and to mitigate the curse of his suffering, wearyfooted, broken-hearted, and sorrowing people Israel. But,




164           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
strange to say, the treatment that wculd have extinguished
every nation upon earth has only crowded the Jew more
intensely to his synagogue and his country; and what has
extinguished others and would extinguish us, has, in the case
of the Jew, acted like the fire upon his own burning bush;
the more it has burned the brighter it has blazed, the greener
have been its twigs, unscathed and unscorched even in the
depth of the consuming fire. You have in these facts the
identity of the Jew still maintained; the existence of the
Jewish race in its integrity; there being now eleven millions
of Jews more or less insulated throughout the whole world.
You have in that the fulfilment of a prophecy stronger than
fire, or flood, or force, or persecution; for the least word
that God has spoken is more powerful than the mightiest
weapons that the greatest dynasties can wield; you have
the fulfilment of the prediction, "This generation shall not
pass away till all these things be fulfilled." And what shows
not only their existence, but that they have prospered even
in the depths of persecution, is the extraordinary fact that
the Jew is the money-lender of cabinet, of congress, and
divan. He is at this moment the great banker of the world.
There are some Jewish names that would bring more money
in ten minutes than the House of Lords would bring together in ten years. You will find the Jew in Petersburg,
in Paris, in Vienna, in Berlin, in every capital, the representative of wealth; in whose presence the very men that have
crushed him cringe when they want assistance; and before
whom those that in their hearts despise him are constrained,
by a mysterious instinct that tells us they are the men of
destiny, to bow down and recognize a power stronger than
dynasties, mightier than armies, more lasting than: the
governments of the world.




THE STANDING MIRACLE.             165
Now how can you account for all these phenomena?
Only by the prediction of God-" This race shall not pass
away." They are the only people that have a country, and
do not live in it; that have a capital to which their hearts
cling as the needle vibrates to the pole, as infants to their
mother, as England's most patriotic sons to their home;
the Jew's heart's affections cling and cluster around Jerusalem. IIe still says in his synagogue, with an emphasis
that no description of mine can exaggerate, "If I forget thee,
O Jerusalem, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth,
and my right hand forget its cunning." And that capital
shall be theirs again. When the Euphrates shall be dried
up-when the crescent shall have waned, as it is waning
fast —we shall read some morning of a glorious exodus, far
more majestic than that of old; when from all lands, like
converging streams and currents, God's ancient people,
with their hearts and their hopes in Jerusalem, shall rush
together; and every railway and steamer shall make them
welcome; and some of us may live to see the Jew again in
his own ancient capital; and some of us may hear in Grethsemane, on Calvary, in the garden of Arimathea, voices rich
in music, and richer still because the hearts of the singers
are in them, singing, "Crown him Lord of all; Hosannah,
Hosannah in the highest; lo, this is our God, we have waited
for him; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the
Lord." Or, in the words of one of the most magnificent
anthems in a book which contains so much that is magnificent-the English Prayer-Book, "Thou art the King of
Glory, O Christ. We believe that thou wilt come to be
our Judge. We therefore pray thee, help thy servants,
whom thou hast redeemed with thy precious blood; and
number us with thy saints in glory everlasting."




LECTURE XI.
THE FINALLY SAVED.
"'But he that shall endure unto the end, the tame shall be
saved."-MATTHEW xxiv. 13.
THERE has been much to endure in every age, and on every
spot of Christendom; there is little to enjoy drawn from this
world, and much to endure inseparable from our passage
through it. The early Christians passed to heaven amid
whirlwinds of persecution; the cross in their heart was the
mark the marksmen aimed at; the form of our trials may
be altered, but in some shape they remain; and our duty is
embosomed in the promise-endure the trials, and thus in
the end we shall be saved. It is a fair subject of inquiry,
where and from whence do we expect these trials? First
of all, from our own heart. If you have a regenerated heart,
there is still much in it of alloy, in affinity with the world,
with Satan, with temptation, and with sin. If our own
heart had its way, it would prefer to be wafted to heaven
amid aromatic perfume, and on the wings of gentle gales,
and saved the struggle, and the conflict, and the wear and
tear of Christian faithfulness. Besides, there is in every
man's bosom a diverging influence that tends to draw him
aside. Who that knows his own heart best, does not feel
it throwing up from its unsounded depths, temptations,




TEH rIIALLY SAVED.               167
thoughts, desires, passions, affinities, longings, lusts, appetites t These things thrust themselves in as foes that the
Christian repels. It is the mark of the worldling that he
gives them hospitality as friends whom he joyfully welcomes.
Now against all these we must be watchful, and watchful
continually; we are to endure, that is, bear them, stand
them out, pass through them, be conquerors through Him
that loved us; and having done all to stand.
We are exposed to the wiles and the machinations of
Satan. The existence of the devil is not a myth, nor a
romance, nor a metaphor, as the celebrated Strauss would
have it; his existence is a mournful experience, his successes
are tragedies in high life and in low life; an apostle was not
exempt from his action. "Satan hath desired to have thee,
that he may sift thee as wheat."  What avenue he will
select to thy heart, what passion he will fan into burning
flame in your heart, what besetting sin he will mount and
ride to victory in another's heart, God only knows; he will
make the experiment, it is his trade, he is drilled and prac.
tised in it; he goeth about a ceaseless traveller, ever seeking
whom he may devour; but, blessed thought, he is a coward,
he is beaten; resist the devil and he will flee from you; deny
him, and he will prevail; mock at him, and he will thank you;
pronounce him a myth, and he will cheer you; resist him,
and he will flee from you; hear sounding from the skies
when the assault is hottest and the trial is bitterest, "He
that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved."  In
the third place, the world will -also assault you: ambition,
that tempting and fascinating passion, will spread before the
lustful and the envious eye its thrones, its pomp, and its
splendour; it will urge you to mount that ladder on which
the few have risen to fame, concealing the tens of thousands




168            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
at its foot who lie there scattered and disjointed wre ks; he
will tempt you to seek the bubble reputation even at the
cannon's mouth, to sacrifice all that is pure, holy, beautiful
and good, in order to grasp so much trash that may be
grasped thus, in order to have your name pronounced with
Wclat, to have yourself spoken of as great; not knowing that
when you have attained the end-and it is the few that
succeed, it is the multitude that are trampled and beaten
down-the issue is not worth a tithe of the price. What
glittered like a resplendent lake in the distance is only the
mirage, the sunbeams reflected from the scorching sand;
and like David, who, when seated on a throne, the whole
world at his feet, cried, what the human heart will still cry,
"Oh, that I had wings like a dove, that I might flee away
and be at rest." And the world, in the next place, will
assail you in the shape of Mammon, the god of the age,
before whose shrine so much faithfulness, so much justice, so
much kindness are constantly sacrificed. He will tell you,
you must make haste to be rich; thousands are in the race,
and you will only succeed by putting forth all your strength,
and running at the very top of your speed. Never care, he
will tell you, what you trample down; if your competitor
falls, just make him a pathway to lift you a little higher,
and to help you on a little quicker; do not mind cheating,
do not mind lying, do not mind false advertising, do not
mind all sorts of deception; in the words of the Latin poet,
"Rem recte si possis. Si non rem
Quomodo rem;"
that is, "Money; honestly, if you can get it by honesty; but
if not, get money at any sacrifice, and at any price." If you




THE FINALLY SAVED.                  169
have got money, what is its worth? "What shall it profit
a man if"-what is not certain-" if he gain the whole world,
and lose his own soul?" It is written upon all the fortunes of
the millionaire, it is written upon all the feelings of his own
innermost heart, "He that drinketh of this water shall thirst
again;" but the poorest widow, that
" Knows no more, her Bible true,"
knows and feels this, and rejoices while she feels it, "But
whoso drinketh of the living water that I shall give him
shall never thirst; for it shall be in him  a well of living
water, springing up into everlasting life." It is the proof of
the ruin of the soul that it seeks to satisfy itself with the
things of this world; it is the proof of its grandeur that all
that is in the world together fails to satisfy it. Resst the
temptations of ambition, resist the seductions of Mamnmon;
hear in the midst of the struggle and the competilorthip
of both, " He that endureth to the end, the same slall be
saved."
Sin in all its phases, its fascinating aspects, will sFeek to
seduce you. Your ear is open, we know from the fallen
nature that is in us, to its siren strains; the eye has not, a
covenant made with it in every instance, and is open to its
vast attractions. We breathe a tainted air, we live in an
infected world; we stand, if unwatchful, in jeopardy every
moment; we need grace sufficient for us; let us seek that
grace, and let us hear the cheering encouragement from Him
that gives it, " Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.
He that endureth unto the end, the same shall be saved."
Error will assail you. Truth is an exotic in this world;
error is an indigenous plant. At one time error comes in
8




170            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
the shape of liberality, latitudinarianism, denying every distinctive truth, and preaching the popular aphorism, " It does
not matter what a man believes, if he do what is honest, it
will be all right with him." At another time error will
come in all the robes of a rigid and exclusive sectarianism,
telling you that unless you can pronounce my shibboleth,
and repeat my creed, and subscribe my dogmas, you cannot
be saved. But by being forewarned you are thereby forearmed. The Bible has no sympathy with latitudinarianism,
which makes vital truth or deadly error a matter of indifference; it has no sympathy with the hard and exclusive
scepticism which perils one's everlasting prospects on the
acceptance of a crotchet; it is liberal in all things that are
non-essential, it is strict and uncompromising in all things
that are essential; its grand characteristic being unity in
things essential, liberality in things that are'non-essential,
and charity in essential and non-essential together. In
holding fast the great truths of the Gospel, in acting out
those truths, which is a greater difficulty than holding them
fast, you will be met in every sphere and stage of the world
with opposition, persecution, resistance, even to the death.
The world cannot burn you, but it can deride you; and to
some sensitive minds that are not hardened by experience,
a gibe, a sneer, is even more intolerable than a blow. The
world is so peculiar in its creed, if creed it may be said to
have, that the moment you show any feeling to religion
above zero, or enthusiasm on subjects of everlasting moment,
or a determination to carry out your principles into everyday practice, it will denounce you as a bigot, your religion
will be branded as ultra Protestantism, your zeal will be
denounced as fanaticism. The world will allow you to be
as earnest, as eloquent as you like at the hustings, when you




THE FINALLY SAVED.               I
are wanting a place in parliament; and it will say, " What
an able man! what a worthy candidate for our borough!'
The world will allow you in the House of Commons to
speak with all the burning enthusiasm of an indignant
patriot, in order to reduce the income-tax from one shilling
and ninepence to sevenpence; the world will admire and
applaud to the echo the barrister who pleads as if it were a
death-struggle for his client; the world admires the merchant who is up at sunrise and goes to bed at sunset, and
scarcely takes his meals, in order to catch the market, and
to make a larger per centage to-day than he made yesterday.
Enthusiasm, earnest and burning enthusiasm, immense earnestness, the world admires and applauds: even to the very
echo in these things. But show that you believe the awful
realities of death, of judgment, of eternity to come; show
that you believe the soul is of infinite grandeur, and that its
salvation outweighs worlds upon worlds in its value; show
that you believe what the Bible says, that you live as the
Bible bids, and that you dare do what the Bible commands,
and the world that will stand enthusiasm when its own interests are at issue, brands your enthusiasm as fanaticism, your
decision as bigotry; and thinks it such a pity that these
canting Christians should make such a stir about Sabbaths,
and about Bibles, and about sanctuaries, and about all those
subjects that trouble and plague the earnest and the great
men of the world, who look above these things, and deal
with nobler topics, and contemplate far more momentous
issues. Be not discouraged; what you can prove to be duty,
cleave to; leave for its sake all that man loves, face for its
sake all that man fears; count all but loss for the excellency
of it; lay down wealth, lay down health, lay down money,
lay down estates; concede the largest husk of prejudice, or




172            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
preference, or prepossession, if it will conciliate a brother;
but compromise not the least vital truth if it were to con
ciliate all mankind. "He that endureth unto the end, the
same shall be saved."
But instead of dwelling upon this, the ordinary opposition
that you have to meet, let me try to show those forms of
religion, those shades and systems of belief, which will not
endure, but must collapse in the ordeals to which they will
be subjected in a world which tests the real every-day, and
rejects all that is pretentious. My argument is, that nothing
will endure but vital, evangelical, scriptural Christianity;
that nothing will weather what it has to encounter except a
heart regenerated by the Spirit of God; a faith that grasps
the Saviour; a hope that rides at the anchor sure and
stedfast-in other words, real, living, heartfelt religion, that
alone will last and endure. But there are various types of
religion that seek its place, none of which will endure: to
know them is to be warned and guarded against them.
There is, for instance, the religion of mere impulse.  You
hear one day a stirring sermon; it startles you from the
lethargy of years; you are roused; you are excited to a
very high degree; you think you are now a Christian. Excitement is not conviction: the feelings may be excited,
and the heart may remain dead in trespasses and in sins,
and as soon as the- exciting force is expended the excited
feelings will subside; the flame will die from want of fuel,
and the cinders and the embers, cold and worthless, will be
all that will remain behind.  Tears and smiles are like
April showers and sunshine; the one do not make religion,
and the other are not yet the summer.  There is the religion from personal attachment. It seems almost an absurd
thing; but he that knows human nature well knows it is a




THE FINALLY SAVED.                1 73
fact, that some persons accept a religion because it is
fashionable, or because it is the adoption of some one to
whom he or she is deeply attached. You hear a preacher
whom you esteem, whose character, whose conduct, whose
personal worth you admire, or to whom you are personally,
through relationship or friendship, attached; and you look
at all he says in the light of the esteem and affection you
bear him; and you believe what he says just because you
admire and love the man.  But this is not religion: the
advocate changes, the toy loses its gilding, the relationship
is disturbed, an incident upsets your conviction, and you
return to the religion that you had, or, rather, to the negative religion that you once cherished: it is not a faith that
will endure to the end. There is the religion of sentiment;
not the religion of conviction nor of the adoption of the
heart, but purely of the imagination.  It indulges tender
and sentimental emotions; it covers up every awful truth in
theology with flowers and with perfume; it turns the most
sacred truths into plaintive music for its amusement; it is
the sentimentality of piety, extremely beautiful; spends its
time in working laces for altar-cloths, in preparing priests'
robes, in decorating the altar with flowers, in fitting the
sanctuary to all the phases of the varying senses and
seasons; it is the religion of painters, of poets, of architects,
of ecclesiastical dressmakers and robemakers; it is the piety
of Athens and the Academy, not of Jerusalem and the
Church of God; it shrinks from the storm; it dreads defiling its delicate Sabbath-day and saint-day robes; it has
no martyrs; it scarcely lives; it cannot endure; its advocates, as such, will not be saved in the end.  Then there is,
in the next place, the religion of intellect; a very striking
and, so far, commendable form.  The understanding is con



174             THE: GREAT TRIBULATION.
vinced that Christianity is true; it believes its every dogma
from the commencement of the Creed to the Amen at its
close; but it is a religion clear in the head, but cold as an
icicle at the heart's core; it has no vital force, no warm and
sanctifying energy; it is orthodoxy, not regeneration; it is
light in the head.without love in the heart; it is clear, but
cold; it is the religion of the devils, who believe every word
of the Creed, and, whilst they do so, tremble.  And if your
religion is wholly the religion of the intellect, however clear,
however tenaciously held, unless it has transformed the
heart, it will not endure to the end.
There is, in the next place, a religion which may seem to
you at first blush a true and scriptural religion, namely, the
religion of conscience. But that religion is not the religion
of God, and will not endure.  It is a powerful type of religion, and, in its place, a form of it that one must respect:
one always. must respect the man who is conscientious even
when he is wrong. Because a man is conscientious in his
adhesion to error, it makes me respect him; but, because it
is error that he adheres to, it makes me try. to extract him
from the meshes of that error, not to accept the error as
true.  Now, wherever there is the religion of conscience,
its whole leverage is terror; it drives to duty, it scares to
what is right; it torments you if you neglect to pray, it
threatens you if you fail in the least service; it is most
repulsive, its duties are drudgery, its service is slavery; it
dreads the devil, and fears not God; it is not the religion
of Christ; it is a religion that will not endure.  There is
the religion of the.natural affections, than which nothing is
more amiable, beautiful, or lovely; and yet it is a religion
that will not endure. Its sphere is the home, its shrine is
the fireside, every earthly relationship is glorified by it, and




THE FINALLY SAVED.               175
yet it is not that religion that will endure to the end. There
is the religion of tradition; men believe what their fathers
believed; but this religion is not the religion of the Bible;
it is not the religion of truth. We build upon the sand, not
upon the rock; we believe in our fathers, not in the Apostles; we rest upon a tradition handed down through a century, venerable for years; but if tested by that test before
which truth alone can stand, and error must ever fall, it will
not endure unto the end. There is another type of religion
-the religion of form. It feeds on beautiful pageants, it is
charmed with glorious rites; it would not worship in any
but a mediaval church; it would not listen to anything
short of Mozart's and Handel's choicest pieces. With it the
altar occupies the place of God, the sign of the cross Christianity itself; broad phylacteries, and holy places, and
beautiful churches, constitute the sum and substance of the
religion of form. There is no endurance in it; it collapses
the moment it is exposed to trouble. The ear may be
engaged, the eye may be gratified, the country may be
covered with beautiful cathedrals, but it may be empty of
hearts that beat with love to God, and of souls that would
die rather than sacrifice vital and essential truth.
What is then the religion that will endure? The religion
of the head-its roots in the intellect; the religion of the
heart-its roots striking down there also; the religion of
the conscience-its law, its atmosphere, its motive power;
but all three inspired and taught by the Holy Spirit of God.
This religion accepts Christianity because it is true, loves it
because it is the manifestation of love, obeys it because it is
duty, and ever sings and shouts, and triumphs while it
shouts, "I know in whom I have believed, and that he is
able to keep that which I have committed to him against




176          THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
that day." This religion is not the mountain torrent fed by
the shower, leaving its channel dry when the clouds are
emptied of their contents; but it is the stream that mcwves
on through belts of greenness, sprinkles all its banks with
odorous flowers, until it mingles and is lost amid the mighty
main; it is the oak that waves its branches in the storm,
strikes its roots deeper in the tempest, develops itself in the
sunshine, and in winter and in summer makes progress
towards God, and heaven, and happiness. He that thus
believes, that thus lives, and grows, has in him a religion
that will overcome the assaults of Satan, that will vanquish
all the temptations of Mammon, that will turn aside all the
shafts and arrows of ambition, and pride, and pomp, and
vain glory; and, enduring to the end, its holy and its happy
possessor will be saved.
Pray that this religion may be written on your hearts;
pray that God's Holy Spirit may teach your hearts what I
can only teach the ear. Never forget, humbling as it is, and
it is most humbling, that all the eloquence of Demosthenes,
all the argumentative powers of A. schines, all the persuasive
language of a Cicero, combined and concentrated in every
sermon that you hear, will only be like the tinkling cymbal
and the sounding brass, unless the Spirit of God carry it
home to your heart, and make it life; to your conscience,
and make it law; to your intellect, and make it a conviction; to the whole man, and make you a new creature in
Christ Jesus. And while you hold this creed, never forget
we are on the winning side. The great majority is, after all,
with truth; the minority is on the side of Satan. All the
angels in heaven agree with us; all the saints in glory agree
with us; the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble
army of martyrs, the glorious company of the Apostles,




THE FINALLY SAVED.              171
agree with us. And not only are we in the majority, but
success is as sure as the promises of God; and he that leans,
and looks up, and trusts, and perseveres, has a promise that
will fail when God's throne is overthrown, and heaven and
earth have passed away, and only then; "He that endureth
unto the end, the same shall be saved." Great Babylon
shall be cast down as a millstone into the depths of the sea;
thrones shall be overturned, dynasties shall all be changed;
there shall be earthquakes and plagues, and pestilences, and
famines, nation rising up against nation, and kingdom against
kingdom; and there shall be changes in the sun, and in
the moon, and in the stars: and in the hearts of kings
perplexity, and distress of nations, men's hearts failing them
for fear of the things that are coming on the earth: but
he that endureth, he that clings to the Rock of Ages, he
that trusts in the living God, has given unto him eternal
life; " and none," says he, who never spake but what was
truth, " shall pluck him out of my hand." Your trials will
only be to you what the fire is to the steel; your afflictions
will only be to you what the furnace is to the gold; you
will be purified through them and by them; until, reaching
the end of the rugged road, and the flinty path, and the
thorny way that you have long trod, you appear- amid the
white-robed group who are welcomed into heaven, not as
natives, but as colonists; and of whom one asks, startled by
their splendour, struck by the novelty of the scene, and
amazed at the overwhelming multitude, "What are these,
and whence came they?"  Here is the true church, in
which there is no sect, nor exclusiveness, nor bigotry, nor
latitudinarianism, nor error: "These are they."  Who 
The Churchman would say, " Who came out of our body;"
and probably the Dissenter might say, "Who came out
8*




17 8          THE GREfT TRIBULATION.
of our body;" and the Church of Rome, to a dead certainty, would say, " Who belong to us;" but Christ's Church
is larger, ampler, nobler, more glorious than all this. "These
are they," and these are Churchmen indeed, " who have
washed their robes and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb; therefore are they before the throne of God, and
serve him day and night without ceasing."




LECTURE XII.
THE LAST CONFLAGRATION.
A day -.f no common glory will rise one day on the world.
A scene of unprecedented splendour and awe will be reflected
from it.
" For 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." — MATTHEW xxiv. 27.
To guard God's people against everything like a misapprehension of the true epoch of the advent of Him whose right
it is to reign, it is predicted that he shall not be found:in
the secret places. We are not to listen to any one who
says, "Behold, he is in the desert; behold, he is in the
secret chamber;" for here is the grand characteristic of his
advent-" As the lightning cometh out of the east, and
shineth even unto the west; so shall the coming of the Son
of man be."
The very -first truth taught by this similitude is that
Christ's advent shall be sudden; unexpected by the masses;
like the flash that leaps from the bosom of the black cloud,
sweeps through the sky, and completes its journey in an
instant. So shall the coming of the Son of man be. No
telegraphic announcement, no roll of drum, no roar of cannon, no clanging of bells will announce His approach. Un



180            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
expected by the mass of mankind, there shall burst upon the
world one red lightning flash that shall close the age in
which we have so deep a stake, and commence that glorious
one in which I trust many have so bright and so sure a
hope. His advent will also be with intense and vivid
splendour. The lightning fills the whole world; leaps from
the east, and finds its lair only in the remote and distant
west. When not the light, but the searching lightning of
that day shall come, it will penetrate the cell of the captive,
irradiate with more than the splendours of noon the deepest
and the darkest dungeon of the earth; enter cabinet, and
congress, and parliament, and divan; search the heart of
each individual through all its most sequestered nooks, its
most hidden crannies, its supposed impenetrable recesses.
It will rush through every cell of the soul-make luminous
the page of every memory; till sins we had thought annihilated will start into preternatural freshness, and iniquities we
had forgotten will be displayed in all their portentous outlines; and each man's soul shall be as legible to the universe as tree and rock are legible in the dark night in the
lightning that leaps with successive and continuous flashes
from tlh east to the distant west. If such shall be the suddenness of pqr Lkord's advent, what an arrest, if it be possible to conceive such a thing, will take place. The world will
be going on when Christ comes as it does at this moment.
The farmer sowing the seed in spring, or reaping the golden
harvests of autunn, in an instant will see that the harvest of
the earth is come, and that angels are the reapers. The
poet in the midst of his stanza, the painter surveying his unfinished sketch —the judge on the bench, the prisoner in the
dqcl, the jury in the hpx, the preacher in the pulpit, the
tradesman in his shop, the monarch in his palace-will feel




THE LAST CONFLAGRATION.              181
instantly arrested, and discever that time has at once
plunged into eternity. The ocean steamer will suddenly
pause as it ploughs the deep; the railway train at its greatest speed will stand still; the bridal procession will stop
midway; the funeral march will cease ere it reach the
grave; armies marshalled to battle will lay down their arms,
and look and marvel; and the living torrents that rush
through every street of this great metropolis, as if struck by
some terrible paralysis, will stand still, and find that the
day of the final adjustment of all accounts at the great white
throne has at length overtaken the earth.
But we have seen that there will be some premonitory
signs of the approach of that day, interpreted aright by some.
The lightning leaps always from the black bank of cloud.
The great cloud careering on the wind, and overspreading
the heaven, is therefore the warning that the thunder is
about to roll and the lightning to flash forth upon the earth.
And will there not be signs, and symptoms, and premonitory
warnings, of the approach of that last lightning blaze? On
seeing these premonitory signs, some will say, "Your interpretations are ridiculous; the whole thing can be explained
on the principles of natural science. To expect that the
great black cloud which has risen from the horizon, and
overspreads the sky, is charged with divine judgments, and
is to burst in scathing lightning upon the earth, is to be
fanatical, or superstitious; it is no significant prophetic
event; it is only one of the ordinary natural phenomena."
When some day men will awaken, and bear that great
Babylon has sunk like a millstone in the depths of the
ocean, they will say, "It is because Vesuvius and Etna have
not burst out as usual; and a new volcanic orifice has taken
place." When one day there shall be a rushing crowd of




182           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
God's ancient people, seeking rights in Europe, and finding
them only in Palestine; ~vhen Jerusalem shall be recognised by the earth -as its capital and the' possession of its
own beloved, neither forgotten nor forsaken people, whose
it is, and whose property it will be; they will  say, " What
an enlightened liberal policy, which balances conflicting
nationalities, and erects in Jerusalem a dynasty that will
resist Russia, keep Turkey in order, and prevent other consequences that might have injured the safety and' peace of
Europe." When the world shall see unexpected phenomena
in the sky —signs in the sun, and in the moon, and' in the
stam'; thousands of telescopes will be directed upward, and
every telescope will bring back the intimation, ".Oh, it is a
meteoric sign, it is an electric phenomenon, it is polar light;
it is a mere transient phenomenon; you must not listen to
those silly people who believe that there shall be signs in
the sun and in the moon. Science has disposed of the miracles of the Bible, and you must take its decisions as alone
infallible."  And when again there shall be felt perplexity,
nation rising up against nation, kingdom against kingdom —
France with Russia against Austria, and Prussia and England in mortal struggle; India in revolt, and China at war
with us; and commercial convulsions, pestilences and plagues
in divers places, they will say, " It is owing to mismanagement, red-tapeism, the want of the right man in the right
place.  Drain London; attend to sanitary matters, and
cholera will disappear and disease die out. Have nothing
to do with prophecy. Pay no regard to what are predicted
in the word of God." It may be so; but certainly these
scientific objectors seem to be the successors, if one would
not judge uncharitably, of a class who are a sign of the
times, while they say, " Where is the promise of his comrn



THE LAST CONFLAGRATION.             186
ing I o1 since the fathers fell asleep all things continue as
they were from the beginning; and they willingly are ignorant of this, that by the word of God the heavens were of
old, and that a thousand years is with the Lord as one day,
and one day as a thousand years. And the day of the Lord
will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall
pass away with a great. noise, and the elements shall melt
with fervent heat." There is a second class who meet all
statements on the subject with " wishes it may not be true"
-who may believe that these are symptomatic of some
great change,.of some looming catastrophe or convulsion
coming upon the earth; and justly alarmed, they will deprecate the day, and refuse to speak or think of it. Many a
parent will say, as she looks upon the new-born babe, "Oh,
let me only live ten-twenty-thirty years, that I may see
my child arrive at manhood before all things are ended!"
Many a statesman who has spent years in elaborating a most
ingenious system of reform in church and state, will feel so
grieved that the age will close before his experiment has had
a fair trial. The merchant, anticipating a cargo from Australia or California with precious gold, that will enrich him
for life, will deplore the impossibility of enjoying himself
now. And the poet and the painter, thirsting for immortality, will be grieved and sorry that all their bright visions
are gone; for there are men who think that this earth was
made simply for their use, and specially for their countinghouses to stand on; its ocean meant to bring cargoes to
their warehouses; its rivers intended merely to turn their
mill-wheels and to grind their corn; and that anything that
stops or arrests the contributions of these is most deeply to
be deprecated indeed. But there is another class, God's
own people, who will not try to explain phenomena signifi



184           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
cant of the purposes of God on scientific grounds; and who
will not deprecate that day.  They will say, "This is the
answer to our daily prayer, Thy kingdom come; this is the
response to the Church's cry, Come, Lord Jesus; we have
been looking for him; and to us he comes the second time
without sin unto salvation." They will lift up their heads,
for to them draweth nigh redemption.
When that day shall come, what shall be the accompaniments of it?  Let us not accept fancies, but hear God's
word.  Let me read from  one part, "To you who are
troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire,
taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that
obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." Or take
Peter's graphic description of it when he says, " The day of
the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the
works that are therein shall be burned up." Here is no
anticipation nor conjecture of man-it is the express and
unmistakeable assertion of that Holy Spirit who inspired
the Apostles to write these things. At that day when
Christ shall come, when the red lightning shall scathe the
earth, and set fire to all that is on it, and in it, and about
it, we read in his own word that his own people will be
caught up in a cloud far above the reach of a burning
world; for he says in 1 Thess. iv., " We which are alive
and remain at the coming of the Lord, shall be caught up
together in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so
shall we ever be with the Lord." We read in the book of
Revelation that God's people thus caught up again descend
to a new earth and a new heaven, and on the earth they




THE LAST CONFLAGRATION.             188
reign with Christ a thousand years; why then caLght up in
the cloud, To be beyond the reach but not beyond the
sight of that last fire which consumes the earth, and burns
up all the things that are upon it. I can conceive what a
spectacle of awful grandeur will be presented by a burning
earth as seen by the happy and safe spectators, from the
cloud of glory that floats their beautiful pavilion far above
it. Laplace, the astronomer, says he detected ten or twelve
orbs in the sky, that first of all burnt with a yellow flame,
mixed with smoke; then kindled to an intense white heat;
and ultimately they disappeared from their places altogether;
so that the telescope has made science acquainted with the
phenomenon of a burning, a calcined, and a consumed orb.
Now when this world shall be subjected to that last fire,
when this lightning flash shall ignite all the elements that
wrap it, and all the materials that are in it, and all the
things that are upon it, I may, without irreverence, suppose
some one, or perhaps many, in the bright cloud in which
they have been caught up far above it, to be spectators of
the scene; and what will such spectators witness? They
will see the crown jewels of England, the iron crown of
Charlemagne, the diadem of the last Napoleon, and the
sceptre of the Autocrat of all the Russias, seized by the
fierce flames, consumed to ashes, and disappear.
I look at another portion of the earth. I see all the cannon of Austerlitz, of Waterloo, of the Crimea, and of Italy;
the swords, the bayonets, the fifes, the discordant drums,
the tattered colours, the blood-stained banners: all the weaponsfrom every arsenal on earth; all the gunpowder from
every magazine of the wide world, seized upon by the red
flame, and flashing into one terrible blaze; and the very
blaze that consumes all the engines of war revealing legibly in




186            TMHE'GAT TMIBULAON.
letters that never can be expunged, " The nations shall learn
war no more." Look again at that great fire in another division of the world.- Therein I see prisons, gaols, gibbets,
axes still red even with royal blood; codes of law, ermine,
the paraphernalia of courts of justice, and acts of Parliament,olaid hold upon and consumed in the blazing fire; and
amid the ashes that remain I can read the blessed inscription,
"There shall be no more sin a"  Therefore there will be no
more: penalty, nor sorrow, nor tears, nor captivity, nor crime,
but everlasting deliverance.  Look again to another section
of that great fire, ye merchants, ye: tradesmen, ye commercial men of the wide world, and what do you see?  All the
commerce from Threadneedle Street to New York; all the
paper in currency, notes of hand, bills not ripe, and bills
overdue; ledgers, gold, silver, all that you have been grasping, clutching, hoarding up; over which you have wept, and
toiled, and cried; all of it, not one particle of it exempt, is
consumed in the blaze, as if to tell high heaven and witnessing earth what trash is that about which men have quarrelled, and by:loving which too dearly souls have been destroyed; whilst the illuminating flame will reveal, writ upon
the sky, "durable riches" that neither thief nor moth can
steal or corrupt, "the unsearchable riches of Christ."  I
look at another portion of that great fire, and see Magna
Charta, the foundation of our freedom, in it; acts of parliament, title-deeds of choicest value, patents of nobility that
date to the Norman conquest, charters of venerable age and
of great importance, all cast into the flame, and utterly consumed, proving as they are consumed, "The world and all
the fashion of it passeth speedily away." I look at another
part of the world, and I see from that cloud the impartial
flame devour St. Peter's in the metropolis of Italy, while




THE LAST CONFLAGRATION.               187
cardinals, and bishops, and priests are saying high nlass,
with all the pomp and splendour of ecclesiastical circumstance, and the vast cathedral dissolves and disappears like
the fabric of a vision, and leaves.not a wreck behind. The
same flame, fulfilling its mission, seizes on St. Paul's in our
own metropolis, and upon the lowliest chapel that stands or
sinks under its broad shadow; and vestments, croziers, altars,
shrines, images, pictures, monuments, encaustic tiles, and all
that men loved, that some almost worshipped, and good
taste appreciated, are reduced to ashes in the devouring and
the overwhelming fire. I look to another part of the world;
I see, what must pain some, the library of our great Museum,
the yet more precious library of the Vatican at Rome, reached
by the all-devouring and unsparing fire. I see the works of
Gibbon, and Voltaire, and Rousseau, and Shelley, and-Byron
cast into the flame; and as they are consumed they send
forth volumes of sulphurous and intolerable smoke. I see
the works of Milton, and Shakespeare, and Scott, and the
master spirits of every age of our country blazing in the
flames, while they shoot up only in brilliant sparks that have
all the splendour of the lightning, and all its evanescence
too.. I see newspapers, monthlies, quarterlies, all cast into
the flame, and reduced to tifnder. But strange exception!
wondrous spectacle! I see one book cast into that devouring,
red-heap; the flames seem to retreat from it, the red fire
seems afraid to touch it. What exceptional book is this.
It is the book of God, that has defied flood, and fire, and
persecution, and sword, and decay, and now shines with more
imperishable lustre in the flame that wraps a world and calcines all besides.
And what is the lesson from all this? "Seeing all these
things" —crowns, genius, wealth; all that man venerates, all




188           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
that man has-" seeing all these things must be dissolv d,
what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conversation and godliness;" and if this be the inference, what ought
to be the first anxiety?  Is the soul safe? That is the first,
the chief, and the last thing. Is it well with thee? is it well
with thy soul in the prospect of a judgment-seat, and of that
last flame that shall consume the world? To-day is the day
of salvation; to-day every soul may be saved. That day, just
as you are found, you will be fixed for ever and for ever!
If your soul be washed in that Saviour's precious blood, and
clad in his perfect righteousness, the lightning flash that
spreads from the east to the west will find no conducting
medium in you; and amid the fires that calcine the earth,
you will be unscathed, as the three Hebrew youths that
walked in the midst of the seven-fold heated furnace, and
felt it only as if it were paths and beds of roses. Do not set
your hearts or affections too much on things that are perfectly lawful in themselves. Men's souls are ruined not so
much by indulgence in what is positively sinful as by the
excessive love of thifigs in themselves perfectly lawful. Do
not embark all your affections upon a transient flower, upon
a passing rainbow, upon a fading sunbeam; upon things that
now may injure, and that then will be utterly destroyed.
Seek to promote things that will survive the last fire. Do
not spend your money in building splendid churches, magnificent cathedrals, of fine Gothic architecture, and at great
expense; all these things will be consumed like straw huts
in the last fire that wraps round a dissolving world. Rather
collect living stones; go down to Field Lane, to Brewer's
Court; to the depths and subsoil of our debased population;
pick out their neglected youths or perishing females; pray
for them, instruct them, give your motley, which will




THE LAST CONFLAGRATION.              189
all be burnt up, in order to secure living stones that shall
last for ever; and thus you will build up, not temples that
will perish, but living temples, built of living stones on
Christ, the living rock, that will endure for ever. Do not
build fine churches; get living churches first, and then
raise the dead ones to hold them.  What we want, seeing
all these things must be dissolved, is living churches. And
oh! ten thousand times rather living people worshipping in
a shed, or in a cold cellar, than dead ministers, dead worshippers, dead people, dead hearts, under cathedrals whose
spires sparkle in rising and in setting suns!
This prospect of a dissolving world is a more practical
motive force than the prospect of death. I appeal to you in
this matter. Scarcely do we find an instance of an apostle
warning and moving by the fear of death. The era I am
describing is the apostolic motive power. "I beseech you
by the coming of the Lord, and by our gathering together
unto him;" "The coming of the Lord draweth near; the
judge is at our doors." All these things are constantly set
forth in the word of God. But you say, Is not the fear or
the prospect of death as fitted to detach our affections from
this present world as that prospect of a dissolving earth and
an approaching judge? I answer, No; for what do we find
men doing now? They are creating a sort of immortality
of their own; they are storing up money that they may
buy lands, and build houses, and make an estate, and call
them by their own names, in order, in the language of the
world, to create a family, leave their property behind them,
and live along the lines of their successors to many generations. What is inspiring poets, and architects, and painters,
and sculptors, ay, and preachers too? The desire of a sort
of meagre, mean immortality called posthumous renown; an




1'90          THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
attempt to create a sort of immortality here; and, in spite
of death, to treasure up things that constitute this world's
pride, and pomp, and glory. But now when we tell them
all these things must be dissolved; that the Judge is at the
door; that they must soon appear at the judgment-seat of
Christ, we may lead them to lift their thoughts upward instead of sending them forward, and to build for heaven,
instead of building for their children and their children's
children upon earth.
But some one will say (and people mistake and misapprehend everything), if Christ's coming be so near; if a dissolving world be at hand,, and no man knows the day nor the
hour, though every man, if a Christian, should study the
signs, will not men give up everything? will not some give
up their business, or cease to accumulate? I suspect there
is very little fear of any one ceasing to accumulate or to toil
because of these things. And if any man were to argue,
Since it is said that this is the Saturday evening of the
world's long week, since these things are almost at our doors,
then I will shut my shop; I would tell him, you are contradicting'most- grossly'the command of your blessed Lord,
"Occupy till I come."  If I were a tradesman, I should
be just as happy to be found, when the Saviour comes,:dealing justly behind my counter as I should be if found in the
pulpit preaching the unsearchable riches of Christ. Our
duty is always obligatory. " Occupy till I come" is the order
and the marching-order of the great Captain of the faith.
We are to go on with our duties, even at the moment that
we may see the big black cloud charged with the lightning
flash; and each is to seek to be found where Providence has
placed him, sanctifying by grace the works and the world, if
possible, in which he is engaged. Let me give you an




THE LAST CONFLAGRATION.             191
instance of a practical, common-sense illustration. About
sixty years ago, there was in America a universal superstition-not an enlightened belief-that the world was about
to close. They believed that the world was about to end,
because a total eclipse of the sun took place at noonday.
There was all the darkness and the gloom of midnight. It
happened that the Congress of the United States was assembled at this hour; half the members of the Congress
believed that that dense night, caused by a total eclipse of
the sun, was really the darkness that preceded the ushering
in the judgment and another state and world. They were
in great alarm, and two or three of the most agitated got up
at once, and moved that the Congress do adjourn. There
was a panic. In the midst of the panic, and while some
were proposing an adjournment, an old and venerable Puritan, who had learned noble lessons from the Puritans of
England, the salt of the country at that time, rose up and
said, "Mr. Chairman, we are told that our duties are always
imminent, that they are always obligatory. Some in this
house are afraid that the last day is come; it may be they
are right; I have some suspicion they are so; but as our
duties never cease, instead of moving that the house adjourn,
as we cannot see in this darkness, I move that the candles
be brought in, and that we proceed to the order of the day."
That man spoke like a Christian, and he lived like a Christian. And may we be found going on with the orders of
the day when the light of the last day shall flash upon this
world.




LECTURE  XIIL
NEARING DELIVERANCE.
According to the most competent, because inspired judge,
the future is to be hailed and prayed for, not deprecated by
the Christian, as if it unbosomed only calamity.
"For now is our salvation nearer than when we believed."ROMANS Xiii. 11.
THE salvation referred to by Paul is unquestionably that
large and comprehensive deliverance which is the destiny
of all created things, and of all the living rational and
responsible beings who have believed in Christ, and are
regenerated by his Spirit. Personal salvation is an experience of the present; the salvation alluded to is a fact that
lies still in the future. It is not individual safety, but the
general salvation of the whole body of the Church, to which
Paul refers. It is time to awake, because our salvation, or
deliverance, is nearer than when we believed; and the night,
which means the whole of this existing economy, is far
spent; the day, which means the future, everlasting sunshine, that spreads over all the earth, when Christ takes to
him his great power, and sways his sceptre from sea to sea,
is near at hand. He speaks of that future deliverance,
which he describes in the 8th chapter of Romans, as the




NEARING DELIVERANCE.              193
manifestation of the sons of God: the redemption of the
earth from its groans, its travail, and its expectancy, and
that restoration of all things which had been spoken of by
the prophets, and is the distinctive feature of that millennial
day which approaches faster and nearer as the centuries roll
on. Few can fail to be struck, in reading the epistles of St.
Paul, with his constant statement of the nearness and the
instancy of the advent of our Lord. He says in one passage, " The Lord is at hand;" in another passage, "Looking
for that blessed epiphany, the glorious appearing of Jesus
Christ, our great God and Saviour."  St. James says, "Be
patient; the Lord is at hand; the Judge is at the door."
Nor can any fair reader of the epistles of St. Paul escape
constantly perceiving, not a mere matter of hope, but of
fact, that the motive and the hope that he puts before Christians is not the nearness of their death, but the instancy of
the approach of their great and blessed hope, our Lord and
Saviour Jesus Christ. In other words, the governing hope
of the Christian is not his own personal deliverance at death,
but the coming of his Lord. His hope in a Saviour that is
to come is as entire, intense, and joyous as his trust and faith
in a Saviour that has come. The attitude of a Christian is
resting by retrospective faith on Christ, bearing his curse,
his only atonement, and his looking, prospective hope for
that same Saviour to come the second time without sin unto
salvation. What salvation? Not the personal safety of the
believer, which is secured at his own death; but the universal restoration of heaven and earth, of soul and body, which
is the bright hope that, like a star in a dark night, shines in
the eye of the believer continually. But when the apostle
speaks of Christ being at hand, of his being soon to be
revealed, you ask, how could this be?-how could the apostle
9




194           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
say so without being deceived, when, as matter of history,
we know that eighteen centuries have elapsed since Paul
spoke of Christ's advent as at hand? The explanation of
some is, that it means no more than the Christian's death,
as an equivalent to Christ's coming. But surely that cannot
be. When a Christian dies he goes to Christ, it is not
Christ who comes to him. But the hope of the Christian is
not his going to Christ, but Christ's coming to him. And
if language has any definite meaning, we are warranted in
translating or interpreting Christ's promised advent the
second time without sin unto salvation as the Christian's
deliverance from this body of death, and his introduction
into the presence of his Lord.
The Church of Christ-meaning by that misunderstood
and abused word the whole company of true Christians, of
whatever name or denomination; some in Rome, in spite of
it, not created by it; some in the Greek Church, equally in
spite of it, and in no sense created by it; and some in every
denomination upon earth-I say the Church, then, as the
company and congregation of all faithful people, of all true
Christians, from the days of St. Paul to the present moment,
is constantly regarded in the Bible as a unity, which, from
the first believer upon earth to the very last believer upon
the shores of eternity, constitute in one group what is called
in the book of the Apocalypse the bride; and that bridewhich means not a section of the Church geographically,
nor a portion of the Church chronologically, but the whole
body of faithful Christians —is represented as one person, the
bride waiting for the Bridegroom, watching the signs of his
approach, listening if she can hear the sound of his chariotwheels, and rejoicing, and cheered with joy unutterable and
full of glory, when the sound echoes in her ears, "Behold




NEARING DELIVERANCE.              195
the Bridegroom  cometh;" and, i. the language of our
blessed Lord, "she goeth out to meet him."  If you will
carry with you the idea that Christ's Church is one corporate
company of all believers, in spite of space and time, elements
altogether purposely overlooked in the definition, you will
then see that the apostles, in writing to the Thessalonians,
the Corinthians, and the Romans, wrote to the Church of
Christ then existing, now existing, and that will exist to the
end; and therefore that this Church is to be constantly in
the attitude of hope-on the tiptoe of expectancy —her
lamps burning, her loins girt, and herself ready to meet the
Bridegroom, whensoever and wheresoever he shall come.
This explains at once the idea which the apostle constantly
presses and repeats, the instancy of the advent. It teaches
us that we are now to feel what the Christians then felt, and
to live under the constant belief that he may be to-morrow,
next year, we know not how soon, revealed in flaming fire,
taking vengeance upon them that know him not, but to be
admired and glorified in all them that believe. If this be
the expectation of the Church of Christ, is it not naturaland certainly it is not unscriptural-to watch, and study,
and gather up the signs, the tokens of the nearness, or the
possible distance of his approach? At all events, is not
such conduct in harmony with that of men in all other
things? The day and the hour of his advent are uncertain;
the fact of his advent is as certain as rising and as setting
suns. If you are anxiously watching the return to your
home of some one near and dear to you, how hard you will
try to catch a familiar sound amid the wind or the pattering
rain, or to see the distant shadow in the moonlight! You
feel. it your instinctive impulse to seek out any sign of the
approach of one who is so intimately associated with you.




196           THE GREAT TRIBULMTION.
The watcher on the distant heights looks intently into the
east to catch the first beam of the rising sun; the voyager
upon a broad and desert sea looks anxiously and often around
if he can see some floating weed or some wheeling sea-bird
to indicate the nearing land, or the whitening cliffs of his
native shore, or the mountain-range within the horizon that
tell him that his home is at hand. The Christian, not
exempt from the feelings of all, nor forbidden to cherish
them, will often look if he can see any signs of that glorious
appearing, gilding with its orient beams the distant east.
He will often compare sea, and star, and sky, and latitude,
and longitude with the revealed and inspired chart which
God has given him; a chart that not only lays down the
fact that Christ will come, but has spread over it tokens,
marks, signs, indications, by which you may gather the
high probability that his approach is near.
The Christian, like the voyager on a great sea, may often
misinterpret; that is possible, for he is human; and in the
difficult path of the unfulfilled to err is common.  The
mariner may take the piece of drift-wood that he finds upon
the sea for a fragment too recently torn from the shore, indicating, therefore, his nearness to land, and it may have been
long tossed, or it may be something torn by the storm from
the depths of the sea. Or he may take some wing-weary
bird for a recent emigrant from the land, when really it has
lost its way, has been long at sea, and is sinking with
fatigue. Or he may mistake that as the first ray of the rising sun, which is only a phosphorescent meteor. But incidental errors will not make him despair; they will only
induce him more carefully to watch and wait, certain that
the fact itself will be, and that phenomena indicative of its
nearness will multiply as it approaches. So the Christian




NEARING DELIVERANCE.               19'
may err-may seize some startling scene as appearing to
him the token of its nearness; or he may interpret some
voice in the wilderness as the sound of his chariot-wheels;
or he may think that the transient blaze of the meteor is
the burst of the morning sun; but if he find that he has
fallen into error in so interpreting, he will not therefore
despair, or give up his investigation. And far better have
the character of him who intently looks, and in his intense
longing treats that as a sign which is not, than the sceptic
and freezing apathy of the man whose heart is dead, and
whose hopes are cold, and who cares for and looks for none
of these things. The incidental error of a few cannot shake
or shatter the trust of the many; and the error that is made
by one watcher for the advent will only lead another, like a
buoy upon a wreck in the channel, to avoid the reef on
which his predecessor may have suffered.
If this salvation to which the apostle alludes; to which
he also refers in Hebrews, when he says, " Christ will come
the second time without sin unto salvation;" was spoken of
as nearer in the days in which he wrote than it was in the
days in which he first believed; we may with greater emphasis say, because we have evidence that the apostle then
had not, that this salvation is nearer still. It might be said
with some semblance of truth in the days of Paul, "All
things continue as they were since the beginning;" but it
cannot be said with any semblance of truth that all things
continue now as they were from the very beginning. Events
predicted by Paul to precede that advent have demonstrably
occurred; developments of error, the apostacy, and the decadence of that apostacy, and its nearness to its degradation
and destruction, are so palpable now, that being laid down
as signs of the nearness of Christ's approach, we can scarcely




198           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
misinterpret or misunderstand them. During the last ten
years event has thundered upon event, and phenomenon
trodden upon phenomenon, till the most apathetic, careless,
and indifferent, begin to see signs of a supernatural presence,
and to read and listen to the explanations of students of prophecy, when they sneered at them or despised them altogether before. We cannot of course expect that all will see
this; because, to the very end, thousands will be saying as
Peter predicted, " Where is the promise of his coming, for
all things continue as they were since the beginning?" And
if men ask, as indeed they do, " If only ten or twenty years
remain before the coming of Christ;" if our chronology be
correct, "Then," some are saying, "what is predicted in the
Bible to take place before that event cannot possibly be completed in that time." But in answer so far to this difficulty,
who does not know that events are accomplished now in
days that used to require years, and in a year that used to
require centuries, and in a century that used to require a
millennium? Why, nobody in 1854 could have anticipated
that events would have occurred which rocked the world
with convulsions, and agitated and revolutionised the feelings of Europe during 1855, 1856, and 1859. Nor have
succeeding years been less stormy, and who can say that
events, as the time gets nearer, may not be more crowded
and condensed. The wheel is rolling down the mountain
side, and the nearer it approaches the valley below it, becomes more rapid in its revolutions. Every one feels now
that time runs at greater speed than it used to do; not that
it really does so, but that events are now so many, so stirring,
and the excitement of them so great, that months seem days,
years seem months, and ages are reduced to years.
But let me notice some of those events which lead us to




NEARING DELIAERANCE.              199
anticipate, even more than the apostolic church could, the
increasing nearness of these great changes. Can one fail to
see all over Europe startling events? If earthquakes in
divers places, if famines, if pestilences, and plagues, were to
be among the earliest forerunners of a great change; are
not these most conspicuous now? Does not every day's
news bring accounts of them t Does not every paper reveal
in different parts of the world one or more, or many, of
these facts and phenomena. I know quite well the objection. " Why, all these things have always been?" So they
have: but our Lord knew that as well as you; and yet he
says that these things will be forerunners of his second
coming unto salvation to all them that believe: this must
mean something. I ventured to show the complete fulfilment of the drying up of the Euphrates. If we can identify
one fact in history with a specific symbol in the Apocalypse,
and if the identification be so exact, complete, and so truly
overlapping it that there can scarcely be a mistake, we not
only ascertain the fulfilment of a given prophecy, but we
ascertain the point of time we occupy in the great calendar
of prophecy. Now one of these events that were to take
place under the sixth vial, when the unclean spirits were to
gather the nations to that great war-not battle, but warof Armageddon, was, that the great river Euphrates, the
symbol of the Turkish power in Europe, from which the
Turks started, and to which, as the reflux of a stream, they
are going back again, should be dried up, so that the exhaustion of it, or the waning of the crescent, or the drying
up of the Mahometan power in Europe, would be the fulfilment of that. This I stated many years ago, and within
this present year we have seen the unmistakeable fulfilment of it. And the correspondent of one of the daily




200           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
papers, writing the other day, speakinag of Turkey, says,
" Her resources are utterly exhausted."  God brings to pass
the fulfilment of his own prediction, strangely, indeed, by
the very process most justly employed by the western
powers to keep up and prevent the evaporation of the great
river Euphrates. In the same paper I read, " The admission
of the Turkish state into the European system under the
counsels and the tutelage of the western powers is now inevitable;" that is, it is no longer to be an independent
nationality. Of course it will not be; and I am quoting it
simply as a proof of the fulfilment of that statement of the
Apocalypse. " The sixth angel poured his vial into the air,
and the great river Euphrates was dried up, that the way
of the kings from the sunrising," that is, the Jews, " might
be prepared." And then what takes place — and it is for
this I quote it. Immediately, during the action of this
vial, or before it is completely exhausted-for each vial
describes a process, not a fact; the process of the one
extending into and interlacing with the process that begins
in the succeeding one; during the pouring out of this vial,
or just at the exhaustion of that empire, the words are
heard, like a startling sound, " Behold I come as a thief."
And the constant prediction in the epistle to the Thessalonians is that Christ shall come as a thief in the night; when
the great mass shall be saying, "Peace, peace," he shall
come instantly as a thief in the night. Or as he himself
describes it, "As the lightning cometh out of the east, and
shineth even unto the west;" in speed, in startling and
overpowering splendour; "such will be the coming of the
Son of man." If we be actually, I say, at this epoch in
prophecy, the great truth that belongs to the day, the great
truth that every Christian should feel, and study, and pon.




NEARING DELIVERANCE.              201
der, is Christ's own saying, " Behold I come as a thief;" just
in an hour when you expect not; and at that hour especially when men shall be found most frequently saying,
"Peace, peace; all things continue as they were; these
prophets are always talking prophecy; there is no meaning
or sense in it; it is all nonsense; let us eat, and drink, and
be merry; all things continue as they were, and will continue to the end." " Behold I come as a thief," is Christ's
own word. Our duty is, "Blessed is he that watcheth;"
not miserable, not wretched, but " happy is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked."
Another great event that I have alluded to which shows
that our salvation is nearer than when we awoke, or, in
other words, that there are tokens of the approach of- that
great era, is the unequivocal, the irresistible evidence of the
decadence and the imminent destruction of that huge sacerdotal tyranny under which Europe has groaned, and which
has struck its roots so deep into dynasties, and nations, and
governments; I mean the Papal or Western Apostacy.
Now this is an event, I may mention, that is one of the
most important as a token in the whole Bible. The apostle
says that an apostacy, headed by a pope, the man of sin,
should begin from Christ's first advent; and that it should
be utterly destroyed by his second advent. He says first of
all, "Whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his
mouth;" that is through the preaching of the Gospel; and
strike down, at a blow, with the brilliancy, the brightness,
of his own personal advent. We read in the Apocalypse,
that when the seventh vial is poured out, great Babylon
comes into remembrance, to give her the judgment-cup, in
drinking which her decay is to be precipitated, her consumption to go on, her sufferings to be increased. And
9*




202           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
then at the end of it an angel is to cry from heav en, " Ban
bylon the great is fallen;" and her judgments are to come
upon her in one day, and she is to sink like a millstone in
the great waters. I have always quoted the public press,
not its opinions, but its recorded facts, which are modern
history, as a striking proof of the fulfilment of prophecy.
When I ventured to say a year ago that Romanism was dying, that it was expiring; some thought that that was rash,
it was not true; it was merely quiet for a moment. But
there do seem to me all the evidences of rapid decay; and
that the ascendency of the Pope of Rome, or his proconsul
in Westminster, in this country again, is one of the impossibilities of the day, and no more likelihood of it than the
ascendency of Mahomet, or any other head of superstition
and fanaticism. The Pope trembles in the Vatican. He has
a presentiment of the nearness of his doom. What office
in Europe would insure his Pontifical life for five years?
Now just think what this power was in ancient days: a
power that made kings tremble on their thrones; a power
that could force a German Emperor to remain doing penance
amid the snows in the trenches around the imperial city, till
the Pope gave him absolution; a power that could dispose
of Britain's crown to whomsoever he pleased; the great
power that reigned over the kings of the earth. "How are
the mighty now fallen! Is this the man that shook kingdoms, that made the earth to tremble 8 Is he become as one
of us?" And what do recent events indicate? The decadence of the system to the very verge, when like the thief
in the night, He comes whose right it is to reign; and the
whole is struck down; and that great city is literally swallowed up and destroyed by fire; and the smoke of its torment
begins to rise for ever and for ever. I am speaking not of




NEARING DELIVERANCE.              205
persons, but of the system; and if you knew it as I know
it, if you knew what an awful mystery of wickedness it is,
instead of being sorrowful, or when you hear of her judgments, letting your sympathies go out with her, and tears
begin to be wept over the spectacle; those sympathies of
yours would rush back to Smithfield, or travel to the Cottian Alps, or to the dungeons at Rome, or to the Inquisition
of Spain; and witnessing the scenes that have been transacted there, they would come back armed with indignation;
and instead of weeping over the ruin, you should, as angels
bid you, rejoice that great Babylon is fallen-is fallen-is
fallen. If this be the recorded state of things, it is another
token that our salvation is nearer than when we believed.
I do not quote more. I quote these two as prominent and
striking foretokens; and the lesson that they all teach is not
fear, not alarm, not terror; but, "Prepare, 0 Israel, to meet
thy God. Behold the Bridegroom cometh; go out to meet
him."
People say, " What a dreadful thing! But is not death
in that sense a very dreadful thing?" As far as you are personally concerned, it is all the same whether your soul goes
to him or he comes to you. The real question is, are you
justified? are you regenerated? are you sanctified! And
if you are, come either, it must be happiness to you. Is it
not a very solemn thing, that needs no prophet to predict,
that the St. Paul's bell does not strike twice in the hearing
of the same persons? the persons that hear it strike twelve
hear it not strike one; they that hear it strike one will not
hear it strike two. In all probability of those that assemble
within the walls of the sanctuary on each Sunday, one drops
weary with the march Qf lifer and goes to the judgment-seat.
And it is, not at all improbable, certainly not impossible, that




204           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
Of all that sit in their pews, looking and listening, one Sun
day, several shall be in the course of the next week at the
judgment-seat of Christ. Is not that equally terrible? Does
not that make you think? And why then should the objection be made to that better event which is happiness to
all God's people, and only confusion to them that believe
not in Christ and obey not the Gospel? Christians need in
these times to be summoned to think and pause, prepare
and make ready. We are all too prone to repose at ease,
fanned by the gales of worldly prosperity, dreaming of scenes
that may never come, and of success that we may never
attain; instead of feeling every moment, we know not what
a day may bring forth. And if one can only awaken one
single soul to pause, to think, to work while it is called today; to disentangle the affections from things that perish in
the using; to set them not upon things that are beneath,
but upon things that are above; to use the world as not
abusing it, knowing that the fashion of it passeth away; it
will not be in vain that I have called attention to this most
important, too much neglected, too frequently forgotten subject. We must, on all these great questions, not ask what
the Rabbis say, but try to ascertain what God has revealed
in his holy word. Let me ask, if that lightning were to
stretch from the east to the west; if the warning voice, " Behold, I come as a thief," told to-day, were to-morrow to be
a reality; if the shout were to be heard going from earth to
heaven, and from heaven to earth, " Behold, the Bridegroom
cometh:" are we ready? are our lamps burning? are our
loins girt?-Can we say, " I know in whom I have believed,
and that he is able to keep what I have committed to him
against that day?" Have I settled the great question of
personal acceptance before God through Jesus Christ  If




NEARING DELIVERANCE.             205
not, we dream upon the edge of a tremendous precipice; we
sleep on the margin of the sea on which the flowing tide is
rolling inwards with irresistible force. We stand, and eat,
and drink, and walk in jeopardy every hour. But if we
have accepted the only Saviour; if we have committed
soul, body, and spirit, to his keeping; if our ground of trust
is, that he was made sin for us, and our conviction be that
we are made righteousness by him; if we be justified by
faith in his blood, and regenerated by his Holy Spirit; then,
whether we are called to the judgment-seat, or Christ comes
to us; whether we are taken to him, or he comes to us; it
will be equally well, for there is no condemnation to them
that are in Christ Jesus. And when we look at scenes in
the East and West, thickening, multiplying, ominous of yet
future ones, more dreadful and disastrous-we can learn-this
lesson at least, that that man has no humanity, no philanthropy, and certainly no Christianity, who does not long for
that long promised day when earth shall be restored from
its thraldom, when the groans of creation shall cease, when
all things shall be made new, when Paradise shall return;
and Christ the Head shall reign over a happy, a holy, and
a peaceful world; and God shall have glory, and we shall
praise him day and night, as the monuments of his love, arvd
the purchase of a Saviour's blood, and without ceasing.
Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.




LECTURE XIV.
rHE DAY AND HOUR.
Many have speculated where they ought to have paused.
Dates in the future are not so clear as dates in the past. We
cannot read prophecy as we read history: sunshine sleeps
on the one; the mists of evening hang on the other.
" Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels
of heaven, but mny Father only. But as the days of Noe
were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."MATTHEW XXiV. 36, 3'7.
HERE we are distinctly informed that the exact chronological day and hour of the advent of our blessed Lord is known
to none; but we are also told that there are certain premonitory and significant signs that are meant to be to us
evidence of its nearness; and that to these, and not to the
day and the hour imagined, calculated, or supposed, we are
constantly to attend. Let me first of all notice the practical
importance of concealing the day and hour when the Son
of man shall come from the knowledge of the Church and
of all mankind. Were the day and the hour of the Saviour's advent specifically and unmistakeably stated, it would
contradict constantly those passages scattered throughout
the whole word of God which say he shall come as a thief




THE DAY AND HOUR.               207
fn the night; that he will come at the very time when men,
so far from expecting the day and the hour, will be comgratulating each other on the impossibility of his advent;
saying, " Where is the promise of his coming? for all things
continue as they were from the beginning until now." If
this portion of Scripture says he will come as the lightning bursts from the cloud, and flashes from the east unto
the distant west-that he will come with the unexpectedness
of a thief that breaks into premises to plunder and to steal;
such assertions are utterly incompatible with our knowing
the exact day and hour when the Son of man shall come.
Were the day and the hour specified by Matthew, but not
specified, or rather declared unknown, in the epistle to the
Thessalonians, there would be what there is not and cannot
be-a contradiction between one portion of the word of God
and another. But the very reference employed immediately
after-namely, to the days of Noah-shows that while there
is no specification of the day or the hour, there will be certain signs, phenomena, and historic visible occurrences,
whose approach will be to us pre-significant warnings that
the hour and the day at least draweth nigh. For instance, no
physician upon earth can specify the day or the hour of a dying
man's death; he will tell you he may live weeks or months,
but disease is in him that must terminate very shortly in
death. That physician does know whether the day of his
death be comparatively near or comparatively remote by his
pulse, by certain signs and symptoms-by his sufferings, by
the ascertained nature of the disease, so much so that he will
be able with remarkable accuracy to predict that he cannot
live beyond so many days or so many weeks. We may be
unable, and are positively unable, chronologically to specify
the day and the hour when this dispensation shall end; but




208            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
we may feel Nature's faltering, hesitating pulse-we may
count the wrinkles that gather on her venerable brow, as if to
crowd her history into little space-we may detect symptoms
of exhaustion in all things that are above, and around, and
below; and thus we may be able, with God's inspired chart
in our hands, and with the promise of God's Spirit to explain
its mystery and its meaning, to say that if the world is to last,
as the old Jewish rabbis believed it, a week of seven thousand
years, we may calculate approximately whether this be about
the Friday, or the Saturday, or the Saturday evening of the
world's long week, and thus form a probable estimate of the
epoch we live in, of the events that are before us, and of the
probable remoteness or nearness of that day when the lightning shall flash from the cloud, and the earth and the things
that are therein shall be burned up, and we shall not be
destroyed, but transferred to a balmier clime, to a lovelier
rest and more beautiful repose, till the earth is made ready;
being where Christ is, and where he is there is happiness and
everlasting heaven.
After the day of Pentecost the Apostles received information upon this subject which they did not previously possess.
No one can read the Gospels without seeing that the Apostles, to the very day that Christ arose from the dead and
ascended into heaven, were excessively ignorant of many
things, and entertained all kinds of misapprehensions of the
truth; so much so that the comparison between Peter before
the day of Pentecost and Peter after the day of Pentecost is
a comparison between the glow-worm or taper and the brilliancy of a star. If this be so in that specific case, we may
be sure it was no less true in all. Hence we read in the
Acts of the Apostles that when Christ ascended from the
Mount of Olives, and when the disciples asked, " Lord, wilt




THE DAY AND HOUR.               209
thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel i" he
said to them, " It is not for you to know the times or the
seasons "-that is the hour and the day-" which the Father
hath put in his own power."  But mark what follows: "Ye
shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon
you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and
in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of
the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while
they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out
of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly towards
heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in
white apparel, which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why
stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is
taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner
as ye have seen him go."
The Apostle Paul, speaking to his Thessalonian converts,
says, " Of the times and the seasons"-that is, the hour and
the day-" ye have no need that I write unto you; for
yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so
cometh as a thief in the night; for when they shall say,
Peace and safety, sudden destruction shall come upon them.
But ye, brethren, are not in darkness; that that day should
overtake you as a thief;" as if some clear intimation were
given to the apostles subsequent to the Day of Pentecost,
which enabled them to form and communicate some idea of
nearness to or remoteness from the coming of our Lord.
When sailing on the ocean, we come to large pieces of
driftwood, we instantly suppose we must be approaching
some land —or when we discover quantities of floating
weeds, as Columbus did on the very point of despair of
finding the great western continentr-we take heart and say,
" The continent of glory is near, for we see the drift detached




210           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
from the shore, which must indicate we are approaching
land." As the men that watch upon the mountain crags
catch the first beams of the rising sun before he comes
above the horizon, whilst the people in the glens and valleys below are involved in complete darkness, so the students
of the signs of the times, diligently comparing what history
records with what the Apocalypse predicts, may form a
proximate estimate whether they are distant from or near to
that great continent of glory to which earth, this broken-off
island, shall be united, in order that heaven and earth may
be one again and for ever.
It would be altogether morally without practical good
results, and incompatible with other portions of Scripture,
if God were to tell us the precise day and the hour. What
would be the practical use of telling us either? None would
be so wretched as the man who should be told that next
year, or ten years hence, and on a certain day, and in a
certain month, he shall die. But you may depend upon it
that as this book contributes all that is really contributory
to our happiness, and if that information had been an element of it, it would have specified that also. But it leaves:
the day of death undefined, that we may be always ready to
obey when the summons comes: in the same manner it
leaves the day and the hour of our Lord's advent indefinite,
that we may not be in a hurry to make preparation a few
days before; but that-we may always hear and everywhere
act upon the cry that sounds from heaven, " Watch, be ye
ready, for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man
cometh." Were that day made known to us, it would beo
gratifying a very worthless curiosity. But if there be one
feature in this book more striking than another, it is its
utter refusal to gratify the curiosity of man. To the least




THE DAY AND HOUR.               211
or the deepest want of the humblest believer it ministers
infinite fulness; but to the most anxious and curious inquiry
of the most inquisitive mind it answers literally nothing.
The silence of Scripture is often its most eloquent credential. I know not from which to infer most the inspiration
of the writers —the pure and transparent eloquence with
which they speak on all that is essential, or the deep,
unbroken silence that they maintain on all that merely
gratifies an itching and a curious inquiry. Suppose that
this day and hour had been made known, there is no proof
that it would be believed by the unconverted masses of
mankind. If the masses refuse to believe the Gospel, surely
they would never be persuaded to believe that at a certain
day and hour Christ would come like the lightning, and
finish this dispensation. If the unconverted and unsanctified
multitude believed it, it would do incalculable mischief. We
all know that in the days of Noah, when he told them, on
the authority of the living God, that in a hundred and
twenty years the whole population would be swept away,
they laughed at him, not one believed it. And if we were
to tell the multitude now, proclaim it in every newspaper,
proclaim it from every pulpit that on a certain day and in a
certain year Christ would come, not one would believe it;
and if any did believe it, what would be the effect on them I
What the effect was in Jerusalem-when the people were
warned that the ploughshare of Titus would soon overturn
their ancient and magnificent temple, they indulged in all
sorts of intoxication, excess, and crime.
I have read somewhere that when a shipwreck is inevitable,
a godless crew will instantly lay hold upon the stores; and
so infatuated do men become in the prospect of certain
destruction that some will load themselves with gold and




212           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
silver; others will get drunk; and most of them, instead of
being solemnized and impressed by the certainty of a watery
grave, will become maddened and furious, and lose their very
senses in the terrible prospect of the crisis. It is therefore
on all these grounds well and expedient that we do not know
the day or the hour. But, on the other hand, it is most
profitable and most improving that we should study the
predicted signs; nay, our Lord condemned the men of his
day, because while they could predict wet weather and fine
weather, from the sky at evening and at morn, they were
not acquainted with the moral signs of the age in which
they lived. The Scripture in every page is most explicit in
giving us tokens and signs by which we are to infer either
that the time is near, or that it is remote. This leads me to
the great sign given here, instead of the day and the hour —
the sign of Noah. Our Lord says that " As it was in the
days of Noah, so shall the coming of the Son of man be" —
in those days before the flood they were " eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, and knew not until
the flood came and took them all away. So shall it be at
the coming of the Son of man."
Before I illustrate this more fully, let me notice that there
is here a distinct recognition of Noah as a historic person,
of the flood as a literal fact. Most have heard that certain
German philosophers, who try to be wise, not only above
what is written, but against what is written, maintain that
the whole of Genesis is a myth. But our blessed Lord here
refers to a historic fact in the past to illustrate a real historic
event that is approaching from the future; and the very
reference that he makes proves that he regarded Noah as a
real person, the deluge as a real fact, and used them as the
solid background from which to throw up in more brilliant




THE DAY AND HOUR.                 213
relief the features of a great approaching era. I cannot but
notice also in referring to this fact, that the impression produced upon one's mind on reading the account of the deluge,
or our Lord's allusion to it, is that this deluge was universal.
Certain geologists, men of great talent, power, and research,
and many of them pious men, hold the notion that the deluge
was local, that it merely swept over a certain portion of the
continent of Asia, where the cradle or birthplace ofthe
human family was; and that all the rest of the world was
left untouched. I do not enter upon the evidence or disproof of this, but this I do say, that on the face of the narrative in Genesis, on the Apostle Paul's allusion to it in
Hebrews, and in our Lord's allusion to it here, the inference
seems to me rational and just, that the flood was universal;
that the whole of our planet was submerged, and that it
covered all the earth, and rose above the tops of the highest
mountains, even the mount of Ararat, which is some eight
thousand feet, if I mistake not, above the level of the sea,
and it must, therefore, have overflowed the population of the
globe. We learn another lesson from this reference-history is never obsolete. Past history is very much the reflection of the future, and present and future history is very
much the repetition of the past. A great statesman and
gifted orator, still alive, though arrived at a great age, said
one day in scorn, when replying to the statement of an opponent, "History! what is history. If is simply an old almanack." He meant it in scorn, but there is great force in what
he said; it is an old almanack. What is the difference in
successive almanacks?  The tides are the same, the rising
and the setting suns are the same, the characters are substantially the same. Wherein lies the real difference?
Simply in the date. The old almanack of the year 1800 is




214            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
not very much different from the new almanack of 1859;
man is still upon the same stage, repeating substantially the
same acts, using the same expressions, falling into the same
sins, indulging the same reveries, cherishing the- same hopes.
Human nature repeats itself, history moves in circles, and all
the future is the reflection of. the past.
I cannot but notice here also this interesting fact-that.
human nature is substantially the same in the days of Napoleon and of Queen Victoria, that it was in the days of Noah
and the patriarchs before the flood. There is no real or
great revolution in the heart of man. We may be more
civilised; we may travel at a greater speed, and enjoy much
greater and more numerous luxuries; we may have made
greater progress in acquaintance with the secrets of nature;
but substantially human nature now is what it was then; the.
primeval granite crops up still, the changes are on the surface, and those changes of no material value or depth.
The antediluvians, or those that were in the days of Noah,
when the flood came, were eating and drinking, marrying
and giving in marriage. This is not stated as a sin; there
is no sin in eating, only in eating to excess; there is no sin
in drinking, it is only in drinking to excess; there is no sin
in marrying, on the contrary, but obedience to a command;
there is no sin in giving in marriage. Then where lay the sin I
In this: these things were their all; they did not look above
them; their whole hearts, and sympathies, and hopes, were
confined to this present scene, and beyond the interests
of the present they had no stirring and joyous hope for the
future.
In the Gospel, where our Lord represents the blessings
thiat he purchased under a feast, those. that were invited
refused; blt the ground they assigned was not any one




THE DAY AND HOUR.               215
sinful act. One said, "I have bought oxen," that was quite
right, "and I go to prove them;" that was right. Another
said, " I have purchased a field, and I go to measure it;" and
another said, "I have married a wife, and I cannot come."
There was no sin in buying oxen, or in buying a field, or in
marrying a wife; but the sin lay in being so absorbed about
these things that no nook was left in the heart, and no day
set apart in the year, for loftier, Molier, and more important
things. Often we sin by the excessive love of what is lawful
more than in the guilty practice of what is positively forbidden. Where then was the sin of the antediluvians?
They married, they gave in marriage, they ate, they drank,
they enjoyed themselves; but "they knew not till the flood
came." Why did the,y not know? Noah warned them,
entreated them to come into the ark; told them that they
would be destroyed unless they came; but still it came upon
them one vast and unexpected catastrophe, which they never
anticipated or believed) simply because they were given up
to an evil heart of unbelief that would not accept any
testimony of God, any one fact in the past, or any one
possible, or contingent, or predicted phenomenon in the
future. When Noah began to build his ark, in which he
was engaged one hundred and twenty years; and when he
stood at its door and told the people ere it was finished,
that ill that ark alone there was safety from the approaching
flood; and that unless they came into the ark, in which
there would be found room for all that would, they would be
overwhelmed in a desolating ocean that would cover the
very highest, and not spare the very humblest,-I have no
doubt they laughed outright in his face; and that one would
say to another over his wine, and after they had been eating
and drinking, and marrying and giving in marriage, "Have




216           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
you heard what that old fanatic Noah begins to talk about 
The old man is so sunk in dotage that he actually says this
world is coming to an end; that there will be no more
eating, no more drinking, no more marrying and giving in
marriage. Well, if the old fanatic be right, let us eat and
drink; there will soon be an end to it. But as to the possibility of the world coming to an end, the thing is so
improbable, so impossible, that we cannot believe it." And
I have not the least doubt that others said, "Why, look at
Noah, he seems as busy as if the world were to last for ever;
and he seems to be laying up for his children, Ham, Shem,
and Japheth, as if it could have no end; and we do not think
he really believes his own doctrine."
The scientific men of that day, I have no doubt, said
there is not so much water in the basin of the ocean as
would cover the whole earth; and secondly, unless the earth
should change the angle of its axis towards the sun, or
should revolve with some extraordinary speed, it would be
utterly impossible that water should rise high enough to
drown the whole world. I have no doubt that others said,
Suppose there is to be a flood, I would not trust a dog in
that ark which Noah is building.  It is one of the most
blundering pieces of naval architecture I ever saw. My
yacht would carry me through the heaviest sea and under
the pressure of a hurricane; and while Noah and his miserable craft would founder, my fine ship would bring me
safely through, and land me on some place better than
Noah's Ararat. Such, probably, were some of the calculations and conversations of many who would not believe that
a flood was approaching; or if they determined that it was
within the realm of possibility, they would not believe that
the crazy craft that the old man was building could ever




THE DAY AND HOUR.                217
stand the sea for six hours. Noah, too, must have met with
many difficulties. The apostle says, in the Epistle to the
Hebrews, it was by faith that he built an ark to the saving
of his soul. Noah, probably, when told to build the ark
and prepare for the flood, said, Lord, I believe that thy
word is truth; I believe in the approaching terrible catastrophe. But, Lord, thou biddest me build an ark; I am no
ship architect, I never built a ship in my life. And even if
I should succeed in building a ship, and setting her afloat, I
have no compass, I have not a stitch of canvas to stretch to
the wind; I never in my life touched the tiller of a rudder
or helm of any sort or shape, I can neither hoist nor reef
sails. And besides, if I were to take two of each of the
animals in this ark, how could I keep order in such a
menagerie I The larger animals would devour the lesser,
and I should not be surprised if they were to fall upon me,
and devour me and my family; and thefefore the thing
seems to me so impossible that I would rather not attempt
it. But the answer is, Noah cared not for the impossibility
that stared him in the face; God said, "Do it;" and by
faith, believing that He that gave the command Was competent to give the skill, the strength, and the genius to
execute it, in the language of the apostle in his Epistle to
the Hebrews, he built an ark to the saving of his own soul,
and of all them that were his. But the rest of the world,
as we have seen, believed not.  And at last, when the windows of heaven were opened, and poured down their roaring
cataracts; and when the great ocean, as if agitated by some
subterranean earthquake, threw up its waters in their fury
to the very tops of some of the mountains; and when one
antediluvian, who laughed at the fanatic for his prophecy,
began to feel that the fanatic was right, and that the prophet
10




218           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
of one hundred years ago was now the witness to the truth
in the hour in which he lived; and when one rushed to his
yacht, and another to his great ship, and another to his
boat, and found them sink like shells in the rushing and
remorseless surges; and when others fled to the hills, and
found the water creep up like advancing tides with irresistible force, and bury and overwhelm all; and when palatial
residences crumbled away like clay in the waters, and castles
that had defied all foes, and weathered all storms, and stood
every siege, and laughed at every assailant, were swept
away like sand-ridges before the advancing sea; and when
one cried to Noah, "Come towards us; land on this side;
come near to us, and save and deliver us; only take us in,
we will give you any money; we will give you all our
estates if you will only take us and ours in,"-the despised
prophet of yesterday became the idol of to-day. Noah felt
that he had no helm to direct his course, no canvas to
stretch, and that he was dependent for every inch of his
course upon that mysterious and unseen but not unknown
Power that gave him the commission to build the ark; and
he was constrained to tell many a one, swimming in his
agony, and many others, signalling him from every height
which the waves had not yet reached, only to come and take
them in-" I warned you of the approaching judgment; I
told you on the authority of the living God; you despised
my testimony, you have defied the word and the judgments
of heaven; the harvest is past, the summer is ended, your
sun is set, grace is merged in judgment; there is no hope
for you, and no help in me."
"So shall it be when the Son of man cometh."
This is not a mere history; but also a solemn prophecy.
Thousands will be just as incredulous when the lightning




THE DAY AND HOUR.                219
strikes, and preternatural signs are portrayed ii. the sky;
when the earth begins to groan, and crack, and heave as if
with yearning expectancy of deliverance; when all things
indicate that this great drama is to be wound up; the world
will be as incredulous as ever; and like the five foolish
virgins, they will ask oil for their lamps when it is too late
to buy it, and they have none to spare; and theirs must be
the blackness of darkness for ever.
Just as the ark was the only safety in the days of Noah,
so the only safety for us this very day is Christ, the living,
the glorious, the indestructible ark. There is none other
name, however magnificent, or brilliant from its historic
associations, in which or by which we can be saved from
the coming judgments of heaven, except the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ. His precious blood alone can cleanse us
from all our sins; his glorious righteousness will so shelter
and so cover us at that dread day, that the fires that consume the round globe will reverently abstain from touching
us; and as the three Hebrew youths walked the burning
floor of the sevenfold-heated fiery furnace, and had not even
the hair of their heads, or the wool of their garments
singed; so that happy man who believes in the Saviour,
rests upon his precious sacrifice, pleads at that day the password of his name, will feel fulfilled in his happy experience
the promise of the prophet, " 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 flames
kindle upon thee." Are you trusting to this ark? are you
cleaving to the Saviour?  Now there is salvation for the
worst and the guiltiest; but at that day, when grace shall depart like a vision, when the last fire shall cover the round




220           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
globe with its piercing and its searching flames, not one cry
will be heard, not one appeal for mercy will be regarded, not
one sin will be forgiven. The very glory of the Gospel is its
simplicity: "Look and live;" "Believe, and thou shalt be
saved." When Noah asked the people to come into the
ark, they had simply to believe the word he preached, that
the ark was suitable for its purpose, enter into it, and make
the experiment. What would have been the use of their
saying, Are its timbers strong enough? is the planking thick
enough? is the caulking good? is there tar enough to keep
out the water 8 will she break her back upon the waves?
Noah's answer was, God says there is safety here; God says
there is no safety elsewhere; do not believe appearances;
mind only what God says. What he says to us this day is,
Christ is the deliverer. You ask, can any good thing come
out of Nazareth? How is it possible that one that died
eighteen hundred years ago can do me any good?  Will
not my own upright life be a nobler plea than that Jesus
died for sinners? I answer, Whatever appearances may be;
whatever your reasoning may prompt; believe God's testimony concerning his Son. That testimony is clear, absolute,
without any modification: " He that believeth on the
Son of God hath everlasting life; he that believeth not,
shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth upon
him."
Have you, dear readers, fled to this ark? Are you in the
happy group who met in the ark of old, and meet and are
meeting to-day in a better ark still? For that ark of Noah
carried its inmates across the surging waves, landed them
upon the barren heights of Ararat, thence to go forth upon a
world dismantled and depopulated; renewing their pilgrimage of tears, and struggles, and toils, and sickness, and death.




THE DAY AND HOUR.                221
But this glorious ark, built in heaven, having capacities
for all, and a welcome for all, will carry you to the sunny
hills of the new Jerusalem, there to be where neither death,
nor sorrow, nor sickness is; but where all is unclouded,
eternal, and happy noon.




LECTURE XV.
THE WORLD'S FLEETING FASHION.
Paul's estimate of the duration and nature, and excellence
of this present life, is briefly and justly expressed in these
words:"For the fashion of this world passeth away."
1 CORINTHIANS vii. 31.
"THE fashion of this world passeth away," is, strictly speaking, an inference, or rather the ground on which the
Apostle constructs the truly practical prescription in the
previous passage. "This I say, brethren, the time is short."
What duty does he infer? That you should run from the
world, and become an ascetic? No. That you should not,
therefore, feel the least interest in the world, and become a
Stoic?  No. That you should plunge into all the dissipation and folly of the world, and become the Epicurean?
No. But what is replete with good sense, "The time is
short: therefore it remains, that they that have wives be as
though they had none; and they that weep, as though they
wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced
not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and
they that use the world, as not abusing it."  Why?  "For
the fashion of it passeth away." It is lawful to weep, or to




THE WORLD'S FLEETING FASHION.           223
rejoice; it is lawful to buy, and to possess; it is only sinful
to be so absorbed in the blessings God has given you, that
your heart becomes glued to them, and cannot lift its affections, or unfold its wings, or rise where it can have true
communion in the presence of God and of the Lamb.
The language which the Apostle uses to describe the
ground of this reasoning, is borrowed from the usages of the
playhouse or the theatre in ancient times. The literal translation of the word rendered "fashion," is the shifting of the
scenes in the playhouse, as one scenic representation succeeds another in rapid succession. The Apostle having
witnessed this in the ancient theatre, applies it-for he draws
illustrations of his doctrine from all sources-to the present
world, and says, "the fashion of this world passeth away."
The great master of dramatists, that most of us, as readers
of the English tongue, must have read, says:"All the world's a stage,
The men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances."
The phrases of the great dramatist are borrowed from, and
built on the language of the inspired Apostle, 4" the fashion
of this world passeth away;" literally, "the shifting scenes
of this vast panorama, this great theatre, commonly called
the world, are in rapid succession, the more brilliant extinguishing the less so, one now dimming by its splendour one
that was yesterday, what entrances to-day ceasing to delight
to-morrow; the whole world is a stage; the whole world is
a theatre; the earth is but its stage; and all you see above,
around, before you, are but the successive dramatic exhibitions of a grand spectacle, which is going with us, and




224           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
with all that live, to the judgment-seat of God, or to the last
ordeal, when the earth shall burn, and the elemen.s melt
with fervent heat; and the theatre in which each has played
his part more or less perfectly shall be lost in that place
where there are no masks, no disguises, nothing to conceal
the naked heart from the omniscient and penetrating eye of
Almighty God."
It needs very little proof to convince you that "the fashion
of the world passeth away." In every man's library, however limited; in every man's memory, however young; on
every face over which have swept the lights and shadows of
half a century; on every head on which sixty or seventy
years have shed down their whitening snows; in every
failing memory, and failing affection; in our loves-or hates,
in our sympathies, our joys, our sorrows, on all within, and
on all without, he must be blind who cannot see, and deaf
who cannot hear the ceaseless lesson, "the fashion of this
world passeth away." We all feel, every day of our life,
the future is ceaselessly rushing into the present; the present
ceaselessly rushing into the past; till the whole past becomes
the gigantic storehouse in which are treasured up youth and
beauty, age and talent, riches and poverty; which no eloquence can recall, and no force can pluck back, from the
bosom of the unrelenting past. Into its abyss all things
seem ceaselessly to rush, like rivers to the sea; to be forgotten of us, but not forgotten of God.
But whilst we turn from the past, which is the storehouse
of so much that is precious and beautiful; and whilst we
cherish the thought, that only the fashion of the world is
passing, that the good, the true, the great in the world,
endures for ever; I proceed to illustrate the sentiment by
showing that the world, in the various aspects, features, and




THE WORLD'S FLEETING FASHIOkS.         225
manifestations, in which we see it, is constantly like a flood
that rushes to the ocean, passing away. The world physical,
the fashion of the world physical, is passing away. The
mountains are rent by the lightning, or disintegrated by
the frost; and scarcely one lifts its brow to the skies shaped
as it was a few centuries ago. The rocks are transmuted
into palaces, and these again are reduced into dust. Seas
and shores, waves and sands, are constantly changing places;
fountains, and springs, and rivers, are drying up, and the
sands of the desert are daily engulphing the majestic monuments of the mighty Pharaohs. The surface of the earth
is vastly altered from the days of Noah to those of Napoleon. Deserts lie where gardens once bloomed; and gardens
bloom where deserts once spread their gigantic sand-wastes.
Were an old monk to rise from beneath the flagstones of
some mediaeval cathedral, and were he placed in the midst
of this great city, and made acquainted with all that is going
on on the surface of this little patch of the earth that we
call Great Britain, he would suppose that he had been translated into another orb, and come in contact with a new, a
strange, and an unexplained world. The fashion of the
world physical passeth away.
The fashion of the world material, as far as man has
altered it, is also passing away. Babylon, once the lady of
the kingdoms, diademed and throned, the mistress of the
ancient world, is now reduced to a mound of molten bricks,
dissolving in the rains, or plundered by the inhabitants
around it. Persia is but the shadow of what it was when its
legions shook the world. Tyre is now a rock, on which a
few poor fishermen bleach their nets. Jerusalem, once the
joy of the whole earth, is discrowned and dethroned; and
her inhabitants are exiles —a nation without a land to live
10*




226           THE GREAT TRIBULATION,
in, families without a home; a people that have no rule, ne
laws; and yet preserved, till they return again to Palestine.
Athens is the merest shadow of what that proud capital was
in the days of Pericles. Rome retains but its name; and it
shows the force of a name when that miserable place, sinking if not sunk, so awes the nations by its very word. Thebes,
and Palmyra, have all disappeared; and gorgeous Nineveh
lies in the grave from which a Layard digs it up stone by
stone, and fragment by fragment. A mysterious curse,
created by sin, not part and parcel of the original creation,
wastes down and wears out all the workmanship of man's
hands; and time rushes along a resistless stream; and
floating down its bosom, like driftwood, are palaces and
hovels; are sceptres, and scythes, and crowns; and every
voice that we hear, and every scene that we witness, only
authenticate and  impress the  solemn aphorism, "The
fashion of this world passeth away."
The fashion of the world social also passes away. What
family is there that cannot attest it,; what parish, what village, what city in the empire, that cannot speak of the ebb
and flow, and the mutation of the things that are about it?
To-day a home rings with the music of glad voices; to-morrow it is hung with the drapery of sadness. To-day a bride
is given to a rejoicing husband; to-morrow orphans are desolate and widows weep. To-day a babe is born; to-morrow
a grey-haired patriarch, the support and pillar of the house,
is carried to his grave. Year after year as we go along we
perceive companions, friends, relatives, brethren, weary with
the march of life, drop down and disappear. The house that
knows us to-day will soon know us no more; the houses
that knew many yesterday know them no more for ever.
New ties are formed; old ties are dissolved; and the life of




THE WORLD'S FLEETING FASHION.          227
the most illustrious noble in the land is but as the vapour
that appeareth for a little time, gilded for an hour by the
golden beams of the setting sun; but like the vapour that is
the symbol of the lowliest life, to be dissolved and to disappear, and to attest what all see, " The fashion of this world
passeth away."
The fashion of the world political also passeth away.
Theories that were once thought essential to the very existence of the nation are abjured or exploded; parties that held
the reins and ruled the fierce democracy have passed away,
and their names are almost forgotten. Statesmen revered
yesterday as destiny, whose word echoed against thrones,
and whose nod awed the multitudes that looked up to them,
are derided, despised, and undervalued. Institutions once
thought fixed as the everlasting hills are tottering to their
ruin. Nor is the future of the political world bright. What
a seething chaos is the wide world at this moment; what
ominous shadows; some tokens of approaching disaster;
some, like birds of ill omen, begin to emerge from every
point of the horizon, and to darken with their outspread
wings the European sky. What a testimony comes from
parliament and palace, from counting-house and sanctuary,
from homes, and families, and nations, to this simple, short,
but pregnant sentiment, " The fashion of this world passeth
away."
All around us bears witness to the fact that the fashion
of it passeth away. On a random spark depends the existence of the noblest edifice in the realm!  Whether the
charred and blackened walls of Covent Garden Theatre
were witness of great sins, I do not discuss; nor can I pronounce that the proprietors and the performers were sinners
above all men. But we may gather from its former ashes




228            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
the lesson that none of us may have gathered from its first
glory; we may learn on its grave what we could not learn
from its meridian pride; and there, the spectator may see
an impressive illustration of the words, " The faslion of this
world passeth away." What wealth was laid out in its
decorations! what artistic genius in covering it with all the
pomp and splendour of the age! Literally and truly we
could apply the words of the seer when he said, "And now
the voice of harpers and musicians, and of pipers and
trumpets, shall be heard no more in thee at all; and the
light of a candle shall shine no more in thee at all; and the
voice of the bridegroom and the bride shall be heard no
more in thee at all." The scene of the burning theatre,
described a year or two ago in the usual channels of information, was most illustrative of the fashion of the world
passing away. If ever it was true, it was emphatically
there, that the flames seem to have conspired together, and
seized simultaneously upon all that was fair, beautiful, and
attractive; and literally comedy passed into tragedy, without an interlude between; and men who laughed, and
mocked, and derided all solemn thoughts, felt themselves in
an instant hpon the very verge of the grave and eternity.
The sleeper started from his sleep, scarcely persuaded to
flee; the maskers rushing from their revelry, their dancing
literally turned into mourning. Why do I refer to that
theatre on fire? It was a rehearsal on a very microscopic
scale of that last and solemn drama described in solemn
terms by inspiration itself. "But the day of the Lord will
come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens shall pass
away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with
fervent heat; the earth also and all the things that are on it
shall be burned up. Nevertheless, we according to His pro



THE WORLD'S FLEETING FASHION.          229
mise look for a new heaven and a new earth,   herein
dwelleth righteousness."  Or, as Paul expresses it, "To you
who are troubled, rest with us; when the Lord Jesus shall
be revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming
fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that
obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ." I fear in
that last day, of which all the conflagrations that have ever
occurred are the dim and poor types, many a sleeper will be
found then, crying up to the last moment, "Peace, peace;
all things continue as they were from the beginning;" forgetting that the day of the Lord will come, and in an instant
the heavens and the earth shall be on fire. But blessed
thought, that we can cherish even in that dread prospect,
" Whosoever," even at the eleventh hour, " shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved." And at that day,
too, when this world's fashion shall pass away, the elements
shall melt with fervent heat, all the things that are therein
shall be burned up, all those masks, for such they really are,
which we call crowns, and coronets, and mitres, and wealth,
and riches, and imperial circumstance, shall all be consumed.
All those disguises which make wicked men look like godly
men, and sinners seem saints, shall be torn off. And what
a cry and how piercing, will that be that rises from the ruins
of a burning world; when men learn for the first time that
they have saved a thousand things, but forgotten to seek to
save their immortal souls, now lost, irrecoverably lost, for
ever and for ever lost.
What new fabric has risen upon the ashes of that which
has been consumed, we now know; and we know that on
the ashes of this burned earth shall rise an orb far more
beautiful, far more glorious, which shall endure for ever.
The bright mirror that was shattered in Paradise shall be




230            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
recast-the glorious temple that was unroofed by sin shall
be restored; and on its altar shall be rekindled more than
its ancient glory. All space will then be holy; all days will
then be Sabbaths; all faces gladness; all sounds praise;
and its every bill shall be a joyous Gerizim, a mount of
blessing; from which streams of benedictions shall pour
down upon a happy and a holy world. Sin shall flee away
like a shadow; sorrow's springs and deep fountains shall be
dried up; the curse shall be removed, the incubus under
which the world now groans; error shall be torn up by the
roots; and this strayed and prodigal world of ours, restored
to the sisterhood of stars that never fell, shall awaken in the
wide universe a congratulation such as was never heard on
earth; for the orbs and morning stars shall sing together
then as they never sang at creation's birth; "Let us rejoice
and be merry; for this our sister earth was lost, and is
found; was dead, and is alive; it is meet that we should
rejoice and be merry."
But whilst we look at the fashion of this world passing
away, there are some things that remain far more important
to us than the recollections of the things that have passed
away. The fashion of the world passeth away, but God's
word abideth for ever. This book remains; no flames can
consume it, no winds quench its bright light; no opposition
subvert its influence, arrest its march, or destroy its divine
authority; it remains like the throne of Him who inspired
it; a directory to the ignorant, a pharmacopeia to the sick,
a tree of life in the midst of the earth, whose fruit is for
food, and whose leaves are for the healing of the nations.
The fashion of this world passeth away, but your soul and
my soul remain. It had a beginning; it can never know an
end. What a magnificent being is he who knows that before




THE WORLD'S FLEETING FASHION.          231
him there stretches out an endless, inexhaustible eternity.
When the body is gathered to the grave, the soul, disentangled of all its bands and bonds and imprisonment, shall
rise and appear just as it is at the judgment-seat of Christ
But what a solemn thought is it that this soul has capacity
for endless woe, as well as capacity for endless joy. The
soul as it now is, is dead in sin, lost, ruined, guilty. You
have nothing to do to destroy yourselves but be still; you
have something to believe, to accept, to apply for, to lay
hold of, in order to be saved,-Christ Jesus, and him crucified. Have you ever entertained this question? have you
ever soberly reflected on it? " What shall it profit a man
if he gain all the glories, all the honours, all the riches of
the world, and lose his own soul?" Have you ever reflected
upon your own state in the sight of God? In other words,
have you regarded Christianity as truth, as addressed to you?
have you felt the responsibility involved by hearing the
Gospel preached? Have you ever passed from the evanescent
to that which is indeed eternal; and felt, that there is
nothing in this world of such moment to you, as that immortal, precious soul which was wrecked in Paradise, and was
retrieved only by the cross and through the blood of Christ
Jesus?
If the fashion of this world passeth away, blessed thought!
the Saviour still remains. He offers you to-day, pardon for
the greatest sin, peace to the greatest sinner. Salvation is
not going to a church or a chapel, or a service; or joining a
denomination, or giving something or doing something; that
is man's way, or the priest's way; salvation is God's way;
all heaven gratis to that poor guilty one who will only
honour God by accepting it. What a grand truth is that,
the price of heaven is a Saviour's blood; and there is no




?32           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
monopoly of it; no exclusion of the worst; there is no
debarring of the oldest; to each and to all I can proclaim
this day, and if, instead of being surrounded, as this church
lately was, by the ashes of a burned playhouse, we were sur.
rounded by the flames of a burned and dissolving world, I
can say to you, to each one apart, "Believe thou in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." And in doing
so, I only echo the words of Him whom I preach, when He
says, " Him that cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out."
"Come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and
I will give you rest."  "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all
ye ends of the earth; for I am God, and beside me there is
no Saviour."
If the fashion of the world passeth away, let us remember
our opportunities and means of grace still remain. We
know not what home is next to blaze, or what estate is next
to perish; and if the home be preserved from the fire, and
the estate be preserved from the Amalekites, remember the
inhabitant may be taken from the home, the proprietor may
be snatched from his estate: and whose shall these things
be, is one question of value; but what shall my soul be? is
a question of intenser moment still. But now, this very
day, there is no sin that may not be forgiven; there is no
sinner that may not be accepted. This very day salvation
is freely offered. "To-day is the day of salvation; this is
the accepted time; to-day if ye will hear his voice, harden
not your hearts, as in the provocation."
Let the frantic mummer, rushing from the devouring
flame that consumed the scene of idle, stupid, and foolish
merriment, be to us a lesson; and let us learn to flee
from the wrath to come. And when around us shall be a
dissolving world, over our heads will be the opening bright



THE WORLD'S FLEETING  FASHION.         233
ness of a glorious home, where Christ is, and all that have
preceded us to glory.
Let us rejoice to know that when all these things shall be
dissolved, there remains a rest for the people of God, a house
not made with hands; a city that hath foundations, whose
builder and whose maker is God. And let us remember,
that there is something that survives all wreck. The good
we do never perishes. What a blessed thought is that!
The good we do, though not merit but the evidence of
grace, never, never perishes. At that hour that comes to
all, and that may come to the youngest, the happiest, and
the brightest heart that beats on earth, it will be a recollection of intenser joy to have given a cup of cold water to
some'thirsty sufferer than to have electrified a crowded playhouse by your acting, or entranced a mighty audience by
the sweetness of your minstrelsy. At that day it will be a
happier recollection to have added one stone or rafter to a
ragged school, than to have rebuilt Covent Garden Theatre,
or to have raised all the palaces of London. At that day it
will be a thought that will give more real joy to you to
have fed some hungry orphan, or given a garment to some
poor and desolate widow, than to have composed a grander
drama than Shakespeare ever wrote. I condemn not his
writings; I can appreciate and admire what is beautiful in
poetry, or what is expressive in eloquence; but we may
depend upon it, when memory becomes, as drowning men
have said, preternaturally susceptible and exciting, and
when the whole scenes of a lifetime seem, like the shifting
scenes of a drama, to rush in rapid succession before us, the
amusement we have afforded will give little joy; but the
good we have done, the blessings we have bequeathed, the
widows we have made to sing for joy, and the orphans we
have clothed, and the impulse we have been the humble in



234           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
strument of giving to the cause of Christ, will awaken in our
hearts reminiscences that, while in no sense merit, will yet
mingle with the joys and be responded to by a welcome at
the very gates of glory. "I was in prison, and ye visited
me; I was hungry, and ye fed me; I was a stranger, and
ye took me in; I was naked, and ye clothed me;" and
another verse shall be added, " Inasmuch as ye did it to the
least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." " Come, ye
blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you
from the foundation of the world."
Use this world as not abusing it; in the beautiful words
of the Apostle, "Let them that weep, be as though they
wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced
not." Consecrate the world to divine ends; do not canonize
it, and make it an idol to worship. The distinction is
broad and palpable. You may consecrate your genius, your
learning, your spare time, but you must canonize nothing.
Everything you have should be made an anointed servant
of Christ; nothing that the world contains is fit to be an
idol or a god for the human heart to worship. Set your
affections on things that are above; these are weighty;
these endure for ever; these are beyond the tides and the
transformations of time; these cheer and comfort the heart
that looks upon them and dwells amongst them. Thus
looking up and thus living, the lights of time will grow dim
as the lights of eternity grow brighter; and the more you
have your heart in heaven, the less it will be injured by the
losses and the less it will be thrilled by the excitements of a
world, the fashion of which passeth away. Carry into all
life's duties a sense of God, a sense of true and living Christianity; and. if you do so, the church will see you far oftener
than the playhouse; the Bible will be read far more than
the drama.




LECTURE XVI.
THE SLEEPING CHURCH.
"They all slumbered and slept."-MATT. XXV. 5.
AFTER giving the prescription in the 24th chapter, "There.
fore be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not
the Son of man cometh;" our Lord illustrates it by this
most instructive parable. The portion of it which I select
for special meditation is, " All of them slumbered and slept."
Instead of watching-the duty enjoined in, the previous
chapter, and the duty which the parable is spoken to illustrate in this chapter-they all of them, mark you, Christian
and unchristian, the foolish five and the wise five, slumbered
and slept; five of them slept so soundly that they lost the
glorious and golden opportunity, and the other five only
awoke or were awakened with difficulty, and trimmed their
lamps, and, according to the custom of eastern marriages,
went out in the dark with their lamps burning, to accompany
the bridegroom to the festal scenes which were on such
occasions to take place. I will try here to illustrate the
nature of the sleep which these virgins slept. It is sinful,
perilous; and unless awakened from by some great interposition, it issues still in the sleep of death.
The Spirit not only enjoins watchfulness, but guards
against sleeping. "Let us not sleep as do others; they that




236            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
sleep sleep in the night."   Constantly we are warned
against sleeping, not with the eyelids, for that is nature;
but with the heart, the conscience, the intellect, for that
would be sin. There are three sorts of sleep spoken of in
the Bible: there is the sleep which nature needs,"Tired nature's soft restorer, balmy sleep,"
which is natural and necessary. If many of our stirring men
of business in the city slept a little more in that sense, and
woke a little less, they would not be less healthy and prosperous on that account. There is another sleep which the
Bible often speaks of; "They that sleep in Christ;" "Them
that sleep in Christ will he bring with him." This refers to
the dead dust that is laid aside in the grave, the wardrobe
of the earth, folded like a robe which the wearer, the soul,
has cast off, that disentangled it may ascend into heaven;
watched oveiy the sleepless eye of Him that slumbereth
sot nor sleepeth, until the roll of the resurrection trumpet
sends its vibrations through the homes of the living and the
graves of the dead, and that mortal robe put on immortality,
and that corruptible garment incorruptibility. There is,
lastly, the sleep here spoken of; that sleep which is fraught
with peril; that inner insensibility which ruined the five
foolish virgins, and from the opiate power of which the five
wise virgins were snatched as if by a miracle.  Sleep, the
figure employed, denotes the cessation from work. When a
man is asleep, and sleeps soundly and sweetly, the whole
body is at rest; but the mind is never at rest. If we could
recollect in the morning the dreams of the night, we should
find that while the body has been sleeping, the mind has
been a thousand miles away, either on the ocean's bosom, or




THE SLEEPING CHURCH.               237
visiting bright scenes, or holding converse with near and
dear, yet distant relatives. But the body does rest, at least
certain organs of it. While man rests the loom stands still,
the busy mill-wheel ceases to revolve upon its axis; as far as
he, the sleeper, is concerned the fields may remain uncultivated, and all work be completely suspended. When Christians sleep-I mean in the third and sinful sense of the word
-all missionary and aggressive energy has ceased, or is
completely withdrawn; the minister sleeps in the pulpit, the
hearer slumbers in the pew. Neither literally closes the eyes,
but the mind is off upon the wings of the wind into dreamland; and while the hearer seems to be thoroughly awake,
he is literally and truly asleep. As long as man is asleep
in that moral sense in which the word is employed here he
does no good, and he gets no good, and he cares for no good.
When people sleep they cease to feel an interest, in so far as
they do sleep, in the things that interest them day by day in
this present world. When one falls asleep, the senses all
retreat from the shores of the senses to which they rise, like
the rising tides in early morn, and they shelter themselves
in the caves, and bays, and quiet retreats of the inner man,
that by this withdrawal they may look forth again upon the
world freshened and strengthened, and fit for their work.
But during sleep you have no interest in and take no part in
that which occupies you during the day. A house may fall,
fires may blaze in the next street, an earthquake may rock
the building, and the floods may rise and overwhelm thousands; but you do not hear the crash, you do not see the
advancing waters; you feel no interest in these things,
because you are sound asleep. Whenever a Christian falls
asleep, he takes no interest in those things that ought to stir
the heart and absorb -he energies of a Christian man. Souls




238            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
may perish at his threshold; the ignorant may be unenlightened; the heathen may be unvisited; he cares as little
for them as they care for him. Scenes may transpire across
the very street in which he lives of moral dramatic interest
that heaven and hell are agitated by; but he is sound asleep,
and he feels no concern about the matter. Ever as you
find a person who takes no interest in the spread of religion,
who gives no guinea to a Bible Society, or Missionary
Society, or to a Ragged School, or to a school of any sort,
nor feels the least interest in the subject; if he be not a
Christian, he is simply dead; but if he be a Christian, he is
one of the five virgins that were wise in one sense, but suffered themselves to fall sound asleep when they ought to
have watched. When one is asleep there is a cessation, so
far as we can act, of personal safety. This is a beautiful
provision of God, a most beneficent one; that just in proportion as you feel no interest in others in consequence of your
being asleep, in the same-proportion there is no guarantee of
safety for yourself. When a man is asleep he is so unprotected that the assassin may approach him; fire may blaze
in the rafters of his house; the earthquake may level his
house to the ground; the sound sleeper enjoys his sleep as
if he had impunity from fire, and flood, and earthquake, and
lightning. Samson slept so sweetly that Delilah was enabled
to cut off his hair; and with the loss of his hair was the
departure of his strength. Sisera too slept so sweetly that a
nail was driven into his temple, and he slept the sleep of death.
A Christian falling asleep, in the moral sense of that
word, not only fails to take an interest in those subjects
already referred to; he also lays himself open to Satan, who,
like a ravenous lion, goes about seeking whom he may
devour; or to evil passions, that, like serpents, twine round




THE SLEEPING CHURCH.               239
his heart and sting him to the quick; or he falls so sound
asleep upon the pillow of a fancied security, that some great
moral catastrophe ends his sleep in that sleep from which
there is no awakening. The most useless life is the most
defenceless state. In sleep there is also waste and decay.
If a man were to sleep long enough, he would die of inanition. We do not eat and drink when we are asleep; we
simply rest. Apply this to sleeping Christians, to the virgins
that slept. They raise no cry for bread, "Evermore give us
this living bread;" they have no sense of hunger; they
utter no cry, "Give us this living water, that we may thirst
no more;" they do not feel the need of a Bible, a Saviour,
salvation; they are sound asleep, they feel no want, and
they offer no prayer, and if they sleep long enough, it will
end necessarily in the sleep of death. Such are the perils
of spiritual sleep, as illustrated and suggested by the very
expressive figure employed by our blessed Lord when he
says these virgins slumbered and slept.
What is the cause of this moral or spiritual sleep? The
first is either entertaining doctrines that are positively false,
or turning to a wrong account doctrines that are in themselves true. For instance, if a man makes up his mind that
it does not matter what one believes, of course he falls comfortably asleep; and feels no trouble at all about the subject of religion. If he believes that everybody will be
saved-good, bad, and indifferent-of course he falls soundly
asleep, and cares nothing about his soul. If, on the other
hand, he holds true doctrines, but perverts them; for
instance, if he believes in the doctrine of election, but
makes it a sort of reason why he should care for nothing,
and think about nothing, but be sure that if he is to be
saved he will be saved, and if he is to be lost he will be




240            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
lost; he feels no anxiety on the subject; he Las got a view
of election that enables him to fall asleep. Thus the belief
of false doctrines, or the misapprehension of doctrines that
are positively true, may lead to that sleep from which there
is no awakening. A second cause of this sleepiness is taking
too great and absorbing an interest in any of the pursuits or
things of this world. Our danger lies less in crossing the
line which forms the margin of forbidden things, and more
in being absorbed altogether in things most lawful, but in
their excess provocative of a sleep from which we may never
be aroused. The things of the world, be it science, or literature, or music; be it any of those amusements, enjoyments, and employments which in themselves are intrinsically
right, prosecuted to excess create this stupor in reference to
religious things. Every one knows that there is something
that he likes exceedingly; and that if he were to give
license to his liking it would become a consuming and exclusive passion. Whatever one allows to dominate within, the
danger is, that that will carry us away, and involve us
in sleep, or stupor, in reference to eternal things. There is
another reason: too much worldly prosperity. I really pity
that man who is so rich that he has not to work, and so
prosperous that all things seem to favour him, and no cross
winds ever touch him; I pity him from the heart, for the inevitable tendency is to send him sound asleep in reference to
God, a judgment-seat, and an eternity to come. Not only
does outward prosperity cause this sleep, but even health has
this tendency. Who are the most spiritually-minded men I
Generally speaking, those who have had the greatest losses
and crosses, whose estates have been taken from  them,
whose wealth has taken wings, who have drunk deep of the
cup of sickness and suffering.




THE SLEEPING CEURCH.               241
Let me mention some dissuasives from sleeping. You are
redeemed with precious blood. How can a man cease to
feel who accepts that grand fact, and feels its infinite value?
Every picture of a Christian in the Bible is that of a racer.
Will the racer win the race if he fall asleep on the course?
Will the soldier gain the victory who falls asleep in the
ranks? Is it possible that the wrestler will succeed, who
becomes the victim of stupor and insensibility? Awake,
says God, thou that sleepest, and Christ will give thee life.
Another reason why you should not sleep is that which
these virgins forgot, namely, "The Bridegroom  cometh."
Does a bride sleep when the bridegroom comes to meet her
in the sanctuary? If Christians be, according to that beautiful figure, the bride, as they are, " The bride hath made
herself ready;" and if Christ, the Bridegroom, comes from
heaven; and the very figure, a bridegroom coming to his
bride, should not occasion terror, but the very reverse; if
then, "Behold the Bridegroom cometh," be the cry, if the
signs of nature intimate it, if the convulsions of the nations
foreshow it, if men's hearts failing them  for fear of the
things that are coming on all parts of the earth show it;
surely, surely, the cry, "The Bridegroom cometh," is a reason why we should not only not sleep, but why we should
be found where we should like him to find us. Some of
you perhaps go to theatres. I do not here pronounce upon
the subject. Is the theatre the place where you would like
to meet death, or Christ the Bridegroom to find you? Were
the Lord to come, would you like him to find you in the
theatre, or in that I suppose sister institution the opera, admiring some accomplished artiste, fascinated by some grand
music, charmed by some beautiful danseuse? Your presence
may not be crime, it may not be sin; I do not here feel it
11




242           THE GREAT TRIBTULAION.
necessary to pronounce. But somehow I fancy I-should not
like to be found in the theatre or in the opera-house when
the Bridegroom comes. One day that Bridegroom will
come; and if he do not come, death will come. If I were
a member of parliament, I should be very willing to be
found on my legs advocating the cause of my country and
the good of human-kind; or if I were a tradesman, I should
not fear to be found behind the counter selling the best
goods at an honest price to every customer; if I were a
sailor, I should be quite happy to be found fulfilling my
duties on the deck; if a soldier on the field of battle, awful
as that is;-each of these would be the post of duty.
Wherever duty carries me, wherever I am engaged in a
lawful exercise, or enjoyment if you will, there I should not
object to be found when the Bridegroom cometh. But
there ire places-it may be my ignorance-it may be my
peculiar taste —somehow where I must say I should not like
to be found, when the cry, startling and impressive, shall
ring from heaven and descend to earth, and open every
grave, and summon the living and the dead before the great
white throne, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh."




LECTURE XVIL
READY.
In the prospect of the things coming on the earth the
Redeemer says,'Be ye also ready; for in such an hour as ye think not the
Son of man cometh."-MATTHEw xxiv. 44.
rTa subject before us is the speed and suddenness of the
Saviour's second advent. Why are men so reluctant to
believe the possibility of the fulfilment of the words  "In
such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh;" no
one can say with absolute certainty when; but every one
this day may be as he is commanded, "ready."  Why do
so many evade or ignore the Saviour's words? It is the
excessive love of the world in their hearts. The heart of
one is in his bank; the heart of another is in his home; a
mother may make idols of her children; a merchant may
make a god of his gold, a sanctuary of his bank, a bible of
his cheque-book. Another heart is in the world's pleasures;
in the opera, the play-house; and without discussing arguments, objections, and allegations, I ask, as in my previous
lecture, would you like to die at the opera? would you like
to be found there when Christ comes 8 I do not here condemn the one or the other; I leave the subject simply as a




244            THE GREAT TRIBULATiON.o
matter of feeling. Alas! all our hearts are imbedded too
deeply in the world. The heart may be in the world of
literature, or in politics, it may be in science, or in eating
and drinking, in marrying and giving in marriage, in grinding at the mill or in labouring in the field; it matters not
what the thing is, if it so absorbs our thoughts and so concentrates and fixes our sympathies that we cannot look
intensely above, or look wistfully forward, or for one moment
leave the thick atmosphere which we have chosen so ceaselessly and so excessively to breathe. The reason then why
so many are not ready is just this; that they are absorbed
in the world's thick clay, their hearts are weighed down by
its pressure; and so much are they in it and of it that they
send up no shooting thoughts to the sky; they have no
room within for Christ, no time to spare for prayer, no moments in their closet they can consecrate to reading the
sacred volume, and meditating upon the things that pertain
to their everlasting peace; their whole inquiry in the morning is, "What shall I eat?" and their whole question in the
evening is, " Where shall we get gain and spend next day."
They are so utterly taken up with the things of this world,
that for all practical purposes it is the same to them as if
there were no God, no such thing as an eternity, no judgment-seat, no Saviour soon to burst on the world with the
speed and the splendour of a lightning-flash, and in an hour
when men think not. Such cannot be said to be in any
sense ready for the coming of our blessed Lord as admit the
truth of all this, but procrastinate what they admit to be a
duty from to-day till to-morrow. There are few who do not
admit the importance of religion, and the duty of being
ready for so startling an event as the coming of the Son of
man; and they mean to be ready; but they wish first to




READY.                 - 245
settle this little law-suit, and to get over that diffi ulty about
which he is so much troubled; and settle that other matter;
or they want to have another month at the opera, or at the
play-house; they wish to have a little more of the world,
its enjoyments, its honours, its dignities; and then they
mean to make ready for the coming of the Lord. All this
is pure delusion. God's command is, "Be ye ready;" if
obedience be duty, it lies in the present. All duties are in
the present, never in the future. If it be duty, it is now
your duty. But if God says, "Be ye ready to-day;" and
you practically answer, "I mean to be ready to-morrow;"
disguise it as you like, that is saying to God, I will not.
But have you instances in the Bible that are at all encouraging in this your idea? Take the case of Felix; he put off
a solemn duty to a convenient season; but there is no record
that the convenient season ever came. By a law, and a
most solemn and a grave law it is, he that procrastinates today will more easily procrastinate to-morrow; till standing
on the very brink of the grave he will procrastinate and
procrastinate still. "Be ye ready" belongs to " now, the
accepted time;" and your adjourning the duty is simply
refusing obedience to the commandment of God.
Let me make the subject plainer, by answering the question, first, what we are to be ready for, and secondly, why
we are to be ready.
What are we then to be ready for-? To be ready to leave
all that is about us and all that belongs to us, however
cherished, or deeply beloved, when Christ shall say from
heaven, " Come up higher."  I do not ask you to fling away
your wealth, or to give up one innocent enjoyment; I do
not ask you to leave your duties, or to renounce your business, or to go into a convent, or mechanically to separate




246           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
from a world from which moral separation alone is a duty,
but I do ask you to hold all the wealth that you have so
loosely that you can without a very severe struggle let it go
when the time comes for this action; and to hold all your
nearest and dearest relationships upon earth so subordinate
to the grand relationship, that eternity will perpetuate and
seal what is in you when the Elder Brother comes, and you
will be able to leave father, and mother, and sister, and
brother, and home, and children, and to count them all but
loss in comparison of the glory and the excellency of Him
who cometh in an hour when men think not. In other
words, it is to be ready to leave this world with all its cares,
its troubles, and anxieties, for a better. Is there in this
world very much to attract you? Have not some of its
brightest spots in the past become disenchanted of much of
their beauty by the loss of those whose presence made them
so lovely? Is there a fireside that hath not a vacant chair?
Is there a flock or family in which there is not one dead
lamb? Can you take a retrospect of the past, and not see
much that reminds you, this world neither is nor is fitted to
be the rest of the people of God? Should we not, therefore,
sit to it so loosely, and be mixed up with it so lightly, that
when the message comes from the skies, borne by Him who
comes in an hour when we expect Him not, "Come up
here," you shall be ready, not reluctantly but gladly, to say,
"Blessed Lord, we come, we come."  But to be ready is
more than this; it is also to be willing to be rid of many
things that we now long to be rid of, of many things that
now burden us, and that every Christian more or less feebly
desires to be rid of. There is the burden of sin that weighs
so heavy on the conscience; there is the burden of sorrow
that lies like a cold shadow upon the heart; there is the




aEADY.                    24)
burden of sickness that sinks many an aged or frail frame to
the earth; there is the burden of appetites, desires, and passions, of which we are all more or less conscious; there is
the burden of disquiet, discontent, dissatisfaction, and yearning for something better, -brighter, nobler, than we have
tasted yet. Are we not only ready to be rid of this, but do
we now cry, "0 Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of
the world, take away its burdens also, we beseech thee." It
is, also, to be ready to stand at the judgment-seat of Christ.
It is not only to be ready to leave this world by having a
loose and light hold of it; it is not only to be willing and
anxious to be disburdened of much that crushes us to the
earth; but it is also to be ready to stand at the judgmentseat of Christ. "We must all appear at the judgment-seat
of Christ." Now how do you expect to appear? What
will be your answer when you stand before the great white
throne, and when you are asked why sentence of endless
exile should not be pronounced upon you?.Have you the
answer in the depths of your heart, on your tongue and on
your lips, ever ready to be uttered the instant it is inquired
for, "He that knew no sin became sin for me, and bare its
curse, and therefore I ought not to bear it; He stood in my
stead, obeyed the law for me, fulfilled all righteousness, and
deserved heaven as my Elder Brother; and therefore I am
entitled to it." That answer is conclusive and complete;
and were you the worst and the wickedest of criminals, if in
the hour of death and at the day of judgment you can plead
that glorious sacrifice, that perfect righteousness, let the
hour be when you think not and where you think not, all is
well with you; the bride hath made herself ready, you are
prepared for the kingdom of heaven. Be ye then ready; as
a ship is ready to set sail-her canvas in order, her tackling




248           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
right, every sailor at his post —ready as an eagle to stretch
her wings and soar to her eyry; ready to depart like the
venerable Simeon of old, having seen God's salvation.
What is the reason why we should be ready; what necessity is there for being ready? First, it is Christ's command;
surely that is enough. What he commands is duty; instant
duty; the highest and the most obligatory duty. If He had
not given the reason, it is enough that He has given the command; and as Christians grow in grace the more simply they
accept Christ's command, and the less they inquire the reason why. And He, in the next place, who commands us to
be ready, is also competent to say what that readiness consists in. If, therefore, I am commanded to be ready, I open
the book that contains the words of Him who commands
me, in order to understand what that readiness is. It is not
what we think, nor what the minister prescribes, nor what
custom says; but what Christ has inspired in his own holy
word. Here then is the explanation of it. " What must I
do to be saved?" that is, " How shall I be ready?" The
answer is, "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou
shalt be saved."  "He that believeth on the Son of God
hath life; he that believeth not shall not see life, but the wrath
of God abideth on him." "This is life eternal; to know
thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast
sent." This is readiness; it is to be found in Christ, not
having our own righteousness, "but his."  The whole system of the Gospel is a remedial economy. The church is
not a home for the perfect, but a dispensary for the sick;
the words of the Bible are not laws for the strong, but prescriptions for the feeble and the dying; and hence in the
Bible we are oftener told how to be healed, and so made
happy and healthy, than commanded to do this or do that,




READY.                    249
to avoid this or to avoid that. We are patients in a vast
hospital-invalids, seeking to recover strength,, in the sunshine and the sweet air of heaven. But let me add, He who
thus commands us to be ready, and who has power to say
wherein readiness consists, has promised to make us ready.
"He works within us," we are told, "' both to will and to do
of his good pleasure."  We are saved by grace. Salvation
is not something we give to God, but something God gives to
us; not something we do for Him, but something He has done
for us. He creates within us the hunger that He satisfies,
the thirst that He removes, the yearning that He answers;
for He is the author first and the finisher next of our faith.
One of the processes that He employs for making Christians
meet for being transplanted from this world to the next,
when the Saviour comes at the great transplanting hour, is
affliction.  The wind that shakes the oak and loosens its
roots, when it is to be transplanted into a better soil and a
balmier air, is a beneficent though a bitter one. The affliction
that weans us from the world, that wins us to a better; the
gap made to-day in our home and filled to-morrow with
Christ, is meant to lead us to look and long for that blessed
home in which there will be no gaps; every furnace in
which we are placed detaches merely the alloy, that the fine
gold may come out purer, and brighter, and more beautiful.
Let us try to answer briefly the question, why is it so important to be ready I We are going on an errand such as
we never went on before; and what is that errand. It is
to see the Son of God. We now see Him by faith; we
shall then see Him as He is. And when He comes at that
day, all the splendour of the lightning, all the brilliancy of
the noonday sun, all the brightness of the stars, all the glory
11'




250           TTHE GREAT TRIBULATION.
of the firmament, shall be merged in his brightness as rain.
drops are lost in the ocean, as the glow-worm's light is obscured by the noonday sun. We shall see such a sight as
we never saw before. If one prepares for the visit of an
earthly sovereign, or makes ready to appear in her royal
court, is it not reasonable that we should make ready for an
interview the grandest, most solemn, and overwhelming that
eye ever saw? It will be no trivial meeting, no gala day,
no mere splendid procession; but an interview with Him
whom having not seen we love, and in whom, though now
we see Him not, yet believing we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Such readiness will not interfere
with the duties of this world. Did you ever meet with a
man who could say honestly from the heart that his religion
interfered with his duties to his sovereign, his master, or his
home, his business, or his country? If a man ever said so,
he either deceived you or he deceived himself; he who
makes religion a pretext for neglecting the duties that he
owes to his superiors is either a hypocrite or a fool. If a
person were to tell me, I was bound to be at my house
of business at such an hour, but I was so busy distributing
tracts that I was two hours behind; I would at once tell
him, The tracts you ought to leave to others to distribute
who have the time to spare; you have no right to rob your
employer of his time, under the plea and pretext of promoting the kingdom of God. Nothing upon earth, however
sacred, can justify the violation of the plain and obvious
duties that we owe as servants to masters, employed to those
that are our employers; and therefore the deeper your
Christian feeling, the more entire your readiness for heaven;
and the more you have your heart where Christ is, you will
not be the less dutiful, obedi'- + qnd laborious, in the sphere




READY.                    251
in which God by his providence has placed you. On the
contrary, men will say, Christianity makes the noblest servants of God, the most honest and industrious servants of
man; and shows that it is a pure, an ennobling, and an elevating, and an inspiring power, not only for the world that
is to come, but for the world that now is.
And at that day, clad in a Saviour's righteousness,
washed in a Saviour's blood, resting on Him as your hope,
anchored to Him as the great rest amid the storms and
tempests of this present world; whenever He shall come,
wherever He may find you; if you are what his grace can
make you, ready, justified, adopted, sanctified, believing,
hoping, loving, living; then, as you shall stand on the margin of the everlasting rest and at the gates of glory, not an
angel will dare to exclude you, not a saint that has preceded
you will dare to find fault, not an attribute of God will oppose you; on the contrary, all heaven will ring with the
joyous shout, " Open the everlasting gates; let Christ, the
King of glory, and these his attendants enter." And when
some one shall ask, "Who are these that are clad in white
robes, and whence came they?" the answer given will be,
"These are they who have washed their robes and made
them white in the blood of the Lamb; therefore are they
before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night
without ceasing."




LECTURE XVIIL
COME YE BLESSED.
Here is presented a scene of unparalleled magnificence
and interest. The court is the universe; the sentenced are
immortal men; Christ is the judge, and two eternities the
issues.
" When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the
holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of
his glory: and before him shall be gathered all nations 
and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd
divideth his sheep from the goats," &C.-MATTHEW XXV.
31-40.
THIS solemn scene is only the historic fulfilment of what is
given as prophecy in the prophet Daniel; when he tells us
in chapter vii. 13, "I saw in the night visions, and, behold,
one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven,
and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him
near before him. And there was given him dominion, and
glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting
dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that
which shall not be destroyed." This same Son of man,
thus predicted by the prophet, thus proclaimed by the evangelist, is none else than He-oh, marvellous change-who




COME YE BLESSED.               253
sat upon the well of Jacob, and conversed with the woman
of Samaria; who walked the streets of Jerusalem; who
hung over it, and wept tears that were the awful premonitory tokens of its approaching doom; who was despised and
rejected of men; who was emphatically a man of sorrows.
What will the sceptic' say, what will the philosopher feel,
when He they despised, and mocked, and scorned, and
scoffed at, shall appear the throned King, the arbiter of
inexhaustible destinies; whose word shall fix for ever, an
eternity of woe that flesh and blood will never exhaust, or a
destiny of glory and of beauty which eye hath not seen, and
man's heart hath not conceived.
When this great scene shall appear; this closing act of
the stirring drama of time; when that last act in that dread
drama shall arrive, we are often tempted to ask where will
the scene of its manifestation be? It will be on that very
earth, on which a cross stood, that a great white throne
shall also be raised; and on that very place, in all probability, where the Saviour cried, in words so instinct with
sympathy and compassion that after ages have not yet
adequately entertained and felt them, " 0, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thee as a hen
gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not;"
there, in all probability, where they mocked, and despised,
and scorned Him, will He appear throned in majesty, cherubim and seraphim standing before Him ready to execute his
behests. Pilate, at whose bar He stood, shall stand at that
bar; and Scribe and Pharisee, that cried in scorn, "He
saved others, and himself he cannot save," shall then see
that the Saviour is now the Judge; and every eye shall see
Him, and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn; and what
an awful fact! thousands of millions will pray, shedding




254           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
tears of blood, that the very rocks would crush them, and
the everlasting hills would bury them, if only it would con
ceal them from the reality of what is the most awful expression in God's word, " the wrath of the Lamb."
There is added here, as if to fill up the grand picture,
"All his holy angels shall be with him."  What a magnificent scene will that be! Earth itself shall be the gigantic
amphitheatre, tier rising above tier; each seeing, what none
can escape, the spectacle of the Great Judge upon the great
white throne. Before Him shall be angels innumerable,
bowing like white statues in their stillness as they listen
waiting to execute his least or his mightiest behests. And
before Him shall be archangel and angel, ready to move
east, west, north, south, as the great thought-bearers and
missive-bearers of the Son of God. The angels, that chanted
his birth over that lowly manger, shall be present in the
glory of his second advent; the angels that ministered to
Him in Gethsemane, when He sweated great drops of blood,
shall be there to grace the pomp and splendour of his retinue: " mighty angels," in the words of Paul, " innumerable
angels," in the words of John; in the Apocalypse, ten
thousand times ten thousand and thousands of angels,
admiring the magnificence of the scene; wondering, as they
have done for eighteen hundred years, that one who is the
King of glory should ever have been such a sufferer; and
wondering still more that human nature could have ever in
one instance been so sunk, so wicked, and so ruined, that it
rejected and despised Him, and would have none of Him.
Another touch in this great picture is, " He shall sit upon
the throne of his glory." Now He sits upon the throne of
his grace; now the worst are welcome to Him (and here
are the riches of the Gospel); there is no sin so heinous that




COME YE BLESSED.               255
there is no atoning blood equal to wash it all away; theie
is no sinner so old or inveterate in his wickedness that there
is not for him this day complete and perfect forgiveness.
This day He cries from a throne of grace, " Spare that barren fig-tree only for another year." But when He shall sit
upon the throne of his glory all is changed. Then the awful
words, scarcely felt when uttered from the pulpit, shall ring
with piercing reverberations in the depths of every lost sinner's conscience, " The harvest is past, the summer is ended,
and we are not saved; and there remaineth but a terrible
looking for of judgment, and fiery indignation, which shall
consume the enemy." At that day a lost spirit would give
all that Australia contains for one hour of the privileges we
now enjoy; grace is then merged in glory, probation is gone
into judgment; and the throne of grace, to which all are
welcome now, will be the throne of judgment to which
many will be driven then. Oh, happy, happy are they who
now love, believe in, and live to, and for Him, who is the
Prince of the kings of the earth, the mighty Saviour, the
perfect and precious sacrifice.
"- And before him shall be gathered all nations."' Some
students and interpreters of prophecy, who take extreme
and untenable views, think that the judgment here is only
to be upon the heathen and the gentiles; and that the "all
nations," that no doubt may be translated " all the gentiles,"
denotes only the heathen that never heard of Christ. They
argue, how could a Christian say, "When saw we thee
hungry? when saw we thee naked?" when every Christian
is taught that what he does in Christ's name will be received
as done to and for Christ himself? They think that those
that are thus spoken to are heathen, that never heard the
Gospel, but to whom in some way the grace of the Gospel




256           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
has been applied. I dare not say so. At the same time, 1
never would assert that all the heathen will be lost. I feel
that there is no salvation but in Christ, yet God may, by
ways inscrutable to us, so reveal that name to many a
heathen that he shall be saved in it, and by it, even when
he has never heard it; but this is mere conjecture; our
duty remains obligatory and plain, " Go, and preach the
Gospel to every creature."  It seems to me, that the "all
nations" here does not mean the pagans, or even, exclusively,
the gentiles. Refer back to the first commission, and what
do we find? "Go, and teach all nations;" or, as another
evangelist, Mark, gives it, "Go, and preach the Gospel to
every creature;" or, as it is given by St. Luke, "That
repentance, and remission of sins, should be preached in
his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem;"
showing here that Jerusalem is the first of the nations; and,
therefore, that all nations which are gathered before the
dread judgment tribunal does not mean exclusively gentiles,
still less pagans; but the same "all nations" to whom He
told them to preach the Gospel, the same "all nations,"
whose beginning was at Jerusalem; and, finally, the same
"all nations" of whom he speaks in this very chapter,
"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the
world for a witness unto all nations, and then shall the end
come."
I, therefore, take " all nations" to mean Jew and Gentile,
converted and unconverted, civilized and savage. What a
gathering will be there! what a sublime congregation shall
be assembled there! the king and the beggar, the prince
and the peasant, the rich and the poor; and not one of them
able to carry to the judgment-seat aught save his responsibility and immortality. The robes of priests, the purple of




COME YE BLESSED.              257
kings, the wealth of the richest, the honours and dignities of
the greatest, are such trash that they must all lay them down
upon this side of the grave; and from the mightiest sovereign of the mightiest empire upon earth down to the meanest serf or subject in that empire, all shall appear, with nothing
but the recollection of what they have done, the deep, and in
many cases withering, sense of what they are; and in the
hearts of many that awful looking for of judgment and foreboding of fiery indignation, which shall consume the adversary.
That great trumpet voice shall be heard. Whether this be
literal or not, we gather that some loud and piercing'sound
shall one still night, when men think not, break upon the
agitated air; and the instant its reverberations ring through
the homes of the living, and the habitations of the dead, the
green turf will heave under some mysterious force beneath
it; and marble monuments will crack; and the ocean itself
will fling up its long sepulchred dead; and the Pharaohs will
come forth from their stony pyramids, and great men, and
celebrated men, from their resting-places in abbeys and cathedrals, under ancient brasses and monuments of bronze; and
brushing off the last traces of the dark and solitary sepulchre, they will look up and see thousands startled by the
terrible spectacle —Him whom they pierced, once crucified,
crowned now the Lord and King of all.
When they shall gather round Him a mighty multitude,
in that valley of decision, " He shall separate them one from
another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats."
One word, the word that made all those shining stars,-that
mighty host in the sky, the mere sentinels and outposts
of which we see upon the plains of infinitude-that made the
earth, and clothed it with all its beauty; shall cleave like a
sharp two-edged sword through the innumerable masses that




258            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
are gathered round the white throne, and shall split the
whole into one eternally separated twain; so that at that
day there shall be seen, and felt to be, but two great groups;
sinners by nature, and left so, rushing like an awful torrent
into that sea of wrath which has no bottom, and no shore;
and saints by grace, ascending to that panorama of beauty,
and of glory, and of blessedness, which has no horizon and
no end. On which side shall we be? I am not sketching
a dramatic picture, or reading a piece of poetry from Milton's'Paradise Lost,' I am  telling, in the simplest and
severest words, words that sink utterly beneath the vastness
of the theme, that great and solemn ordeal through which
we must pass. All distinctions of church, chapel, system,
caste, colour, complexion, wealth, poverty, greatness, or
meanness, are gone; and felt to be, what God grant we may
see and feel them more to be now, fugitive, evanescent,.superficial. There are only two questions of infinite moment; are we sinners, as Adam left us, or saints, as the
second Adam has made us? If this question were unanswerable, I should shrink from stating it; if any were now
not welcome, I should dread to speak of it; if hell were an
inevitable necessity, I should scarcely refer to it; but when
I know that the glory of the dispensation in which we are is
this, that there is for all, without exception, an open heaven,
and an eternal home, and a way to it; and that if any perish
they perish suicides; when I state this, I can afford to speak
of the state of the lost in terms not equal to, but approaching
to the occasion; for it is our own fault, and our own fault
only, if we perish. There is no decree, or curse, or predestination, crushing any man to hell against his will. If there
were, I should pity but not blame; I should not trouble any
with the terrible and inevitable prospect before it occurs,




COME YE BLESSED.               259
But it is because there is instant forgiveness for every human
being, if he will only accept of it, that I can talk of a heaven
so beautiful, and speak of a ruin so terrible.
When this great division shall have taken place, Jesus will
set His own upon His right hand; a shelter, a sequestered
refuge, a sunny scene, into which no storm can penetrate,
no flame rise, no avenger enter. To that blessed group
upon his right He will say, " Come," "Come."  This-is the
olden sound. "Come unto me, all ye that are weary."
"Him  that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out."
This is the olden sound that we heard in the chimes of
Sabbath bells, in sermons, from the lips of missionaries, at
communion tables, in the Bible; "Come unto me and I will
give you rest." Now it is, "Come, ye sad;" then it will be,
"Come, ye rejoicing." Now it is, A" Come, ye poor;" then it
will be, " Come, ye unspeakably rich."  Now it is, " Come,
ye soldiers of the cross, with the weapons of warfare in your
hands;" then it will be, " Come, ye conquerors of Emmanuel,
with palms of victory, the evidence that you have conquered."  Now it is, "Come, ye martyrs from your beds of
sufferings;" then it will be, "Come, ye martyrs, put on your
coronation robes, make ready for the bridal of the Lamb.
Now is honour, and glory, and salvation to our God and to
his Christ." Come, ye Rachels weeping for your children,
who will not be comforted; come, and weep no more.
Come, ye sorrowful and mourning ones, whose nearest, and
dearest, and best beloved have been struck down in India,
or in the Crimea, by Delhi, or Sebastopol, and left on your
home one dark shadow, a shadow the more terrible that it
is not only on your fireside, but on your hearts. Come,
and meet, and mingle with, and recognize-for recognition
is as certain as immortality and responsibility-those sep.




260           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
rated for a season, now to part with them no more. Come,
Adam and Eve, from your graves beneath the shadow of the
walls of Paradise; come, Abraham and Sarah, from your
cave of burial under the oaks of Mamre. Come, Paul and
Peter, from your resting-places, not where tradition has laid
you, but where I have stored and kept your consecrated
dust. Come, Knox, who never feared the face of clay;
come, Luther, from your lonely grave in Wittemberg Cathedral; come, Melancthon, and Calvin also; come, all ye that
have faithfully lived, however obscurely; and all ye that
have died in Me, wheresoever, and in whatsoever state in
reference to this world; come, Baxter, and Howe, and Ridley, and Latimer, and Cranmer; come, Chalmers, from thy
resting-place in Edinburgh; and come, Edward Irving, your
errors renounced, your sins forgiven, from beneath Glasgow's
magnificent cathedral; come, and inherit the kingdom, the
oldest and the youngest, prepared for you from the foundation of the world. When they come, what will they enter
on? Not something untried, untasted, and unknown; it
will be the perpetuation of what they have enjoyed upon
earth; for what is the happy state of the saved? The culmination of a glory commenced in grace. What is heaven?
The flower of grace. What is the happiness of the blessed?
Happiness without mixture, or alloy of any sort or kind.
There will be change of place, but not change of direction;
they will receive ih heaven not another, but a wider horizon.
" Come;" that is, advance still; "he that is just, let him be
just still."  What is their character? "Come ye blessed
of my Father." You may have been cursed by popes,
cursed by councils, as all the great reformers were; you
may have been cursed by the wicked, cursed by the ungodly;
but what does that matter? The man that is blessed of




COME YE BLESSED.               261
God can afford to smile at, and pity men that cui se him.
Did you not often think, ye blessed of my Father, that God
had cursed you, or forgotten, or forsaken you? But what
you thought cursings were simply disguised blessings; the
afflictions that fell upon you almost like bolts from heaven
no sooner touched you than they were transmuted into infinite and endless mercies. The cloud that casts its cold and
its freezing shadow over your home broke into innumerable
blessings. Those things that pained you when they touched
your flesh no sooner approached the chancel of the soul, the
immortal spirit, than they became the very soil on which
character grew up, and ripened into happiness and heaven.
There is not a line of suffering visible upon your road that
has not had parallel with it a line of glory, of happiness,
and joy. When you thought you were'cursed, you were
really blessed; what you dreamt in your ignorance were
calamities were the very credentials of the people of God;
and if God had not so dealt with you, you had never been
in that happy group to whom he speaks those thrilling
words, " Come, ye blessed." Do you see a mother with an
infant in her arms? The infant in its ignorance puts forth
its hands to touch the flame of the candle, as if it were a
bright and beautiful plaything. The mother draws back its
hand, or puts away the candle; much to the child's disappointment, but much to the child's happiness and comfort.
So God deals with children of a larger growth. We in our
ignorance would seize the flaming thing that would burn to
the quick; he in his compassion puts it away, and bids the
heart be still; and what you know not now he tells you you
shall know hereafter. Then, "Come, ye blessed of my
Father."  But for what?  Oh, beautiful! oh, magnificent
address, "Inherit!"  If he had said, "Receive," it would




262           THE GIREAT TRIBUIATION.
have looked as if it were something new, as if it were a gift
that has no connection with us, and we no connection with
it. If he had said,'" Come, and purchase," we should have
found, like the virgins that slept, that we had: neither oil nor
money wherewith to purchase. But he says, "Inherit."  A
son inherits the titles and the property of his father, not
because he is virtuous and good, but because he is the son.
Inheritance is relationship, is birthright; and the very
phrase, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit," shows
there is in us no desert, no right, no merit; it is because He
made us sons by his grace, by regenerating us by his Spirit;
" for to as many as received him, to them gave he power to
become the sons of God; and he hath sent into our hearts
the spirit of adoption, enabling us to say, Abba, Father;"
showing us, therefore, that as the first chime in the church
below is by grace, the anthem peal of the church:above will
still be by grace. Not one stone in paradise- regained on
which shall not be engraven that name which is above every
name; not one gem that shall flash its light, and find a place
in the diadem of the Prince of the kings of the earth that
has not his name on it; not one flower that shall not have
the Rose of Sharon for its perfume; not one song of which
the key note, the harmony, the end, and the burden shall
not be, "Unto him that loved us, and washed: us from our
sins in his own: blood, be glory, and honour, and thanksgiving, and praise."  Ye who are seeking to get to heaven
by your good deeds are on the wrong road altogether; ye
who are attempting to expiate your sins by your sufferings
are pursuing a disastrously mistaken process. There is no
way to heaven but one; and that way is the old beaten
way, Christ the way, the truth, and the life. There is in
the armies of our country, when encamped upon the field




COME YE BLESSED.               263
of battle, what is called the password; and if you had been
in the Crimea, and moving where all was suspicion, and all
was necessarily precaution, and knew not the password, you
would either have been seized as a spy, or shot as an enemy.
Christ's name is the password of the universe; the instant
that you mention it angels and archangels will bow before
the magnificent utterance, and all heaven shall bid the man
right welcome who can say, "I know in whom I have believed; and that he is able to keep what I have committed
to him against that day."  But you are to inherit what.
Some paltry spot, some little acre, some sequestered nook?
No. "Inherit the kingdom."  All the sacredness of priests
shall be yours, and all the dignity of kings; yours shall be
all the splendour of a throne without its cares; all the
beauty of a diadem without the aches in the head that
wears it; all the happiness, and more than the happiness
ever dreamed of on earth, and none of the alloy that
invariably mixes with the purest. When all the pomp and
splendour of terrestrial kingdoms shall have passed away
like a vision; when all the brightness of this world shall be
quenched, that empire shall only begin its expanding progress, its never retreating march, its ever widening circle;
your happiness and your horizon expanding with the years
of eternity, till men marvel that in this world of ours sin
ever had such a grasp as to dim the sheen, or dilute the
splendour, or diminish the attraction of things divine, unseen,
and eternal.
This kingdom, we are told, is "prepared for you."  Prepared by whom? Here is the answer, " I go to prepare a
place for you." Then every spot of it is prepared by the
hand that was nailed to the cross for us; it shall not be a
strange land, it will have a home-like aspect, a place where




264            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
the Elder Brother has long been its preoccupant for us,
And what gives it to many a truly home-like aspect is that
some of you have your children there, mothers, sisters, and
wives there, some the nearest and the dearest there, till this
world is becoming the foreigner's land, and yon world is
growing daily into all the beauty and the gentleness of a
happy home; "a kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." And oh! what a kingdom! Its soil
ever fresh with flowers, the very stars in its canopy the scriptures of the sky; all sounds harmony, all sights light; the
wide universe about you the temple whose builder and whose
maker is God.
It is the rest that remaineth for the people of God, in
which is the realization of their brightest hope, their grandest anticipation: the presence of God and of the Lamb.
Are you on your way to that kingdom?  Have you the
kingly spirit? Have you the priest-like character? Are
you pleading the only password? Are you blessed of the
Father with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places? How
worthless is posthumous fame! When one reads of statesmen, and poets, and painters, all hoping that after they are
dead they will be praised, what a miserable hope! It is like
wishing to have loaves upon one's tombstone, when one
sleeps in death beneath. But there is a posthumous renown
that will indeed be noble-one word uttered from the lips
of Jesus, " Come, ye blessed;" one " Inasmuch as ye did it
unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto
me," will sound sweeter than the shout of loyal millions.
There, are those everlasting gardens,
Where angels walk and seraphs are the wardens;
Where every flower, brought safe through death's dark portal,
Becomes immortal.




LECTURE XIX.
DEPART YE CURSED.
The other side of this picture presents a very awful scene
"Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart
from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
devil and his angels.  for I was an hungred, and ye gave
me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I
was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye
clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me
not. Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord,
when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or
naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto
thee.?  Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say
unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least
of these, ye did it not to me. And these shall go away
into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life
eternal."-MATTHEW xxv. 41-46.
AFTER our Lord's address to those upon his right hand,
" Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world;" he turns
round and addresses those upon his left, and pronounces the
only awful curse recorded in the Gospel. Evidently at this
point he lays aside the priestly office, leaves the altar and
12




266           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
ascends the throne, and as King of the universe, He pronounces righteous and inexhaustible retributions. His own
hear the olden voice, " Come, ye blessed," and continue that
ceaseless approximation to the infinitely distant centre, each
step a new ledge of happiness and joy; their happiness
growing as the years of eternity accumulate. To those on.
his left He addresses words of which we cannot but speak
with deep and awful solemnity; words desolating, withering, scathing, too terrible to be conceived,-too awful to be
trifled with, "Depart, ye cursed;" an inexhaustible centrifugal impulse, ever retreating from the fountain of all light,
and life, and joy, each step in Hte terrible descent aggravating their woe, and increasing their misery, and no step ever
touching the bottom of that unsounded sea of sorrow.
"Depart," and they depart for ever, and for ever, and for
ever. In his presence is fulness of joy, and the redeemed
are ever nearing and enjoying it; in his absence is fulness
of misery, and the lost in hell are ever drinking of it; the
guilty are ever seeking to be rid of recollection of God and
themselves; the righteous ever thirsting for God, and eve
gratified as they thirst, neither receiving a new direction
for what is the condition of God's people now? Ever coming
to Christ. What is the condition of those that are not
Christ's people f Ever departing from Him. What is the
great conflict of a worldly, thoughtless, ungodly man? To
get rid of God. He says in all his employments and all his
enjoyments, " Let not God's eye see me; let not God's presence be with me." It is one of the best tests we can apply
to any work we are engaged in, " Could I bear God here?'"
That.ledger that will not bear the inspection of God; that
counting-house that will not endure the look of God; that
transaction in business which you endeavour to hide or




DEPART YE CURSED.                 267
which you wish to hide from God; that deed, whatever it
may be to flesh and blood, which will not bear the searching eye of God; all this is evidence of wrong. It may be
the commencement of that worm that never dies, and of
that fire that is never quenched.
The character of those thus addressed is " cursed." There
is no condemnation to them that are in Christ. There is
nothing but condemnation to them that are out of Christ.
The law of old was, "Cursed is every one that continueth
not in all things that are written in the law." To the curse
of a broken law is added now the still more fearful curse of
a rejected, or a neglected Gospel. But the contrast here is
remarkable.  When lie speaks to the saved He says, "Ye
blessed of my Father." When he speaks to the lost, He
says, " Ye cursed," but not " of my Father."  In the case of
the one class their blessing is traced to its origin, God; in
that of the other, the curse is a retribution on character provoked by themselves. All of good that begins on earth and
culminates in glory is from God; all of pain, of sin, of tears
of sorrow, and of suffering, that are experienced on earth
and aggravated in hell are not from God. In life's sunny
places I see my Father; in life's dark and dreary places I
see my sin. Ever as I gaze on storm, earthquake, tribulation, bereavements, losses, and crosses, I see the evidences of
what sin has done; but ever as I gaze upon what is beautifil, and bright, and happy, and holy, I see pervading all,
giving tone, colouring, and shape to all, the loving kindness
and the grace of our Father. The curse is from sin; the
blessing is entirely from God. This distinction runs through
the whole of the New Testament Scripture. In the epistle
to the Romans we have a very remarkable illustration of it,
What if God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his




268            THE GREAT TRIBULATION
power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels
of wrath fitted to destruction;" " vessels of wrath fitted to
destruction;" but it is not said by whom. He adds in the
next verse, "And that he might make known the riches of
his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory." God is the author and the origin. If
one reads the Bible not in the light of creed, or confession
of faith, or of Calvin, or Arminius, but in the light of itself
only, he will see that all that is good is directly from God;
all that is evil is entirely and exclusively from the creature;
and whilst the glory of all that is good redounds to God, the
discredit and the dishonour of all that is evil rest with, and
upon the creature, and nowhere else. There is contrast, not
only between "blessed of my Father," and "cursed," but
also between "inherit a kingdom," and "depart into fire."
The two contrasting points are " a kingdom" and " fire;"
the one the glorious receptacle of the blessed; the other,
sin its fuel, sinners its sufferers, eternity its inexhaustible
length; the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his
angels. There is also contrast in " a kingdom prepared for
you," and " everlasting fire," (prepared not for you, but)
"' prepared for the devil and his angels." In other words,
God made not hell for any human being; it was never
meant for an immortal soul, it was never kindled by Deity
for the torture of any one of his creatures; and if any lost
spirit finds itself in hell, it sees it has forced itself into a
doom which God never meant for it. It is hell prepared for
fallen angels that kept not their first estate; for whom no
atoning blood was shed, for whom no Saviour died; pre.
pared for them because they were never to'be redeemed,
and not for man, who, awful recollection in the realms of
the lost, will feel the fire that is never quenched, the worm




DEPART YE CURSED.                269
that never dies, to be this most corroding recollection, God's
decree did not damn me; predestination did not damn me;
God's word did not damn me; I am a suicide self slain here,
because I would not go elsewhere. I can conceive no
thought more terrible than to know that we have rushed in
a direction the very opposite of what was opened to us;
rushed against remonstrances, against providential warnings,
against the calls of God's word, against the solemn testimony of his Gospel, and have perished. The lost in hell
will ever say, ever feel, "We did it all ourselves, and
nobody did it for us;" the saved in glory will ever feel and
ever sing, " We earned none of it; grace did it all, from the
first pulse of the new heart on earth, to the first beat of the
new heart in glory."
The awful record is added as the fulfilment of the curse,
"These shall go away into everlasting punishment."  What
a dead march will that be; what an awful funeral procession will start on its downward career from that great white
throne; what a wail and miserere from myriads! I wonder
if the saved will witness it. One cannot help thinking that
in such a case, as they behold the awful spectacle, tears will
be shed by the redeemed, as they touch the margin of the
better land.
It is so awful that any one of God's creatures should have
been so infatuated, so criminally opposed to the blessed Gospei, should have so rejected, despised, and neglected it, that
they have prepared for themselves so dreadful, so terrible a
doom. Is this awful doom a reality? It is. Are souls
lost? The answer of Scripture is, they are. Is there such
a thing as departure into everlasting hell?  The answer is,
"~These shall go away."  In the words of Robert Hall,
"W' hat, if it were possible to conceive such a thing,-what




.270          THE GREAT TRIBULATION.;will be the funeral obsequies of a lost soul? Would it bt
sufficient to cover the heavens with crape, or to clothe the
earth with mourning 8? or were the whole of nature to become animate and vocal, would it be possible for her to utter
a groan too deep, or a cry too piercing to express the magnitude of such a catastrophe?" And in the still more impressive words of one mightier than Robert Hall, " What
shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul?"
The sorrow of the lost will be something beyond all that
we can conceive. We need not a material fire to make the
sufferings of the lost terrible enough. All have felt incidentally the sense of remorse; it is one of the most excruciating feelings that the human heart can be pierced by.
Conceive that feeling intensified to an infinite degree; conceive that remorse to be not only for what you have done,
but for what you have lost, neglected, despised, and trodden
under foot. Conceive the society all around you to be
intensely and unspeakably polluted and evil; conceive all
the vile passions of the corrupt and diseased human heart,
crawling out like scorpions from their nests in all directions;
conceive over all the thick gloom of an impenetrable curse;
memory raking out of its embers every past wickedness,
and as its leaves are turned over in the light of that lurid
flame, revealing what conscience ever moans and grieves
over and rebukes. Add to the awful tragedy no hope for
ever and for ever of any deliverance; and I need not material fire to constitute a torture which it is best to be silent
on, for human words but mock, and human sensibilities
shrink when they attempt to depict and to delineate it.
This leads me, therefore, to the last subject-the duration of
such curse, or the eternity of future retribution, denled in




DEPART YE CURSED.                2'71
the most emphatic terms by some most able and argumentative writers; it is this: the horror of the prospect has appeared to flesh and blood so intensely awful that they have
tried to escape from the terrible foreboding, by showing that
the tortures of the lost are not only mitigated by hope, but
are transient in their nature, and eventually must terminate.
In other words, just as some preachers try to frighten people
into heaven by depicting the terrors of hell, which is not
the Gospel; these preachers are leading people into ruin by
showing that hell is not so terrible after all; and that if
you have, they would say, the misfortune to stumble into it
in your search after a holier and a happier place, you need
not be alarmed; the hour of deliverance from it will soon
be at hand. Now, it seems to me, if these preachers would
only show that the road to heaven is so plain that a wayfaring man cannot err therein; that the gates of glory are
so wide open that all, and thousands upon thousands more,
may enter; that'every voice from heaven and every cry
upon earth bids you welcome; and that your ruin can be
created by none in heaven, and in hell, and on earth, but by
yourself; if that be true, surely it is the profitable way to
show how easy it is to get to heaven, and how impossible it
is for any man to be lost who lays hold with all his heart
upon Christ, the hope set before him. But to show that the
theory advanced by these men is false, I refer you to Scripture itself. I feel no pleasure in showing it; my wish is to
believe that the torments of the lost are not eternal; that
hell is not so terrible; for I must say, it is the one difficulty
I have encountered in studying this holy book, that there
should be one spot in God's magnificent universe where
tears will be ceaselessly shed, where the wild and the piercing
wail of sorrow will rise disturbing the harmony of songs




272            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
that are perpetual; and where there shall be ceaseless
sinning, and therefore ceaseless suffering. I say, that is
just the thought that has always struck me as the most
difficult; and my wish would be to prove that our interpretation is not correct.
But I am a Protestant; the Bible is my rule of faith;
what I wish, what flesh and blood would like, or what is
most sentimental, or what is most delightful, are not the
determining elements of my creed; " to the law and to the
testimony," I must bow before that oracle. " Thus saith the
Lord" settles all difficulties and substantiates all truth.
Throughout the whole New Testament two distinct states
are constantly referred to. " Many shall come from the east
and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and
Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the
kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall
be weeping and gnashing of teeth." I read in another passage, "The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they
shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and
them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace
of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth." I
read again, "Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord; but cast
the unprofitable servant into outer darkness." Similar to
these words are, "Come, ye blessed;" and "Depart, ye
cursed." These two states constantly come out together;
the time that measures the duration of the one invariably
determines the duration of the other. If " everlasting," as
applied to the punishment of the lost, means a limited
period, I cannot see how you can escape the logical infer.
ence, that " everlasting," as applied to the case of the
blessed, must be limited also; the same word-nothing less
and nothing more-is attached to the one that is attached




DEPART YE CURSED.                 273
to the other; and you cannot pour cooling and refreshing
floods into the midst of the lost without emptying that glorious fountain from which the saved in heaven shall drink
ever-refreshing streams. If there be a limit in the duration
of the penalty of the lost, I cannot see how you can come
to the conclusion that there is no limit to the duration of
the happiness of the blessed. The same phraseology, the
same adjective, the same strong and expressive words, are
applied.  If possible, words of yet greater emphasis, denoting, if possible, intenser duration, are applied to the sufferings of the lost, than to the happiness of the blessed.
" Everlasting contempt;" " everlasting punishment;" " everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord;" " eternal
damnation;" "eternal fire;" "the blackness of darkness
for ever;" "the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for
ever and ever;" "unto ages of ages of ages."  The argument of those that take the opposite view is, that the word
"everlasting" is used occasionally in a limited sense. I
answer, it is. But be it observed, it is modified by the subject to which it is applied. We read of "the everlasting
hills;" that is the hills that last as long as the earth itself
lasts: they are not to be moved. But I take even that
application in its strict and literal sense, holding, as I do,
that the earth is never to be annihilated, but to be one of
the most beautiful orbs amid all the stars and constellations
of the universe; and that its hills and valleys shall never be
destroyed, or cease to be. The word "everlasting," as
applied, for instance, to the Mosaic covenant, is used in a
limited sense, but does that prove that it must always be
used in a limited sense?  If so, then " the everlasting God"
must mean a God that does not live for ever. If we find
that " everlasting " is employed in nine cases out of ten in
12*




*274            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
its strict sense, and that incidentally and by a figure it is
employed in a limited sense,-we do well, I think, to use it
and understand it as the spirit of God does, and not to make
the universal bow to the incidental, but the incidental rather
yield to the universal. But it has been thought by others
that the souls of the lost are to be annihilated; and that
ceaseless suffering is, not to be the conscious experience of
any sentient and immortal being. One might almost wish
that in such cases this could be so; but will the words warrant it?  What is the opposite of everlasting life?  The
answer is "Everlasting," not cessation of, "punishment."
But punishment implies consciousness of the infliction. And
besides, " everlasting life " in Scripture does not mean simply
an everlasting being, or the perpetuation of the present life;
but it means life on a loftier level, a higher, nobler, better
state of existence. The correlative of everlasting being
would be everlasting annihilation; but the proper correlative
of everlasting happiness is not annihilation, but everlasting
punishment.  The phrase, we allege, "everlasting punishment," denotes conscious, sentient feeling, and not cessation
to be; or what some allege, the annihilation of the soul, if
capable of annihilation, altogether.
But the argument employed by Professor Maurice and
others is, that this is inconsistent with the goodness of God;
that such punishment is inconsistent with, the goodness of God.
In the first place, we must recollect that God is not the Lucretian deity, all love, all goodness; but that he is holy, just,
faithful, true; and if the escape from such suffering should
be incompatible with his justice, it is in vain to plead that
such punishment conflicts with his goodness. We do not
know what may be incompatible with God's goodness. In
this land, the highest goodness is exhibited by the sovereign,




DEPART YE CURSED.                275
when a great criminal is visited with condign punishment;
and it may be an essential display of the highest goodness
of Deity that those who have rejected so great a Saviour
should be the recipients of so inexhaustible a curse. It has
been argued again that this everlasting punishment is contrary to the justice of God, in so far they say, as it is unjust
to inflict an everlasting punishment for an incidental and a
temporary evil. Does our experience justify or contradict
this? Do we not find in society, that one false step taken
at twenty, will project a shadow over a life that extends to
eighty? Do we not find in the providential government of
God, that one sin committed-it might be in thoughtlessness
-casts a destructive and a ruinous influence over all the
years of your life that follow? If it be unjust to inflict enduring punishment upon a whole lifetime of sin, and therefore it may militate against the justice of God, it must be
unjust to let a whole lifetime in this world suffer because of
one incidental offence against the law of God. But may it not
be thatthere is in sin something that we have never fathomed,
and do not yet know? If nothing short of the blood 9f incarnate God could expiate sin, must there not be in sin a virus
that we never can estimate, an intensity of evil of which we
have no adequate conception? Judging of the demerit of
sin by the stupendous interposition that was necessary to
deliver from it, there may be in sin that immensity of evil
that needs an eternity of suffering: not for its expiation, for
that is impossible, but to express the just and terrible retribution that necessarily belongs to so great an evil. Others
have argued in another way: is there not a hope in the rolling epochs of eternity to come, that the glorious Gospel will
be proclaimed, even in the regions of the damned; and that
one- word, "Come," will be heard there, after centuries have




27'6          THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
rolled away, and sufferings adequate to the offence, as they
suppose, have been endured? There is no intimation in the
whole Bible that any covenant rainbow shall spread itself
upon the concave that hangs over the lost; there is not one
whisper from Genesis to Revelation that the angel of the
everlasting Gospel, on his flight of mercy and beneficence,
shall ever preach to the damned one hope of mercy, one
prospect of forgiveness. If the Gospel will be preached to
the lost, what mean these words: " My Spirit will not strive
with man any more.?" What mean these words; " I must
work the work of him that sent me: the night cometh when
no man can work?" What mean these words: " What thy
hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might: for there is no
work nor device in the grave, whither thou art hasting?"
What do the words imply, " He that shall blaspheme against
the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness?" What is the
meaning of " He that despised Moses' law died under two or
three witnesses. Of how much sorer punishment, suppose
ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under foot
the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant,
wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing?" " We are
in them that perish," says the apostle, " the savour of death."
"If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner
and the ungodly appear?"  In fact, if a lost spirit can be
saved by the Gospel from hell, then what would follow?
That the Gospel must be preached with greater power, grace
must be bestowed in greater richness, on the lost in hell,
than ever was exhibited to those that were candidates for
heaven in the church upon earth.
But it has been said by others, that all suffering must
necessarily exhaust itself; and that therefore the sufferings
of the lost must come to an end. The illustration they




DEPART YE CURSED.                 277
would suggest is this: —a person commits a crime; he is
imprisoned, or banished for seven years; if he spend the
seven years in exile; he has suffered the penalty, and he
goes free. But suppose during the seven years he has committed worse crimes: then another seven years will be
added; the law requiring that ever as he sins, or commits
crime, ever will the punishment strike. It is so of'necessity
with the lost. They are ever suffering, because they are
ever sinning. Sin is cumulative in its nature, suffering cumulative, as the consequence of that sin. I can see no hint
that the Gospel will be preached to the lost; that annihilation will end the sorrows and the agonies of the condemned.
I can discover no hint that suffering is expiatory in any
sense. If any sufferings could expiate sin, the Son of God
had not died a sacrifice for our sins upon the cross. If the
sufferings of a creature would have been accepted as the
expiation of the creature's sins, God's truth is concerned in
this, for he has said, " The soul that sins shall die:" but the
soul that sins does not die for ever, and God thus proves
unfaithful to his threats; my confidence in his promises is
shaken, and I cannot be sure that the soul that believes
shall live for ever and ever. Unless, " Depart, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire," be a literal reality, I cannot see how,
" Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you,"
is a literal reality. If the first be a myth, an exaggerated
and alarming shout, the second can be nothing else; you
cannot do away with the certainty of a penal hell without
sweeping away with it the prospect of a paternal heaven;
the same words that describe the one, changing what ought
to be changed, describe the other. I must therefore conclude, that as heaven is an everlasting kingdom, hell is an
everlasting fire; as the one shall have no end, and endure




2'78          THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
no admission of sin, or sorrow, or tears; the other wil.
experience no end, and taste no admission of happiness,
hope, joy, or peace.
O tremendous scene!  A splendid palace sinking into
the consuming flame; a magnificent ship full sail sinking in
the all-devouring sea; the noblest cathedral struck by the
lightnings of heaven, and shivered into splinters; a whole
city engulphed by an earthquake; are feeble, feeble, feeble
illustrations of that last terrible catastrophe which ends
the reign of sin upon earth, and commences the sufferings
of them that have rejected the only Saviour.  But while I
state this, because God's word says it, let me again remind
all, hell is not for you; you cannot be driven there, you
may go there; you cannot be impelled there against your
wish, you go there willingly. What are you now living in?
Are you doing every day in your counting house, on the
Exchange, in Parliament, in your families, in the world, in
society, in the sanctuary, what your conscience tells you is
inexcusably criminal? You are paving your road to ruin.
Are you every day hesitating about the acceptance of that
Saviour as the only sacrifice for your sins, and trusting to
something else? You are on the downward course. But
if you can say from the heart, My whole trust for a judgment-seat is nothing I have done, nothing I have suffered,
nothing I have said; but only what Christ has suffered for
me, and done for me; and if you can say that with thousands of drawbacks, with the memory of many thoughts I
would unthink, many deeds I would undo, many words I
would recall; with much in my nature and experience
every day that is sinful, and wrong; yet I can say from the
very heart, that my struggles and efforts are against all that
is evil, and my prayers are daily offered that the Spirit of




DEPART YE CURSED.              279
God would make me conquer over all; and my conclusion
every night is this, my trust —" the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth from all sin; then fear not, you are on the road to
heaven; angels will welcome you; Christ gives you eternal
life; and He that has begun in your hearts the least work
of grace, oh magnificent hope! will not leave you till he
has consummated it in the mightiest and most lasting work
of glory.




LECTURE XX.
THE GLORY-FILLED EARTH.
The son of Jesse breathed his last prayer in these glorious
words,"Let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and
Amen."-PSALM lxxii. 19.
THIS is the prayer of David, the son of Jesse, in which he
prays that the whole earth,-no village, hamlet, capital,
country, continent, or island excluded, or exempt,-may be
filled with the glory of God-a glory that involves in its
bosom the highest happiness and the most lasting pleasures
to all.
Once this prayer was an impossibility. Adam could not
have prayed in Paradise, "Let the whole earth be filled
with thy glory;" for he must have praised his Maker that
the whole earth already was filled with his glory; he saw
it lying like a soft and shining atmosphere over all space;
every bush in that beautiful Eden burning like Horeb's
bush; every mountain glowing with the splendours without
the transience of Mount Tabor; and in all whispers of the
wind —in all chimes of the waves-in all murmuring of
brooks-and in the voice of God at early morn and dewy
eve he heard the most delicious music. On every acre and




THE GLORY-FILLED EARTH.              281
on every footpath of that beautiful and sequestered spot he
recognized the footprints and the trail of the glory of his
God and Father as he passed by. He praised him that the
earth was filled with his glory; he could not pray that that
might be which was already come. But since that day-I
appeal to the hearts that falter in their beating, to the eye,
the ear, and all the senses, to the annals of nations, to the
history of the world-a great deterioriation has passed upon
our earth; deep shadows are now mingled with its brightest
sun-streaks; and the lingering and flickering bits of sunshine alone remain to remind us what a beautiful Paradise
has passed away; yet presenting tokens and prophecies also
that a yet more beautiful Paradise is one day to dawn. In
our present experience there is scarce a line of glory upon
our world that a line of suffering or a shadow of sorrow does
not run parallel with.
Yet, fallen as our world is, one can see traces of what it once
was.  An architect visiting Jerusalem  guessed from  the
fragment of an arch what must have been the measure of
its span, and the resting-place of its piers. From seeing the
fragments of this ruined world, we may form a rude conjecture what a magnificent thing it once was; and even in its
darkest places one can notice many things that prove if it
hath fallen it is not utterly forsaken. Are there not some
days in the loveliest summers that seem rays of glory just
come forth from the gates of Paradise, to give us a transient
glimpse of a faded glory? Even in the deepest winters the
laurel, and the bay tree, and the holly, and the group of evergreens, seem to say, " We will not yield as others have; we
will keep the path open between the summer that has left
us and the summer that is to come, thus ministering to man's
heart hope in the deepest depth of nature's decay; and with




282           THE GREAT TRIBULATIoIN.
other vestiges leaving on the bosom of our world memorials
that if fallen it is not altogether forsaken. But the mere
natural glory that breaks upon our world in fragments is
shaded by the departure of that moral glory which once
overspread the whole heaven and earth as with the very presence of God. If in Adanm's day fil was harmony without,
it was only responsive to a deeper harmony within. If man
saw all the tokens of perfect peace above, around, and beneath, he appreciated and felt the peace the more because
of the perfect repose and quiet that was within. But since
the fall, these sombre shadows have covered up not only the
outer glory, but they have also projected themselves into
the very heart of man; and in his inmost soul he feels that
more has gone wrong with it than even with the world outside. He needs to pray, whether he looks within or without, with intenser fervour, O Lord, let the departed glory
return; let Ichabod be erased from the surface of our globe;
let the days of Eden come round again; let the tide of sin'
and sorrow ebb, and let the whole earth be covered with the
glory of God. But do we not read in the Psalms even in
this dispensation, and in the world as it is, "The heavens
declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth forth
his handiwork?" If then the heavens declare the glory of
God, is it so shaded as has been alleged? Few, indeed, can
study the heavens without seeing a glorious apocalypse of
God's glory; no one can read the last discoveries of astronomy
without being struck with the evidence of the magnificence
of that Being who sits enthroned amid the shining hosts
that are encamped on the plains of infinitude. Were we to
see a starry frosty night once in our life, it would be an
apocalypse such as we should never forget. It is the commonness of the spectacle that dims its beauty, or rather




THE GLORY-FILLED EARTH.             283
deadens our sense of it. But if it be so beautiful now what
must it have been ere that mist between us and the sky had
exhaled from earth! If while we see nature through a glass
darkly there be so much to admire, what must have been
the splendour of the spectacle when we saw it face to face!
It is, however, necessary to explain what is the glory of God.
A human or finite being receives glory when something is
added to him that he had not; an infinite being receives
glory just in the ratio in which He is made known. The
more we know of man the more we detect the evidences of
the fall, and the less we admire him; the more we know of
God, the intenser is our admiration. To glorify a creature
we must add to him dignities that he has not; to glorify
Deity we have simply to make known more of what He actually is. If you wish to see God's glory, or rather to read
a record of it, let us refer to that passage where Moses
prays, " I beseech thee, 0 Lord, show me thy glory." What
was the answer? The Lord descended in the cloud, and
proclaimed the name, which he there regards as synonymous with the glory of God. " The Lord, the Lord God,
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, abundant in goodness
and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity,
transgression, and sin." That is the glory of God.
In this revelation of God's glory there is an answer to
every doubt and difficulty of a perplexed sinner. Does some
one say, I am poor, guilty, and ruined, and have nothing of
good in me, and am myself nothing in God's sight? His
name is the Lord Jehovah, who can create a good thing out
of a bad thing, and anything out of nothing; and, therefore,
is able to transform the greatest sinner into the greatest saint.
But if you should answer, My heart is so hard, my feelings, appetites, and passions, so deranged, that I have no hope what



284           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
ever; his name is the Lord God, the omnipotent God; nothing is too hard for Omnipotence to achieve. But you say
I am a sinner, a miserable sinner; sinner in thought, sinner
in word, sinner in deed. I answer, you only want to see
another ray of this bright glory pass before you to give you
peace; for if you be a sinner, what is the next beam of his
glory? He is merciful. What is mercy? If there were
no sin there could be no mercy. Mercy is love through the
prism of a Saviour's mediation refracted into all the beautiful colours of the covenant rainbow. God is good to angels, He is love to the unfallen, He is mercy to sinners. And
therefore, if you be a sinner, a chief sinner, an inveterate
sinner, let a ray of glory shoot through your heart; and
you have a God who is mercy —the very thing you need.
Ah, you reply, that is very true; but that does not comfort
my soul. I have nothing to give for it, and, therefore, there
is no hope for me. What is the next ray of his glory? He
is gracious. What is grace? Literally good given gratis.
What was the prayer of John Wickliffe, the morning star
of the Reformation.?  "Good Lord, save me gratis."  God
saves only gratis. If you were to pay anything, there is no
mercy for you; if you promise anything by way of equivalent, there is no mercy for you; if you offer to endure anything as expiation, there is no mercy for you. You must
take mercy in all its amplitude) without promise, pledge, or
anything on your part but grace, just as God gives it you.
But you answer, This may be all very true; but I have
sinned so long, I have sinned against light, against conscience,
against law, against love. If I had been your judge, you
had been crushed long ago; if the most tender-hearted man
had been your judge, you would have been destroyed; but
let a ray of this glory sweep through your troubled spirit, and




THRB GLORY-FILLED EARTH.             285
what does it show? That whilst He is merciful and gracious
He is also long-suffering. How glorious is this attribute!
He suffers long, and is not easily provoked; delighting in
mercy. But if you should say, Ah, this is very true, very comforting; but it does not meet all my case; for so many have
drawn upon his mercy, so many have got it gratis, such
multitudes have tasted of his long-suffering, that I fear it is
exhausted long ago. If God were a cistern, his mercy would
have been exhausted; but we are told He is a fountain,
and a living fountain, inexhaustible, and springing up to
everlasting life for ever and ever. But the ray of his glory
that meets your case is that while He is long-suffering, He
is also abundant in goodnes: and truth. But if you should
say, So many generations haN e drawn upon Him, from the
world's gray fathers that trod the deserts of Palestine and
the pavements of Egypt; the prophets, and evangelists, and
apostles, and martyrs, and reformers, and the long procession
of sufferers, have all, generation after generation, drawn upon
his goodness, drank of his mercy, sought it gratis, and enjoyed it in all its fulness, that I fear it is impossible that God
can have supplied so long a world of rebels so countless, and
all his mercy is surely dried up long, long ago. The answer
is, He keeps mercy for thousands of generations. But you
add, perhaps, Well, all this is very delightful; but I have
been guilty of sins of thought, sins of word, sins of deed,
all kinds and degrees of sin. I have no doubt of it; and I
am sure you are far more guilty than you think, and far
more so than you feel; but here is another ray of God's
glory; He forgives iniquity; that is the first sort of sin;
transgression, that is the second sort; and sin, that is the
third sort. In other words, He forgives sins of thought, sins
of word, sins of deed.




286            THE GREAT TRIBULA1iOlN.
What then is the prayer of David? That this glory may
overflow the world like an illuminated ocean; that wherever
the sunshine penetrates, God's glory may penetrate also; till
every star that you see in the firmament suggests the bright
and the morning star; till every rose that you smell the
fragrance of reminds you of the Rose of Sharon; till every
stream reminds you of the river of living water, and every
tree reminds you of the tree of life; and all sounds, and all
sights, and all scenes, set forth the glory of Him whose
highest glory is exhibited when He stoops from Heaven to
forgive the greatest sin, and thus the experience of a few
will become the possession of all mankind. Such, then, are
the component parts of that whbch is here called the glory
of God.
Now let us ascertain why David prayed thus; and why
we too should offer up this prayer. First of all he thus
prayed what we are bound to pray also, because there are
countless places in our world on which this rich glory does
not shine. Are there not pagan tribes that never heard of
a Saviour's name? Are there not jungles in India into
which neither nature's sunshine nor the glory of the Sun
of Righteousness have ever penetrated?  Are there not
deserts whose bosoms have never been trodden by the feet
of them that bring glad tidings of great joy? Is there not
many an ocean on which the mariner, as he wrestles with
the wind and the wave, sings no hymn, prays no prayer,
reads no Bible; nor sees in the ocean one single gleam of
the glory of God? If so, is it not our duty, is it not our
instinct, to pray, " 0 Lord, let the whole earth be filled with
thy glory 8?" But there are not only places which have not
been visited by this glory, but there are places that resist it
when it seeks admission. The crescent still protests against




THE GLORY-FILLED EARTH.            2'87
the cross; and the Mahometan looks upon the steady ap.
proach of the glory spoken of as a bitter national calamity.
In China, the stupid and degraded superstition of Confucius
has raised its formidable walls to throw back the influx of
the light and glory of God. In India, the inveterate superstitions of a thousand years resist and oppose the entrance
of the glory of God. And not only in these countries do
we find resisting forces, but in Russia we see all the supelstition of Rome without its terrible consistency; in Italy
and Austria, the fogs that rise from the marshes of a dark
and miserable apostasy. But, alas! we need not go abroad
for proofs of great crime, or dark places; read the judicial
proceedings of our country; come with me not across the
ocean, but across the partition or brick wall that separates
St. Giles from St. James; and you will find people from
whose hearts and homes everything like the light and love
of God seems to have ebbed away, and to have left nothing
but wreck and ruin, capable of terrible mischief; and incapable, without transforming grace, of doing any good.
Let me tell you too that those magnificent palatial residences in the west are never safe when revolution and discontent are brewing in the miserable dens of the east. Let
me remind you that when the foundation rooks, the apex of
the pyramid will be very precarious indeed. And if you
wish to do the utmost to make your own condition more
secure, you will do more to make the masses more enlightened, more contented; more acquainted with the glory,
more impressed with a sense of the goodness, the mercy,
and the loving-kindness of God. If you feel the great
degradation in which thousands are plunged; if you agree
with me in conclusions which facts, the most stern and irre.
sistible of all arguments, establish-that vast masses, in




288           THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
every British city, are the victims of the most withering
and blasting influences in this world, and aliens and strangers
to the bright hopes and blessed prospect of the Gospel of
Christ; if you feel that God has blessed you, that he has
given you light and the knowledge of your duty as well as
the enjoyment of rich privileges-you will not rest satisfied
till the whole earth is filled with the glory of God.
When David prays that God's glory may thus cover the
earth, he prays that every individual may feel and taste of
its influence, that no heart may beat that is not in unison
with God; that every pulse in human nature from the humblest even to the highest, may be love to God; that every
district may be covered with this glory-that there may be
no lane, nor court, nor alley, into which the sunshine of heaven does not penetrate, and none into which the light of the
Sun of Righteousness does not shine. No interest that we
feel in the distant must make us overlook the near; we must
not carry corn to the ends of the earth, whilst many are
starving from want at our own doors and upon our own
thresholds; we must not be so taken up with the romance
of a converted world, that we forget the very plain but very
dutiful necessity of a converted individual under the shadow
of our own residence. Whilst we pray for each individual,
and for each district of our country, we at the same time still
pray that the whole earth may be covered with the glory of
God, that every continent may bask in it-that every capital
may reflect it from its spires, that the hum of great cities
may have it for its key-note; that all the nations of the
earth, inspired by love, illuminated by truth, may constitute
together, one worshipping, united, and happy church; until
the nations rise to a state of peace, of happiness, and rest,
that will multiply with the multiplying years and ages yet




THE GLORY-FILLED EARTH.             289
to roll; and David shall no longer say, " Let the whole earth
be filled with his glory; " but shall sing, "The whole earth
is filled with thy glory."
There are many and strong reasons why we ought more
and more to pray this prayer. The first reason is sympathy
with man simply as a sufferer; if you want to be humane,
and to do the slightest good to man as an individual, you
pray and try to practise this prayer. The highest happiness
of man is involved in the greatest glory of God. Christianity feeds the roots of all social development. Where is it
that nations have reached a culminating grandeur? Where
Christianity has struck deepest its roots. And, therefore,
when you pray that the whole earth may be filled with
God's glory, you pray that there may be the most substantial temporal happiness to your fellows; and that our
country under the influence of the Gospel may, as a country,
rise to its greatest pitch of happiness, peace, and enjoyment.
But you pray this prayer still more because of the precious.
ness of each individual soul. After all, this is the great
argument for trying to do good. To make man happy and
contented here is right; but to show him a way that leads
to a better world when this world departs, and to show him
that his soul, which had a beginning, but never can have an
end, depends for its happiness upon the blood of sprinkling,
and its interest in the sacrifice of Jesus; to teach man that,
and to tell him how he can be saved; and to go to the beds of
the sick and the pillows of the dying, and to tell them that
there is a God, our Father, and that he may be happy here
and happier hereafter; I say, the man that does so is entitled to your greatest sympathy, and the cause in which he
is employed to most munificent and liberal support. We
pray this prayer because we believe that the Gospel, which
13




290            THE GREAT TRIBULATION.
is the glory of God, is adapted to every order of the human
race, to every want, and every necessity; that there is
nothing in it local, nothing exclusive, nothing national; but
that to the people in the purlieus of St. Giles's, and to the
people on the plains of India, the same Gospel may be carried with the same results, because embosomed in the same
sure promise: "My word shall not return to me void."
And we pray this prayer specially, because it is God's own
promise that it shall be fulfilled. He himself says to Moses,
"As I live, saith the Lord, the whole earth shall be filled
with the glory of the Lord;" and David, recollecting God's
promise, which is the guarantee of the successful prayer,
says, "Let the whole earth be filled with God's glory."
David beautifully adds, "The prayers of David are ended."  When are they ended?  When the whole earth is
filled with God's glory. And what then shall be our case?
At present we say with stammering lips and hesitating
hearts, "Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy
name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done;" all having
the under-thought that God's kingdom is not come, that
God's will is not done. But in that day, when the prayers
of David the son of Jesse shall be ended, we shall no more
pray the Lord's prayer as we do now; then we shall say,
"Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed is thy name;
thy kingdom is come; thy will is done in earth as it is in
heaven; our bread is given us, and our sins are forgiven us;
we are led into no temptation, we are delivered from all
evil; and as it began in thy name, Father, it will end with
thy name, Father, again; for thine is the kingdom, and the
power, and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."
END OF THE FIRST SERIES.












CATALOGUE
OF THE
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OF
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130 GRAND STREET,
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NEW YOIx.




I




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BY RUDD AND CARLETON.              8
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ROMANCE OF A POOR YOUNG MAN.
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