THE LIBRARY OF ST THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES GIFT LAST TIMES. AN EARNEST DISCUSSION OF MOMENTOUS THEMES, J. A. SEISS, A.M. -AUTHOR OF "LECTURES ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS," "BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED,' AND PASTOR OF THE LOMBARD STREET LUTHERAN CHURCH, BALTIMORE, Ms. BALTIMORE: PUBLISHED BY T. NEWTON KURTZ, No. 151 W E S T PRATT STREET. 1859. Kntcrcd according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by JOSEPH A. SEISS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States in and for the District of Maryland. STEREOTYPED BY L. JOHNSON & CO. PHILADELPHIA. PREFACE. THIS book treats of the future destiny of the world and its population, as revealed in the holy prophecies. It is designed to awaken attention to a subject too little appreciated and too much neg- lected by modern professors of Christianity. The views which it presents are not in entire harmony with prevailing impressions and popular prejudices ; but they are the honest convictions produced by faithful study, uttered under a full sense of the re- sponsibility involved. The writer believes them to be entitled to sober, candid and careful considera- tion. If he is correct in his apprehensions of the divine word, it is high time that people should have every facility to inform themselves upon the sub- ject. If he is mistaken, it is well worth the while of wiser heads to furnish the church with the evi- dences of it; for the leading doctrines of this dis- cussion have the sanction of high authorities, and are being more and more believed by devout mec of earnest hearts and eloquent tongues. 4 PREFACE. The author of. this volume does not presume to speak for his church, or for any party, but only for himself. Nevertheless, he is happy to he ahle to say that he speaks with Justin Martyr, Irenseus, Tertullian, and all the great divines of the first ages after Christ, as well as with many of the greatest lights of Protestant Christendom. And if he is to be censured or condemned for what he has here ventured to affirm, the church of Christ itself, in the purest and brightest periods of its history, and in some of its most illustrious worthies, must also be censured and condemned. To appreciate this book, it is necessary that all of it should be read, and in the order in which it is presented. Its force is cumulative. Each part enters into the support of all the parts, and in its place contributes to the general conclusions of the whole. It is only by attention to this fact that the reader can do justice to the author, to the subject, or to himself. Hoping, then, that this production may not fail of its design, and that it may meet the expectations of those who have manifested so much anxiety for its publication, the author sends it forth to live or die as Providence and a candid public may determine. BALTIMORE, MD., July, 1856. TABLE OP CONTENTS. FIRST DISCOURSE. PAGE THE SUBJECT PROPOUNDED THE TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER OF MATTHEW APPLIED CHRIST'S PERSONAL RETURN TO THE EARTH PROVEN THE INTENSE IMPORTANCE OF THE THEME.... 9 SECOND DISCOURSE. HOW CHRIST'S COMING is RELATED TO OTHER EVENTS THE MIL- LENNIUM WRONG VIEWS CORRECTED THE FINAL ADVENT PBE- MILLENNIAL THE POINT ARGUED 36 THIRD DISCOURSE. THE GLORIOUS RESTITUTION BELIEVED IN AND TAUGHT BY THE HEATHEN AND JEWS THIS WORLD NOT TO BE DEPOPULATED OR ANNIHILATED WHAT IS MEANT BY "THE END OF THE WORLD" THE LAST CONFLAGRATION THE WHOLE TERRES- TRIAL SYSTEM OF THINGS TO BE DELIVERED FROM THE CURSE OF SIN 62 1* 5 6 CONTENTS. FOURTH DISCOURSE. PAGE THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION ERRONEOUS INTERPRE- TATIONS OF THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER OF THE REVELATION REFUTED THE FIRST RESURRECTION WHAT THE ANCIENT JEWS TAUGHT UPON THE SUBJECT CITATIONS FROM THE OLD PROPHETS HOW THE MATTER, IS PRESENTED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT THE SUBLIME HOPES INVOLVED 88 FIFTH DISCOURSE. THE MESSIAH'S KINGDOM HOW SPOKEN OF BY THE ANCIENT PROPHETS HOW APPREHENDED BY THE SAVIOR'S CONTEMPO- RARIES HOW SPOKEN OF IN THE NEW TESTAMENT SPECIFI- CALLY CONNECTED WITH THE SECOND ADVENT THE PRESENT DISPENSATION NOT THE MESSIAH'S GLORIOUS REIGN 112 SIXTH DISCOURSE. THE JUDGMENT SCRIPTURAL IDEA OF A JUDGE THE DAY OF JUDGMENT NOT AN ORDINARY DAY OF TWENTY-FOUR HOURS THE JUDGMENT PROGRESSIVE CONNECTION OF THE JUDGMENT WITH THE MILLENNIAL REIGN IS THE EXECUTION OF ADJUDI- CATIONS ALREADY GOING ON HOW IT WILL BE INTRODUCED ADMONITIONS TO THE CARELESS 137 SEVENTH DISCOURSE. THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF THE JUDGMENT, WITH RESPECT TO THE DEAD, WITH RESPECT TO THE LIVING THE UNSANCTI- FIED LIVING TO BE JUDGED NATIONALLY AT THE SECOND AD- VENT TUB RESULTS OF THESE NATIONAL JUDGMENTS... ,. 160 CONTENTS. EIGHTH DISCOURSE. PAGE THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS OBJECTIONS ANSWERED NEW TESTAMENT ALLUSIONS TO THE SUBJECT ANCIENT PRO- PHECIES HISTORICAL FACTS PARTICULARS EXPLAINED 183 NINTH DISCOURSE. THE WORLD TO COME ILLUSTRATED IN THE SCENES OF THE TRANSFIGURATION THE BLESSEDNESS OF CHRIST'S PERSONAL PRESENCE THE MINISTRATIONS OF THE GLORIFIED SAINTS THE ABSENCE OF ALL POWERS AND AGENCIES OF EVIL THE BLESSING OF THE WORLD THROUGH ISRAEL THE CURSE RE- PEALED 209 TENTH DISCOURSE. THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH SUMMARY OF OUR DOCTRINE CERINTHUS THE ANABAPTISTS MILLER IMPROPRIETY OF CLASSING US WITH THESE PARTIES TRUE CHURCH TESTI- MONY BARNABAS CLEMENT PAPIAS JUSTIN MARTYR IRENJEUS TERTULLIAN CYPRIAN ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AS TO THE FAITH OF THE EARLY CHURCH HOW MILLENARIAN DOCTRINE WAS SUPPRESSED^ ORIGEN'S SYSTEM REVIVAL OF THE PRIMITIVE FAITH LUTHER MELANCTHON THE FRUITS OF OUR BELIEF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE EARLY AND PRE- SENT CHURCH 231 ELEVENTH DISCOURSE. WHEN SHALL CHRIST COME ? THE TIME NOT WHOLLY A SE- CRET RELATION OF CHRIST'S COMING, IN POINT OP TIME, 8 CONTENTS. PAG* TO OTHER THINGS PREDICTED IN THE SCRIPTURES FIRST METHOD OF COMPUTING THE TIME, OR MILLENNIAL SEPTEN- ARY SECOND METHOD, OR TWELVE HUNDRED AND SIXTY YEARS' DOMINANCE OF THE PAPACY THIRD METHOD, OR THE VIALS OF WRATH 250 TWELFTH DISCOURSE. BECAPITULATION FOURTH METHOD OF ASCERTAINING WHEN CHRIST SHALL COME, OR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES THE SENTIMENTS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN RESPECTING THE NEAR- NESS OF THE END THE INTENSE DESIRABLENESS OF THE SAVIOR'S COMING CONCLUSION 285 APPENDIX. BOOKS AND AUTHORS ON THE SUBJECTS OF THIS VOLUME 311 Cinus. FIRST DISCOURSE. THE SUBJKCT PROPOUNDED THE TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER OP MATTHEW APPLIED CHRIST'S PERSONAL RETURN TO THE EARTH PIIOVEN THE INTENSE IMPORTANCE OF THE THEME. MATT. xxiv. 3 : And as lie sat upon the mount of Olives, the disci- ples came unto him privately, saying, When shall these things be? and ichat shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the world f FROM these words I begin a series of special discourses upon the holy prophecies concerning " The Last Times," and the winding up of the dispensation under which we now live. It is agreed, by all believers in the Bible, that very mys- terious scenes await our world. Christians and Jews concede, that we are approaching commotions and changes, such as never have been since time began. Indifferent to the future as we may be, and deep as are the church's slumbers upon the subject, God's purposes are fixed, and the wheel of his wonderful providence is rolling us on to the funeral of the "world" that now is. Every day we are coming nearer and nearer to a period, if we have not already entered within its margin, when the whole present arrangement of things shall be broken up and pass away. 10 THE LAST TIMES. No one acquainted with the existing aspects of the world, can have any doubt, that we have fallen upon very startling and critical times. All society, everywhere, with its politics, its philosophy, and its religion, is in a perturbed condition, indicating revolutions and occurrences which no mere human foresight can at all comprehend. The stream of earthly things is overflowing its old banks, and spreading out in every direction, ia wild, disordered, ungovernable, and overwhelm- ing volume. Old systems and modes of thought and belief, which have stood for ages, are everywhere tottering upon their thrones, and many of them reeling as for their final fall. Symptoms of a mysterious metamorphose meet us on every hand, causing some of earth's most far-sighted men, in church and state, to tremble with amazement and doubt. What these approaching changes are to be is differently given, according to the different points of observation which men occupy. But that changes are certainly coming, all admit. I propose, therefore, to enter upon a serious and honest effort to ascertain what light the Scriptures throw upon the momentous problem. Our heavenly Father has given us a "sure word of prophecy," and has been pleased mercifully to reveal therein what his great purposes are, and how things are to be ordered until those purposes are fulfilled ; and it is my design to open the book of God, and to go with you to its unerring and inspiriting pages, to ascertain what the Lord hath made known concerning those "things which must shortly come to pass." I do not propose to take the prophet's chair, but to take the place of an humble student of the pro- phet's words. I am a learner, not a master a seeker after what has been revealed, and not a revealer of what has hitherto been unknown. My purpose is, to keep close "to the law and the testimony." I will follow no guides but the inspired writers. And I ask of you to test carefully all that PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 11 I may present, beseeching you to reject all that I may by mis- take utter at variance with God's word. I may err. I may not always hit upon the exact truth. All I claim of you is, to approach the subject with a prayerful and teachable spirit, ready to hear and weigh testimony without partiality or pre- judice, sincerely desirous to learn what God the Spirit saith, and determined, at all hazards, to cleave to all that the blessed Scriptures really teach. I know that there is in many a strong but morbid distaste for the discussion of these subjects. It has even been coolly said, that the study of prophecy either finds a man crazy, or leaves him so. But, I am not moved by such things. I suppose that there are among the men who have devoted their time, talents, and learning to this subject, some with quite as much soundness of mind and justness of taste as any of those who have decided not to open the seals which inexcusable neglect has put upon the prophetic Scriptures. Noah, also, was considered insane for his concern about what was coming upon the earth in his day. Jesus himself, with all his Divine gravity and wisdom, was pronounced a demo- niac. And the apostle Paul, in the midst of some of his mightiest and brightest intellections, was branded as beside himself and mad. I would certainly much rather be called a fool along with such company, than to have that come upon me " which is spoken of in the prophets : Behold, ye de- spisers, and wonder, and perish : for I work a work in your days, a work which ye shall in no wise believe." I am mortified, ashamed, and pained, whenever I am pressed to think it necessary to apologize to the Christian public for an attempt to bring before it the wonderful and glowing prophe- cies of Scripture concerning things to come " in the latter days." Every thing dear and hopeful in the Christian faith stands inseparably connected with them. They include nearly all the^ grand motives to faith, obedience, watchfulness, and 12 THE LAST TIMES. virtue. God also tells us, that "All scripture is profitable, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness;" that we have "a word of prophecy whcre- unto we do well to taJce heed;" and that "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep the things that are written therein." Where, then, do men get liberty to ignore one-half of the Bible as useless ? Who has authorized us to seal and bury in oblivion those grand Apocalypses of futurity which God has given, and in reference to which he says, "If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book !" Hath " the Lord God of the holy prophets sent his angel to shew unto his servants the things which must shortly be done," and we be accounted beside ourselves when we seek to find out the meaning of the heavenly communications ? Shall he solemnly proclaim " these sayings faithful and true," and him " blessed" that keepeth them, and we call it piety and wisdom to put them aside as loose fables, and repudiate them as unmeaning riddles which can only addle our brains ? How : could we adopt a course more criminally indifferent, arrogant, and unbelieving ? Is not such conduct a placing of ourselves with the scoffers of the last days, who say, " Where is the promise of his coming ?" Shame, shame, to the skepticism of many professing Christians. Let me suppose a case. Suppose that the blessed Savior should now appear in this assembly, and take this stand, and begin to discourse to you about the last times. Would you feel justified in stopping your ears to his words because he struck upon this particular theme ? Would you not regard any one who should act thus as under some strange infatua- tion of the devil, and deserving of severe rebuke ? But where is the difference, whether Jesus should thus come in person, A DIFFICULT THEME. 13 or come to us in the written word, every sentence of which be has dictated, inspired, or delivered to us for our learning? And if you would feel bound to give him a reverent hearing in the one case, why not feel equally bound in the case which actually exists ? Christ is here with his word to instruct us upon these very subjects; and it would not be worse to stop your ears to his personal voice, than it is to refuse to hear and consider his written truth. Prophecy, it is true, is a somewhat difficult theme. Peter tells us, that it is a a light that shineth in a dark place." We must not expect everything to be as obvious and plain as in the noonday when all is luminous. Especially in unfulfilled prophecy, there must needs be sonic obscurity in the parti- cular details of circumstances, " times and seasons." But, there are difficulties to be encountered and wildernesses to be traversed just as great and discouraging in other departments of learning; yet, instead of being deterred by them, men are rather the more stimulated to meet them, and are accustomed so constantly to triumph over them, that we cease to be sur- prised at the most astonishing strides of human genius. Does the astronomer cease to study and survey the heavens, be- cause, with all his aids, he never can fully take in the tre- mendous sweep of God's universe, or tell what sort of inha- bitants are in the sun, moon, and stars ? Does the geologist ^ease to dig and bore into the bowels of the earth, or give over the study of its rocks and fossils, because he cannot find out all that lies hidden in its unknown centre, or tell how the strata of its crust were formed, or describe the appearance and habits of those monsters whose bones lie entombed under fts surface ? Does the physician throw aside all further inquiry into the auatouiy and physiology of man, because he cannot discover " how the bones are formed in the womb," what life is, and in what part of the body the soul is ? Why, then, should the Christian ignore the study of the predictions 2 11 THE LAST TIMES. which God has given, because there are sonic depths and mysteries about them which we cannot fathom ? Nay, these very obscurities and difficulties, which deter so many from examining the prophetic word, arc not without their whole- some effects. It is a real pleasure to the mind to know that something has been left for it to do. It luxuriates, and has its highest life in the exercise of overcoming obstacles, and bringing up the truth from regions which lie under the sur- face of ordinary observation. Only furnish to the human facul- ties the assurance of success, and it is their highest happiness and purest virtue to labor and to wrestle with difficulties. And so the glimmering twilight which hangs about prophecy, is just what we might expect, and what we need. There is light and plain certainty enough to guide, cheer, quicken, and excite ; and just darkness enough to check the pride of specu- lation and the boasts of confidence, and to make us prayer- ful, humble, and inquiring. The difficulties are not insur- mountable. They are not as great as many have agreed to regard them. They are more imaginary than real, and pro- ceed rather from our slothfulness than from the prophecies themselves. People do not understand prophecy, simply be- cause they do not study it ; and then they refuse to study it because they do not understand it. There is no part of Scrip- ture richer or more munificent in rewards for the faithful inquirer. It is a garden of flowers a cabinet of wondrous jewelry. It is a vast and varied landscape, filled with beauty and grandeur, the horizon of which is fringed with the bright dawning glories of eternal day. Here, and here alone, we can see the real scope and magnificence of man's redemption. Here, and here only, we can trace God's providential plans to their ultimate consummation, and learn the real majesty of his counsels of love. At every step there is something to encourage and comfort us under the fatigues and trials of life, something to confirm our faith and to fill us with glorious T1IK SUBJECT 1'Um-i'i MiKD. 15 anticipations. Aud if the limits of our knowledge can be extended, and the sum of, human good augmented, by the study of rocks, and bones, and beasts, and birds, and stars, how can it be unprofitable to bend our attention a little more than we have done to what our Savior has revealed concerning " the signs of his coming, and of the end of the world" ? That the Lord Jesus, the Son of the Virgin Mary, will certainly return again to this earth, is a doctrine written in all the creeds, and sung about by Christians every week. It is an event the subliinest in coming time, the most largely treated in the Scriptures, and the most deeply involving all that relates to the destiny of our world. As Christ is the centre of history, his second coming is the centre of pro- phecy, which is history written beforehand. I have accord- ingly fixed upon this final advent of the Lord as the central thought of these investigations, and as the point from which to survey the great scenes of the last times. To attempt to prove to you that the Son of man will really and personally come again to this world, may seem quite superfluous. It is a doctrine which orthodox Christians universally admit. And yet, perhaps, there is not another article of Christian faith so coldly and indefinitely apprehended. Few men embrace it as a reality. Few men lay hold of it as an efficacious truth. People deny it not, but neither do they feel it. They have so much preoccupied their minds with imaginary figurative comings of the Savior, in providence, in his Spirit, in his word, and in his church, that his only real coming has well- nigh become obsolete a mere dead letter. It no longer comes upon the heart and conscience with its proper awaken- ing and commanding power. "We recite it, and sing it ; but we do not effectually receive it. It is in our creed, but it cannot be said to be our faith. If we entertain it at all, it is at a great distance off. It cannot therefore be a matter of small importance for us to review our position, and to en- 16 THE LAST TIMES. deavor to ascertain where we stand in regard to this great doctrine. If we have been unconsciously saying to ourselves, " the Lord delayeth his coming," it is time that we should wake up to the fact, lest that day should come upon us un- awares. Christ bids us "Watch; for in such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." " The day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night." "As a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth." And amid the tremendous heavings of society in our day, we are the most solemnly admonished to look well to our hearts, and to keep close to the directions of our Lord. The great original prophecy concerning the second advent, the principal storehouse from which the apostles and first Christians drew their faith and illustrations upon the subject, is that glorious discourse of the Savior which he gave to Peter, James, John, and Andrew, in answer to the questions propounded in the text. Next to the sermon on the mount, that discourse is the longest and the most momentous of all that has been preserved of the Savior's communications. And yet, there is, perhaps, no part of Scripture that has been so much abused, confused, and obscured by professed inter- preters. Though the Bible nowhere so pointedly, directly, literally, and plainly asserts and describes the final advent of the Lord, there is scarcely a commentary in existence which does not so Jerusalemize, spiritualize, and allegorize it, as to leave it the most indefinite and unmeaning of all the Savior's teachings. The prevailing impression is, that the twenty- fourth chapter of Matthew is a mixed prophecy, referring primarily to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, and, perhaps, by a sort of typical implication, remotely touching upon the scenes of Christ's final personal coming. But what relates to Jewish troubles, and what relates to the transactions of the last times, no commentary in the hands of the people has told. Others, again, apply the whole to the taking of THE XXIV. CHAPTER OP MATTHEW. 17 Jerusalem only, and consider the coming of the Son of man nothing but the coming of the Roman legions into Palestine, and thus adopt principles of interpretation, which, if carried out, must inevitably and forever strike from the Bible every jot and tittle of evidence that Christ ever will return again in person to our world. And what is the more astonishing in all this is, that there is not the least necessity for any difficulty euch as expositors have found with it. I propose, therefore, to take it up and read it from the beginning, in order to show you how plain and straightforward it is, disposing of one thing at a time, and leaving no room for any confusion, ob- scurity, or mistake. Three evangelists have severally given us a report of this prophecy, and each gives some particulars which are not found in the others. We must therefore keep them all before us in order to have the full record of what the Lord said. I will accordingly fill up the account which Matthew gives, with such additions as may be found in Mark and Luke. "And 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, [Luke : the days will come in the which,] there shall not be left here one stone upon an- other, that shall not be thrown down." This is too plain to be misunderstood. The Savior here predicted the utter ruin of Jerusalem and the temple, and nothing else. "And as he sat upon the mount of Olives, the disciples [Peter, and James, and John, and Andrew] came unto him privately, saying, Tell us, WHEN SHALL THESE THINGS BE ? AND WHAT SHALL BE THE SIGN OF THY COMING, AND OF THE END OF THE WORLD, or AGE ?" Now, observe these questions attentively, for upon them is founded all that follows in this chapter and that which sue- 18 THE LAST TIMES. cccds it. Christ had spoken of nothing but the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. The disciples asked him when that destruction should take place. But that was not all they asked. With Jerusalem's overthrow they connected the ap- pearance of the Messiah in his glorious kingdom, and also the consummation of all things. They, consequently, asked three distinct questions, though they were somewhat confused in their idea of the relations of the one to the other. If the Savior then would answer their inquiries, he must needs speak of these three particulars : first, the time of the de- struction of Jerusalem ; second, the signs of his own appear- ance in the glory of his kingdom ; and, third, of the signs of the end of the world. These, therefore, are the subjects of his discourse, and he disposed of each in its proper order, at the same time so framing his words as to disabuse the minds of the disciples of their false impressions concerning the con- nection of things which did not belong together. This is the key to the whole prophecy. "And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you." Here is the plain indication, in the very first words, that the disciples had somehow misapprehended these momentous matters. It is as though he had said, Your minds are now confused upon this subject; you are expecting my coming and kingdom in connection with the fall of the temple ; in such a view of things you are in great danger of being led astray; I, therefore, caution you to beware respecting your expectations of my coming at the fall of Jerusalem. " For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ, and shall deceive many. \_Lu7ce : And THE TIME DRAWETH NEAR; go ye not therefore after them.]" All this evidently refers exclusively to the period of the destruction of Jerusalem, when this prediction concerning false pretenders to the Messiahship was amply fulfilled. Jo- PREDICTIONS RELATIVE TO JERUSALEM. 19 sephus gives the names of many false Christs who arose at that time. "And ye shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled ; for all these things must come to pass ; BUT THE END IS NOT YET. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and [great] earthquakes, in divers places. [Luke : And fearful sights, and great signs shall there be from heaven.] All these are the beginning of sorrows." These things were all literally and exactly fulfilled in the period of the fall of Jerusalem, as may be seen in Josephus, and the commentaries upon these verses. " [Luke : But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you.] Then shall they deliver you up [to councils, the synagogues, and into prisons] to be afflicted ; and shall kill you. [Mark : And ye shall be brought before rulers and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them ;] 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 arise, and deceive many. And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." All this related to the times of the apostles themselves, and was literally and completely fulfilled in their day, as may be seen in the following passages : Acts iv. 1-3 ; v. 17, 18, 27, 40, 41; vii. 59; xii. 1-4; xvi. 19, 20; xvii. 6; xxvi. 10, 11; xxviii. 30, 31; xx. 29, 30; 2 Tim. i. 15; iv. 10, 14; 2 Pet. ii. 1; Jude 4; 1 John iv. 1; ii. 18; 2 John 7. "And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the end come." It is not a little surprising that some writers, who apply 20 THE LAST TIMES. this chapter as a whole to the destruction of Jerusalem, yet except this verse, and apply it to the last times. When we press upon men the idea that the time of Christ's coming is near, they point to this passage and say, No, it cannot be; the gospel must first be preached to all nations, whereas multi- tudes have never yet heard it. But they are greatly mistaken. The end here spoken of is not the termination of all mundane existence, but the consummation of the cuooy the age or dis- pensation which existed when the prophecy was uttered. And this universal proclamation of the gospel was abundantly fulfilled in the apostolic age. Hear what Eusebius says of that period : " Under a celestial influence and co-operation, the doctrine of the Savior, like the rays of the sun, quickly irradiated the ichole world. Presently, in accordance with divine prophecy, the voice of his inspired evangelists and apostles had gone throughout all the earfli, and their words to THE END or THE WORLD." And if Eusebius is not con- sidered sufficient authority, then hear the testimony of the inspired apostles themselves. Paul died years before Jerusa- lem was destroyed, and yet he says to the Colossians, (i. 6,) " The word of the truth of the gospel is come unto you, as it is IN ALL THE WORLD." "Be not moved away from the hope of the gospel, which ye have heard, and which was preached TO EVERY CREATURE WHICH IS UNDER HEAVEN." (i. 23.) "Have they not heard? Yes, verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words unto THE ENDS OP THE WORLD." (Rom. x. 18.) Such, then, is the divinely attested fact, that this gospel of the kingdom was preached in, all the world for a witness unto all nations during apostolic times. The Savior was speaking of the end of Jerusalem, and said that the gospel should ere that be universally an- nounced, and so it came to pass, as apostles testify. The pas- sage, therefore, relates to apostolic, and not to the last times. WARNING AGAINST FALSE PROPHETS. 21 The necessity for so understanding it is further evident from what follows. " When ye therefore shall see" what ? Luke tells us : Wh.cn ye therefore shall see [JERUSALEM COMPASSED ABOUT WITII ARMIES] the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet, in the holy place, [Mark : standing where it ought not,] [Luke : then know that the desolation thereof is nigh.] Then let them which be in Judea flee into the mountains. Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of the house. Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes. [Luke : For these be the days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled.] And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days !" No one can mistake the application of this to the time of the siege of Jerusalem. The woe here predicted in the case of certain classes is the result of the unpreparedness of the parties to encounter the exposure and hardships of the preci- pitate flight. Hence, it is also added, " Pray ye that your flight be not in the winter ; neither on the Sabbath-day. For then shall be great tribulation [Luke : in the land, and wrath upon this people,] 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 be no flesh saved : but for the elect's sake, [whom he hath chosen,] those days shall be shortened." All this is plain, and unquestionably refers to the siege of Jerusalem and the Jewish troubles. " The elect" spoken of are those Jews whom God chose out of the apostate race to survive the great tribulation for some ulterior purpose. And when these troubles should come, Jesus said, " 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, aad shall show great signs and wonders; 22 THE LAST TI.MKS. I insomuch that, if it were possible, they should deceive the very elect. [But take ye heed :] behold, I have told you before, 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." You see how particularly urgent the Savior was to guard the disciples against being deluded by false Christs. This was their greatest danger. Everybody believed that that was the age for Messiah's coming. Everybody expected him as a great prince who should interpose for the deliverance of the Jewish people at a time of threatening danger. And when those great troubles began to spread destruction on every side, the most natural inference would be that his coming could be no longer delayed, and that temporal salvation would certainly come to them by his hand. He therefore cautions his dis- ciples most specifically not to be deceived by such a hope ; that the city woulcWall ; that the Jewish system would end ; that the Messiah would not then interpose for Israel's rescue ; and that he would not then come as men would suppose. He insists, with the most earnest repetition, that if any man then set himself up as the promised Deliverer, they should not believe him; that they should credit no reports of the Mes- siah's appearance, either in the secret places of the temple or in the desert; that false Christs would arise and deceive many; and that all hopes of the real Savior's coming at that juncture would prove utterly fallacious. And to make his cautions still more impressive and effectual, he tells them that when the Messiah should come, it would be in a manner very different from the miserable demonstrations of those pre- tenders : "FOR AS THE LIGHTNING COMETH OUT OP THE EAST, AND SHINETH EVEN UNTO THE WEST ; SO SHALL ALSO THE COMING OF THE SON OF MAN BE." Here, then, is an allusion to Christ's own final coming. AN IMPORTANT REMARK. -> Look at its connection, and fix its meaning upon your minds. He here declares that he will come, but not at the period of which he was then speaking ; and that when he does come, unlike those false Christs, his appearance will be a sublime and open thing, which all may see and no one mistake. To say that the Savior is here speaking of the coming of the Roman armies, is to contradict the whole strain of the dis- course, and a plain falsehood. He is speaking of his own real and personal coming at the end of time, by way of con- trast to those false Messiahs who should arise in the time of Judah's troubles. To apply it to the coming of the Roman armies utterly destroys the contrast, and renders the passage meaningless. But with this allusion to his own real coming, the Savior still continues the prediction concerning Jerusalem : " For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together." This is a sort of proverbial expression^fcdicating that the Jewish people were most offensively corrupt; that God's fierce judgments would certainly find out such flagrant sinners ; and that it was utterly futile to hope that the Messiah would in- terpose for the rescue of such an iniquitous generation. Here, now, comes in a most important and comprehensive remark, omitted by Matthew, but given by Luke, which, when inserted, most clearly marks the Savior's transition from the subject of Jerusalem's fall to the other subject of which the disciples inquired, viz. : his own personal coming in the last times. That it is a part of the Lord's prophecy on this occasion is distinctly stated. And that this is the place in which it belongs will be evident to all who will thoroughly examine the matter. It cannot be placed in along with what has thus far been said ; neither can it be inserted with what follows, without interfering with the chronological order of the prophecy, disturbing its naturalness, and obscuring its meaning. But, placed here, it connects all together, and 24 THE LAST TIMES. furnishes much light for the right 'interpretation of the Sa- vior's words. Of these corrupt Jewish rebels, ready to be devoured by the Roman eagles, he says, "And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive in all nations ; and Jerusalem shall be trod- den down of the Gentiles, UNTIL THE TIMES OP THE GEN- TILES BE FULFILLED." From this description of Jerusalem's fall, you perceive that the Savior passes along down the centuries of Jacob's trouble and depression unto the last times, to the period when Jeru- salem shall be no longer trodden down, and " the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." We thus behold what a range of years is embraced in the prediction. Beginning with the fall of the Jewish metropolis and state, and the deportation of the Jewish people, it reaches down through all the long ages of Jewish dispersion and desolation, to the consummation of all things, and the times and scenes of the Savior's own glorious coming. Now, then, we read, "IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE TRIBULATION OF THOSE DAYS, " The tribulation of what days ? Why, the tribulation of all those days in which Jerusalem is trodden down of the Gen- tiles, and the Jews remain captive among the nations. The Jewish tribulation did not end with the ruin of Jerusalem. It has continued for eighteen hundred years. It lasts to this very hour. The sons of Jacob are still scattered abroad, and to this moment they sigh under God's scathing judgments, and weep in bitterness by the few relics of that dear Jerusa- lem that still languishes under the foul foot of Gentileism. But when this tribulation begins to pass away, immediately after Israel's national resurrection commences, then the mo- mentous transactions of the last days begin. " Immediately after the tribulation of those days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and AN AXIOM. 25 the stars shall fall from heaven ; [Luke : and upon earth dis- tress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves thereof roaring ; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth ;] and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." It is now no longer Jerusalem of which the Savior is speak- ing. What he here foretells concerns all the families of man. The scenes which he now depicts are scenes which come after the long winter of Judah's sufferings. They are the judg- ment-scenes of the last times. "AXD THEN SHALL APPEAR THE SIGN OP THE SON OP MAX IN HEAVEN : AND THEN SHALL ALL THE TRIBES OP THE EARTH MOURN, AND THEY SHALL SEE THE SON OF MAX COMIXG IN THE CLOUDS OF HEAVEN, WITH POWER AXD GREAT GLORY." Oh, what a shame, that men should spend their pains and learning in attempts to tie down this language to the destruc- tion of Jerusalem by the Roman armies ! My brethren, if this passage does not primarily, directly, and specifically refer to the final and personal advent of Jesus himself, it is useless to confide in the certainty of language, and there is no proof in the Bible that he ever will come. I take it as an axiom a settled verity which demonstrates itself that two events separated in point of time cannot be the same event. But it would seem that some of our learned commentators are not prepared to admit it. Ask them what is meant by " the tribulation of those days," described in the twenty-ninth and preceding verses; and they will tell you it means the calamities and sufferings of the Jews induced by the siege and overthrow of their city and state. Ask them, again, what is meant by the ''distress of nations/' and the mourning of the tribes of the earth, "after the tribulation of those days;" and "Whitby, Newton, Lightfoot, Coke, Clarke, Burkitt, Scott, Watson, Barnes, and nearly every man of 3 26 THE LAST TIMES. them, replies that it means the -same thing the calamities and sufferings of the Jews induced by the siege and overthrow of their city and state ! Ask them what is meant by the coming of the Son of man as the lightning, in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory j and, with a little wincing uncertainty, they all finally agree upon the answer, that it means the coming of the Roman armies to destroy Jerusalem ! and that, too, right in the face of the specific statement by the Son of God, that this glorious coming is not only subse- quent to Jerusalem's overthrow, but "after" the expiration of the whole consequent tribulation ! Can an effect go before its cause ? These men verily seem to think it can ; for they make the coming of the Roman armies to destroy Jerusalem occur after that destruction has been consummated, and all its sad effects have passed away ! Can that which follows after be identical with that which preceded it ? Commentaries being judges, so it would seem; for with them the mourning and distress which comes "after" one tribulation has passed away, is that past tribulation ! Can the annals of learning furnish a parallel to the absurdities which characterize nearly the whole round of our popular disquisitions upon this portion of the word of God ? Is it any wonder that the doctrine of Christ's second coming has lost its weight and power, when its great foundation-text is thus explained away to suit a supercilious erudition ? One of the strangest things in the world is the manner in which some people read the Bible. It would almost seem as if they turned it upside-down, and read it backwards. " Eyes have they, but they see not." They praise it, and hold it in holy regard, and insist that everybody ought to have it; yet they look into it only as some recondite volume, which is a good text-book for preachers, but which is quite beyond the reach of their understanding. They adore it more for the unknown mysteries which they attribute to it, than from their THE BIBLE. 27 personal appreciation of what their own eyes have beheld upon its pages. Many seem to view it as a sublime riddle- book, full of mystic poetry and unsearchable wisdom, rather than as a plain piece of information and advice given by a Father to his inexperienced and exposed children. And many who sit down to write commentaries upon it seem to be continually haunted with the idea that there is something recondite in every word, or that the real mind of the Spirit is not to be found in the plain import of the letter, but in some abstruse or mystic analogy which it is their business to dig after. I hold that the Bible is a book for everybody, in which God speaks for the purpose of being understood by everybody; that its language is conformed to the ordinary uses of speech ; and that it is to be interpreted in the .same common-sense way in which we would interpret the will of a deceased parent, or ascertain the meaning f abettor on busi- ness. It was not written to tax our ingenuity, or to test men's skill at learned exposition. Its design is to instruct, and in the most familiar way to express to men the mind and will of God. vVhen Christ speaks of " the Son of man," he means the Son of man, and not the Roman armies. When he speaks of his " coming in the clouds of heaven," he means his coining in the clouds of heaven, and not the sailing of war- ships on the Mediterranean, or the march of soldiers over the fields of earth. When he says "after" the Jewish tribulations are ended, he means "after" those tribulations, and not before they began, or while they were yet in their incipiency. And when he says that all the tribes of the earth " shall sec the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory," expositors might as well attempt to demonstrate to me that day is night, or that white is black, as to attempt to make me believe that he means the march of an army of boorish heathen soldiers. Christ knew what he wished to say, and how to say what he meant; and I feel myself bound to 28 THE LAST TIMES. understand him to mean just what he says. And what he here predicts respecting his coming in the clouds at the close of Judah's troubles no more refers to the coming of the Roman armies into Palestine than to the flight of Mahomet, or the next eclipse of the moon. He is describing the scenes of the judgment-period, and nothing else. "And then 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 ; when his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh : so likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it [the kingdom of God] is near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, THIS GENERATION SHALL NOT PASS, TILL ALL THESE THINGS BE FULFILLED." Some have groundlessly supposed that this last remark requires the application of this whole prophecy to the times of the apostles, and consequently to Jerusalem's destruction. They take the word "generation" as meaning those who live in the same thirty years; thirty years being reckoned to a generation. But if this be the sense, then how shall we reconcile the prophecy with facts ? Jerusalem was not de- stroyed until about forty years after the Savior uttered these words. And if he meant that a generation of thirty or even thirty-three years should not pass away till all these things should be fulfilled, his prediction cannot be verified. It is gratuitous, however, to insist upon that sense of the word generation. The original is yevsa a race, a class, a family of people ; as where it is said, " the children of this world are wiser in their generation than the children of light," and where we read of " the generation of the righteous," " the gene- ration of the upright" " the generation of God's children" " a generation that curseth their father," " the generation of God's wrath," and in other like instances. The plain mean- MEANING OP CHRIST'S PROPHECY. 29 ing of the Savior is, that the family of Abraham, the Israel- itish people, should not pass out of existence, as a distinct class or race, before all these predictions should be verified. So Clarke understands the matter, although he applies it to the destruction of Jerusalem. He thus paraphrases the passage : " This generation this race, i. e. the Jews shall not cease from being a distinct people, till all the counsels of God rela- tive to them and the Gentiles be fulfilled/' Chrysostom, Flacius, Mede, Wolfius, Sykes, Towers, and Buck, all take the word "generation" in this passage as meaning the Jewish race. And what the Savior says is, that the Jewish people shall not lose their distinctness as a family before the Son of man shall come and this whole prophecy be fulfilled. " Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away." It is therefore as plain as language can make it, that this prophecy of the Savior runs through all time, from its de- livery down to the end of the world that now is. Men may try to believe that he spoke only of the fall of Jerusalem and the Jewish constitution, but they deceive themselves; they distort, depreciate, and wrest the clear meaning of his words ; and they bring endless confusion into one of the plainest, most literal, and most straightforward prophecies in God's word. The disciples asked him three distinct questions, and he an- swered them all that they inquired about. They wished to know when and how Jerusalem and the temple should be brought to desolation, and he told them when and how these things should be, tracing down the consequences upon the Jewish race to his final coming and kingdom. They wished to know what should be the signs and form of his final coming in glory and triumph, and he explained to them the whole matter with a fullness of detail which constitutes the great fund from which his followers ever afterward drew their in- formation upon the subject. They wished to know when, and 3* 30 THE LAST TIMES. amid what circumstances, the end should come ; and he an- swered them on that point too, as far as it was for them to know the facts, telling what might he known and what has been wisely and mercifully concealed. They were confused in their apprehensions of the relations of these things to each other, and he put them upon their guard against deception, carefully separating events which did not belong together, dissuading them from false hopes, telling them first of Jerusa- lem's fall and the end of the Judaic age, and then passing down the long line of Jewish troubles to the last times, and the winding up of the present administration by his own per- sonal advent and kingdom. CHRIST, THEREFORE, WILL COME AGAIN. He himself has taught the glorious truth in most impressive fullness. By this plain, common-sense, and self-demonstrating way of under- standing this sublime prophecy, the doctrine of the second advent again takes prominence, certainty, and nearness, such as it was originally designed to have upon the inspired record. "We thus come into full possession of the fact that, not only here and there, in passages of poetic fervor, and liable to have their force diminished by allowances for poetic license, but in plain, familiar, solemn, didactic discourse, the church is taught by the Lord Jesus himself, to look for his triumphant coming again to this disordered world. This doctrine is therefore no poet's dream, no mere fabulous device, but solid matter of fact, a most impressive reality. We may think but little of it, and put it far, far away ; but it is among the fixed verities of Almighty God. Yea, one of the last things that was said of the Savior as he left the world was, " THIS SAME JESUS which is talcen up into heaven SHALL so COME, IN LIKE MANNER, as ye have SEEN him go into heaven." Hence- forward the followers of the Savior could say, "THE LORD HIMSELF shall descend from heaven." " Our conversation is in heaven, from whence also ice look for the Savior, the Lord CERTAINTY OF CHRIST'S COMING. 31 Jesus Christ." "Behold, HE COMETH WITH CLOUDS; and every eye shall SEE him, and they also ichich pierced him." Henceforward could the disciples go forth, " looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the great God our Savior Jesus Christ/' and beseech men " by the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together unto him," and exhort their fellow-believers "to wait for his Son from heaven," and proclaim the glad " rest, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels," and encourage the fond hopes of the persecuted and despond- ing with the assurance that " when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall SEE HIM AS HE is." No, no; "We have not followed cunningly-devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." As certainly as the words of Jesus are true, as surely as the pillars of the Eternal throne are stead- fast, Jesus himself, in glorified humanity, shall return again to this very world of ours. All the prophets have predicted it. All the pious, from the foundation of the world, have in some shape expected it. Jesus declared it, both before his death and after his resurrection. And the very last words in the holy Testament which he left us are, " He that testifieth these things saith, SURELY I COME QUICKLY. AMEN." Even apart from what the Scriptures contain upon the subject, with the account of his humiliation before us, reason itself might almost anticipate his return. We cannot suppose that such a glorious personage will always remain under the re- proach and stigma of the cross. Natural justice seems to demand that he should come again, in the majesty that apper- tains to him, in order to sweep away the infamy which wicked men in every age have sought to heap upon him. As He whose right it is to reign, will reign ; and as He whose " is the kingdom, the power, and the glory," will not forever leave his enemies to usurp his place ; so we are driven to ex- 32 THE LAST TIMES. pect him yet to come, " glorious in his apparel, and triumph- ing in the greatness of his strength." It must, therefore, be a matter of absorbing interest to every man, how, and when, and with what antecedents and results, the Son of man shall come. "This," says Charles Beecher, " is the question now in the providence of God first claiming the solemn attention of the churches." What can be more momentous than the closing up of this whole present scene of things the passing away of the world's present fashion and administration ? What revolutions in government what subversions of present social arrangements what de- struction of empires, thrones, principalities, and powers and what shakings of the heavens and of the earth arc involved ! What new and strange experiences shall pass over men when once the glorious King and Judge of quick and dead shall blaze forth his startling presence in the clouds, and summon the earth to answer for all its deeds ! And shall we not seek to understand the revelation of God concerning these amazing scenes ? Shall we not awake from our dreams of peace, and open our eyes to the startling things that are crowding thick around us, and our ears to what God has said about them ? Have we not been allegorizing, and spiritualizing, and Jerusa- lemizing the prophetic word, until we hardly know where we are, or whether there is any thing more to be expected or not? Let us, then, rouse up upon this momentous subject. We have mighty interests staked upon it. There is more said about it in the Scriptures than upon any other single theme. And yet Christians now hardly cast a thought forward to the mighty occurrences which it involves. We say the prayer, 11 Thy kingdom come!" but so cold and lifeless is the petition on our lips, that we scarcely know what we are asking. Jesus says, "Behold, I come quickly;" but we fold our arms and answer, No, no ; it will yet be a thousand years or more. He says " Watch;" but we say, There's no danger that he will come NECESSITY FOR PREPARATION. 33 in our day. The midnight cry is being raised in every region and city of Christendom, "Behold, the Bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him!" but multitudes deride, and say, It is the raving of enthusiasts ; it is the cry of fanaticism ; and they heed it not. Alas, whose heart now thrills to the startling announcement, "The Lord comelli" ? Who looks, and sighs, and prays now, for the return of the Savior to our world ? Who is waiting for, as he is hastening unto, the coming of the day of God ? Who is keeping himself in readiness for its solemn revelations ? My brethren, if the Son of man should come this week, this month, or this year, would he find faith on the earth ? Would not the church itself be taken by surprise ? Would not such an event now come upon the overwhelming ma- jority of Christ's professed followers unawares ? And yet, what guarantee have we that the chariot-wheels of the com- ing King are not already rumbling over the distant worlds ? Has he not said, "In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh" ? " the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night" ? and "as a snare shall it come upon all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth" ? Who can say that we are not liable to have the great scenes of the judg- ment precipitated upon us at any moment ? And shall we not be concerned to have our minds familiarized with what may any day occur, and which must occur sooner or later ? Is there not something inconceivably dreadful in the thought of having that day come upon us at the very time we are saying, " My Lord delayeth his coming" ? Would it not be better to be a little beforehand with our anticipations, and to bear the taunts that may be heaped upon us for our concern, than to accommodate ourselves to the wisdom and sobriety of this erring world, and be finally taken by surprise and perhaps lose our eternal all ? Jesus says, that " the Lord of that servant" who shall be found faithless, sleeping, or scoffing, "shall cut c 34 Tll LAST TIMES. him asunder, and appoint him his portion with hypocrites, amid weeping and gnashing of teeth." Of what avail will his worldly wisdom and his fruitless profession be to him then ? What good will all his knowledge then do him ? Better that he had never known the way of righteousness, better that he had never been born, than amid all our high privileges thus to come short of the approbation of the coming Judge. And if judgment first begin at us, and many professing Christians shall lose the joys of the kingdom, "what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God ? If the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear ?" With what surprise and discomfiture shall the clay of Christ's coming overtake them ! My dear friends, these arc solemn thoughts. It will not do to trifle with them. Momentous issues are involved. And we know not how soon the-irrevocable decision shall be made. Let us, then, enter upon the study of this mighty subject with serious and prayerful hearts, anxious to know what God has been pleased to reveal, and earnestly set upon preparing to meet our God. And especially let us carefully lay to heart those impressive words of the Lord Jesus himself : " Of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only. [Luke : Therefore take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be over- charged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye, therefore, and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man :] [Marie : for ye know not when the time is.] But as the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drink- "BE YE ALSO READY." 35 ing, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and KNEW NOT until the flood came, and took them all away : so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field ; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill ; the one shall be taken, and the other left. WATCH, THEREFORE, FOR YE KNOW NOT WHAT HOUR YOUR LORD DOTH COME. But know this, that if the good man of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore, BE YE ALSO READY : FOR IN SUCH AN HOUR AS YE THINK NOT,, THE SON OF MAN COMETH. Who, then, is a faithful and wise servant, whom his Lord hath made ruler over his household, tcfgive them meat in due season ? Blessed is that servant, whom his lord, when he cometh, shall find so doing. Verily I say unto you, That he shall make him ruler of all his goods." God help us to be faithful and wise servants, that, when He who is our life shall appear, we also may appear with him in glory! SECOND DISCOURSE. HOW CHRIST'S COMING is RELATED TO OTHER EVENTS THE MILLEX- NIUM WRONG VIEWS CORRECTED THE FINAL ADVENT PREMILLEN- NIAL THE POINT ARGUED. LUKE xviii. 7, 8 : And shall not God avenge Ids own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though lie bear long with them f I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when tJie Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth. WITH these words to indicate the general sphere of my remarks, I now resume the subject which I introduced to your attention a week ago. I have tried to impress upon you that it is our duty, privilege, and a source of comforting edifi- cation, to study God's gracious revelations concerning " the last times." Some have supposed that prophecy is mainly designed for the conviction of those who live when, or after, it is fulfilled, and that the investigation of it does not belong to those who live before that time. If it were even so, I would still insist that we ought to study these things, for the evident reason that we are at this very day in the midst of the incipient scenes of their fulfillment. And, apart from this startling fact, I hold that these revelations are for us, and for our learning, as well as for future generations. When once they have been fulfilled, redemption will be complete, doubts and unbelief will have no more place, the saints will be with their King in their rest, and no evidences from fulfilled pro- phecy will be needed to convince people of the existence and providence of God, or of the truth and faithfulness of his 36 BUT TWO COMINGS SPOKEN OF IN SCRIPTURE. 37 word. All this will be plain enough then in each one's heart without processes of reasoning upon the past to establish it. And if these impressive predictions are not intended for our "reproof, correction, and instruction," I am at a loss to know for whom or for what they are intended. I have also endeavored to set forth the reality and certainty of the Savior's return to this world, by showing you the true and solid Scriptural basis upon which this glorious article of our faith reposes. Some say Christ comes at death, or when he manifests his secret providence by open judgment. Some say Christ comes when he manifests his grace in the conver- sion of souls, the revival of languid churches, and the victo- ries of his truth. But it is very evident that neither of these is that coming of the Son of man of which the Scriptures say so much, and which is so distinctly embodied in all the creeds. Indeed, I very much doubt whether the sacred writers ever speak of these providential and spiritual manifestations as Christ's coming. I know of but two things to which the Bible applies this language : the one is the incarnation, when Christ was made man and born of the Virgin Mary; the other is his return from heaven in the last times to judge the world in righteousness. The New Testament tells of a first coming, and a second coming, and no more : the one was accomplished when " he came unto his own, and his own received him not;" and the other will be, when "he shall appear THE SECOND TIME without sin unto salvation." I find in all the Bible but these two personal advents of the Savior spoken of, the one of which occurred eighteen hundred and fifty years ago, and the other is to take place at the end of the present dispensation. And all the passages respecting the coming of the Son of man which have not been fulfilled in his first coming apply directly and only to his final coming at the judgment. I proceed now to inquire at what stage in the progress of 4 38 THE LAST TIMES. the Messiah's earthly kingdom his second advent is to be ex- pected. Is it to occur after his kingdom has run its entire mundane course, or does the ultimate consummation of his kingdom in this world depend upon his final coming ? In other words, are we to look for the Savior's future personal advent before or after the millennium ? The word millennium is compounded from the Latin, and literally means a thousand years. Its theological import is not very clearly defined. Some use it to denote one class of ideas, others to denote another class, just as they adopt this or that system for interpreting the twentieth chapter of the Re- velation. For the most part, however, it is used and under- stood to denote a future period of universal righteousness, liberty, and peace, during which Satan is to be bound, and Christianity be triumphant throughout the world. The ques, tion which I propose to consider is, whether Christ is to come personally to introduce and establish this glorious condition of things, or whether this triumph of all that is good is to be realized before he comes ? According to the popular belief, the final advent of tho Savior is a far-distant event, a mysterious and undefined something which is to transpire at some remote point in the revolutions of ages, long after the progress of Christian knowledge, the developments of science, and the march of intellect, have made the world universally pious, just, and happy. On the platform and in the pulpit, we hear men talking rapturously and hopefully of some golden, blessed age, which is to be ushered in under the operation of existing instrumentalities. By the preaching of the gospel, the work of Christian education, and the progress of reform, they ex- pect the world to be converted, Antichrist destroyed, Satan cast out, and all the relations, occupations, and pursuits of men purified, ennobled, and regulated with justice. This is the hope which poets sing about, and orators preach about, as WRONG VIEWS CORRECTED. ii9 the great incentive to missionary effort, and the reward of self-denial, liberality, and prayer in the good work of propa- gating the gospel. And when once this glorious era has come, and continued through an indefinite period of duration, then, somewhere down among uncounted ages, the idea is, that Christ will appear in the heavens, join these terrestrial glories with glories celestial, and close the scene of grandeur amid songs and triumphs that die from us into the fathomless pro- found of eternity. Now,*all this may be very poetical, and answer very well to touch off platform speeches. It certainly is very flattering to human pride, and very pleasant for the fancy to dwell upon. But is it the truth of God ? We are not inquiring now for what is captivating, and beautiful, and touching to the natural heart, or even to the Christian's imaginings. We want to know what Jehovah saith what the spirit of the Lord hath revealed concerning these things. And I am free to confess to you that my study of the Scriptures has taught me to expect a very different course and order of events. My Bible tells me of no millennium which existing processes are to bring about. Neither does it tell me of a millennium which is to precede the Savior's final advent. The only mil- lennium I read of in the holy book is that which is to be introduced by the glory and power of Christ's coming, and the chief excellence of which is, his personal presence and reign with his saints upon the earth. It is not the reign of art, science, human culture, or free governments, for which the Bible teaches me to look j nor yet for the universal triumph of Christianity or the church as we now have it ; nor yet for the reign of justice, holiness, or any mere abstract principle ; but for the personal reign of Jesus my Lord, when "all people, nations, and languages, shall serve him," and shall "come up unto Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord of hosts." And that this millennium may come, and this 40 THE LAST TIMES. glorious reign be established, the Savior himself must first come, as he promised, and as the angels declared in the day that he was taken up into heaven. The advent of Christ, then, for which I look, and for which I would have all men look, is not a _pos-millennial, but a ^re- millennial coming; not a coming long hence, after an era of liberty and perfection such as orators and poets have dreamed of, but a coming which is to usher in and begin the promised age of gold, and introduce to the world the fruits of a con- summated redemption. It -is Christ's coming that is'to make the millennium, and not the millennium which is to prepare the world for Christ's coming. Upon this point my mind is clear, and my faith too firm to be shaken. There is hardly another subject in the Bible upon which there is such a mass of varied divine testimony as upon this. And if you will be at the pains to search out and test the observations which I am about to submit, I feel satisfied that you will be obliged, either to repudiate the Scriptures, or to make up your minds to believe as I do. 1. I have examined the Scriptures with diligence and care, and have had this subject before me as a matter of study for more than a half-score of years; and to this moment I have not found one passage, and I do not believe that you can find one, which, by any legitimate construction, asserts a period of rest, triumph, and millennial glory anterior to the great and final coming of our blessed Lord. If there be such a passage, I will be obliged to any one who will point it out to me. 2. I find the Scriptures invariably representing the church of Christ as afflicted, persecuted, depressed, wronged, and re- proached, until relieved by the coming and kingdom of the Savior to judge the world in righteousness. Daniel, in his vision, beheld the saints warred with, and prevailed against, until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given : (vii. 21, 22.) The text distinctly identifies tbe avenging of THE CHURCH TO SUFFER TILL CHRIST COMES. 41 God's elect with the coming of the Son of man, and shows that his people shall be a suffering people until that day of avengernent coines. And other passages to the same effect are numerous and strong. If we look at the laws and conditions of discipleship, we read, "ALL that vail live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution/' " If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross." " The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will persecute you." " In the world ye shall have tribulation." " We must through great tribulation enter into the kingdom of God." If we look at the accounts of the relative strength of the church, we always find it consisting of a depressed minority. " Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it." " Fear not, little flock." " Many are called, butfcic are chosen." If we look at the promises of the gospel, we find them nearly all framed to a condition of suffering, tempta- tion, and affliction on the part of those to whom they are ad- dressed. " He that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." " To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna." " Think it not strange, concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you ; but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings." "Rejoice, and be exceeding glad for great is your reward in heaven ; for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you." Are we to be rewarded for our toils and labors in the gospel ? It will only be " when the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father." Are we to inherit the kingdom? It is only "when the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him." Is the church waiting in hope? It is "for the ci niiing of our Lord Jesus Christ." Did Paul look for "a. crown of righteousness?" It was only to be given him "at that day." It is only when " he shall appear a second time," 42 THE LAST TIMES. that ho will appear "unto salvation." Every thing of glad hope which the gospel gives us points to the final advent. " The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now: and even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for (the resurrection) the redemption of our body." There is no promise of rest, no Sabbath-keeping, for the dwellers upon earth, until our Joshua comes and gives us the glorious land. Every thing remains disjointed, sickly, afflicted, until then. And amid all these groans, reproaches, and trou- bles which roll and dash upon the church until they break against the throne of the returning Redeemer, we look in vain for that sunny continent of universal peace and jubilee of which men speak. 3. The Holy Scriptures, so far from promising to us a millennium of universal righteousness before Christ comes, invariably represent the world as abounding, if not ever grow- ing, in wickedness, even up to the very moment of his coming. Look at the text. Though in the form of a question, it yet contains the strongest kind of asseveration, that the coming Judge shall find the world awfully apostate. " When the Son of man cometh, shall lie find faith on the earth?" "That day shall not come except there be a falling away first." Many servants shall say, "My Lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to smite their fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken; and the Lord shall come in a day when they look not for him, and cut them asunder, and appoint them their portion with hypocrites." " Evil men and seducers shall wax icorse and worse, deceiving and being deceived." "The Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their conscience seared with a hot iron." " This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, bias- SIN WILL ABOUND TILL CHRIST COMES. 43 pheruei-s, 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." " Remem- ber ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ ; how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit." "Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation." " The mystery of iniquity doth already work : only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way ; and then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy with the brightness of his coming : even him, whose coming is after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and with all deceivableness of unright- eousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie, that they all might be damned who be- lieved not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness." These are dark and awful descriptions, and they stretch down from apostolic times to Christ's own personal coming. In the Revelation also, under three distinct streams of prediction, seals, trumpets, and vials, we have a series of successive and ever-augmenting defections, revolts, apostasies, and usurpa- tions, which are ended only with the tremendous judgments of the day of the Savior's personal appearing. Where, then, is that glowing period of universal righteousness, liberty and 44 THE LAST TIMES. peace, which some are looking for previous to our Saviour's final coming ? 4. The Savior's prophetic discourse, which is the fountain of all these prophecies concerning the last times and the second advent, allows no place for a period of millennial glory anterior to the personal arrival of the Son of man. That dis- course, running through the twenty-fourth and fifth chapters of Matthew, gives us a luminous sketch, by the hand of the great Master of Prophets, of the leading aspects of the divine administrations from the destruction of Jerusalem to the con- summation of all things. The Savior there describes most vividly and plainly all the great signs which are to precede, attend, and follow his coming in the clouds of heaven with great power and glory. And if it is true that his final advent is to be preceded by a thousand years of universal righteous- ness and peace, it is impossible to believe that he would have entirely omitted all allusion to it in a prophecy so compre- hensive, and yet so minute in its details. Such an inter- vening millennium would have been a "sign" so notable that it could not have been passed by. And yet we search in vain through all that wonderful discourse for the smallest hint con- cerning it. Nay, he specifically describes a great and unpre- cedented tribulation, beginning with the siege and fall of Jerusalem, and stretching on " until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled," and tells us that "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 tlien 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." There can be no millennium of peace whilst "tribulation" lasts; but in this account "tribula- tion" only ceases at the point when the signs of Christ's immediate advent appear. The only space between the PARABLE OF THE WHEAT AND TARES. 45 tribulation and the terrifying signs of the judgment is described by the adverb euOsios instantly, immediately, quickly, without the intervention of any other event. To make that adverb include a millennium would be to contradict its whole meaning, and to adopt a principle of interpretation which would reduce all language to uncertainty. But we must do it to have the millennium before Christ comes. Nay more; as if forever to cut up by the roots all hope of a period of universal righteousness and peace prior to the judgment, the Savior adds, "As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man le." What were the characteristics that marked the last periods of the antediluvian world ? Was the flood preceded by a millennium of righteousness and peace, or a millennium of universal apostasy, sensuality, wickedness and debasement? Let the word of God answer. "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. The earth also was corrupt before God ; and the earth was filled with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt : for all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth." Such is the awful portrait which inspiration gives of those early times; and He who cannot lie says, " So SHALL IT BE ALSO IN THE DAYS OF THE SON OF MAN !" 5. The Scriptures explicitly teach us that the world shall re- main in a mixed condition, in which the good and the bad shall grow together and mature side by side until the day of judg- ment. Upon this point, the parable of the wheat and the tares is a perpetual demonstration. Much as men have controverted over that parable, no man can separate from its teachings this clear and strong prediction, that the wicked shall live and flourish as long as this present dispensation endures. Jesus himself has so explained and applied it. "The field is the 46 THE LAST TIMES. world." In that same field are both wheat and tares, the chil- dren of the Kingdom and the children of the wicked one. "Both grow together until the harvest." "The harvest is the end of the world." And, until that end comes, no man or angel can uproot or remove those tares. There they are, growing and bearing fruit; and there they will continue to grow and flourish until Christ comes with his reapers to wind up this present economy. There is no triumphing of the wheat over the tares; no monopolizing of the field by the righteous; no trampling down, subjugation, conversion or eradication of the hosts of the wicked, until then. What could more directly, positively and unequivocally prove, that there is to be no millennium of universal righteousness, liberty and peace, before Christ comes ? In the millennium, the glory of the Lord is to "fill all the earth." "All people, nations aud languages" are then to serve Jesus, "and all dominions shall serve and obey him." The knowledge of the Lord is to cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. "They shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : for all shall know him from the least to the greatest." "Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess, that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father." And yet this selfsame holy record teaches us that the devil will have his children here, and that they shall grow and flourish until the day of Christ's coming to judge the world. Is not the demonstration complete, that the millennium docs not com- mence until after Christ comes ? 6. It is self evident, that there can be no millennium of universal righteousness, liberty and peace, whilst the great autichristian powers, and the confederations of usurpation and wickedness, continue to defile and oppress the world with their foul presence and work. How can there be a millennium whilst "the mystery of iniquity" lives and operates "after the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying won- DURATION AND END Or THE MAN OF SIN. 47 ders, and with all deceivableness of unrighteousness" ? How can there be a millennium whilst the domineering, blasphemous and persecuting power in Daniel, which speaks " great words against the Most High," and wears out the people of God, continues making war with the saints and prevailing against them? How can there be a millennium whilst corrupt and oppressive governments still usurp the prerogatives of God, and array themselves against liberty and truth? How can there be a millennium whilst nations gather themselves to battle, and " the kings of the earth, and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men," continue to make themselves obnoxious to "the wrath of the Lamb" ? The thing is impossible. The very idea is prepos- terous. And yet I will prove to you that the Scriptures explicitly teach that these antichristian and usurping powers will live on till Christ comes, and that they shall only be destroyed when he shall judge the world. Look at what is said of the duration and end of "the Man of sin," in the Second Epistle to the Thessalonians. The apostle tells us that it had already begun to work in his day. The paganism of the Roman government for a while stood in its way. But the Spirit said, that when this hindrance should be removed, "then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy" WHEN and HOW? By the gradual spread of evan- gelical religion ? By the present processes of bringing men to the knowledge of the truth? No, no, no; "WITH THE BRIGHTNESS OF HIS COMING" (jrj -id is with men, and he will dwell with them and be their God. And he shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain : for the former things are passed away." Now, what is there in all this that looks like " the wreck of matter/' " the crush of worlds," or the everlasting disap- pearance of " the great globe itself !" No, no ; creation is not to be destroyed. The vast and splendid mechanism of the worlds is not to be broken up, and thrown aside, and con- signed to oblivion. None of these great products of creative power and wisdom shall ever come to naught, or be forgotten. The footsteps of the Son of God upon this earth have conse- crated it, and made it too sacred ever to be blotted from the page of being. And when I think that God hath conde- scended to be manifest in material flesh, and, in the person of Jesus, did actually unite himself with the dust of earth, and wore -it on him, my contempt for materiality vanishes at once, and it seems to me like sacrilege to entertain the idea of this world's annihilation. Shall the clay which constituted the NO WASTE IN CREATION. 71 body of the blessed Christ pass over into the devil's hands, or go down to everlasting nothingness ? Shall the soil that was saturated with the precious blood of his unspotted heart be consigned to irrecoverable ruin ? Shall the theatre of his great labors, agonies, death and triumphs, disappear, "and leave not a rack behind" to mark the orb on which his mighty deeds of love were done ? Shall men hold those spots sacred on which great patriots and benefactors lived and died, and the eternal God blot out the world on which his dear Son performed the sorrowful pilgrimage of human life, and accom- plished the stupendous work of the redemption of its in- habitants ? I do not, I cannot believe it. It goes against all my deepest conceptions of God and his great purposes of love. Aside from all this, it seems to be a settled law of the divine operations, always to work out what is to be, from what already exists; and to bring in no new creations beyond what are absolutely necessary. You remember the miracle at the marriage in Cana. Jesus could just as easily have filled the waterpots with wine without requiring them first to be filled with water. But he preferred to take an existing element, and from that to develop the cheering fruits of his marvellous power. So in feeding the five thousand in the wilderness, he could just as easily have dispensed with the few scanty loaves and fishes ; but he chose to take what they had, and to make that the basis of his wonderful provision. It would not be more difficult for him to create a new race of men upon earth than to redeem its present inhabitants; but it seems best to him to take the old materials, and out of them to effect his great ends of goodness. He is not prodigal in the use of his power, or wasteful of his creations. Every little fragment must be gathered, " that nothing be lost." He always takes the sinner to make a saint, and the dying and corrupt body to make an immortal and spiritual one. Xo matter how humble or unpromising the basis may be, so long as there is a basis on 72 THE LAST TIMES. which to proceed, he invariably adopts it, and works from it, in preference to an entirely new creation. I do not know a single exception to this rule. I argue then, as he brings " the new man" out of "the old Adam," and the glorified body out of " the natural body," and the new harvest out of the old seed, so he will also assuredly bring the " new heavens and new earth" out of the old heavens and old earth, and thus make a paradise of God out of this very wilderness of our present dwelling-place. My faith is, that these very hills and valleys shall yet be made glad with the songs of a finished redemption, and this earth yet become the bright, blessed and everlasting homestead of men made glorious and immortal in body and in soul. And why should we start back from such ideas, or wish that it were different ? There is nothing essentially corrupt or degrading in matter. It did not detract from Adam's good- ness or happiness that he stood in connection with a material system. It did not render Christ less pure, exalted, or adorable, that he took up his abode upon earth, and was manifested in the flesh. After all, there is much in this world that is beau- tiful, attractive and good. Though it has been much dis- figured and disordered by reason of the sins of its inhabit- ants, we may still trace upon it the footprints of Deity, and behold in it many lingering relics of the smiles of its God. " Look," says Cummings, " at the floor on which you tread, so exquisitely carpeted with verdure, with fragrance and with blossom ; look at the sky that is above you, where worlds are subservient as lamps and lights to ours ; look at the whole economy in which you live, the ocean of air you breathe, the infinite provisions for your comfort ; and why should you want this world destroyed ? Go to some of its fair glens, its lovely scenes, its bright panoramas, and you will be constrained to say, Take away sin, take away corruption, take away head- aches, heart-aches, envy, malice, uncharitableness, and all the MEANING OF " THE END OF TUB WORLD." 73 evils that sin has given birth to, and I could wish no lovelier heaven to dwell in forever and forever." Jesus himself points us to the humble lilies of the field, and tells us with emotion that ''even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these !'' Just take from earth the curse of sin that has marred it; let its pristine beauty be renewed; plant in it the throne of my Redeemer's glory; consecrate and sanctify it with his holy and perpetual presence ; and fill it with the happi- ness, love, peace and righteousness foretold in the Scriptures; and there certainly can be no reason why we should wish any better heaven, or ever think of its annihilation. But some will be disposed, at this point, to remind me that the Scriptures do certainly speak of an ending of the world. The disciples asked Jesus what should be the sign of his coming, " and of the end of the world." The Savior says " the harvest is the end of the world;" that, "as the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of the world;" and that he is with his ministering servants " always, even unto the end of the world." I had not over- looked these expressions ; nor do they present the least em- barrassment to the doctrine of the earth's eternal perpetuity. The word " world'' often has no reference to the material earth, much less to the general material universe. When Jesus said that the -world hated him, and that (he world would hate his disciples, he certainly did not mean the inanimate globe. The word world, you will thus perceive, has different significations; and it is used in our English Bibles where very different words are used in the original Greek. The proper Greek word for the material earth is fn > but this word is not found in either of the passages which speak of the ending of the world. In two of them the word rendered world is a'.tuv, which means a space of time, an age, an era, a dispensation. In the other two, the word rendered world is which denotes the exterior order, arrangements, in- 7 74 THE LAST TIMES. vestiture and embellishments of the earth. These shall end when Christ comes, and give place to something new ; but the Y r i the earth itself has no end assigned it anywhere in all God's book of revelation. Ages shall terminate ; dispensa- tions shall be consummated and disappear; "THE FASHION of this world passeth away;" and present outward configurations of things shall vanish; but the earth shall abide. Already we have had at least one ending of the world since man's fall; and from that we may form some idea of what the next shall be. I refer to Noah's flood. Peter says of it, " By the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water, whereby THE WORLD THAT THEN WAS, being overflowed with water, PERISHED/' Now, what was it fatal perished ? the material earth ? Not at all; when the flood was over, Noah still found it rolling in its accustomed orbit, where it has kept rolling until now, and where it will continue to roll forever and ever. Peter says it was the xoff/jo? that perished ; that is, that outward order and constitution of things which existed in antediluvian times. There was no extinction of our globe, no missing of our planet from among the heavenly constellations; and yet in- spiration says, "THE WORLD that then ioas PERISHED." May there not, then, be another ending or perishing of the world, without bringing oblivion upon the material orb on which we dwell ? Nay, the Holy Scriptures authorize the remark, that " the end of the world" which is yet to come shall not be so destructive to the earth as the flood of Noah was. When Noah came out of the ark, "The Lord said, I ivill not again curse the ground any more for man's sake, NEITHER WILL I AGAIN SMITE ANY MORE EVERY LIVING THING, AS I HAVE DONE :" (Gen. viii. 21.) These are not human conjectures, but the words of the immutable covenant of Almighty God. And, as the perishing of " the world that then icas" was not an annihilation or destruction of the globe itself, so neither THE JUPGMENT-FWrs. 7") will the ending of the world which now is any more damage or affect the existence of this planet. But Peter says, " The heavens and the earth, which are now, are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men;" that "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 ; the earth also and all that is therein shall be burned up ;" that " the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat." Does not this teach the utter ruin and extinction of material things ? Cer- tainly not. The apostle guards particularly against such an apprehension. "Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for" not another heaven, but "new heavens;" not an- other earth, but "a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous- ness." The whole passage taken together, then, is nothing more nor less than the assertion of a regeneration of the ma- terial world by fire, analogous to the regeneration of the natu- ral man by the Holy Ghost. And as there is no extinction of existence, and no alteration in the essential constituents of the being, in the one case, so neither shall there be in the other. The earth shall not pass away. It shall live on sur- vive its baptism of fire exist through the. mysterious regene- ration and come forth, minus its curse, to flourish with all its sister orbs forever in its Maker's smiles. Fire cannot reduce matter to nothing. It ma}- alter the modes and quali- ties of it ; but it cannot destroy its substance. And when we come to examine what Peter says these last fires are for, it is plain that they shall not be such as to depopulate or make an utter end of this planet. Men of science tell us, that the deeper we penetrate towards the centre of the earth, the warmer do we find the temperature; and that, if we could carry our investigations deep enough, we would find the inte- rior of the earth "one rolling, restless flood, like the burning 76 THE LAST TIMES. lava that pours from Vesuvius, finding its occasional safety- valve in the volcano." It is evidently to this fact that the apostle speaks, when he says, (as some translate his Avords,) " the present atmosphere and earth are stored with fire, re- served unto the day of judgment, EVEN THE PERDITION OF EMINENTLY WICKED MEN." The last fires, then, are those which already exist, but which are imprisoned by the great Creator's word until the day of judgment, when they are to be let loose, not for the annihilation of the world, but for the destruction of the openly apostate, and the persecuting ene- mies of Christ and his kingdom. The scene which the apostle declares is not universal, but particular and local, and not greatly different from volcanic phenomena which have often been witnessed. Read the descriptions given of some of these terrific eruptions. Dana says of one which occurred at the great volcano Kilanea Hawaii, " The stream (of fire) plunged into the sea with loud detonations, (with a great noise.) The burning lava, on meeting the waters, was shivered like melted glass into millions of particles, which were thrown up in clouds that darkened the sky, and fell like a storm of hail over the surrounding country. Vast columns of steam and vapors rolled off before the wind, whirling in ceaseless agitation ; and the reflected glare of the lavas formed a fiery firmament over- head." Kinney says, " The intense heat of the fountain and stream of lava caused an influx of cool air from every quarter. This created terrific whirlwinds, which constantly stalked about, like so many sentinels, bidding defiance to the daring visitor. These were the most dangerous of any thing about the volcano. Clouds approaching were driven back, and set moving in wild confusion." Now, bring distinctly before your minds this terrific scene, the sky filled with flames, the loud roar and crash, the fused elements pouring forth from the earth, the disordered rush of winds and the dreadful danger of coming near, and then take up the literal words of Peter, LAST FIRES EXPLAINED IN OTHER PROPHECIES. 77 and you will see that it is altogether a similar scene which he describes. The day of judgment is to unchain the impris- oned fires; and then the atmosphere will pass with a rushing noise; and the elements being kindled will melt; and the earth and the works on it will be burned. "As then all these are (to be) loosed, what manner of persons ought ye to be iu holy deportment and piety, looking for and earnest!}- awaiting the coming of the day of God, in which the aerial regions shall be let loose, (to rush in fiery whirlwinds,) and the ele- ments being fired shall melt." The picture is exceedingly awful, and, when realized, shall be dreadfully destructive to those upon whom God's vengeance shall thus fall ; but what it portrays is evidently volcanic, and confined to particular regions. Hence, says David N. Lord, after a very thorough, critical and satisfactory examination of the whole passage, pixy on the hok of ir T i- all Z:T brff avaftv^ <^:h Ihi L:ri." - : "._\: : :- -_ " i -.. V - -1: il^i: : :_e -_ _ __"_ _, _ : _ . "_ ~ ". . _ _ _ _-,:;:_. -:^: : - -I. V J THE LAST T! things which is yet to be realized upon this earth. Son: we must take them literally; others interpret them figura- tively; and others understand them spiritually. But, no mat- ter how we take them, one thing is settled and incontroverti- ble, that they include a physical as well as a moral redemption. They describe the lifting off of the curse from all creation around us, as well as from the souls within us. They exhibit suffering and disordered nature once more free, harmonious, congenial, restored, and forever at rest. They portray vast and happy changes in things spiritual and things physical, animate and inanimate, human, animal, vegetable and ele- mental. They show us the earth with its deserts fertilized, its elements harmonized, its inhabitants made congenial to each other, its product* rendered abundant and sanatory, and its possessors invested with perfect happiness and immortality. Some have looked for their fulfillment in a fancied millennium previous to the Savior's coming. They would have us believe that these sublime predictions relate only to the universal triumph of political freedom, general wisdom, and exalted piety. But how will the mere reign of righteousness and love in the hearts and conduct of mankind extend redemption into the physical world, or work a deliverance to the animal and other kingdoms ? Knowledge, holiness and liberty com- bined, and spread over the earth from one end thereof to the other, cannot save a man from bodily aches, decay and death. They cannot take the taint from the atmosphere, nor the ma- laria from the earth. They cannot cover Sahara with fertility, nor hush the storm and tempest, nor close the volcano's crater, nor stop the Maelstrom's whirl, nor stay the earth- quake's giant tread, nor relieve the creature of its groans. Make every meal a sacrament, and every day a Sabbath, and every thought a prayer to God ; and all that, of itself, cannot take away the curse with which God has cursed <4 the ground'' for man's sake, nor relieve these dying bodies from their TIME AND MANNER OF THIS GREAT CHANGE. 83 many ills. The case calls for greater changes in earth, air and sea, and in the whole present constitution of terrestrial things, than can by any possibility result from existing pro- cesses, or from mere natural developments. We must have special electric influences to quiet the atmosphere and adapt it better to the wants of humanity. We must have vol- canic or some other action in and upon the earth, to change some of its surface, consume its impurities, and renew its wastes. We must have a complete revolution in the pre- sent order of things. In a word, we must have another putting forth of divine power upon this world. It must be retouched by the hand that made it. It must come under a renewing potency which can raise the dead. And all this shall be only when the Son of God shall again come from the heavens. Accordingly, we read, that when the times of restitution come, "God shall send Jesu? Christ." "And then shall they see the Son of man coming iciih power." And "he shall call to the heavens from above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people." " He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth." " He shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity," and "destroy them that corrupt the earth." "He shall go forth as a mighty man, he shall stir up jealousy like a man of war ; he shall cry, yea, roar ; he shall do mighty things against his enemies." " The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake." " They that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and come forth." " Them also that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." " He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself." "Then shall be brought to pass the 84 THE LAST TIMES. saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory." "And there shall be no more curse." "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills shall flow with milk." " The ploughman shall overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes him that soweth the seed ; and the mountains shall drop sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt." " Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice before the Lord; for he conieth, for he cometh to judge the earth ; he shall judge the world with righteous- ness, and the people with his truth." "In his day there shall be abundance of peace." " The government shall be upon his shoulder; and of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end." " He shall come down like rain upon the mown grass : as showers that water the earth. In his days shall the righteous flourish." " He will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and with the creeping things of the ground." " His name shall endure forever. All nations shall call him blessed, the Lord God who only doeth wondrous things. And the whole earth shall be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen." Thus, then, will He that sits upon the throne "make all things new." " There will be wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke." But out of trouble shall come joy, out of darkness shall go forth light; and in place of groans and tears and death shall be songs of joy and glorious immortality. " The age of crime and suffering yet shall end ; The reign of righteousness from heaven descend ; Vengeance forever sheath the afflicting sword j Death be destroyed, and Paradise restored; Man, rising from the ruins of his fall, Be one with God, and God be all in all." THIS HOPE NO FABLE. 85 '' V'rite" says the Son of God, "for these ^cords are true and fulfil fuJ." It is not a poetic dream, but a divine revela- tion. God hath spoken it by the mouth of all his holy pro- phets since the world began. It was the hope of Adam as he went forth an exile from Eden. It was the light that illu- mined the tents of the pilgrims of old with a sweeter halo than the recollections of Paradise. It was the stay of faithful Abraham as he sojourned in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise. It shone in the serene imagination of Isaac, and supported the dying head of Jacob, and caused Joseph to turn away from Egypt's mauso- leums and ask that his bones might be carried up to the land of the redeemed. It shortened the centuries in which the Lord's chosen toiled in servitude, and cheered the house of affliction with songs. It kindled glad expectations amid the darkness of Gentile apostasy, and taught even the heathen to prophesy of deliverance. It fired the hearts and tongues of all Judah's minstrels, as they swept from the harps of in- spiration those lofty anthems which filled the home of the Shekinah with praise. And thousands upon thousands have not counted their lives dear unto them for the excellency of this hope, and were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain the better resurrection. Even irrational nature seems to be filled with the promise, and until now is earnestly expecting and waiting for " the manifestation of the sons of God," and the redemption which shall be ef- fected when death shall be no more. It cannot, therefore, be a fable. A lie could not be so deeply graven. What has been so fondly believed, so long looked for, and so earnestly desired what has been the hope of the good in every age, the theme of their songs, and the joy of their hearts what has ever been pointed to as the solution of earth's enigma and Jehovah's great vindication certainly cannot be a 8 86 THE LAST TIMES. falsehood. No, no, no; it cannot be delusion. Creation's loosened strings shall again be screwed up to their primeval tone and concord, to accompany the songs of God's saints with immortal harmonies. " The barren wastes shall rise, With sudden greens and fruits arrayed, A blooming paradise. " True holiness shall strike its root In each regenerate heart; Shall, in a growth divine, arise, And heavenly fruits impart. " Peace, with her olives crowned, shall stretch Her wings from shore to shore; No trump shall rouse the rage of war, Nor murderous cannon roar. "Lord, for those days we wait : those days Are in thy word foretold ; Fly swifter, sun and stars, and bring This promised age of gold !" " Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for such things, be diligent that ye may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless." It would be a sad thing, if, after all these sublime arrangements of our Maker, we should eventu- ally come short of the inheritance. Let me, then, exhort you to " give all diligence to make your calling and election sure." If you are prayerless, I beseech you to go and call upon God. If you have been thoughtless and careless, I entreat you to consider, and lay these great matters to heart. If you are a sinner, repent, repent now. And from this hour let each one who hears these remarks set out in full earnest to prepare to meet God. Soon your day of grace will be over. Soon your opportunities of becoming participants in the glad scenes of a DO ALL TO THE GLORY OF GOD. 87 restored creation will be at an end. " The end of all things is at hand; be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer. And above all have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth : that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ; to whom be praise and dominion forever and ever. Anien." FOURTH DISCOURSE. THE DOCTRINE OF THE RESURRECTION ERRONEOUS INTERPRETATIONS OF THE TWENTIETH CHAPTER OF THE REVELATION REFUTED THE FIRST RESURRECTION WHAT THE ANCIENT JEWS TAUGHT UPON THE SUBJECT CITATIONS FROM THE OLD PROPHETS HOW THE MATTER IS PRESENTED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT THE SUBLIME HOPES INVOLVED. KEV. xx. 4-6 : And I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands ; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the Jirst resurrection. THAT the dead shall rise again, is the universal belief of Christians. As no historic fact was ever more invincibly established than the resurrection of our Divine Redeemer, so no article of our faith is more clear and indisputable than the doctrine of our rising again like him at our appointed time. It is hardly worth while, in this connection, to accumulate proofs and authorities to support what is so generally admitted and believed, and so clearly announced in the Holy Scriptures. Certainly, no one will deny that the raising of the dead lies entirely within the reach of Divine power. No one will say that it is a thing impossible to Omnipotence. It involves no contradiction. It is prohibited by no foregone law or necessity. It is not rendered impossible by incapacity in the decomposed THE RESURRECTION PROVED BY ANALOGY. 89 bodies of the departed for reorganization. God knows each atom, and where it rests. Our substance was not hid from him when we were made in secret. His eye saw it yet being imperfect. All our members were written in his book when yet there was none of them. He has his number for every hair upon each head. Wherever the particles of these dis- solving bodies may be scattered or lodged, they lie completely within his knowledge and power. And He who could at the first so attemper the vulgar dust as to constitute a man can also again recover these attempered particles and restore them to their places. If he can bring a new and glorious ear out of the rotting seed, he can also bring a spiritual body out of the corruptible one. And as the resurrection of the dead is not a thing impos- sible, so it is not a thing improbable. Faint analogies of it may be traced in the ordinary changes and revolutions beheld in nature around us. Clement, the contemporary and friend of St. Paul, says, "The Lord does continually show us that there shall be a future resurrection. Day and night manifest it. The seed sown in the earth displays it." The day fades and dies. It is buried in sleep, silence and darkness. In the morning it revives, opens its grave of gloom, and rises from "the dead of night." The summer dies, and lies down in its wintry grave. The winds of heaven sigh and weep over it as if they would not be comforted. In the spring, life begins to work again in the buried roots and seeds; the plants and flowers burst out of their dark cerements; and every thing arrays itself in newness and glory. The sower goes forth and ca.^ts his seed upon the earth. It falls down dry and naked, and in time dissolves. But the great power of the providence of the Lord raises it again from that dissolution ; and from the old seed new germs arise, and bring forth fruit. The cater- pillar builds himself a tomb, and then lies down in it and dies. But out of the grave of the ugly worm comes forth the but- 3* 90 THE LAST TIMES. terfly which sallies forth in the sunshine like a living flower. And so there are many things in nature that are repaired by corrupting, preserved by perishing, and revived by dying. And as we behold man, the lord of these things, dying like them, it is but a fair presumption that he will revive again hereafter as we see them revive. But God has not left us in the school of nature, nor given us over to settle our persuasions upon mere likelihoods. In the glorious record of his word, he has put the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead beyond dispute. Distinct glimmer- ings of it may be found all through the Old Testament; and it is predicted in the New in language which no one can mis- understand. Paul says there were many saints before his day who "were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection." He says that the Jews allowed "that there shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust." The heroic Maccabees hoped for it. The sisters of Lazarus consoled themselves by thinking of it as they lingered at their only brother's grave. Christ explicitly pointed to a coming period, when " they that are in their graves shall hear the voice of the Son of man, and come forth." The great Apostle to the Gentiles argued it as a thing demonstrated by the resurrection of the crucified Savior. It was the great consolation of the noble army of the martyrs. And in every age of Christianity it has been cherished as the glad hope by which the believer triumphs over the gloom of corporeal dissolution. God has also added a seal to this doctrine which cannot be counterfeited. He has actually restored deceased persons to life again. When Elijah prayed for the resuscitation of the dead child of the widow of Sarepta, God heard him, "and the soul of the child came into him again, and he revived." Elisha, in his lifetime, received power to raise the young Shu- nemite; and the mere touch of his bones caused a dead man NATURE OF THE RESURRECTION. 91 to revive and stand upon his feet. When the daughter of Jairus died, Jesus "said unto her, Tabitha, cum I, and her spirit cauie again, and straightway the damsel arose." When he came "nigh to the gate of a city called Nam, there was a dead man carried out; and he came near and touched the bier, and said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise; and he that was dead sat up, and began to speak." And not only in the chamber and in the street, from the bed and from the bier, did Christ call the dead to life. His voice was heard with equal effect even in the putrid grave. When Lazarus had been "dead four days," and so long buried that his sisters said, "Lord, by this time he stiuketh," Jesus "cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth; and he that was dead" and putrid obeyed and lived again. And the blessed Savior him- self, after being "crucified, dead and buried," took to himself the might of his superior nature, and came forth from the sepulchre, and showed himself to hundreds with many notable signs. In these cases the problem has been solved, and the fact demonstrated forever, that there is such a thing as the resurrection of the dead. Though we may not be able to comprehend the processes by which it shall be effected, we may rest assured that it is no idle dream, no cunningly-devised fable, but t a sublime and stupendous reality. How far the resurrection-body is to be identical with the body which dies and wastes in the grave has not been revealed. It is enough for us to know that we shall rise from the dead, without being able to understand the philosophy of it. Doubtless we will leave much gross matter behind us in the grave. Xot all those identical particles which, by that time, may be wrought over and over in nature's vast laboratory to supply still other bodies, will need to be recovered and re- placed in order to bring about the resurrection. " That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him. So 92 THE LAST TIMES. is also the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." And yet, in the mysterious transition from the one to the other, identity is preserved. "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." Otherwise the whole idea of resurrection vanishes. "We believe in the resurrec- tion of the body;" and, if it is not in some way the raising of the body that dies and is buried, the whole doctrine amounts to naught. The thing is so mysterious, and so far removed from our present experiences, that it is impossible for us to understand it fully; but this we must adhere to, that the transition from corruption to incorruption, and from mortal to immortality, is somehow accomplished in the same body. Identity does not necessarily imply the continuation of all and precisely the same parts. We may be corporeally identified as the same men ten years hence that we are now; and yet, according to what physiologists tell us, by that time there will hardly be a particle in our bodies which is now in them. Great changes may occur, but people will identify us as the same persons then that we are now. So, then, we may also lose the more earthy parts of our material organism, and still come from our graves with bodies refined and spiritual indeed, but still interiorly and in form identical with those which we now inhabit. The butterfly is the sauie animal with the caterpillar which preceded it. It has the same body. It has arisen out of the same elements which constituted the caterpillar; though it has left much gross material behind it. The seed which we plant is the same that afterwards shoots up into a stalk, with blades and blossoms; so that we point to it and say, "Here is the flower I planted;" although much of that seed decays in the ground and mingles with the dust. DIFFERENT OPINIONS ON REV. XX. 93 And so the present mortal body is the germ or seed of the future heavenly body. The one rises out of the other. It is the same creature emerging in a new development. And when the signal for our reanimation comes, we shall gather to ourselves the interior essence of our slumbering dust, emerge in glory from our graves, and go forth amid the sublimities of a life in which body and soul shall enjoy unsullied and im- mortal union. It has been made a question, however, whether the text before us refers to the literal resurrection of the dead. It is strange to see to what fancies men have resorted to do away with the plain, evident, and literal import of the apostle's words. Some say that this "first resurrection," at the beginning of the millennium, is nothing more than the quickening and re- generation of sinners by repentance and faith in Christ. They take it as a spiritual resurrection, like that in the case of the returned prodigal. That the Scriptures do speak of the sin- ner's recovery as a resurrection, there can be no doubt. Whenever a wanderer from God is made thoughtful, prayerful and penitent, he rises out of moral inanity to spiritual activity. As John expresses it, he passes from death unto life. But this moral quickening will by no means meet the case before us. The resurrection of which the text speaks is the resur- rection of such as had already been raised spiritually, and who partake of this resurrection because they were before "blessed and holy." It is the resurrection, not of those who sleep in sin, but of "them that sleep in Jesus ;" not of those who have never known Christ, but of "them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and had not worshipped the beast." It is the resurrection of those who were saints without it, many of whom had so loved Christ as to lay down their lives for him and his gospel. Others have supposed that this "first resurrection" is purely 94 THE LAST TIMES. ecclesiastical, and that it was effected in the days of Con- stantino the Great, when the visible church was released from the cruel pagan persecutions, legalized, and elevated to the patronage of government. But every rightly-instructed man knows that the changes wrought by Constantino were rather a burial of the true church than a resurrection of it. So far from being attended with blessedness and holiness, it was rather the opening of the door for the worst degradations and wickednesses that ever despoiled Christendom. Instead of binding Satan, he was then first let fully loose upon the gospel to corrupt and tarnish it with his foul devices. In place of introducing the reign of Christ with his saints, it laid the way for the reign of the Man of sin with his corrupt adherents. And, so far from making men "priests of God and of Christ," it made them priests " after the working ot Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, with all deceivableness of unrighteousness." Others, again, are of opinion that this "first resurrection" denotes a great number of dissimilar changes relating to the prosperity of the gospel and the peace of the world, such as the general conversion of the wicked, the restoration of the Jews, the universal diffusion of liberty and light, and the revival of Christianity in the purity in which it was embraced by the martyrs. This notion was first set on foot by Whitby about fifty years ago, and has met with great favor from some classes of teachers. But it is filled with inconsistencies and surrounded by insuperable objections. The resurrection which the text speaks of is the resurrection of "them that were be- headed for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and whoever had not worshipped the beast nor his image." The wicked never were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, or for the word of God. Their deadness in trespasses and in sins is not the result of their faithful adherence to the Son of God. The Jewish race, which now lies buried among the THIS RESURRECTION MANIFESTLY LITERAL. 95 nations, was not denationalized and reduced to this condition, in consequence of bearing testimony for Christ, but for deny- ing and crucifying him. It is impossible, therefore, that these parties should be the subjects of the resurrection spoken of. And the idea that the resurrection of the martyrs denotes merely the revival of their spirit and moral qualities is at variance with the text in another respect. The apostle is speaking of persons. "I saw the souls of them that had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus; and they lived and reigned with Christ." The original term employed is v''f/f a T, which occurs nearly a hundred times in the New Testament, but which is never once used to denote characteristics or attributes. It invariably means lives, beings, persons, souls; as where we read there " were in the ship two hundred and seventy-six souls;" there were added to the church "about three thousand souls ;" in Noah's ark "eight souls were saved." And so the living again and reigning of those souls that were beheaded for their fidelity to God, must mean the resurrection, not of their spiritual characteristics, but of these beings or persons themselves. As a patient student and learned critic remarks, " It is a literal resurrection that is predicted of them manifestly, inasmuch as that is the only resurrection of which disembodied saints are capable. It certainly is not a renovation of heart, as they were renewed while in this life, and are made priests of God and of Christ, and given to reign with him, because they were saints here. As their resurrection then cannot be a spiritual change analo- gous to a restoration of the body from death, it must neces- sarily be a corporeal change. That it is to be a corporeal resurrection is shown moreover by the representation that the rest of the dead lived not till the thousand years should be finished. The rest of the dead are the literally dead ; not the literally living, though without spiritual life. To treat that term as a mere metaphor, is to deny to the vision the character 96 THE LAST TIMES- of a symbol and to empty the whole passage of its mean- ing. If the death of those who are not partakers of the first resurrection be but metaphorical, then must the death of the martyrs be metaphorical also, and thence the resurrection which is ascribed to the souls be merely metaphorical. But that is to make the passage a mere assemblage of metaphors, without any thing literal from which the figures are drawn or to which they are applied, and to divest it of all propriety and significance. If the souls of the dead, as well as the resurrection, be mere metaphors, no agents whatever are left to be their subjects; and they are predicates without any thing of which they are affirmed, metaphors with nothing which they metaphorize. As the souls exhibited in the vision then are real souls, so, also, for the same reason, the rest of the dead are the real dead, and the resurrection af- firmed of the one and denied of the other a real resurrection." (Lord's Exp. of the Apocalypse, p. 519.) Professor Stuart also treats this text as "simple prose," and endorses "the exegesis which deduces from the whole passage the reality of a first resurrection at the introduction of the millennium." (Com., in foe.) The facts upon which those rely who interpret this first resurrection figuratively are, that Ezekiel has the restoration and conversion of the Jews symbolized to him under the re- suscitation of the dry bones, and that the Savior speaks of the repentance and recovery of the prodigal son as the making alive of him that was dead. With these two facts, they jump at the conclusion that the resurrection of the martyrs and holy ones at the beginning of the millennium is to be taken in a somewhat similar sense. But, when we draw the neces- sary distinctions between things that differ, this argument proves the exact reverse of what it is designed to establish. It must be taken as a settled cation of interpretation that where a resurrection is affirmed, it can be taken only in the ARGUMENT FROM THE CASE OF THE MARTYRS. 97 sense of the presupposed death. So in both these instances the resuscitations are the exact counterparts of the previous deaths. The death symbolized by the valley of dry bones is plainly described as both a national and moral death; and the predicted resurrection is accordingly both a national and a moral resurrection. The death of the prodigal son was a moral and spiritual death; and his resurrection was of course of the same kind. And so it must also be in the case before us. But what sort of death is that which has passed upon the martyrs, and upon "those who were beheaded for the testi- mony of Jesus, and for the word of God" ? Was it a national death? Nationally the martyrs never lived, and of course could not nationally die. Was theirs a spiritual or moral death? No; for no one can be called Christ's witness, blessed and holy, and yet be dead in this moral sense. What was their death, then, but a literal, personal and indi- vidual death ? Was it not a death in the real, natural and ordinary meaning of that word ? Well, then, here, as in the other cases, as was the death so shall the predicted resur- rection be. As these martyrs and saints literally, really and personally died, and in that sense alone are dead, so shall they again be literally, really and personally made alive again in "the first resurrection;" whilst "the rest of the dead" sleep on "until the thousand years are finished." Spiritu- ally the martyrs are not dead ; nationally they never died ; influentially they are not dead. They have had their succes- sors in all ages, in whom their qualities and spirit have never become extinct. They yet speak. They are dead corporeally, and in no other sense. And when John tells us that they shall live again in the first resurrection, he can mean nothing but a corporeal resuscitation. The wicked who die in their sins are not to be spiritually raised, nor nationally raised, nor influentially raised. When they die, their probation ends, and judgment comes. When it is affirmed, therefore, that G 9 98 THE LAST TIMES. they shall live again, it can only be understood of a corporeal resurrection. Yet the same words, in the same verses, which assert the resurrection of the unsanctijird dead, assert the resurrection of the hofy dead, with only these two differences, thut the holy rise to reign, whilst the wicked rise to burn, and that the one class rises a thousand years in advance of the other class. And as the resurrection of the wicked " the rest of the dead" at the final judgment can be taken only in a corporeal and literal sense, so the first resurrection the resur- rection of the " blessed and holy" must also be received in the same corporeal and literal sense. I can see no escape from this conclusion. I feel compelled, therefore, to understand the text as referring to the literal resurrection of the dead. I can find no other theory which will meet the necessities of the case, or which will conform to sound principles of interpretation. I find then a duality in the resurrection which the Scriptures teach. It is twofold. There is a "first resurrection" at the beginning of the millennium, and there is a resurrection at the end of the millennium. The one embraces the martyrs and saints, the "blessed and holy," "them that sleep in Jesus;" the other the resurrection of "the rest of the dead." The one is the resurrection which we are taught to hope for and seek after ; the other a something about which the Scrip- tures say but little, and which promises nothing to be desired. The one is a resurrection to all the glories, joys and honors of a perfected redemption ; the other a resurrection to dismay, shame and everlasting contempt. Nor is this a novel doctrine. Calmet says, "The ancient fathers acknowledged a twofold resurrection : first, that which is to precede the Messiah's reign of a thousand years upon earth; secondly, that which is to follow the reign of the thousand years. This sentiment is found clearly enough in the second book of Esdras, in the testament of the twelve RABBINICAL TESTIMONY. 99 patriarchs, and in several of the Rabbins." Professor Stuart declares that " the doctrine of a first resurrection as taught by John was not novel to the men of his time." " I have my doubts," says he, "whether the assertion is correct, that the doctrine of the first resurrection is nowhere else to be found in the Scriptures. That the great mass of Jewish Rab- bins have believed and taught the doctrine of the resurrec- tion of the just, in the days of Messiah's development, there can be no doubt on the part of him who has made any considerable investigation of this matter." Thus, Jonathan the Paraphrast, who lived thirty years before Christ, says of the people of God, "They shall be gathered from their captivity ; they shall live under the shadow of Messiah ; the dead shall rise, and good shall increase in the earth." This is based on the last chapter of Hosea. Rabbi Kinichi says, " The holy blessed God will raise the dead at the time of de- liverance." This he draws from Isaiah xxvi. 19. The San- hcdrin, cited by Aruch, says, "There is a tradition in the house of Elias, that the righteous whom the holy and blessed God shall raise from the dead shall not return again to the dust; but for the space of a thousand years, in which the holy blessed God will renew the world, they shall have wings like the wings of eagles, and shall fly above the waters." Another says, "The benefit of the rain is common to the just and the unjust, but the resurrection from the dead is the peculiar privilege of those who live righteously." Chabbo says, " The dead in the land of Israel shall live or be quickened first in the days of Messiah, and shattTTTjoy the years of Messiah." Thus also in Zohar we read, upon Isaiah xxv. 8 : " The world cannot be freed from sin until King- Messiah shall come, and the blessed God shall raise up those who sleep in the dust." These, and many like sayings, have been collected by critics from the most ancient of the Rabbinical writings. Corre- sponding passages have also been found in the sacred tra- 100 THE LAST TIMES. ditions of the heathen world. Of course no Rabbinical testimony or mere tradition is adequate to prove an article of religious faith; but these quotations are not without their significance. Where did these men get such ideas? They for the most part profess to receive them from the writings of the inspired prophets. They refer us to Isaiah, Ezekiel and Daniel as their authority. Nor are their interpretations to be discarded as necessarily fanciful and erroneous because they belong to the records of Rabbinic lore. It is a sorry wit which takes for granted that a man cannot be guided to the truth of God because he is a Jew. These ancient Rabbins were the friends, countrymen, brethren and children of Jehovah's own inspired prophets, and may be our guides in many things. The passage to which they refer us in Isaiah (xxvi. 19) certainly does describe a resurrection, a joyous resur- rection, and therefore a resurrection of the just only, and specifically connects it with the coming and glorious reign of the Lord Messiah. The place to which they point in Ezekiel (xxxvii.) certainly describes a national and moral resurrection, and surrounds it with promises which imply also the literal resurrection of all the faithful Israel to share the kingdom of him who shall be their Prince forever. And what they cite from Daniel, (xii. 2,) according to the best Hebraists, not only asserts a resurrection which all take to be literal, but draws a plain distinction between the resurrection of the just and the rest of the dead. Gaon thus paraphrases it : "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; this is the resurrection of the dead of Israel, whose lot is to eternal life; but those who do not awake (at that time) shall be an abhorrence to all flesh." This agrees with the translation of Professor Bush : " Many from out of the sleepers in the dust of the earth shall awake ; these (that is, those who awake, shall be) to everlasting life, and those (who do not then awake shall STATE OF THE QUESTION IN CHRIST'S TIME. 101 be) to everlasting contempt." Thus also does Professor Whiting render it: "Many from the sleepers of the dust of the ground shall awake, these to everlasting life, and those to reproaches and everlasting abhorrence." The language of Daniel thus accommodates itself exactly to the language of the text. The martyrs and saints arise: "this is the first resurrection. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." Daniel is unquestionably speaking of a literal, limited and eclectic resurrection. As Dr. Hody argues, "if many, standing alone, could signify (.ill, many of, which is the phraseology of this text, cannot signify all. Many of them that sleep ki the dust of the earth cannot be said to be all they that sleep in the dust. Many of does plainly except some." And if there is to be a limited and eclectic resurrection when the great Prince shall stand up for Israel, and yet all men shall be made alive again, the point is settled that there must be a twofold resurrection, just as John teaches us in the text. The state of the question, in the period in which the New Testament was given, was therefore simply this : The ancient prophets speak of a resurrection from among the dead, a literal resurrection to eternal life, which embraces only the just, and leaves the wicked still in their graves. The more learned and devout Jews so understood these glorious predictions, and taught the doctrine of a first resurrection, or resurrection embracing only the just. The doctrine of a twofold resur- rection was therefore no strange notion to those who lived in the time of Christ and his apostles, but familiar to the minds of many. If it was an error, we would naturally expect some contradiction of it from Christ or his apostles. The absence of such contradiction leaves room for the presumption that it was not an error. And if we can find language in the New Testament adapted only to this belief, and framed to it as the 9* 102 THE LAST TIMES. truth, the presumption in its favor will have all needful sup- port to furnish ground upon which to insist upon it as a divine certainty. Let us look, then, at what may be gathered on the subject from the New Testament. 1. I think you will find it invariably true, that wherever the resurrection of both the good and bad are spoken of, the resurrection of the righteous is always named first, and that of the wicked afterwards. "All that are in their graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth : (1) they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life ; and (2) they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation." " There shall be a resurrection of the dead both (1) of the just and (2) unjust." 2. The resurrection of the righteous is specifically said to precede the resurrection of the wicked. " As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own ra^/ta, band, cohort, company: Christ the first- fruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming; eTra TO TJ.o<;, then the last band." " The dead in Christ shall rise first." " The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." 3. The resurrection of the righteous is everywhere spoken of as a peculiar blessing, in which the wicked have no share whatever. Of every one that seeth the Son and believeth on him, Jesus says, " I will raise him up at the last day ;" thus distinctly intimating that none but believers shall share in the resurrection here contemplated. He speaks of "the resur- rection of the just" as something quite distinct from any thing in which the unjust shall have a part. He says that " the children of the resurrection are equal unto the angels, and are the children of God," and " are as the angels which are in heaven." Here he certainly speaks of a resurrection from which the wicked are quite excluded. See also Romans FACTS FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT. 103 viii. 23 ; 1 Cor. vi. 14 ; 2 Cor. iv. 14 : "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection." 4. The resurrection of the righteous is plainly spoken of as eclectic. One instance is in Luke xx. 35, where the Savior speaks of those worthy of heaven as destined " to obtain the resurrection" not merely "from tlic dead," as our version reads, but ty. vz-/.pu>v " OUT OF, or FROM AMONGST the dead ones." This certainly implies the raising of some, that is, the saints, whilst the rest of the dead remain in their graves. Another instance is in Philippians iii. 11, where Paul speaks of his strong desire and great exertions to "attain unto TTJV ez-avaffraffty TWV vexpwv, the resurrection FROM AMONGST the dead ones." What did Paul mean by this ? "Of his resur- rection at the end of the world, when all without exception will surely be raised, he could have no possible doubt," says Professor Stuart. " What sense then can this passage have, if it represents him as laboring and suffering merely in order to attain to A resurrection, and as holding this up to view as unattainable unless he should arrive at a high degree of Chris- tian perfection ? On the other hand, let us suppose a first resurrection to be appointed as a special reward of high attainments in Christian virtue, and all seems to be plain and easy. Of a resurrection in a figurative sense, i. e. of regene- ration, Paul cannot be speaking ; for he had already attained to that on the plain of Damascus." Both these passages bring before us the whole congregation of the really dead, and describe the resurrection of which they speak as a selec- tion (ex) out of or from among that great company, taking some, and leaving others. The second is particularly remark- able. For if the righteous and the wicked are all to be raised together, Paul might have saved his pains to attain to a resur- rection of which he would have at all events been partaker. " Of like tenor," says Stuart, " is the implication in Luke xiv. 14, where the Savior promises to his disciples a sure reward 104 THE LAST TIMES. for kindness to the poor and suffering, at the resurrection of the Just. Why the resurrection of the just? What special meaning can this have, unless it implies that there is a resur- rection where the just only, and not the unjust, will be raised ? This would agree entirely with the view in Rev. xx. 5 : ' But the rest of the dead LIVED NOT AGAIN, until the thousand years were finished.' " Now, when we come -to sum up all these facts, and assign them the force which belongs to the words of inspiration, the conclusion is to me unavoidable, that the doctrine of a two- fold resurrection has a solid foundation in the Scriptures. The resurrection of the holy is entirely separated, in nature and in point of time, from the resurrection of "the rest of the dead/' Strike this doctrine from the Apocalypse, and we still have it in the epistles of Paul. Strike it from the epis- tles, and we still have it in the teachings of Jesus himself. Strike it from the whole New Testament, and we still have it firm and unshaken in the holy prophecies of Daniel and Isaiah. But let the hand be withered that attempts to strike it from any portion of the word of God. It is there, distinct and clear, authorizing all the saints to hope for the redemption of their bodies, and their corporeal transformation, so soon as the millennium shall begin. Here, then, is another argument for the doctrine of Christ's premillennial coming. The resurrection of the saints is everywhere connected with his final advent. "All shall be made alive ; they that are Christ's at his coming." " Them that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven : and the dead in Christ shall rise first." " When he shall appear, we shall be like him." But the resurrection and glorification of the saints is just as clearly connected with the beginning of the millennium. There can be no millennium whilst the wilful king continues to " exalt himself, and magnify himself above ASPECT OF DEATH TO THE RIGHTEOUS. 105 every god, and speak marvellous things against the God of gods;" and the fall of this antichristian power, and the glo- rious resurrection proclaimed by Daniel, are contemporaneous. " He shall come to his end, and none shall help him. AND AT THAT TIME God's people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book ; and many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." So in the text, the millennium, or the period of the thousand years, is intro- duced by the rising and living again of " them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast nor his image." These holy ones are to " live and reign with Christ the thou- sand years ;" and so their resurrection must occur at the begin- ning of the thousand years. And as they that are Christ's arise "at his coming," his coming must be before. the millennium. Such, then, is the glorious hope of the Lord's people. Very soon shall Christ their deliverer come, and change them into a full likeness to himself. Then shall his victory over death be manifest. " Because he lives, we shall live also." " For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him." And how many sunny thoughts cluster around this doctrine ! There is nothing so repulsive to our natural instincts as death. There are few people who do not feel a cold shudder creeping through and through them whenever they realize the thought that they must die, and have the coffin-lid screwed down upon their foreheads, and be covered up with clods in the damp dark ground. But the hope of the resurrection of the just throws a radiance round the death-bed and the grave, and helps to reconcile us to the mysterious change. To a good man, the sepulchre is but the gateway to a better world, the resting-place for the wasted and wearied body previous to going forth into the bliss and honors of a divine and eternal 106 THE LAST TIMES. kingdom. Its shades are but a quiet night anterior to an everlasting day. Death is but a sleep, which presupposes a future awakening. " An eternal sleep" is a contradiction in terms, a miserable solecism, a mode of speech the very phraseology of which brands the atheistic invention with ab- surdity. Sleep is but the temporary suspension of animation for the purpose of refreshment and invigoration. It is always succeeded by a waking. And such is death to the Christian. Jesus has transmuted it into a refreshing sleep, from which we shall early arise, in renewed strength and glory, for the scenes and employments of a day which shall have no night. The New Testament nearly always speaks of the departure of the believing as a sleep. Jesus said, " Our friend Lazarus slecp- ctli ; but I go that I may awake him out of sleep." "The saints which slept" is familiar phraseology to the reader of the Scriptures. "David, after he had served his own genera- tion, fell on sleep." As the first martyr died, Luke said he "fell asleep." Paul comforted the mourning Thessalonians, by assuring them that their pious dead " are asleep," only " asleep," to be waked to life again when Jesus comes. And so all the saints that have departed this life are said to " sleep in Jesus." Yes, Christian parent, that child which so suddenly sick- ened, withered and faded in your arms, and which with so much sadness you yielded to the cold dark grave, is not lost and gone eternally. It only sleeps sweetly sleeps in the arms of its Maker. You buried it ; but you buried it looking for the resurrection of the last day, when it shall awake to be yours forever. Weep not, daughter, as if that sainted mother whom you last saw dressed for the tomb shall never look upon you again with her wonted love and tenderness. She is thy mother still. She is not dead, but sleepeth. She will awake again, and take you to her heart as fondly as ever. Sorrow not as they that have no hope, stricken one, mourn- THE GLORY OF THE RESURRECTION. 107 ing over a husband's grave. He has only laid him down to rest in soft slumber. God's eye is on that prostrate buried form. And when thy loved one's Savior conies he will shake off his sepulchral covering, and be thy constant friend as in the days gone by. " Soon shall you meet again, Meet ne'er to sever : Soon will peace wreath her chain Hound you forever." And what a reunion of hearts and exchange of happy gratulations shall crown and crowd that day ! What glorious meetings and triumphs will then be celebrated ! What devout and anxious hopes shall then be consummated ! Then shall Jesus say, "Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust;" and they shall obey his call, and rise to praise him forever. Then will the once-afflicted saints of every age and clime " stand drest in robes of everlasting wear." Then shall those who denied themselves and took up the cross receive their crowns. Then shall the wisdom of their " respect unto the recom- pense of the reward" be vindicated forever. Then shall God glorify his Son by transforming millions into his glorious image. And "then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in rlctory." Earth, my brethren, has been the theatre of some splendid victories, the fame of which has filled the world and echoed along the corridors of ages. But never has earth beheld such a triumph as that which shall be realized at the resurrection of the just. Then shall be enacted another genesis, more glorious than the first. Then shall be performed another exodus, more illustrious than that which Moses led. Then shall truth triumph over error, and faith over unbelief, hu- mility over pride, life over death, and immortality over the grave. Then shall the cross give way to the crown, and cor- ruption to glory; and from the mold and ashes of every 108 THE LAST TIMES. Christian's tomb shall come forth an undying form, radiant with the transforming touch of Deity, a dear-bought but sublime and imperishable monument to the resurrection and the life. The graves of the patriarchs shall open. The scat- tered dust and ashes of prophets, apostles and martyrs shall be gathered. Unknown saints of God that have died in gar- rets, and cellars, and barns, and dungeons, and lowly and despised poor in Christ who sleep in potters' -fields, shall spring forth from their unnoticed graves in sublimer glory than ever adorned the illustrious Solomon. Precious inno- cents, whose names were never heard, and lamented children, that molder in their little tombs, and pious afflicted ones, who spent their days in pain secluded from the gay world, all, all shall then forsake their resting-places and shine as the stars forever and ever. Then shall all the people of God of all lands and ages, mysteriously united in one gracious bro- therhood of faith, join in one great congregation, celebrating with untold joy the sublime epiphany of their redeeming Lord, and with their million tongues in heavenly concord singing the triumphs of that salvation for which they lived, and hoped, and died. " Oh, scenes surpassing fable, and yet true ! Scenes of accomplished bliss ! which, who can see, Though but in distant prospect, and not feel His soul refreshed with foretastes of the joy?" Nor are the saints that have died to be the only participants in the happy victory. All the holy who live in the flesh when the blessed Savior comes shall be copartners in the glory. And what will add to the rejoicing of this particular class is, that they will never die at all. They shall not even sleep with their fathers. " Behold, I shew you a mystery," says Paul. " "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump ; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised A SUBLIME THOUGHT. 109 incorruptible, and we shall be changed." " The dead in Christ shall rise first : then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them." And what a thought is this, that there perhaps are some listening to me now who shall never know by experience what death is ! Those of Christ's people who are living when he comes shall of a sudden feel the thrill of immortality careering through them, and find themselves transported to join the children of the resurrec- tion. Not one of them that truly believe in Jesus shall be left behind. The humblest and obscurest, the lowest with the highest, all shall be taken together. For " he shall send forth 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." And they shall live and reign with Christ the thousand years. " And so shall we ever be with the Lord." And thenceforward forever shall this song be sung : " Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, And he will dwell with them, And they shall be his people, And God himself shall bo with them, And be their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; And there shall be no more death, Neither sorrow, nor crying, Neither shall there be any more pain : For the former things are passed away." Verily, " blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection 1" Was there ever conceived such a system of grace and glory as that which constitutes the gospel of Jesus ? How precious are its promises ! How transporting are its hopes ! How it meets the vast desires of humanity, and pours consolation into the hearts of the children of sorrow ! What is there to compare with it ? Atheism, with its eternal sleep, may stupefy the soul, and render it somewhat callous to 10 110 THE LAST TIMES. the woes of life. But how sad and cheerless is the epitaph which it writes on the tomb ! Heathen philosophy, with its transmigrations and feeble guesses, may excite some dull and low concern for futurity; but how gloomy is the destiny which it sets before man ! It is only Christianity, with its resurrec- tion and another life, that can at all rouse man into a proper consciousness of his dignity, or satisfy the lofty and mighty aspirations that well up from his heart. This is our glorious hope, the price of which cannot be equalled with gold. And how devoutly thankful should we then be for what God has done for us and purposed concerning us ! How should our hearts soften at the contemplations before us, and swell with emotions of love towards so great a Benefactor ! How should we be concerned to find out the will of such a friend, and seek to approve ourselves unto him ! How cheer- fully should we hail him as the chief among ten thousand, and the one altogether lovely ! How gladly should we set our- selves to do his gracious commands, and to keep his loving counsels ! In him is our strength, our hope, and our joy. He is not ashamed to be our God, and surely we should not be ashamed to be his people, " looking for that blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the great God, our Savior Jesus Christ/' Let us, then, give ourselves to him, body and soul, as a living sacrifice, which is our reasonable service. Let us fully identify ourselves with Jesus, knowing that "when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." And, especially, let us not forget that " every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as the Savior is pure." He hath prepared for us a city; but "there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or niaketh a lie." It is only " tlie holy' who shall have part in the first resurrection. " The fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and mur- derers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and MOMENTOUS QUESTIONS. Ill all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." It is only " unto them that look for him" that " he shall appear the second time unto salvation." My dear friends, let me then ask each of you individually whether you are a Christian. Have you joined yourself to the company of those who are seeking for a part in the first resurrection ? Are you looking for the coming of Jesus, and diligently engaged " that you may be found of him in peace, without spot, and blameless" ? Do you hunger and thirst after righteousness, mourning over your sins, and meekly yielding to the word and will of the blessed Savior ? Are you seeking to lay up treasures in heaven, where moths corrupt not, and thieves conic not to steal ? Are you looking at these great things, not seen as yet, but which are soon to be revealed to the everlasting joy of the faithful ? Oh, think it not a bitter thing to be a Christian, or that I am interfering with your comfort when I urge you to be pious and good. It is your highest happiness that I am consulting. It is your sublimest pleasure that I would have you secure. I ask you to come to Christ, only that you may escape ruin and be a partaker of joy, and peace, and glory everlasting. You can- not be at peace whilst unreconciled to God. It is only by becoming holy that you shall cease from being miserable. Come, then, to Jesus, who invites and entreats you to come, and find rest for your souls. Come, come ; and he who laid down his life for you, will not deny you a hearty welcome. Come, and share in that blessed inheritance which is the joy of angels and of Christ. Put it not off for a single day longer. Let your penitential prayer at once go up, " God, be merciful to me a sinner!" And may the Lord help you, and guide you, and bring us all to be of that happy number who attain unto the resurrection of the just ! FIFTH DISCOURSE. THE MESSIAH'S KINGDOM now SPOKEN OF BY THE ANCIENT PRO- PHETS HOW APPREHENDED BY THE SAVIOR'S CONTEMPORARIES HOW SPOKEN OF IN THE NEW TESTAMENT SPECIFICALLY CONNECTED WITH THE SECOND ADVENT THE PRESENT DISPENSATION NOT THE MESSIAH'S GLORIOUS REIGN. DAN. vii. 13, 14 : 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 king- dom that which shall not be destroyed. THAT this vision contains a prophecy concerning "the last times," will not be denied. That the "one like the Son of man" is Jesus Christ, in his glorified human nature, is ad- mitted on all hands. That his "coming with the clouds of heaven" refers to his final advent in this world, is also the common belief of interpreters. His being led to the Ancient of days to receive dominion, plainly denotes his investiture with rulership, and his inauguration into the august office of the almighty Sovereign of the nations. This dominion is some- thing more than his present spiritual reign in men's hearts ; for he does not enter upon it until he comes in the clouds. It is also a kingdom the affairs of which are to be administered by Christ in person, or by those under his immediate control and direction ; for it is given to him as the Son of man, and his personal descent at the time of receiving it is explicitly 112 CHRIST WILL REIGN PERSONALLY ON EARTH. llo affirmed. It must also be a visible and terrestrial kingdom, for "nations" are mentioned as its subjects. The doctrine which I accordingly deduce from this text, and which I shall aim to set forth in this discourse, is, That the Lord Jesus Christ will return a-jain to this world, and here set up a visible Christocracy , or empire of his own, and per- sonally rcifjn over the nations in the bliss and glory of a uni- versal and eternal kingdom. There are many good people who believe no such thing. My main object will therefore be to prove it by solid Scriptural arguments. And if I can show that it has a firm foundation in the word of God, I certainly have a right to claim for it the respect due to a doctrine of inspiration. Let us then approach the subject with humble reverence, sincerely desirous to learn the truth, and earnestly praying that God may give us a proper insight to this wonder- ful mystery. I. I remark then, in the first place, that the prophecies of the Old Testament, when taken in their plain and natural sense, certainly predict the Messiah as a great prince who shall reign in this world. To establish this remark I appre- hend to be no difficult task. The very first words that ever were uttered concerning Christ already imply it. When God reckoned with Adam, though he excluded him from Paradise, he left him this consoling promise: The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head. Satan had assailed our first parents, and overcome them. By that victory he became the reigning prince of this world, and to this day he holds his dark supremacy in nearly every department of the earth. The crushing of this serpent's head can mean nothing less than the demolition of Satan's empire, and the establishment of the empire of the woman's seed in its place. And if Christ, as {lie Son of niau, is to displace Satan, and reign over the nations as Satan now rules over them, nothing short of a visible, real and universal empire can be the result H 10* 114 THE LAST TIMES. The next distinct allusion to this "seed" is in God's cove- nant with Abraham, where it is said that he shall "possess the gate of his enemies, and all nations of the, earth be blessed in him." Paul tells us that this promise did not belong to Abraham's posterity at large, but only to "one, which is Christ." To possess an enemy's gate is to conquer that enemy, to take his last defence. And when it is said of Christ, that he shall possess the gates of his enemies, and bless all nations, we have before us the idea of a great, vic- torious and universal prince, making himself the master and the benefactor of the world. Another reference to the same thing we find in Hannah's song, where it is said, " The Lord shall judge the ends of the earth, and he shall give strength to his King, and exalt the horn of his anointed." Here too we have the princedom of the Messiah in this world, and his universal sovereignty, pointedly asserted. In God's promises to David we have the matter still more particularly amplified. God says to the monarch of Israel, " When thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, 2 will set up thy seed after thee, and 1 icill establish his kingdom, and the throne of his kingdom, forever. And THINE HOUSE, and THY KINGDOM shall be established forever before thee : THY THRONE SHALL BE ESTABLISHED FOREVER." If this promise refers pre-eminently to Christ " the Son of David," as all agree that it does, then he is to be a great earthly prince; for he is to occupy a throne, and possess a kingdom; and that throne and kingdom are identical with the throne and kingdom of his father David. Much as men may dislike to admit this, here is God's promise, in words as plain as any man can use. David had an empire in this world; and he reigned as a prince in this world; and God says that his promised Son shall take David's place, and establish David's throne forever. David himself certainly so understood the ARGUMENT FROM THE PROPHETS. 115 promise, and by divine inspiration so prophesied of it in the Psalms. As he had his court in Mount Zion, so he represents his illustrious Son as "King upon (he hoty hill of Zion," with the heathen given to him for his inheritance, and the utter- most parts of the earth for his possession. "He shall have dominion from sea to sea, and from the river to the ends of the earth. Yea, kings shall fall down before him : all nations sJiall serve him." Who can listen to such language with an unbiassed mind, and not gather from it the idea, that the pro- phet is here speaking of some great and mighty king, who is to sway the sceptre of literal empire over the inhabitants of this world? Turn now to Isaiah, the great evangelical prophet, and see how he describes the Messiah. "Unto us a child is born, \into us a son is given, and his name shall be called, Wonder- ful, Counselor, The mighty God, The Father of the everlasting ago, The Prince of peace." Xobody misunderstands this. All take the words just as they are written, without looking after some mystical or allegorical meaning. By what authority, then, shall we reject the literal acceptation of what follows ? "And the government shall be upon his shoulder. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, UPON THE THRONE OF DAVID, AND UPON HIS KINGDOM, to order IT, and to establish IT with judgment and with justice from henceforth even forever." What could more unequi- vocally describe the Messiah as a great prince, reigning in David's place in this world? If we turn to Jeremiah, we find the Savior spoken of in the same manner. " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that / will raise UNTO DAVID a righteous Branch, and a KING shall reign and prosper, and sliall execute justice and judg- mnit IN THE EARTH. In h is days JUDAII shall be saved, and ISRAEL shall dwell safely." "And they shall serve the Lord 110 THE LAST TIMES. their God, and David their Kiny (in his promised Son~) u-hom I will raise up unto them." These are very plain and positive predictions. Others of like import might be presented. Here and elsewhere, the Messiah is again and again called a king. He is to possess and occupy David's throne. He is to be a conqueror of his enemies and the possessor of their cities. He is to reign over the nations. He is to be the commander around whose banner the Gentiles shall be gathered. His kingdom is to be the identical kingdom of David, reestablished, exalted, extended over all the earth, and made forever permanent. This is the natural and obvious sense of the words employed ; and there is no reason why we should understand them differently, or seek for some other remote and occult meaning. Professor Stuart has justly said that "it is one of the plainest and most cogent of all the rules of hermeneutics, that every passage of Scripture, or of any other book, is to be interpreted as bearing its plain and primary and literal sense, unless good reason can be given why it should be tropically understood/' Vitringa gives it as "an unerring canon, and of great use," that "we must never depart from the literal meaning of the subject mentioned in its own appropriate name, if its principal attributes square with the subject of the prophecy." Ernesti says, " Theologians are right when they affirm the literal sense to be the only true one." And Hooker declares, "I hold it for a most infallible rule in expositions of sacred Scripture, that when a literal con- struction will stand, the farthest from the letter is commonly the worst." "What then are we to do with the prophecies to which I have referred? The literal meaning is evident. There is not only no necessity for departing from it, but we cannot depart from it without violence and inconsistency. I therefore claim it as a fact, that the Old Testament writers have predicted Christ as a great prince who is literally to reign upon the throne of David in visible empire over all the world. OPINIONS OF CHRIST'S CONTEMPORARIES. 117 II. It is also true, in the second place, that when the Savior came into the world, as the Son of Mary, he was expected as a great prince who should set up a literal empire in this world. This is a point so notorious, and so much dwelt upon by theo- logians and preachers, that it is hardly necessary to do more than state it. Knapp says, "At the time of Christ, and previously, the current opinion of the people in Palestine, and indeed of most of the Pharisees and lawyers, was, that he would be a temporal deliverer and a King of the Jews, and indeed a universal monarch, who would reign over all nations. The apostles them- selves field this opinion." Neander says, " The Jews expected a Messiah who should be armed with miraculous power in their behalf, free them from civil bondage, execute a severe retribution upon the ene- mies of the theocratic people, and make them masters of the world in a universal empire, whose glory it was their special delight to set forth." Schaf says, " The Jews conceived of the Messianic kingdom as a glorious restoration of the throne of David." Brooks says, "It is quite notorious that the Jews did, in the time of our Savior, look for a King who should, in an illustrious and glorious manner, inherit the throne of David, reign over Israel, and obtain dominion and possession over all nations." And so uniform is the testimony on this point, that it is unnecessary to argue it. When Herod inquired of the chief priests and scribes where Christ should be born, "they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea; for thus it is written by the prophet, And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda: for out of thee shall come A GOVERNOR that shall rule my people Israel." This shows how the Jews understood the ancient prophets, and what were their expectations at the time. Herod certainly 1 IS Til 10 LAST TlMF,s\ acted under (lie apprehension that tin- coming < 'Iirist was to lu- ll great prince, when In- gave orders "and slew all I lie children that were in Uethlehem, and in all the coasts thereol'." Why adopt measures (o slay the infant Savior if he did not fear (hat Christ would again restore (lie Jewish throne':' \a\, we read that even from tar beyond the limits of Palestine, certain "wise men eame, saying, Where is he that is born Kiinj <>/ tin' /('.>.;'" It would seem that whithersoever :i knowledge of the Hebrew prophecies had gone, it was uniformly expected that, (he promised Messiah would be a sublime and triumphant, Jewish kin;;-, whose dominion would absorb all other king- doms, ami stand forever. That extravagant and unfounded notions wen 1 entertained by many, I have no doubt. Some looked for Christ only as a, military hero, and eonecived of his reign too much after tlio stylo of ambitious tyranny. They, sometimes spoke of him only as a. conquering leader, whereas he is at the same time a, divine spiritual Savior. They surrounded him too much with their own carnal ami resentful feelings, and overlooked that meekness and holiness of spirit which is indispensable to a blissful participation in his princely ministrations. They tailed to apprehend that great foundation-fact, that he was first to sutler ere he should reign, and bear (lie eross before reaching the crown. Hut, with all their narrow bigotries and carnal hopes, they did not misconceive this one prominent feature of the matter, that the promised Messiah was to be a great prince, who should reign upon the throne of J)avid his father, and extend his royal dominion over all the earth. So the prophets had spoken, and so they understood what the prophets said. III. I proceed, then, to a third remark, \ {/..: that the New Testament nowhere contradicts what was thus expeetcd of the Messiah. There are, indeed, :i few passages which seem to conflict with these expectatio is; but when attentively consi- SPIRITUALITY OF CHRIKTIAMTT. 110 derc-d, and their real meaning ascertained, they will be found entirely accordant with the doctrine which I am endeavoring <;t forth. That Christianity is an eminently spiritual religion, all who understand it must admit. The fundamental principle of the - kingdom is his reign over the heart, bringing all its affections and impulses into subjection to the will of God. Thi- rrn on which every thing else depends. He who is not spiritually renewed, and morally assimilated to Christ, has neither part nor lot in Christ's kingdom, whatever may be his birth, blood, or external relations. " However different the extent and outward form of the kingdom," says a distin- guished author, "however great its ultimate triumph and glo- ries, this is "till its peculiar feature and character, God, the Savior, reigning supreme in the heart of the once-alienated and rebellious sinner, and all dispensations are but ^*f*f"'*g on this great result the more fully over all the earth." would ignore the most glorious aad most distia|^isa>(i featare of Christianity, if we v to think differently. It is therefore to be presumed that the Savior aad kit iatptrcd servants should set fort:. rat with marked perspicuity. And we would especially expect them to express themselves strongly on this feature of the kingdom, as there were many of their hearers who had quite lost sight of it. It was the most serious mistake of the Jews, not that they expected Christ as a triumphing Lord, but that they did not compre- hend how he was at the sane tine to he a spiritual Redeemer, and that the blessings of his glorious reign were to extend only to those who should be inwardly subjected to his holy will. They thought their lineal descent from Abraham, aad - heartless submission to the Mosaic ritual, ptgatated all that was needful to secure for them the full benefit of the sublime achievements of their expected King. This was * disease needing to be cauterized. Hence, whe the Pharisee* 120 THE LAST TIMES. asked Jesus "when the kingdom of God should come," he at once struck at the root of their false hopes, and called them back from their dreams of glory to those first rudiments with- out which neither Jew nor Gentile shall ever see the kingdom of God. " He answered and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation." That is, the essence of the Messianic reign does not lie in the pomp, show and outward demonstra- tions of power for which they were looking. " Neither shall they say, Lo here ! or, Lo there !" as if it were to be set up with mere physical victories. "The kingdom of God is within you." Its seat is in the heart; and unless first found in the heart it will never be found at all. This is what they had overlooked ; and this is all this passage teaches. It is to the same point that Paul speaks, when he says, " The kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." The antithesis which he presents is not between a visible personal reign of Christ, and a mere reign by his Spirit and grace, but between the true prerequi- site spiritual submission to Christ, and that mere ceremonial righteousness upon which the Jews so much boasted and relied. But the fact that a man's heart must be renewed and purified as a condition of participation in the blessings of the mediatorial kingdom, by no means proves that that kingdom is not hereafter to take form, and be outwardly manifested in a triumphant personal reign of the Savior in this world. For if we interpret these words so as to confine the divine king- dom to the heart, and to righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, we necessarily exclude from it the outward church, the sacraments, and a future home in heaven. And yet, if we dare extend the limits of the divine kingdom be- yond the mere inward experiences of the soul, there is nothing to prevent us from extending it so as to embrace also the future personal reign of the Messiah upon earth. For if the present existence of the kingdom in men's hearts is recon- AN OFT-MISQUOTED PASSAGE EXPLAINED. 121 cilablc with the hope of a more glorious form of the kingdom in the heavenly world, it is equally reconcilable, and on the same grounds, with the doctrine of the future princely reign of Christ over the nations. Another passage often misquoted upon this subject is that where Christ says, "J/y kingdom is not (EX) FROM this world." When he uttered these words, he was on his trial before Pilate. He had been accused of treasonable purposes. Pilate, therefore, asked him whether he was a king. He boldly affirmed that he was a king. But to quiet their apprehen- sions that he was about to undertake to subvert the existing authorities by carnal violence, he qualified his avowal; and these words contain the qualification. He does not say that his kingdom is not to be located upon earth ; for it is located here. His church and all its ordinances are on earth. The children of the kingdom live and operate in this world. He only says, his kingdom is not from this world, that it is of heavenly origin, and that it is to be set up by supernatural means, and not by human prowess or the might of earthly arms. That this is what he means, and all that he means, is evident from all the circumstances of the case, and is made abundantly clear from the additional words : "Else would my servants jight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews." Why did he not allow his servants to fight? Because his kingdom was not to be built up in that style. He is to enter upon his throne by a different process. He is to receive his dominion from above, and not from beneath. The Lord will give it to him. It will not come out of this world. I may therefore say, with perfect safety, that there is nothing in the New Testament to contradict the cherished expecta- tions, that the Messiah is to reign as a great prince on David's throne in this world. IV. Nay, I go further, and say, that there is much in the New Testament tending directly to confirm and deepen these 11 122 THE LAST TIMES. prevailing expectations. Look for a moment at what the angel said to Mary, when he came to announce to her the birth of the expected Christ. Gabriel there says to the Vir- gin, " Thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS ; he shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest." These are plain words. All understand them just as they stand. And what follows is equally plain, and by all sound principles of interpretation must be taken as equally literal : "And the Lord shall give him the THRONE OF HIS FATHER DAVID. AND HE SHALL REIGN OVER THE HOUSE OF JACOB FOREVER; and of his kingdom there shall lie no end." Now, what effect could such an announcement have upon those who were looking for the Christ as a great reigning prince, but to establish and fix all their prepossessions concerning him in that respect? And when his virgin mother first brought him as a babe to the temple, Simeon and Anna, by direct divine inspiration, spoke of him as the consolation for which Israel was looking, and as the one to accomplish in Jerusalem the very redemption which Judah was expecting. What could be the tendency of such utterances, but to make the people who heard them still more enthusiastic in the hopes they were cherishing ? "When Nathanael first recognized the Savior's Messiahship, and ad- dressed him as " Eabbi, the Son of God, the King of Israel," he evidently conceived of that kingship according to the pre- vailing belief of the time. And yet Christ passed it as a proper conception, and replied to it in a way which could only give intensity to the anticipations that were entertained. When the five thousand, who had been miraculously fed in the wilderness, would have taken him by force, and placed him on the throne, he withdrew himself; for his time for that had not yet come ; neither was that the way in which he was to obtain his crown. But he uttered not a word of censure to indicate that they w'ere wrong in looking upon him as he who FURTHER NEW TESTAMKNT KVID'/.NCE. 123 should hold earthly dominion, and reign with authority like that with which they desired to invest him. When he made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, and the people around him shouted, "Blessed lie the King!" "Blessed be the king- dom of our father David which cometh in the name of the Lord!" "Hosannali to the Son of David!" what did they mean ? Did they not thereby point to him as their expected Messiah, who should break the power of their enemies, renew the Jewish throne, establish an earthly empire, and reign as a mighty prince ? What else could they have meant ? And yet Jesus received it all with approbation, and never once so much as hinted that they were the least mistaken. Nay, when the enraged Jewish officials came to him, angrily com- plaining of what had been said of him by the shouting multi- tude, he not only sided with the applauding people, but de- clared that if these held their peace, the stones themselves would cry out ! What more impressive endorsement could he possibly have given to what the exulting crowd had uttered ? Did he not thus acquiesce iu their views ? Did he not thus most effectually set his seal of sanction to the proclamation, and emphatically declare himself the King of the Jews, who should restore and occupy the throne of David, and reign in Mount Zion according to the letter of prophecy? And so again, when the mother of Zebedee's children asked him that her two sons might sit, as ministers of state, the one on his right hand and the other on his left in his kingdom, she doubtless conceived of that kingdom as a princely reign in this world. Her request is amply indicative of this. But, if she was wrong, the Savior's answer certainly went much fur- ther to confirm her views than to undeceive her. True, he did not agree to grant her desire ; but he left her under the belief that there are such places to be filled in his empire, and that they are reserved for those for whom the Father has pre- pared them. Arc we to suppose the holy Jesus capable of 124 THE LAST TIMES. encouraging delusion ? He knew what sort of views that woman had of his kingdom ; and if it were not in his pur- pose to establish that kingdom as she apprehended that he would, his conduct and answer are quite inexplicable. The prayer of the penitent thief on the cross presents a similar case. That heart-broken sufferer besought the Savior to re- member him when he came in his kingdom. His ideas of that kingdom were doubtless, in the main at least, just what were generally entertained. And the Savior answered him without intimating that he was at all mistaken, and left him to die under the impression with which he uttered the prayer. See, also, with what firmness the Savior expressed himself when before Pilate. He was there charged with conspiracy and treason. The question of Pilate was addressed directly to his political pretensions. His accusers were standing by, eagerly watching for the smallest intimations on which they might secure his condemnation. But his great spirit did not quail. Rising up in the sublime dignity which belonged to his high nature, he boldly affirmed his claim to royal ap- pointment and power. And then, at the last, having spent forty days with his disciples after his resurrection from the dead, "speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God," how impressive is the sanction which he gave to the fond expectations concerning his earthly princedom ! Cer- tainly, all these special instructions to his disciples upon this particular subject left them no room for any further misunder- standing. And yet, at the last hour of his stay on earth, we find them still identifying the Messiah's reign with the resto- ration of the Jewish throne, and Christ himself still replying to them in a way which could only deepen and strengthen their ideas of the matter. If there were nothing else upon the subject in the New Testament but this account of Christ's last interview with his disciples, it would be enough upon which to base the belief, that it is his purpose, at the ap- CHRIST'S OWN DECLARATIONS. 125 pointed time, to revive the throne of David, and to reign per- sonally upon earth. They expected him to " restore the king- dom to Israel," and wished to know the time ; and all he said, and the last he said, was, that they were not " to know the time." There is also another class of New Testament passages, equally, if not still more strongly, corroborative of the com- mon expectations of the Messianic reign. When the dis- ciples asked the Savior what they should have in return for their sacrifices in his cause, he replied, " When the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." "I ap- point unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto m<', that ye may eat and drink at niy table in my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel." "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled When ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh at hand. Verily, this ysvzd this Jewish race shall not pass away not cease from being a distinct people TILL ALL BE FULFILLED." He here appropriates to himself a future king- dom. He says that it is to be set up at the expiration of the Gentile dorninancy, and while the Jews still continue as a distinct race. He says that the apostles are to share in the administrations of that kingdom, as judges of the twelve tribes of Israel. And what effect would such declarations pro- duce upon the minds of men who contemplated the Messiah's reign as a literal kingdom upon earth ? What language could have been framed that would more certainly have been inter- preted in favor of their views ? May we not then set it down as settled and clear, that the New Testament, so far from con- tradicting the literal statements of the old, or the expectations founded thereon, speaks in the same strain, and fans those anticipations into greater brightness and intensity? 11* 126 THE LAST TIMES. V. But again I remark, that the Scriptures explicitly speak of the setting up of a kingdom in connection with the Savior's final advent, which answers exactly to the literal predictions of the ancient prophets which I have quoted, and to the ex- pectations of the Jews and his first disciples. Upon this point the text itself is conclusive. All agree that it refers to the Savior's coming in glory to judge the world, to his per- sonal coming at the end of the present dispensation. And it is here affirmed, with an explicitness which cannot be evaded, that at the period of his coming there is to be "given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, NATIONS and languages SHOULD SERVE HIM : his dominion is an ever- lasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his king- dom that -which shall not be destroyed." And that there might be no misunderstanding or mistake about the matter, an angel explains the vision, and says that the blasphemous and persecuting power denoted by the little horn is to prevail against the saints until " the judgment shall sit," and THEN " the kingdom, and dominion, and the greatness of the king- dom UNDER THE WHOLE HEAVEN, shall be given to the people of the saints of the Most High, whose kingdom is an ever- lasting kingdom, and ALL DOMINIONS SHALL SERVE AND OBEY HIM." These words describe a literal kingdom, a uni- versal kingdom, a kingdom under the heavens, over the na- tions and tribes of this world, and which is only to be set up at the session of the judgment, and the coming of the Son of man in the clouds. Look also at the vision of the great golden-headed image, and the stone cut from the mountains without hands, which smote the great image, broke it and filled all the earth. We have there an epitome of this world's history : first, the four great mon- archies beginning with Babylon, and extending down to the sovereignties which now occupy the territory of the western Roman empire; second, the utter extinction of these monster VISION OP THE IMAGE AND THE STONE. 127 powers during the regency of the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was ultimately divided; and third, the setting up in their place of a divine, universal and eternal empire, symbolized by the stone from the mountains. Daniel thus interprets the vision : "In the days of these Icings" that is, in the days of the kingdoms denoted by the ten toes of the great image, during the existence of the Roman empire in its last form of ten kindred regencies "shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be de- stroyed : and the kingdom shall not be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever." Some have supposed that the introduction of Christianity is here meant ; but Dr. Berg has justly remarked that " this view is not tenable." When Christianity was introduced, the Roman empire was yet one. It was not divided into its ultimate ten parts for hundreds of years afterwards. Besides, Christianity is not a kingdom in the sense in which the prophet is here using that word. This kingdom denoted by the mystic stone, which God is to set up, and which is to stand forever, is so related to the other king- doms mentioned that we must necessarily assign to it some- thing of a similar nature. Tillinghast says, " In respect of nature, it is the same with the kingdoms represented by the great image; i. e. it, is outward as they are outward; which appears: (1.) From the general scope and drift of the pro- phecy, which runs upon outward kingdoms. All the first four kingdoms, or monarchies, are outward, as none can deny; why then the Holy Ghost, in speaking of the fifth and last, should so far vary the scope as to glide from the outward king- dom to the inward, ought, besides the bare say-so, to have some solid and substantial reason brought for it by those, whosoever they are, that either do or shall assert it. (2.) Be- cause it is not proper to say that a bare spiritual kingdom, considered only as spiritual, should break in pieces, beat to 128 THE LAST TIMES. very chaff, grind to powder, the great image, i. e. destroy the very being of worldly kingdoms, which work is yet, notwith- standing, done by this stone. Indeed, Christ's spiritual king- dom may, by that light and life which it gives forth, much refine and reform outward kingdoms ; but when once the work conies to breaking, and breaking in pieces, i. e. subverting kingdoms, razing their very foundations and destroying their very being, as they the kings of this world are here, unless we conceive God to do it by a miracle, must we also conceive some other hand besides a spiritual put to the work. (3.) Be- cause the stone, to the end there might not be a vacancy in the world, comes straightway in the place and room of the great image, so soon as the same is totally broken. For as the great image, while standing, bears rule over all the earth, so the same being broken, the stone becomes a mountain and fills the whole earth, therefore must the kingdom of the stone be such a kingdom as was that of the great image, viz. : OUT- WARD ; or otherwise, the coming of that, in the place of the other now taken away, could not supply the want of the other." This quotation is long, involved and robed in the quaint- ness of two centuries ago, but it is perfectly conclusive upon the point that the stone-kingdom which God is to set up, and which is to consume and destroy all other kingdoms and stand forever, is a literal, real, outward, terrestrial empire. The time when that kingdom is to be set up is the time when the last forms of usurped dominion, denoted by the ten toes of the great image, are to be broken in pieces. The ten toes of that image are acknowledged on all hands to be the same as the ten-horned wild beast of John. The ten-horned wild beast is only to be taken and destro} r ed when the heavens shall open and the Son of God come forth to tread the winepress of God's wrath, and give judgment to the martyrs and saints. There- fore the coming of Christ is to be attended with the setting FURTHER TESTIMONY. 129 iip of a visible, outward, universal, divine and eternal empire, such as the Jews associated with the Messianic reign. The Savior himself has spoken of the matter to the same effect. Hear his words : " 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 (THE NATIONS) one from another, as a shepherd di- videth 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 to them on 7iis right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, INHERIT THE KINGDOM prepared for you from the foundation of the icorld." In the same strain he elsewhere says, "They shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud, with power and great glory. . . . WHEN ye see these things come to 2>ass, know ye that THE KINGDOM OF GOD is NIGH AT HAND." Paul also says to Timothy, "I charge thee there- fore before God, even the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and dead AT HIS APPEARING AND KINGDOM." All these passages unequivocally connect the setting up of tho glorious Messianic kingdom with the Savior's final coming. Elsewhere Paul connects the final advent with the sounding of "the last trump;" and when we turn to John's vision of what attends the sounding of the seventh or last trumpet, we read, " There were great voices in heaven, saying, THE KING- DOMS OF THE WORLD ARE BECOME THE KINGDOMS OF OUR LORD AND OF HIS CHRIST; AND HE SHALL REIGN FOREVER AND EVER !" And that there might be no misapprehension of the time to which this vision relates, the four-and-twenty elders respond with thanksgiving that it is " the time of the dead that they should be judged," the time of giving reward to the servants of God, the prophets, saints and all that fear him, the time that Christ shall " destroy them that corrupt the earth:" (Ilev. xi. 15-18.) 130 THE LAST TIMES. Paul also connects the resurrection of the saints with Christ's final coming : " The Lord himself shall descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ shall rise first." In this he agrees exactly with John's vision of " the first resurrection." But in that vision John saw thrones, and the martyrs, the blessed and holy, seated on them ; and they were made kings and priests of Grod, "and they liced and reigned with Christ a thousand years." In all these passages we have a literal, universal and abiding kingdom ascribed to Christ in connection with his second coming. It is not a kingdom far off in the remoteness of unknown space, but here in this world. It is to be " under heaven." It is to embrace "the kingdoms of the world." Its subjects are to be "people, nations and languages." To take possession of it, Christ is said to " descend from heaven," " come," " appear," and stand again upon the earth. It is then of necessity just such a kingdom as the prophets fore- told, and as the Jews and apostles expected. It is to be out- ward, literal, universal, glorious and eternal. It is not "from or out of this world" just as John's baptism was not "from or out of this world." It conies from God. It originates from above, not from beneath. It is not set up by earthly means, but by divine power. But as John baptized on earth, although his baptism was not " from this world," and as the church is located on earth, although not of the earth, so Christ will reign in this world in the sublimities of visible empire. We never read of his return to heaven after he once comes to this world a second time. He remains here. His tabernacle is then to be " with men, and he will DWELL among them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them." This reign of Christ, then, is also to be a personal reign. He was "made in the likeness of men." He must there- fore have a local dwelling-place. As the Son of man he is 1 1 no v ia keaTea. Aad wfce it is sail tfei be v9 to earti. and L We ~ ji ' n z_~i z. *^^r ~ -L . x?'?rivas visitZe priae*. wic-m al! the " _ . ~ ~. 1 .". _i "^ 1. S--C - 1 --- t^ : it: the whole creataoa ^itmmi and lonzs for is : aa-I I workTs & it is the dearest of afl tbe 11 nrihaiili of God. ' JB hoar, the grate* ill iiniiM f ET nae B good ^ ~ ! r""_Jl_ _ ~ . _2" ~ TT. 1 " ~ 7" *: 1 ~T* I ~ Jl 132 THE LAST TIMES. prophesying for ages, for a divine Deliverer, and the age of gold which his administrations are to bring with them. And yet he has not come. I do not, indeed, deny that Christ now reigns in the hearts of his children, or that he exercises a providential control over the affairs of the world. I know and rejoice that there is a sense in which he is present now, even where but two or three are assembled in his name; and that wherever a sinner turns to God, there something of his regal authority and power are felt. But I also know, that, with all his spiritual and providential presence and rule, as now in the world, every thing is imperfect as compared with the promises of what is to be hereafter. Satan, for the most part, is yet the king and master of this world, and not the illustrious Son of David. Every thing in church and state, public and pri- vate, is more or less disjointed, weak, sickly, and failing of what we most desire. Kemedies only multiply wants and de- fects. "That which is crooked cannot be made straight; and that which is wanting cannot be numbered." The best- planned institutions and the wisest laws are constantly dis- appointing us. The holy law itself was "weak through the flesh;" and the same is to be said of all that we now have. No one adequately fulfills or can fulfill his relations. The con- sciences even of the best Christians, if properly enlightened, continually reproach them. Every thing seems to feel the absence of its redeeming Lord. He does not yet reign as it is necessary for us that he should reign. " We see not yet all things put under Mm." Matters now are only in a stage pre- paratory to something still beyond us. The throne of David is yet less than a cipher. The promised Son has not yet lifted it out of its degradation. Mount Zion is still trodden by the vile foot of the destroyer. Israel, that is to be redeemed and become the standard-bearer of ransomed nations, is still scat- tered over all the earth. The enemies of God still vaunt themselves over his Anointed. Ignorance, fanaticism and THE PRESENT STATE OF THE WORLD. 133 infidelity still stalk abroad, even through the church. The man of siu, who opposeth and exaltoth himself above all that is called God, still sits iu the temple of God. Great Babylon still stands, drunk as she is with the blood of the saints. The wild beast and the false prophet are still allied against the Lanib, and against the witnesses of Jesus. Evil men and seducers are still waxing worse and worse. Despotism and tyranny still hold the places which justice and charity alone should fill. War and bloodshed still devastate and deluge this poor fallen world. Rapine and plunder still press their foul trade on land and on sea. Ambition, intrigue, finesse and de- ceit still hold disgraceful sway in the best parliaments and legislatures on earth. Scoffers abound everywhere, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of His coming? The wails of suffering and wretchedness still float on every breeze ; and the cries of wronged millions still go up into the ear of Jehovah. Oh, tell me not that this is the glorious reign of Messiah ! Tell me not that these are the scenes to which the saints of old looked with so much joy ! I will not so disgrace my Savior or his word, as to allow for a moment that this dispen- sation is the sublime Messianic kingdom. No, no, no; Christ does not yet reign in the kingdom which he has promised and for which he has taught us to pray. Isaiah and Gabriel have said, that he should occupy the throne of his father David, and reign over the house of Jacob, and establish his government in eternal peace and righteousness; but David's sceptre he has never held, over Jacob's house he has never ruled, and the whole world is yet full of iniquity and wo. The Psalmist has taught us that "all nations shall serve him, the Gentiles be his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth his posses- sion;" but there is not a nation in all this wide world that is thoroughly Christian, and not a people who unanimously acknowledge that Christ is Lord. Of the ten hundred mil- 12 134 THE LAST TIMES. lions of souls that now constitute the family of man, not two- fifths are even professedly Christian! Take from the most Christian community take from among the highly-favored inhabitants of our own city all who are not of the household of faith, and what a scanty population would remain ! Take the most enlightened and cultivated of the nations : take Eng- land take Saxony take our own country take the model nation of Christendom, containing the most churches, and the greatest number of devout people : examine the structure of its government, test the operations of its laws, sift the char- acter of its inhabitants, weigh it in the balances of Scripture truth and divine requirements, aggregate its good and its evil, strike the balance between righteousness and iniquity, and then tell me whether there is a nation on all the globe that does not gravitate towards hell rather than towards heaven ! The church itself, enclosing within its pale all the purest and holiest specimens of humanity, after the toils and prayers of eighteen centuries, is still a feeble craft, working against wind and tide ! Where, then, is that universal righteousness, peace and glory which gave inspiration to the songs of the prophets and hope to the souls of the dying saints of old? The reign of Messiah is to be a reign of glory, power and triumph, where yice is unknown and iniquity at an end, where the branch from the root of Jesse is to strike all enemies dead and the Sun of righteousness disperse all darkness forever, where all nations shall serve, worship and obey the King of Israel, and the earth shout the alleluia of her ultimate re- demption; and it is worse than useless to try to persuade ourselves that such a condition of things belongs to this dis- pensation. Nor is there any thing by way of inference from the past, or from indications of the present, or even in the sublime promises of the word of God, by which to assure ourselves that such a condition of things ever will be realized until the "ALL THINGS NEW." 185 personal return of the blessed Christ for whom we wait. It is only when lie shall come, that he will sit upon the throne of his glory. Antichrist shall not die till then. The world will not be fully redeemed till then. The glorious kingdom will not come till then. That is the grand climacteric of our faith ; that is the sublime ultimatum of all our hopes. Long, long has this great consummation been delayed, so long that even pious men begin to doubt whether it ever shall come. But the word of Jehovah is out; he cannot recall it; he must fulfill it. Soon it will be here. Soon shall Messiah come in his glory, and set this imprisoned and down-trodden world at liberty. Soon shall the Son of Mary stand upon the Mount of Olives and plant his throne upon the hill of Ziou. Soon shall the glorified saints supplant besotted politicians, and the swelling tide of righteousness and peace overflow the earth. Soon shall the new-born nations send up their delega- tions to Jerusalem to worship the King in his beauty, and go forth with joy in the blessedness of obedience to him. Men may scoff, and say that we are degrading the blessed Savior to a level with earthly monarchs, and surrounding him with the miserable trappings of their foul courts. They may ridicule us, and say that we are dragging down the throne of Heaven's King to place it ainid graves, almshouses, hospitals, penitentiaries, labor-prisons, sickly cities, and worn-out states. But they forget that the promise is that Christ shall " MAKE ALL THINGS NEW," and banish forever all these evidences and emblems of depravity and sin. They forget that death is to be swallowed up of life, and the whole sentence of the world's curse forever rescinded. They forget that all tears are to be dried, and that there is to be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor tears, nor any more pain, nor any more sin, within all the domain of Messiah's eternal dominion. Oh, that Christians did but look at these things as God has presented them, and lay hold of the promises which he has given to 136 THE LAST TIMES. encourage us. Then would they go forth to duty with greater earnestness and intenser joy. Then would they pray, with fonder hope, "Thy Kingdom come!" and ever and anon respond, "AMEN, EVEN so COME, LORD JESUS!" "Hail! day of triumph, long appointed! Hail ! day that brings the Great Anointed Ye little flock, rejoice ! Fondly look forward without fearing; Redemption dawns with his appearing; Lift up your heads : the hour is nearing ! Elect, lift up your voice !" SIXTH DISCOURSE. THE JUDGMENT SCRIPTURAL IDEA OF A JUDGE THE DAY OF JUDGMENT NOT AN ORDINARY DAY OF TWENTY-FOUR HOURS THE JUDGMENT PROGRESSIVE CONNECTION OF THE JUDGMENT WITH THE MILLENNIAL REIGN IS THE EXECUTION OF ADJUDICATIONS ALREADY GOING ON ? HOW IT WILL BE INTRODUCED ADMONITIONS TO THE CARELESS ECCLESIASTES xii. 14 : For God shall bring every work into judg- ment, with every secret thing, ichether it be good or ichether it be evil. WE now approach one of the most difficult subjects in the Bible, and one which, perhaps, is the least understood, and the most imperfectly apprehended, of all the great revelations of God. Poetry and imagination have undertaken to portray its imposing sublimity; but all such efforts have tended to bewilder and deceive rather than to instruct. The truth is, that poets for theologians, and painters for commentators, are about the poorest guides that a Christian can select. There is a spirituality and supernatural vastness in divine things which cannot be given in pictures, and which no earthly imagery can reach. The external groupings and drapery with which fancy deals very often have little or no connection with the truths they are designed to illustrate. I propose, therefore, to dispense entirely with the popular, pictorial and poetic method of contemplating the great theme of the text, and to approach it more in the style in which the Scriptures present it. Long has the cry, "A day of judgment ! a day of judg- 12* 137 138 THE LAST TIMES. mcnt !" been heard in our world. Even before the death of Adam, there rose up a prophet, saying, "Behold, the Lord coineth, with ten thousand of his saints, to execute judgment upon all." Few, indeed, regard the solemn prediction. Many live as if it were all a fable. Thousands scoff at it as an idle dream. But the truth is not altered by man's forgetfulness or unbelief. Refusing to think of the subject cannot retard the chariot-wheels of the avenging King of Zion. He moves on steadily to the accomplishment of his great designs, undismayed and unmolested by the thoughtlessness, the skepticism or the rebellion of mortals. Some will not believe that the earth revolves on its axis, or that it moves in a circuit round the sun; but that does not change the facts, or stop the world in its revolutions. And whether men believe it or not, judgment will come. Accountability is woven in with our very being. It is a primordial condition of our nature. It grows out of the necessities of our very existence. It surrounds the child from its first consciousness. It lies upon us in the circle of friendship. It cleaves to us as citizens of the state. And we certainly cannot rid ourselves of it as members of the great household of God's rational creation. And where there is accountability, there must be adjudication. Every family, social circle, church, state, or empire, must needs have its tribunal, in effect if not in form, by which decisions are decreed and judgment executed. And surely it is not to be supposed that the great Father and King of all has failed to establish this indispensable requisite to all government. We also find in man, either as the result of common reason, or an original implantation in human nature, a something which is ever reminding us that we must encounter righteous retribution somewhere, at some time or other. We bear with us, in the deep recesses of our souls, a sort of premonitory sense of coming judgment. Every man has his spiritual SCRIPTURAL CONCEPTION OF "JUDGE." 139 fears, apprehensions and misgivings, which arc most solemnly prophetic. A good man feels that it must be well with him in the end; and a bad man cannot be at peace in his own heart, or rest with abiding composure upon his confidence of safety. Reason as we may, there is still some deeply-seated conviction of the soul, which seems to be a part of itself, which rises up to assert our responsibility with a power that no argument can resist and no logic overcome. AVc may therefore take it as a fixed verity, not only asserted in the Scriptures, but abundantly confirmed by the nature of things, that "God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it bo good, or whether it be bad." We are not, however, to conceive of this judgment as a mere assize, or court, sitting only at a specific time, for the hearing and determination of causes that have been long accumulating. Something of this sort is remotely implied in what the Scrip- tures say of the matter; but such an assize furnishes a very imperfect and inadequate idea of the great judgment. The Scriptural conception of & judge is not simply that of a jurist on the bench, but that of a ruler or king reigning in right- eousness, guiding and blessing his loyal subjects, and avenging them of their enemies. Just call to mind the reign of " the judyes" in the time of Sampson, Gideon, Jephtha, Eli, Samuel, and others, who are said to have "judged Israel." In what did their office of judging consist ? Brown, in his Dictionary, has evidently given it correctly, where he says, "These judges had the sole management of peace and war, and decided causes with an absolute authority. They executed tlie laws, reformed or protected religion, and punished idolaters and other male- factors ; and were much the same as the archons of Athens, the dictators of Rome, the suffetcs of Carthage, and the gov- ernors of Germany, Gaul and Britain before the Roman invasion." They were, then, sovereign princes; and in that 1-10 THE LAST TIMES. sovereignty we have the Scriptural idea of a judge. He is one who rules the people, subdues their enemies, punishes evil-doers and administers the affairs of government. Hence, when the Hebrews appointed a king to reign over them, they called him a judge, and called his administration judging. Read the eighth chapter of the First Book of Samuel. You will there find that "all the elders of Israel" said, "Make us A. KING TO JUDGE us ;" " "We will have a king over us, that we also may be like all other nations, and that our king may JUDGE us, and go out before us and fight our battles." Their conception of judgeship was that of kingly rule. Hence, when the Scriptures speak of judgment, they very often add expressions which show that they connect with it the general idea of government, and identify it with sovereign control and gubernatorial administrations. "Let the nations be glad," says the Psalmist, "and sing for joy; for thou shalt iudge the people righteously, and GOVERN THE NATIONS upon earth." Isaiah says, " Unto us a Son is given, and the gov- ernment shall be upon his shoulder. ... Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it WITH JUDGMENT and with justice forever." "Behold, a king shall reign and prosper, and shall EXECUTE JUDGMENT IN THE EARTH. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely; and this is the name whereby he shall be called : The Lord Our Righteousness. And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off: and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks." Jesus says, "Ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, JUDGING (governing) the twelve tribes of Israel." Paul says, "The saints shall judge the icorld;" and this judgeship of the saints is explained in the Apocalypse, MEANING OP "DAY OF JUDGMENT." 141 where the Saviour says, " He that overcometh, and keepeth my works unto the end, to him will I give power over the nations, and Jie shall RULE THEM." All these passages evidently refer to the last grand administrations of God, to the judy- ment. And you will readily perceive from them that the Scriptural idea of a judge is one who exercises sovereign rule, one who administers the laws, governs the people, avenges them of their enemies, guides them in peace and safety, and punishes evil-doers. In a general sense, then, and as presenting a key to this whole subject, we might say that the Judgment of God is the administration of the government of God. It is, therefore, also erroneous for us to conceive of the judgment as limited to one day of twelve or twenty-four hours. We indeed read of "the day of judgment, 1 ' and that the Lord hath "appointed a day in the which he will judge the world." But the word "day" is often used, both in the Old and New Testaments, and also in common conversation, to signify much larger periods of time than the seventh part of a week. In the first chapter of Genesis it is used six times, to denote six different epochs of the creation. In these cases, some take it to mean an ordinary day; but the majority of learned men think that it means a thousand years, or six thousand years ; and that the six days of the creation include six, thirty-six, or even a much greater number of thousand years. How this is we know not ; but in the next chapter we read of "the day that the Lord made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field." Here the whole period of the creation, which geologists think includes myriads of years, is called a day. So the forty years of wandering in the wilderness is called "the day of temp- tation," " the day that God brought them up out of Egypt." Isaiah calls the whole period of the Messiah's reign " his day" And Peter, in direct reference to "the day of judg- 142 THE LAST TIMES. ment," exhorts us not to be ignorant " that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one clay." I make these remarks to show that nothing can be inferred from the word day, as applied to the judgment, by which to limit it to twenty-four hours, or to any other brief period of time. The day of creation means simply the time of the creation. The day of Israel's pilgrimage is the time of the pilgrimage. The day of the Messiah is the time of the Messiah. And so "the day of judgment" is merely the time of judgment, whether it be a week or year, a hundred or a thousand years, or as many years as there are days in a thousand years. Hence, Joseph Mede, whom Professor Bush pronounces " one of the profoundest Biblical scholars of the English church," remarks, that "it is to be remembered that the Jews, who gave to this time the name of the day of judg- ment, and from whom our Savior and his apostles took it, never understood thereby any thing but a lime of many years' continuance." The truth is, that the Scriptures present the judgment as a progressive thing, which began with the expulsion of Adam from Paradise, which is to some extent continually going on, and which will finally reach its entire consummation in the advent and administrations of the Son of man, when an utter end shall be made of all disorder and sin, and the pious of all ages enter upon the full fruition of the honors and joys which God has covenanted unto them. Paul calls it " eternal judgment," not only because its results shall be permanent, but more particularly because it continues perpetually. God is ever and anon dealing out retributions and deliverances, which are the steps and preludes to the more complete and ever-augmenting awards of eternity. The Bible distinctly teaches this. Jesus says, " He that believe th. on the Son is not condemned; but he that believeth not is condemned (is JUDGED) ALREADY, because he hath not believed in the name THE JUDGMENT PROGRESSIVE. 143 of the only-begotten Son of God." All agree that whenever a sinner repents and accepts of Christ as the great and only Savior, he is at that moment justified; but justification is altogether a judicial transaction. When the Savior was yet on earth, he said, "Now is the judgment of this world;" "The prince of this world is judgt-d." When God went through Egypt, and smote all the first-born of man and beast, it is said that he executed judgment upon them : (Gen. xv. 14; Ex. xii. 12.) The revelation of his avenging arm against proud Babylon, and the deliverance of Israel from its power, is described in the same way : (Jer. li. 47 ; Ezek. xxxix. 21.) And so every interposition of God to enforce the principles of his government, either by way of punishing his enemies or delivering his people, is called judgment, and is really a part and earnest of the one great eternal judgment which is to be consummated in the coming and administrations of the blessed Jesus. Thus the imme- diate consequences of death are also called "the judgment," (Heb. ix. 27,) because there is then a broader line of dis- tinction drawn between the good and the wicked, and God's government goes into further effect in giving over the one class to wander in the darkness of their alienation from holiness, and taking the other class into peace and rest. But all these adjudications are but the beginnings of the judgment, whilst there is reserved a still future series of ad' ministrations by which they are to be carried on to eternal completeness. Hence, we read that " God hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." The Lord Jesus himself is to return again to the earth, to take the entire dominion of the world, and to ad- minister justice and judgment to the quick and to the dead according to his gospel. In this great judgment, of which all 144 THE LAST TIMES. others are but the foretastes and the earnest, " the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment to the Son, that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father." " For, as the Father hath life in himself, so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself, and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.'' Considering, then, that the Scriptural idea of a judge is that of a sovereign prince administering righteous govern- ment, that the ultimate administrations of judgment are given entirely into the hands of Jesus as the Son of man, and that Jesus is to return to this world to reign here in a glorious and universal empire, under which iniquity is to be finally ex- punged and made to give place to eternal righteousness and peace, we are prepared for the announcement, that the time of the judgment is the time of Christ's personal reign upon earth, and that the final judgment itself is nothing more nor less than the sovereign ministrations of the descended Jesus as the sovereign of the world. Xow, this reign of Christ is really eternal. It is every- where so spoken of in the Scriptures. " Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end." " His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom." " It shall stand for- ever." But there is one period in this sublime reign which is especially marked in the prophecies of God. That period is the first thousand years of its existence, or the millennium. Until these first thousand years are over, the divine purposes will not be entirely fulfilled. It is only at the expiration of this thousand years that the last rebellion is to be put down, and the second resurrection accomplished. It is this thousand years, then, and especially the adjudications by which they are to be introduced and concluded, which constitute the day of judgment. It will have its morning and its evening, like every other day. Its morning is the period of Christ's " com- ITS CONNECTION WITH THE MILLENNIAL REIGX. 145 ing and kingdom," when he will raise the sleeping saints, change the pious living, assign all the faithful their places in his holy and eternal empire, and break down and destroy every thing that stands in the way of the establishment of his princely reign over all the nations of the earth. Its evening is the close of the millennial era, when the last revolt under Gog and Magog shall be destroyed, the devil cast into the pit of destruction, and all the unsanctified dead delivered over to the second death. In other words, there is a duality in the judgment of the great day, just as there is a duality in the resurrection, in the law, in the book of Revelation, in the na- ture of Christ, in the destiny of men, in the Savior's advent, and in many other things of which the Bible speaks. After long and prayerful study of the subject, then, it seems to me that the first thousand years of the Messiah's personal reign is the period which the Scriptures style by emi- nence "the day of judgment," and that the great judgment itself is nothing more nor less than those wonderful adminis- trations of the coming Son of Mary, by which he will set up his visible kingdom, and eventually shut up all its enemies in everlasting death. It is certain, my brethren, that the Scriptures do unequivo- cally connect the judgment with Christ's occupancy of the throne which he is to receive at his second coming. Maton has remarked, that "we may justly doubt whether our Savior hath as yet executed the office of king." He exercises, indeed, a partial sovereignty in men's hearts; "yet, that he doth not now reign in that kingdom which he shall govern as man, and consequently in that of which the prophets spake, his own words in Rev. iii. 21 do clearly prove: 'To him that overcometh I will grant to sit with me in my throne/ &c., from whence it follows that the throne which he here calls his own, and which he hath not yet received, (Heb. ii. 8, 10, 12, 13,) must needs belong to him as man : because the place K 13 146 THE LAST TIMES. where he now sits is the Father's throne, a throne in which he has no proper interest but as God. Again, it follows, that seeing he is now in his Father's throne, therefore neither is this the time nor the place in which his own throne is to be erected." I have shown you, in a previous discourse, that Christ's throne is the throne of his father David, which is in this world. I know of no Scripture which assigns to Christ any throne as 7i/s own but this. And the judgment is specifi- cally connected with his sitting upon his own throne at his coming. He says himself, " 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 in his presence shall all nations be placed together, and he shall separate them (the nations') one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." Here are judicial administrations; and those proceedings are attributed to Christ as the Son of man, seated upon his own throne, and dealing with nations in this world, to whom as the Son of man he is present. In Daniel we read of the coming of the Son of man, to be invested with a kingdom, in which " nations and languages" are to serve him ; which kingdom is to break in pieces all other kingdoms, and take away, destroy and consume the do- minion of the blasphemous power that made war with the saints ; yet these administrations of the enthroned Jesus are called " the judgment," the sitting of the judgment. Of this same Messiah that was born of Mary, Isaiah says, that he shall bear rule "upon the throne of David, to order it and establish it" how? "WITH JUDGMENT." The judgment, then, and the Messiah's reign are things which go together. Again, he says of Christ, "A King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment in the earth." Here the reign of Christ is set forth as the judgment of the world by him. So also says the Psalmist: "He shall judge the people righteously, EVEN GOVEEN THE NATIONS UPON EARTH." AUTHORITIES. 147 What do these passages mean, if they do not speak of the judgment of the world by Christ as identical with the ad- ministrations of his personal reign as the Son of man ? Con- sider, also, once more, what he himself said to the apostles : " "When the Son of man shall sit on the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, jurying the twelve tribes of Israel." It is evident that this judgeship of the apostles and saints is rulership. The Savior here says that their judge- ship is to be of the same kind, nay, an actual part of his own. As, then, the judgeship of the apostles and saints is their reign with Christ over the nations, so his judgeship and his reign arc one and the same thing, and the judgment and the adminis- trations of the Messianic kingdom are identical. Hence, also, Christ's coming to judge the world is called the coming of his kingdom. Jesus says, " There shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars, and upon earth distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves thereof roaring, men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that are coming on the earth ; and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken ; and when ye shall see all these things come to pass, know ye that tlic, L-iiu/- dom of God is ni/jh at hand." And in the Apocalypse it is distinctly announced that " the time of wrath, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged and reward given to the prophets, saints and all that fear God," is identical with the time when " the kingdoms of the world become the king- doms of our Lord, and of his Christ ;" all of which goes to show that the judgment is the same with the establishment of the Savior's reign upon earth as the Son of David. Joseph Farmer argues the same thing from Rev. xx. 4. He says that " the kingdom wherein the saints reign with Christ a thousand years, is the same with the kingdom of the Son of man, and the saints of the Most High in Daniel ; therefore, it also begins at the great day of judgment, which is not con- 148 THE LAST TIMES. summated till Gog and Magog's destruction at their end; therefore, the whole thousand years is included in that great day of judgment. The resurrection of the just will take place in the morning of the day of judgment, or beginning of the thousand years." Dr. Thomas Goodwin, one of the great patriarchs of English Independency, also has this remark, that " there is a special world, (which is the present world in its future renewed form,) called the world to come, appointed for Jesus Christ eminently to reign in, between this world and the end of the day of judgment," and that "the day of judgment itself is part, if not the whole, of the time wherein our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ shall reign." And Mede, from 2 Pet. iii. 8, considers it settled, that the day of judgment is the thousand years' reign of Christ. He thus paraphrases that passage : " Whereas, I mentioned the day of judgment, lest ye might take it for a short day, or a day of a few hours, I would not, beloved, have you ignorant that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thou- sand years as one day." I feel myself, therefore, fully warranted, by the infallible authority of Holy Scripture, and by the authority of men who have gone most profoundly into the investigation of this sub- ject, in maintaining that the great consummating judgment is nothing more nor less than the administrations of the Son of man, in taking to himself the throne of his father David, and establishing his sublime kingdom triumphant over all his foes. And this judgment is just the carrying into full effect of all previous administrations of God with man. The righteous are now justified, accepted and adopted as the children of God; and the wicked are condemned already; but these things are not yet fully manifest. The sentence is not yet entirely enforced in either case. As to those who have HOW "THE JUDGMENT" WILL COMMENCE. 149 passed into the world of departed spirits, there is a greater enforcement of the present divine adjudications than we have in this life. But still Paul tells us that the full mani- festation of the sons of God is reserved until the period of the resurrection and redemption of the body; and that the full perdition of the ungodly is deferred to the same or some subsequent period. The sentence upon good and bad is already passed; but it will not be fully executed until the great day of Christ's coming and kingdom. Paul did not expect his crown until then. Peter did not look for the per- dition of ungodly men until then. And the great administra- tions of that day will consist in the distribution of blessings and curses already awarded. It will simply be the consum- mation of adjudications already existing, the completion of processes even now begun. The resurrection of the saints is not so much a resurrection for the purpose of being judged, as the execution of judicial decisions which already exist. The same is true of the resurrection of the wicked. The one class are to rise in glory, and the other class in shame and contempt. The resurrection of the saints is to occur a thou- sand years previous to the resurrection of the wicked. The resurrection itself, then, is a judicial administration ; and the judgment, instead of being confined to scenes after the resur- rection, is going on now, and takes in a long series of transac- tions already begun, but which will only be consummated by the awards of eternity. And when these eternal awards are made, it will be but the ultimate effect of proceedings which are at present in progress. From these considerations, it follows that the introduction of " the day of judgment" will be very different from what is often supposed. As the judgment consists in the adminis- trations of the glorious Messianic kingdom, and that kingdom is to extend over nations and men in the flesh, its first symp- toms and manifestations will be found in the existing livin^ 13* 150 THE LAST TIMES. world. The Savior plainly tells us that "there shall be upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves thereof roaring ;" great popular and revolutionary dis- turbances ; " men's hearts failing them for fear, and for look- ing after those things that are coming upon the earth ; for the powers of heaven shall be shaken." These words describe scenes of the judgment, which are to be witnessed before the visible manifestation of Christ, scenes which will glide in upon the world without the least suspicion on the part of men generally that they are the beginnings of the great judgment. By looking at the various changes that have already occurred in God's earthly administrations, we find that when one dis- pensation was exchanged for another they overlapped each other. The new always began before the old reached its con- clusion. The two interpenetrated each other, so that the new began within the old, and the old ran far into the new. The Jewish system was not overthrown when Christ was born, nor yet when the dispensation of the Spirit commenced at the day of Pentecost. The old system still stood for many years, so that many were both Jews and Christians at the same time. And so it will doubtless be when the millennial or judgment era begins. It will commence within the world that now is. David was an exact type of that future Son of his who is to execute justice and judgment on his throne. But David was the anointed king long before Saul's power was broken and taken from him ; and the processes by which he ultimately came to possess the throne which God had given him in Saul's stead consisted of wars, slaughters and destruc- tions. And so in the setting up of the judgment-throne of Christ, our David, there will be corresponding troubles and devastations. All other kingdoms must be broken in pieces and consumed before the kingdom of God will be fully set up. They must be broken with a rod of iron, and dashed in pieces as a potter's vessel. All existing orders of things must be THE SIGNS OP ITS PRESENCE. 151 shaken down and destroyed. " Babylon" must fall. " The vials of the wrath of God" must be poured out upon the earth, overwhelming mankind with trouble, deluging empires in blood, and gathering the kings of the world to the war of the great day of God Almighty, when they shall come to their end, and none shall help them. He that is called " Faithful and True" must "judge and make war," and " smite the nations," and "tread the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." And all these things relate to nations, tribes and confederations of men as they now live in the flesh, and will doubtless be felt and manifested long be- fore men generally are at all acquainted with what is going on. Thoughtful people will wonder at the amazing upheav- ings of society around them ; they will tremble at the mighty agitations which trouble and confuse every thing in church and state ; they will grow pale at the gigantic moves of revo- lutionists and military despots; and their hearts shall fail them as they attempt to look forward to what the results of all shall be. Some will call it progress; some will call it the result of wrong education of the masses; some will look upon it as the work of ambitious or mistaken legislation ; some will think it is liberty rising from her sleep of ages to take dominion of the world. And a thousand theologians, philosophers and jurists will have as many different solutions of the great problem of what is coming upon the earth, with- out once striking upon the real truth that the day of judgment has begun. Signs and wonders shall exist on every hand; but unsuspecting mortals will point to a thousand natural causes as explanations, and bigoted sectarians will refuse to believe even their own senses. And the world, in all its de- partments, with here and there a few who are faithful to what God hath written for our learning, shall drift on to dissolution without knowing what is actually transpiring. But some one will ask, Shall we not see Christ when he 152 THE LAST TIMES. comes, and thus be advised when the great day of judgment begins ? Yes, " every eye shall see him ;" but not necessarily at the same time, and only when he shall come " ^vith all his saints with him;" and all his saints cannot be with him until after the pious dead are raised, and the pious living trans- lated. I have found no Scripture which, when construed with its corresponding passages, says a word about Christ's visibility or appearance previous to the resurrection of the saints. On the contrary, we are repeatedly told that the day of judgment shall come "as a thief in the night." And how does a thief come ? He not only comes stealthily, and at such an hour as we think not, but he is already on the premises, in the house and doing his work, before we are aware of his presence. And so shall it be with the coming of Christ and the day of judgment. He will be here judging the nations before we know it. But another will ask, Shall not the trumpet sound, and will not that tell us when the judgment begins ? Yes, " the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed " but it is not such a trumpet as all men shall hear and understand. Paul calls it "the last trump." A last trumpet implies other trumpets before the last, just as the Scriptures elsewhere tell us. In the tenth chapter of Revelation, it is announced that " in the days of the voice of the SEVENTH ANGEL, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God shall be finished, as he has declared to his servants the prophets." To understand what is meant by this " seventh angel," and his " voice," we must look at the eighth chapter, where John says, " I saw seven angels which stood before God ; and to them were given seven trumpets." He then heard each of these angels, one after another, sound his trumpet. The sounding of the seventh is therefore "the last trumpet." And that this seventh trumpet of John is " the last trump" of Paul is evident from the events which are THE LAST TRUMPET. 153 attributed to the sounding of both. Paul says of " the last trump," that when it sounds " the dead shall be raised and we shall be changed." All agree that it refers to the period of the judgment. And so also when John's "seventh angel" sounded his trumpet, "there were great voices in heaven, say- ing, The kingdoms of the world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ ; and he shall reign forever and ever. And the four-and-twenty elders worshipped God, say- ing, Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead that they should be JUDGED." The last trumpet, then, or the trumpet which is to usher in the scenes of the judgment, is just such a trumpet as were the six that preceded it ; and its sounding is to be understood in the same way that they sounded. And, fortunately, these six trumpets have already sounded. We can point directly to the several events to which they refer. The first four relate to the several invasions of the Goths, Vandals and Scythians who laid waste the Roman empire. The fifth refers to the Saracenic wo, inflicted by Mohammed and his fierce armies. The sixth introduced the woes inflicted by the Tartar tribes or Turks in their furious devastations. Such, at any rate, are the applications which the best interpreters have made of these parts of the Bible, and I see no reason to doubt their correctness. They certainly refer to occurrences of this kind that have already transpired upon earth, none of which have been ushered in by audible signals from the heavens. The trumpets belong simply to the scenery on the panorama by which these events were brought before the apostle's view, and not to the events themselves. And, as there was no audible, startling, miraculous, wide-sounding, celestial bugle-note to announce to the world the fulfillment of the predictions con- nected with the six trumpets, so I infer and conclude that there is to be no audible trumpet-blast from mid-heaven to inform the world when the day of judgment has come. For 154 THE LAST TIMES. aught you or I know, the last trump has already sounded, or is now sounding, in the sermons and books of many able and earnest preachers and laymen, in various parts of the world, who are striving to awaken men's minds to a sense of what is approaching, and crying into the ears of the slumbering church, "Behold, the bridegroom cometh ! Go ye out to meet him." Yet again some one may ask, Shall we not see the rising of the dead as they come forth at the judgment? I answer that I find nothing in the Scriptures to prove that those who live in the flesh when the day of judgment comes will at all see or be conscious of the rising of them that sleep in Jesus. No human eye saw Christ rise. And it may be that his saints will ascend one by one, or in small companies, as they lie entombed together, just as quietly as they now sleep. No man can say with certainty that this " first resurrection" is not now going on. The fact that we or our pious friends have not yet been transfigured, argues nothing against such a supposition. Paul says expressly, " We which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent," that is, go before, "them which are asleep." The teaching of the Scriptures seems to be that the last sleeping saint shall be raised before the first living saint shall be translated. And when the process of the translation of the living commences, it will no doubt be like the resurrection to which it corre- sponds. It will not be with great pomp and public demon- strations, but quietly and in a manner hardly understood by those that remain. The unbelieving multitudes may be startled at accounts of the missing here and there, who, like Enoch, shall not be, because God took them ; but sage skep- tics will soon invent some new theory of spontaneous combus- tion, or something else, to account for the mysterious disap- pearances, and but few men will, perhaps, suspect what is really going on. Unsanctified preachers will, perhaps, con- WILL NOT BE GENERALLY UNDERSTOOD. 155 tinue preaching, and unconverted congregations continue to visit the sanctuaries upon which God has written Ichdbod. Lawyers and doctors, scribes and Pharisees, may, perhaps, continue to talk learnedly about Christianity, which none of them understand, and contend earnestly for the faith which none of them ever experienced, and chuckle complacently over the delusion and fanaticism of those who told them that the day of judgment had come. I do not say that things will occur just in this way; but what I have said is certainly much more like the truth than the conceptions which men usually form of these matters. Of this one thing, my brethren, I am well assured, that the stupendous occurrences of the day of judgment will glide in upon the world as by stealth, and before a great number of even pious people shall be aware that these great scenes have commenced ; whilst the great mass of worldlings and politi- cians will not believe it to the very last, when the Son of man will blast them forever with his terrific indignation. "As it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Xoe entered into the ark, and KNEW NOT until the flood came and took them all aicai/." Perhaps it had rained a month before those wicked scoffers began to feel any special alarm. Perhaps many of them beheld the ark taken up by the swelling waters, and yet stood upon the hill-tops laughing at the old preacher's folly. Though the valleys were all covered, and the waters rose higher and higher every hour, " they knew not"- until all were swept away by the shoreless waves. And "so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." The nations shall be undergoing their judgment, the sainted dead shall be raised, the sainted living shall be translated, and the whole earth shall heave with the throes of judgment already present; and yet multitudes will go on as they did before, and refuse to be- 156 THE LAST TIMES. lieve what is transpiring. Nations in their desperation will continue to declare war, and make treaties, and form alliances, and join their armies, and gather together their warriors against the Lamb and his people, until at last, to their ever- lasting consternation, the Son of man shall appear with his sainted hosts, and hurl upon them the mighty thunders of his eternal wrath. If it is not to be so, why have Peter and Paul told us that " the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night ?" If it is not to be so, why has the Savior told us so earnestly to watcli, and pointed out so many signs by which we are to be guided, and so repeatedly admonished us to take heed lest that day come upon us unawares ? All these things prove that the judgment will come upon the world unknown except to the devoutest and most watchful of the children of men. How important, therefore, that we should study with the profoundest care what the inspired prophets have written upon this subject for our learning ! With what solemn con- cern should we contemplate the mysterious movements of the age in which we live ! With what absorbing interest should we ponder the given signs by which we are to know when the great day of the Lord shall corne ! Would it not be an awful calamity for the church, which professes to be waiting for Christ, to be plunged into the midst of the scenes of that great day without so much as knowing that that day has come ? Wo, wo, wo, to them whom Christ, when he comes, shall find ignorant of the times, and faithless to their duty ! " For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and with chariots like a whirlwind, to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For with fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many." No man can tell the painful surprises, sufferings and scenes of dread and horror which shall then be enacted. All the prophets have spoken of them. Christ has again and again warned us respecting them. Ever and anon they rise WARNINGS. 15"J before us on the inspired pages to admonish us of our danger. And yet men go on in their sins, and even Christian people remain unmoved, not thinking that we may even now be upon the very margin of the awful day ! 0, careless, prayerless, thoughtless child of Adam, who- ever you may be, let me warn and entreat you this day not to trifle any longer with your soul, or with the requirements of Jesus ! Here God hath placed me upon the watch-tower, to keep you advised of threatening danger; and I now give you the cry of alarm. In the name of that Jesus who will soon come, I bid you escape to the mountains, tarry not in all the plain, lest you be consumed. Retribution may appear slow in coming, but it will come. Cold unbelief and unconcern may seem good enough now, but the ways thereof are the ways ot destruction. Lot will soon have passed out of Sodom, and a the salt of the earth" have vanished; and then the souls of the rebellious and the careless shall be like stubble to the fire. The trampled law will rise at last to assert its dignity and vin- dicate its honor. Christ will not bear the taunts, and thongs and mockery of Pilate's hall forever. For every soul and for every sin there is a judgment. We may not consider it, but that will not change it. We may be but little alarmed with reference to it, but that will not soften its terrors or disrobe it of its awfulness. We may argue, and equivocate, and wish it were not so ; but it will not reverse the settled decree of that God who hath said he will bring every work into judg- ment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. Young man, those sports and gayeties for which you are putting Christ and his word aside will all confront you again hereafter. Those midnight suppers, rank with profanity and intoxication, shall have their reward. Those Catherines in * O O the drink-shops of Satan, those witty jests levelled at sacred things, those fiery lusts burning on the altar of pleasure, all 14 158 THE LAST TIMES. are written down in the book of doom which shall soon be opened. That scene of riot, that broken pledge, that visit to the haunts of profligacy supposed to be known only to your- self, each has its appropriate recompense in the distributions of coming wrath. Yes ; the blood of murdered innocence will not always cry from the earth in vain. The wails of trampled helplessness will not go unheard forever. The widow's wrongs, and the orphan's robbery, will not go perpetually unrequited. The unknown assassin, and the secret sinner, will yet be found out. The malicious incendiary, and the dishonest clerk, the mother who strangled her babe, and the boy that cursed his parents in his heart, and every violator of law or despiser of the truth, shall yet have to confront their crimes, and answer for them to the Lord their Maker. And when once the fearful inquisition begins, and the chained thunders are let loose, and the long arrearages of wrath come to be paid off, and violated law, abused goodness, despised mercy, and outraged justice, all combine in the demand for vengeance, oh, who shall tell the doom of him who is found uncovered by the Savior's righteousness and unsanctified by the Savior's blood ? Who can tell the greatness of his wretchedness ? Who can weigh his torment ? Who can fathom the depth of his hell ? Is there before me a soul so hardened as to resolve to en- counter it ? Awake, then, sleeper, and call upon thy God, if so be that you perish not ! Your race will soon be run. The day when Glod will put his terrific adjudications in force upon you will soon arrive. It is stealing upon you as a lion crouching to spring upon his prey. The great judgment is close at hand. Already we hear the mutterings of the approaching tempest. Before you think it possible, the Lord will arise and say, "It is done." Why, then, sleep, and sport, and fold your arms in indifference ? " Behold, now is the accepted time ! Behold, NOW IS THE ACCEPTED TIME. 159 now is the day of salvation I" And I entreat you, by all the awful perils that surround us by the preciousuess of the iin- mortal soul by the untold peace and blessings of eternity, do not waste your time, nor neglect your opportunities. Haste to the arms that are stretched out to save you. Fly at once to the refuge set before you. Take sanctuary in Jesus, who now offers to save you. And may he who came into the world to save sinners be your portion forever ! Amen, and Amen ! SEVENTH DISCOURSE. THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF THE JUDGMENT, WITH EESPECT TO THE DEAD, WITH KESPECT TO THE LIVING THE UNSANCTIFIED LIVING TO BE JUDGED NATIONALLY AT THE SECOND ADVENT THE RESULTS OF THESE NATIONAL JUDGMENTS. ACTS xvii. 30, 31: And the times of tins ignorance God winked at; but now commandetli all men everywhere to repent: because he hatJi appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in rigJiteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained : wJiereof he 7iath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. I HAVE already given you one discourse upon the judg- ment ; but I feel that another is necessary to furnish you with a clear and full conception of what is revealed concerning it. In my last, I endeavored to disabuse your minds of some wrong impressions which prevail respecting it, and to present what I regard as the more Scriptural views of the subject, reserving a more detailed account of its particular administra- tions for the present occasion. You were then shown that, in a general sense, the judgment of God is the administration or enforcement of the government of God, and that "the day of judgment" is that notable period, when the Son of man shall take his great power, complete the redemption of his saints, destroy all his enemies, and set up his glorious king- dom over the nations. That day will include at least a thou- sand years, as Peter says. It will have its morning and its evening. Its morning will be the period of Christ's coming, and include all the great " signs" which immediately precede, 160 JUDGMENT OF THE LIVING AND OF THE DEAD. 1G1 attend and follow the second advent. Its evening is the period when the last rebellion in the mystic Gog and Magog shall be defeated, the wicked dead raised, and they, the devil, death, and all that ever disturbed and polluted the earth, given over to the ever-burning lake of the second death. It is the morning of that day of which the Scriptures say the most, and of which I desire now more particularly to speak. And may God dictate to your hearts and mine, and so enable us to comprehend his mysterious purposes, that we may be found of him in peace, without spot and blameless ! You have doubtless observed in your reading, that the Scriptures distinguish between the judgment of men in the flesh, and the judgment of the dead. Christ is " ordained of God to be the Judge of quick and dead.'' He " shall judge tlie quick and the dead at his appearing and kingdom." He is " ready to judge the quick and the dead." By " the quick," we are of course to understand the living, those who, not yet having died, live in the body at the period when Christ comes. We will therefore be under the necessity of distinguishing between the judgment as respects the living, and the judgment as respects the dead. The one is evidently very different from the other ; and, without treating of them separately, we can have no clear conception of what God has revealed upon the subject. As respects the dead, the matter is plain enough from what was presented on the subject of the resurrection of the just. All " them which sleep in Jesus" shall be raised from among the dead, glorified, exalted, gathered to Christ in the clouds beyond mortal sight, and assigned their places in the heavenly kingdom according to their works. " The rest of the dead live not again until the thousand years are finished." These are the administrations of the morning of the judgment-day as respects the dead. But even among those who live in the body when Christ L 14* 162 THE LAST TIMES. comes, wo find two classes, the righteous and the wicked, with regard to whom two distinct proceedings will take place. As to the pious living at that time, they will be translated, and undergo a sudden change analogous to the resurrection, and be taken up to the risen saints, to be dealt with in the same way as those who have been raised from the dead. Paul says, " The Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God ; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then toe which are alive and remain shall lie cauglit up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air : and so shall we be ever with the Lord." "We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump : for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." Thus, all the really pious, who live till the day of Christ, shall be changed and caught up, as Enoch and Elijah, their great types, were changed and caught up, and go to join the glo- rious resurrection-host, " the Bride of the Lamb," " the church of the first-born." Their judgment then will be per- sonal and final, introducing them into the fruition of their rewards in the eternal kingdom. We come now to the unsanctified who shall be found living upon earth when Christ appears. How is the introduction of the day of judgment to affect them? Of course they will not be translated. Their pious friends and associates shall be taken, but they shall be left. Neither will they then receive their judgment in full. The final judgment of the wicked is not until the end of the millennium. Whatever, therefore, shall befall them on the morning of the day of judg- ment will only be their judgment in part. It will be a judg- ment in the flesh only, and consist of the dispensation of tem- poral troubles and calamities. It will be more national than personal, and concern them more as states, societies and con- THE XXV. CHAPTER OF JEREMIAH. 163 federations, than as individuals. It will doubtless be a judg- ment of the same kind with those judgments which have heretofore been administered to wicked powers and apostate nations and churches. Upon this point the Scriptures are very plain. There is a very remarkable passage on this subject in the twenty-fifth chapter of Jeremiah. The prophet there sets forth this judgment of the nations one after another as time pro- gresses, until it reaches its grand consummation in the adminis- trations which are to attend Christ's final coming. He says, " Thus saith the Lord God of Israel unto me : Take the wine- cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I shall send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them. Then took I the cup at the Lord's hand, and made all the nations to drink, unto whom the Lord had sent me : to wit, Jerusalem, and the cities of Judah, and the kings thereof, and the princes thereof, to make them a desolation, an astonishment, an hissing and a curse; as it is this day; Pharaoh king of Egypt, and his servants, and his princes, and all his people ; and all the mingled people, and all the kings of the land of Uz, and all the kings of the land of the Philis- tines, and Ashkelon, and Azzah, and Ekron, and the remnant of Ashdod, Edom, and Moab, and the children of Arnmon, and all the kings of Tyrus, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isles which are beyond the sea, Dedan, and Tema, and Buz, and all that are in the utmost corners, and all the kings of Arabia, and all the kings of the mingled people that dwell in the desert, and all the kings of Ziruri, and all the kings of Elam, and all the kings of the Medes, and all the kings of the north, far and near, one with another, AND ALL THE KINGDOMS OF THE WORLD, WHICH ARE UPON THE FACE OF THE EARTH : and the king of Sheshach shall drink after them. Therefore, thou shalt say unto them, Thus saith 164 THE LAST TIMES. the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, Drink ye, and be drunken, and spue, and fall, and rise no more, because of the sword which I will send among you. And it shall be, if they refuse to take the cup at thy hand to drink, then shalt thou say unto them, Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Ye shall certainly drink. For lo, I begin to bring evil on the city which is called by my name, and should ye be utterly unpunished ? Ye shall not be unpunished : for I will call for a sword upon all the inhabit- ants of the earth, saith the Lord of hosts. Therefore, pro- phesy thou against them all these words, and say unto them/' and here comes a description of this universal judgment of the nations as it shall be consummated when Christ shall be manifested, " The Lord shall roar from on high, and utter his voice from his holy habitation ; he shall give a shout, as they that tread the grapes, against all the inhabitants of the earth. A noise shall come even to the ends of the earth : for the Lord hath a controversy with the nations, he will plead with all flesh ; he will give them that are wicked to the sword, saith the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, Behold, evil shall go forth from nation to nation, and a great whirlwind shall be raised from the coasts of the earth. And the slain of the Lord shall be at that day from one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth : they shall not be lamented, neither gathered, nor buried ; they shall be dung upon the ground." And it is in perfect harmony with this, that the Savior himself tells us, that in the period of his coming there will be "upon earth distress of nations with perplexity;" and that "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 (THE NATIONS) one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." And when that solemn reckoning comes, as the Scriptures abundantly OTHER PROPHECIES. 165 teach, there is but one people on the face of the whole earth which, as a nation, shall not fall among the goats, and be doomed as the uncharitable persecutors and ueglectors of the brethren of Jesus. Daniel tells us, that when the Son of man shall couie in his kingdom, " it shall break in pieces and con- sume all these (goat) kingdoms." Yes, " he conieth with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him, and all the kindreds (4'ulat tribes) of the earth shall wall because of him." He shall "judge and make war. 7 ' He shall be " clothed with a vesture dipped in blood." He shall "with a sharp sword smite THE NATIONS, and RULE THEM with a rod of iron; treading the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven shall eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and them that sit on them." " Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, his feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, for I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle. . . . Then shall the Lord go forth and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. . . . And it shall come to pass that a great tumult from the Lord shall be among them." " In that day the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones that are on high, and the kings of the earth upon earth; and they shall be gathered together as prisoners are gathered in the pit ; when tJie Lord of hosts shall reiyn in Mount Zion, even IN JERU- SALEM, and before his ancients gloriously." Again, it is said, "Come near, ye nations, and hearken, ye people : for the in- dignation of the Lord is upon all nations, and his fury upon all their armies : he hath utterly destroyed them, he hath de- livered them to the slaughter; and the mountains shall be melted with their blood. For it is the day of the Lord's ven- geance, and the year of recompenses for the controversy of Zion :" (Is. xxiv. and xxxiv.) The word of the Lord by 1G'3 THE LAST TIMF.S. Xephaniah is, " Wait yc upon me, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to y..-; -.' >..: . Iri spofci A..- :'.: V..1-. Li- .- .":::: - -./..i.: ' . - ., ". : .: .: .. -- Ac moel0mlfiL. . , . Tbxae&re: fear tiboK ma^ O ^"i.:.:-:. =;ii.-.;-. -z* L-.ri: MldMI bi i^ni.ij,,;. :;?;... /r.., Mm dm /' :/';,-. gHJ ffcj RBii Ind .: tik| cnflifi^ ; M! Jaol ^ul KWK, *pi Adi ..i :>-. io: :; . - .;-. i.: ; .; : ; rla.. :.:.ilc - .^. Bidi OM^M|| Ac L.rL -,. mm fee; A FOJL mR af AH. auxKffis mujjumt I HATE r~iz. TZT vm I Mi io.:-.2 A mx SO ". i : Iml I w3l as/met the i* memmte, aad wiffl -.:c-^? pipHMiUl . . .' Ba db Z.i.:L or. mat mmm An Ad U brnpni] v L-- :!.- .r-. : ' : ^ ^: . : ^ . 1. -.:.:._ .. ..'. :1 :..-.. -;~.- L .. ; -: ; :-:: --;.- v,^ -.-.. :,^ i o ... i.-.-: -.. :...;: ;:- ;;,; ; titot wiffi I gbe fer a jrey. Far I wiffl mfiave kolA * &v ami ical An rf affl Ay WQranfe r aaitk Ae lad. Be- Ulafi,! iril feng agwm Ae caftHity rf Jacob's tart* ami -.: f -1 I-: .T...^ : -;_.;.:,. -. -. ..:; ,...._ ,.; 108 THE LAST TIMES. builded on her own little hill. Out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry : and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small. Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before ine, and / will punish all that oppress them. . . . Behold, the whirlwind of the Lord goeth forth with fury, a cutting whirlwind: it shall fall with pain upon the head of the wicked. The fierce anger of the Lord shall not return until he have done it, and until he have performed the intents of his heart : in the latter days ye shall consider it :" (Jer. xxx.) My brethren, some people contemn the Jews, and speak despisingly of them. For eighteen hundred years they have been a hissing, a byword, and a reproach. The nations have dealt most unjustly towards them; and many to this day never look upon them but with derision and with scorn. But every Jew that moves upon the face of the earth is a living token of the coming wrath of God. All God's prophets were Jews ; and there is a sense in which all the Jews are God's prophets. Superstitious, obstinate, blind, derided, as the Jew is, he is a herald of the fierce judgment of Almighty God, which is to make "a full end of all nations" wherever he is found. He stands in our luxurious cities, and before our churches, as Jonah amid Nineveh, summoning us to re- pentance and mourning. And instead of feeling contempt and scorn when we come into his presence, we should rather be humbled and solemn, as if God's prophet were before us predicting trouble. He is the harbinger of disturbances and desolations which he alone, of all the races living, shall escape. His day of tribulation has been great and long, without a parallel. His Jerusalem is " trodden down of the Gentiles," and will remain trodden down " till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." But he shall be saved out of hig ASPECT OF THE JUDGMENT TIMES. 169 troubles. All his wounds shall be healed. He shall yet live. And when the time of his nation's resurrection comes, which has been so long foretold by his holy prophets, then shall the nations mourn. "In that day, saith the Lord of hosts, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling to all nations that are round about. And I will make Jerusalem a burden- some stone to all nations, and they shaft be cut in pieces and broken, though all the people of the earth I*, gathered together." It is useless for us to shut our eyes to these awful announcements. God himself has made them, and no man can alter the thing that is gone out of his mouth. The despised Jew shall yet look forth from Zion and behold the grave of every kingdom upon earth. But let us now endeavor to draw out, and set forth in greater particularity, some of the things comprehended in Liiore general statements. He that will be at the pains to put together all that has been revealed concerning the judgment as it respects the living when Christ comes, will not fail to see that it is to be a scene or succession of terrific social agitations, irruptions and revolutions. It will be a time of wars and rumors of wars; of political perplexities and disasters ; of ferments and pre- cipitations in the whole existing order of things; of civil storms, earthquakes, commotions, overturnings and devast- ations. People are to rise up and overthrow governments, slay their rulers, prey upon each other, and involve the world in bloody and inextricable broils. Ambitious and godless men will spring into places of power, array their followers against each other, trample down national and inter- national kw, and rush to certain destruction. Infidels and socialists of a thousand hues shall disorganize, undermine, subvert and destroy with bloody hands, and spread ruin in their path. Schisms and feuds of all sorts shall break forth to cripple and desolate. Great powers, which think thenv 15 170 THE LAST TIMES. selves secure, shall be suddenly overwhelmed. Infatuated zealots, secular and ecclesiastial, shall lead men into scenes of terror and ruin. Great alliances and combinations shall be formed and swelled into the most gigantic proportions, until they unexpectedly fall by their own weight and crush every thing beneath them. And the whole earth shall heave, and reel, and start, and stagger, with agony and delirium ; for it is "the great day of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." In this condition of things, all present forms of government shall be modified, if not wholly dissolved. All emperors and kings shall be divested of their power ; for " the sun shall be darkened." All orders of corrupt nobility, princedoms, duke- doms, premierships, and such like, shall be cast down; for "the stars shall fall." Kings, great men, rich men, chief captains, mighty men, and all their adherents, shall be stripped of their possessions, and driven to terrible extremities and desperation; for God hath said it in just so many words. Every sceptre shall break in the hands of him who holds it; every crown shall tumble from the brow of him that wears it ; the mightiest armies shall be utterly routed, and the greatest navies brought to naught. Worlds shall not rush upon each other and be no more, but thrones and human magistracies will. Matter will not wreck and vanish, but all political combinations will. The great orbs of immensity shall not be annihilated, but all whom those orbs symbolize in this world will; for God will "break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms." The whole body and framework of Nebuchad- nezzar's image, from its golden scalp to its toes of clay, every particle of it, shall be "like the chaff of the summer thresh- ing-floors/'' driven by the four winds. A similar destiny also then awaits all present church organizations, at least all establishments and hierarchies. As they stand connected with the world's politics, they shall CHURCH SYSTEMS. 171 share the same fate. "The moon shall be confounded, and become as blood." The ecclesiastical as well as the political heavens shall have their powers shaken, and be rolled up as a scroll ; and the stars in the one shall be cast down as the stars in the other. There is not a church system or denomi- national organization now on earth that shall ever find its way into the millennial times, or survive this period of the wrath of God. They are all provisional and temporary. They are all wood, hay and stubble, which the fires shall consume. They are all tainted. They are all founded too much on the wisdom of man, and consist too entirely of works of human authority and power to live. They shall all wither and die ; and they that build their salvation on them shall die with them. There are many church politicians who are as bad and as obnoxious to the judgment as any state politicians; and one doom is reserved for them all. My hope is in Christ Jesus and his infallible word, and not in any lauded church system under the sun. I am sure that there will be neither Protest- antism, nor Romanism, nor High Church, nor Low Church, nor Lutheranism, nor Methodism, nor Presbyterianism, nor any other kind of ism, in the glorious millennium. What then shall become of all these isms, and the systems founded on them ? There is no alternative ; they shall all perish forever in the storms and fires of wrath which are beginning to be felt, and which shall soon sweep over all the earth ; and they that adhere to these systems to the neglect of Christ and his pure gospel shall perish with them. Brethren, think me not mad think me not beside myself. I declare unto you the words of truth and soberness. Study the word of God, think for yourselves, only adjust in your own minds some of the great facts which we all admit, and you cannot resist the conclusion which I have announced. Your beautiful ceremonies, your magnificent rituals, your boasted democracy of church order, your vast and unique or- 172 THE LAST TIMES. ganization, all constructed by human wisdom, must be changed and come to naught. Your unsanctified and defiant denomi- national champions, and your sectarian Goliaths, shall all fall dead before the sling-stone of that David who cometh to judge the world in righteousness; and all their marshaled hosts, who have been rallied under the battle-cry of mere party, shall be scattered in confusion, and scorched by the hot flames of God's retribution. Understand me rightly. I am not exhorting any one to forsake his denomination, or to stand aloof from the church in the forms in which it now exists. That would only augment partyism, and increase needless contention or fatal indiffer- ence. Let him who would approve himself unto his Lord do the best he can under the circumstances. Keep diligently to your Bible, make the most of your opportunities, and meekly wait and watch for the coming of the Savior to set all things right by making all things new. If you are a Lutheran, work as a Lutheran ; but let the Scriptures and not Lutheran- ism be your guide. If you are a Methodist, work as a Method- ist; but work, not for Methodism, but for Christ. If you are an Episcopalian, work as an Episcopalian; but rest not your hope and aim in Episcopalianism, but in the simple gos- pel of the blessed God. Let the ism be to you as though it were not, and embrace Christ with all your heart, and lay hold of him as your all in all. For as certain as the judgment, all these isms must die. The great day shall make an end of them. And if you have no Christianity but them, alas for your hope ! These judicial visitations, however, will fall much more heavily upon some nations and combinations than upon others. Some are deeper in apostasy and guilt than others; and the righteous Judge shall apportion the punishment to the crime. There are some nations, confederations and hierarchies specially singled out in the prophecies as the objects of Jeho- THE TEN-HORNED WILD BEAST. 173 vah's most terrific indignation. Conspicuous among these are, 1. The ten-horned wild beast of Daniel and John ; 2. The image of the beast; and, 3. Great Babylon. I cannot, in this connection, present and reason out the processes by which the objects denoted by these symbols are to be identified. A vast amount of criticism and comment are involved, through which I have waded, but which are quite too voluminous and uninteresting to be repeated in pub- lic discourse. There are conclusions to which I have come, however, which I will announce, remarking at the same time that I believe them to be such as can be relied on and sus- tained. The ten-horned wild beast of Daniel and John is the repre- sentative of the Roman empire. Its ten horns are the ten kingdoms which took the place of the old Roman empire, and now occupy its territory. It is, therefore, the symbol of the supreme civil power of the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided. These ten kingdoms originally embraced the Huns, the Ostrogoths, the Visigoths, the Franks, the Vandals, the Sueves, the Burgundians, the Herulians and Thuringians, the Saxons and the Longobards. At present, they perhaps embrace the three Papal States, Xaples, Tuscany, Austria, Great Britain, France, Portugal and Spain. The supreme civil power, then, of these and, may-be, a few other countries, is the wild beast of whom we are now speaking. The image of the beast denotes that array of ecclesiastical rulers and teachers which princes and people have been de- luded to erect into a vast church hierarchy under the pope, who exercises over it a sway and jurisdiction analogous to, or the image of, that which the civil rulers exert over their po- litical empires. This image of the beast derived its existence and power from the false teachings and lying wonders of the 174 THE LAST TIMES. papal beast on the one hand, and from the misled political authorities on the other : (Rev. xiii. 14, 15.) It is, therefore, that empire of priests and church officials, presented in what is falsely called " the Catholic religion," and who are feared and worshipped by their millions of subjects with an idolatry as debasing as it is wicked. But what is meant by great Babylon that mother of har- lotry and source of earth's worst abominations ? Some have thought that this symbol denotes the city of Rome. Some have taken it as the representative of the Romish church. Some have given it still other applications. But I know of no explanation which so completely meets the case, as that which takes great Babylon as the symbol of that base and corrupting system known as the union of church and state. The city of Rome cannot be meant ; for great Babylon is presented as a living agent ; and living agents cannot represent inanimate objects. She is represented as borne by the wild beast; and must therefore be something different from the mere secular power, and yet entirely dependent upon the secular power. The Romish church, as such, does not wholly depend upon the secular power; but all state churches do. I therefore take great Babylon as the symbol of the living, seductive and corrupting body of nationalized hierarchies, both Papal and Protestant, whether in the Old World or in the New. Now, then, let us glance at the destiny of these three mon- sters, intertwined as they are, for the most part, the one with the other, and see how they will be affected by the introduc- tion of the day of judgment. As to great Babylon, her doom is sealed. She shall fall ; and great shall be her fall. In the visions of John, as soon as one angel announced that " the hour of judgment is come," another followed, saying, "Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all the nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication :" (Rev. xiv. 7, 8.) What- STATE CHURCHES. 175 ever may be said in their favor, these state churches and na- tionalized hierarchies are an abomination in the sight of God. They are " full of names of blasphemy." They have ever arrogated to themselves the rights of God, and assumed un- warranted authority over his legislation and over the con- sciences of his people. They are august and splendid es- tablishments, " robed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls." They have seduced millions into spiritual fornication, by their elegant attire and their bewitching flatteries. But all their pompous decorations and lofty pretensions will not hide their impurities from the eye of a jealous God. They are all "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the witnesses of Jesus." Sustained as they are with more than princely revenues, and shielded by the sword of secular power, they have been the agents of the bloodiest persecutions that the world has ever seen since the days of the pagan emperors. Ask a Papist who were the authors of those disgraceful inflictions in various countries professedly Christian, by which thousands upon thousands lost their lives for their religious opinions, and he will tell you, the civil government. Ask rabid Protestants, and they will tell you, the Romish church. But consult the truth, and it will tell you, it was the union of church and state. Even in the most enlightened Protestant countries where such union exists, the skirts of its robes are clotted with the blood and saturated with the tears of wronged and oppressed dissenters. I say this with shame and sorrow ; but so it is, and God has noted it all in his book of doom. There never has been a state church, in any age or any country, that has not been more or less an intolerant and a persecuting church. And where the papal hierarchy has enjoyed this re- lation to the secular power, God alone knows all the wrongs that have been perpetrated, and the streams of martyr-blood that have been spilled. It was not the state, as Rome would 176 THE LAST TIMES. persuade us ; it was not the Romish church, as such ; but it was the product of church and state united, the result of the blasphemous undertaking on the part of the civil power, with the consent of those who called themselves the church, to legislate in things which belong only to the individual con- science and its God. Religion is not a subject for human legislation. It is not for man to say how we are to be held in communion and allegiance with our Maker. Some tell us that it is our duty to obey the state ; and others insist that it is our duty to obey the church ; and from these two things it is argued that it is pre-eminently our duty to obey where church and state speak together. But the whole argument is sophis- tical and unsound. No man, or combination of men, has any right to impose laws between the soul and its God. Jehovah himself is the only Lord of the conscience. When Nebu- chadnezzar commands his subjects to fall down and worship an image, it is an inalienable right in us, like the three He- brew children, to disobey. When Darius forbids calling upon God, Jehovah is with every Daniel who sets the prohibition at defiance. When the Sanhedrim pronounces a ban upon the preaching of Peter and John, the Lord God of the holy prophets commands them to trample it under their feet. The human soul is obliged by no law which meddles with its rela- tions to its Creator. And the great, crying, and unpardonable sin of great Babylon is, that it everywhere undertakes to legislate for God, and forges chains to shackle the free-born soul. But Babylon shall be " remembered before God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath." All these state hierarchies shall be shaken down and overwhelmed. The very governments which now support and make use of them shall turn against them. God says, "The ten horns upon the beast shall hate her, and make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." States GREAT BABYLON. 177 in their straits shall rob her of her wealth, confiscate her goods, divest her of her possessions, appropriate her benefices and revenues to other purposes, and reduce the whole system to distress and desolation. Such is to be her fall ; and after her fall shall come her punishment. Her lord-bishops, her high superintendents and all her officials shall yet have a dreadful road to travel. God will yet say to those whom she has wronged, impoverished and oppressed, "Give to her as she also gave; and double to her according to her works. Into the cup which she has poured, pour to her double. As much as she has glorified herself and lived luxuriously, so much torment give her and sorrow." " In one day shall her plagues come, death, and sorrow, and famine; and she shall be burned with fire : for mighty is the Lord God who shall judge her. And the kings of the earth" the civil powers " who have committed fornication and lived luxuriously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning ; and standing afar off for fear of her torment, shall say, Alas, alas ! that great city Babylon, that mighty city ! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants of the earth" the nobles and dignitaries that held the patronage of her benefices "shall weep and mourn over her And they that were made rich by her shall stand afar off for fear of her torment, and cast dust on their heads, crying, weeping and wailing," whilst all heaven shouts, ALLELUIA ! that her judgment is come : (Rev. xviii.) Her destruction shall be entire. As a millstone, when thrown into the depths of the sea, sinks forever out of the sight of men, so shall this great harlot be swept from the earth, without leaving so much as a rack behind. As to the wild ten-horned beast, the civil powers that have grown out of the Roman empire, all of which are but branches and modifications of the old Roman monster, with great iron teeth and claws of brass, devouring, breaking in pieces and M 178 THE LAST TIMES. trampling under foot, its destiny is also announced. Tbero is not a throne upon the territory of the Caesars that is not a nuisance in the face of lieaven. They are all built in usurpa- tion and wrong. They are all sustained by tyranny and stained with blood. They bave deceived, and they shall be deceived and lured to perdition. By tbe pressure of the times, and by the cunning of demons, they shall yet be brought into one grand coalition, and go forth to the war of the great day of God Almighty, when the hand of the descended Jesus shall strike them to the earth to rise no more. I have intimated, that the Jewish race is to be restored to its ancient home and the Jewish nationality rebuilt. I will illustrate this point at greater length hereafter. In connection with this restoration of the Jews, much offense will be taken by some of the reigning powers. The prophet says, " Jeru- salem shall be made a cup of trembling to all nations that are round about, and a burdensome stone to all nations." There shall be great controversies about the occupation of the Holy Land. Politics will become inextricably involved. Strange alliances shall be brought about, until at length all the powers of Europe shall find themselves involved in one great confede- ration, under the last head of the beast, most likely the Em- peror of the French, and going forth to a great Eastern war, of which Palestine will be the centre. This vast combination, under its infidel leader, shall overflow the whole world, destroy many countries, have power over the treasures of Egypt, enter into the glorious land, plant its tents between the seas in the glorious holy mountain, and there encounter the fierce wrath of God : (Dan. xi. 40-45.) Plague unprecedented shall seize the invading hosts. "Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet; and their eyes shall consume away in their sockets; and their tongues shall consume away in their mouth; and great tumult from the Lord shall be among them :" (Zech. xiv. 12-16.) The beast shall be "slain, and its body THE PAPAL HIERARCHY. 179 destroyed and given to the burning flame:" (Dan. vii. 11.) The heavens shall open; the Son of man shall appear; his kingdom shall be revealed ; the beast and false prophet shall be taken and given to the fires; and thus shall God "break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms:" (John xix. 11-20; Dan. ii. 44.) And as to the image of the beast, the ecclesiastical empire of popery, its destiny is so closely identified with great Baby- lon and the beast itself, that when we read the fate of the one we have in substance the fate of the other. Stroke after stroke shall fall upon it, wasting, crippling, denuding, consum- ing it, until the brightness of the Savior's presence shall bring it to everlasting destruction: (2 Thess. ii. 8.) "And if any man worship the beast, and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mix- ture into the cup of his indignation, and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb :" (Rev. xiv. 9, 10.) Let men beware, then, how they tamper with these objects of God's distinguishing and extinguishing retributions. Let them beware how they approve, justify, defend and abet the cause of state churches, lest they involve themselves in the whoredoms of great Babylon. Let them beware how they admire, applaud and revere the tyrannical and blasphemous systems and policies of European legislation and dominion; for they that " worship" this ten-horned monster, or receive his mark, shall go down into the pit. And especially let men beware, that they give not their reverence to the image of this beast, or bow their knees or necks to the ecclesiastical empire of popery, or in any way identify themselves with its abomi- nations; for they that bear its insignia shall "have no rest day nor night; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for- ever and ever." It is upon these systems, their adherents and 180 THE LAST TIMES. abettors, that the heaviest and thickest woes of the judgment of the great day shall fall. From these statements it appears that there is after all a wise and mighty overruling providence in the affairs of men. Whatever skeptics and politicians may say, "The kingdom is the Lord's, and he is the governor among the nations." "He setteth up kings, and he putteth them down." " He ruleth in the kingdoms of men, and giveth them to whomsoever he will." He " frustrateth the tokens of liars, and maketh diviners mad; he turneth wise men backwards, and maketh their knowledge foolish." This world is not a fatherless thing, cast off to everlasting orphanage. It may seem end- lessly confused now; but God hath appointed a day in the which he will judge it in righteousness, by that man whom he hath ordained, whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. Its affairs are not things of chance, nor its destinies without control. Wise men may plan, and wicked men may plot, and mighty men may execute; but the ultimate disposal of every thing is of the Lord. The mightiest and the weakest, the vastest and the minutest, are equally under his omniscient eye and equally within his almighty power. He is in the senates and cabinets of nations, in the battle-field of conflicting armies, at the desk of the author, and in circles of the designing everywhere, and always moulding, directing, restraining all things for the con- summation of his own great purposes, and making even the wrath of man to praise him. People may rage, and nations disregard his laws, and men act out their villany; but they shall never press Jehovah to extremities, or defeat that holy arm which stands pledged for the everlasting defence of the righteous. He knows the end of all things from the begin- ning, and his inscrutable arrangements are all made accord- ingly. There is not a turn in human things which he has not taken into his sublime calculations. Matters may be very dark SECURITY OF THE DEVOUT. 181 to us, but they are all plain to him. Wisdom, order, right- eousness and glory shall yet come out of the mighty riddle of human history. The day of judgment shall solve the problem that has puzzled men so long. Confusion, injustice, falsehood and wrong may seem to triumph for a while ; but the result is certain. Their grave is dug. Their doom is at hand. They may be too mighty for us ; but Christ is Lord, and he must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet. Antichrist shall die; tyranny shall die; error shall die; sin shall die; and at last death itself shall die. The world has a ruler who will subdue all evil and set things right in the end. The sublime wisdom and rectitude of all his administrations will yet be the glory and delight of the saints, and the rapture of his holy ones forever and ever. And in view of the commotions and distresses, the overturn- ings and the desolations, that await the unsanctified world, how precious are the hopes of the devout ! If we are in Christ Jesus, there is no more condemnation. The true people of God are safe. They are enclosed in everlasting arms. The broad shield of Omnipotence is over them. They may pass through a sharp night, but it will be short. Though the powers of the heavens be shaken, and the foundations of the earth be moved, they that put their trust in the Lord shall never be confounded. Wars may come, and bloody revolu- tions may come; famine may come, and plagues may come; thrones may fall and empires may dissolve, and all the proud works of human genius may be dashed to desolation; but, if our hope is fixed on God, and our souls are united with his Anointed, we shall sing, amid the turmoil and the wreck, "Alle- luia! for tlie Lord God omnipotent reignetli!" Only let us see to it, then, that we be indeed the disciples and friends of Jesus. Let us not rest satisfied with perad- ventures, but give the most earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time we should let them slip 16 182 THE LAST TIMES. Signs of the approaching judgment are already being mani- fested on every side. All fingers are pointing to the great crisis as near at hand. The days in which we live are freighted with intense and exhaustless issues. We stand upon a point where the last rays of a fading world mingle with the dawn of an opening eternity. Nations and churches, superstitions and errors, are heaving and tottering for their final fall. The time is come that judgment must begin. The fires stored away so long are beginning to beat against their prison-walls, and to clamor for their promise of release. And may kind Heaven help us to prepare to meet our God ! EIGHTH DISCOURSE. THE RESTORATION OF THE JEWS OBJECTIONS ANSWERED NEW TES- TAMENT ALLUSIONS TO THE SUBJECT ANCIENT PROPHECIES HIS- TORICAL FACTS PARTICULARS EXPLAINED. Ez. xxxvii. 21 : Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord : Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among tlie heathen, (nations,) whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land. IT is to be borne in mind that our inquiries in this series of discourses relate to but one great epoch in human affairs, called "The Last Times" and "The End of all Things." All that I have thus far said appertains to this wonderful and critical period. The personal return and manifestation of Christ in our world, "the restitution of all things," the resur- rection of the sainted dead, the transfiguration of the pious living at the time, and the terrific administrations of the en- throned Messiah upon the guilty nations and confederations of the earth, all, to a great extent, are contemporaneous. They all synchronize or happen together in the same general period. But there are still other great occurrences predicted for that time of wonders. Among these is the conversion and final restoration of the Israelitish race. That the great bulk of this astonishing people will yet be converted to Christ the Messiah, and be again grafted upon the olive-tree of the spiritual Israel from which they have . been measurably broken off, is pretty well agreed on all hands. 183 184 THE LAST TIMES. Whitby says, " This hath been the constant doctrine of the church of Christ, owned by the Greek and Latin fathers, and by all the commentators I have met with." The inspired declarations upon this subject are too explicit to be evaded. " All Israel shall be saved : as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob : FOR THIS is MY COVENANT UNTO THEM." But that this scattered family of Jacob shall again be gathered, and nationally restored to the land of their fathers, is not so generally admitted. Some have no patience at all with such a theory, and sneeringly ask, What can be the object of such a restoration? What end is it to answer? What purpose can it subserve ? But to all such methods of reasoning, it is enough to reply that our business is with the word of God, and that if God has announced it as his purpose so to restore the Jewish nation he certainly has adequate reasons to justify his purpose. No Christian will refuse to defer to the rectitude of Jehovah's doings. The only ques- tion is, whether God has said that he will restore the Jewish nation; for, if he has so said, no reasonings of ours can invalid- ate his promise or throw uncertainty upon his word. Whe- ther we can foresee the objects to be subserved or not, there is not a "jot or tittle" of his revelation which is not more reliable than the mere abstract reasonings of all the wisest thinkers that ever lived. Others tell us that the restoration of the Jewish nationality would be contrary to the spirit of the gospel ; that all such distinctions and differences as are implied in the re-establish- ment of that nation have been superseded by the new cove- nant; that "the middle wall of partition" between Jews and Gentiles has been broken down in Christ; and that therefore we cannot hope for Israel's restoration. But what of that, if God has clearly declared that he will rebuild Jerusalem and the Jewish state ? W T e dare not set aside the positive declara- OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 185 tions of the Lord by human inferences. But it is not true that the gospel has abolished all national distinctions. The wall of partition has been broken down only so far, that the offers of forgiveness and eternal life are now made equally to Jews and Gentiles, so that either may embrace them and be numbered with God's redeemed ones. Receiving Christ as the Savior does not make Englishmen Americans, nor Frenchmen Greeks. These national distinctions still remain, however eminent may be our saintship, and will perhaps remain forever. Converting a Jew to Christianity will not make him a Gentile. And if there can be an English or American nationality without subverting the spirit and nature of the gospel, there may also be a Jewish nationality equally exempt from all contravention of the Christian economy. I can see no more difficulty in the one case than in the other. Again, some say if we admit that the Jews are to be re- stored as a nation, we must also admit that they will occupy an enviable place and possess peculiar prerogatives, which it would not be well for us to concede. But shall we bend and modify the word of God to make it harmonize with our whims and jealousies ? Are we to explain away the positive state- ments of revelation because they disagree with our tastes and conflict with our vanity and pride ? Away with such unworthy feelings upon a subject like this ! What if the Jews shall be put into the front ranks in the glorious kingdom of the Son of David ? If God sees fit to give them that place, will it not be right ? They have not abused their original calling any more than the Gentile church has abused the gospel. The most illustrious of the saints belonged to the Jewish race. The adorable Redeemer himself was a Jew. " He took on him the seed of Abraham." For more than two thousand years the Hebrew people were nurtured as God's own favorites ; and for all that time were the only people under heaven who worshipped the one living and true God. 16* 186 THE LAST TIMES. And had it not been for them, where would be the Bible in which we glory, or those glad promises of life through which we hope ? Then why murmur and seek to turn the point of Jehovah's prophecies, because, perchance, these descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob may yet be blest for their fa- thers' sake and be made to stand high in the millennial king- dom ? For my own part, I am heartily willing to acquiesce in any arrangements which the blessed Savior may make ; and I will at the same time persist in holding as the truth of God whatsoever I find clearly stated in his holy word, no matter where it may lead me. And yet again it is said that the New Testament is the key to the Old, that the New Testament says nothing about the restoration of the Jews, and that therefore we are to seek for some other interpretation of those Old Testament predic- tions which seem to declare it. Now, I deny that the New Testament is silent on the subject, and will presently show to the contrary. But, if the Gospels and Epistles never once alluded to it, I would still deny the inference which the ob- jector would have us draw from such a fact. The announce- ments of the prophets are just as reliable and authoritative as those of the apostles and evangelists ; and it is a mistake to suppose that, because we have the New Testament, we have nothing further to do with the Old. The one is no less the word of God than the other. Each department of the Scrip- ture has its own peculiar importance, and was given to meet its own peculiar emergency. And if a thing asserted in one part, given for one purpose, is not reiterated with equal ex- plicitness and fullness in a subsequent part, given more directly for another purpose, to conclude therefrom that what was first asserted is no longer the divine intention, would be to treat the immutable Jehovah as a child. I know that the New Testament contains but little on the subject of Israel's restoration. But it has allusions to it, and encou- NEW TESTAMENT ALLUSIONS TO THE SUBJECT. 187 raging allusions, which are enough to show that God's purpose in that direction still stauds. The first passage to which I refer you in the New Testa- ment respecting the restoration of the Jewish race, is one uttered by the Savior himself, where he says, "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." Take a plain common-sense view of this passage, and what does it mean ? The treading down of Jerusalem can be nothing more nor less than the destruction and desolation of the Jewish metropolis and state by the de- portation of the Jewish people. And what is the cessation of this treading down of the Jewish metropolis and state but the restoration of the Jewish people ? Who can make any thing else out of it ? Commentators have been wrangling and racking their wits for ages about what is to be understood by the fulfilling of the times of the Gentiles; but, if we recur to what has been developed in our preceding inquiries, who can have any difficulty with it ? The fulfilling of the times of the Gentiles is simply the winding up of the affairs of the present Gentile church at Christ's second manifesta- tion, the day of judgment to the Gentile nations and church, as Christ's first coming brought after it the day of judgment to the old Jewish nation and church. And when this day of judgment to the Gentiles comes, and the period is fulfilled when the present economy of Gentile ascendency is to be closed, then the Savior says, Jerusalem shall be trodden down no longer ; that is to say, it will be restored, and the nation whom it represents, and whose heart it was, is and ever shall be, shall again occupy its ancient place in more than its ancient grandeur. A second New Testament passage on the subject is that which I have already quoted, where Paul says, "All Israel shall be saved, as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob." 188 THE LAST TIMES. This is generally understood as a spiritual salvation by con- version to Messiah. And a spiritual deliverance is certainly a prominent and controlling idea in the passage. It is ex- pressly stated that one feature is the removal of ungodliness. But this interpretation by no means exhausts the passage. It has an appendage in the succeeding verse which throws much additional light and consequence upon the predicted deliver- ance. Paul says that this salvation is just what was included in God's ancient covenant with the Jewish fathers. "All Israel shall be saved, for this is God's covenant unto them u-hcn he shall take away their sins." Now, if we can ascer- tain in full what that covenant is, we will have in full what this salvation and deliverance includes. We go back, then, to the Old Testament, where this covenant is repeatedly an- nounced and recorded. We read the fifteenth chapter of Genesis. We there find that, by sundry miraculous mani- festations, "the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, say- ing, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates: the Kenites, and the Kenizites, and the Kadnionites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the llephaims, and the Arnorites, and the Canaanites, and the Girgashites, and the Jebuzites." In the next chapter we read again : " God talked with him, saying, As for me, behold, my covenant is with thee, and thou shalt be a father of many nations, (or multitudes.) .... And I will establish my covenant between rue and thec, and to thy seed after thee, in their generations for an everlasting covenant; to be a God unto thee and to thy seed after thee. And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thec, THE LAND wherein thou art a stranger, (sojourner,) all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God." To Isaac it was subsequently said, " Sojourn in this land, for unto thee and unto thy seed will I give these countries, and I will perform the oath which I sware unto Abraham thy GOD'S COVENANT WITH ISRAEL. 189 Father." And so the dying Jacob testifies : " God Almighty appeared unto me and said unto me, Behold, I will .... give this land to thy seed after thec FOR AN EVERLASTING POSSES- SION :" (Gen. xlviii.) And if any one supposes that this is not the covenant of which Paul speaks, then let us turn to what God calls "a new covenant with the house of Israel," and see whether the same features are not included. We read the latter part of the thirty-first of Jeremiah. A glorious spiritual renewal is there promised. They shall know the Lord, and he will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more. But this is not all. The language is as strong as words and imagery can make it. Jehovah points to the enduring orbs of immensity, and declares that " the seed of Israel" shall no more " cease from being a nation before him forever" than the sun, moon and stars shall disappear from the universe. Nay, more: " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that the city shall be built to the Lord from the tower of Hananecl unto the gate of the corner. It shall not be plucked up nor thrown down ANY MORE FOREVER." This prophecy cannot refer to the return from Babylon, for all were not' then converted and pious ; and since then their sin has been remembered, and their city rendered more awfully desolate than ever it was left by Assyrian kings. Xay, I take the broad ground, and no man can overturn it, that God's covenant to Abraham and his seed' has never yet been even nearly fulfilled. Its great fullness is still matter of promise, to be verified hereafter, when Christ shall " come a second time unto salvation." That covenant charters to them the land from the river of Egypt to the great river Euphrates, for their everlasting possession ; which has never yet been made good. That covenant guarantees unto them a national existence and glory as lasting as the great orbs of heaven ; which yet remains to be fulfilled. Wherever the terms of that covenant are given, from first to 190 THE LAST TIMES. last these are two of its prominent and immutable features. And if "all Israel is to be saved/' according to that cove- nant which Paul explicitly declares to be unchangeable, "without repentance/' it is demonstrated to an absolute certainty that they will yet be gathered and replaced in that "goodly land and large" in which they dwelt when David controlled their triumphant armies and Solomon and his court were the admiration of the world. A third reference to this subject in the New Testament is contained in the first of Acts, where the disciples put to the Savior their last question: "Lord, wilt ihou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel ?" What did they mean by that inquiry ? Every preacher, commentator and thoughtful Bible-reader will tell you that the Jews looked for the Mes- siah as a reigning prince. For many years they had been a dependent and oppressed people. In the period of the Savior's stay on earth, they were subject to the dominion of the Caesars. And their great hope was, that when Christ came he would judge their oppressors, deliver them from their national dejection, and restore their state and kingdom to former independence and glory. The disciples shared in the common expectation. Hence their despondency at his cruci- fixion, saying, " We trusted that it had been he which should have redeemed Israel." They felt all their fond hopes crushed in the Savior's death. But as soon as he arose from the dead and reappeared among them, their old hopes revived, and they looked anew for the Messiah's deliverance of their nation. And this was the burden of their question as here presented. They wished to know if Christ was then about to effect the expected national redemption, and " restore the kingdom to Israel." The question then arises, Were their anticipations respecting this redemption right or wrong ? I maintain that they were right. If they were not right, then I am at a loss to account for the fact that these anticipationa retained their THE HOPE SANCTIONED BY OTJR SAVIOR. 191 full force through three or four years of special daily in- struction from the Savior himself, and continued uppermost in their minds to the very last mdment of Christ's stay upon earth. Then again, if they were all this while cherishing erroneous expectations in this matter, would not the Savior have set them right now that he was at the point of leaving them until his final " coming and kingdom" ? But look at his answer. Not one word did he utter against the views im- plied in their question. All he said was, "It is not for you to know the times and the seasons which the Father hath put in his own power." They did not ask him whether he would restore the kingdom to Israel ; they took all that as settled ; and the Savior answered them upon the same assumption. They simply wished to know whether that was the time, and the answer was that they were not to know the time. As regards every thing but the time, the reply leaves it just as it was apprehended by the inquirers. And, taking the circum- stances and all together, it is to me perfectly conclusive that it is the divine intention to " restore the kingdom to Israel" in the exact sense in which the disciples expected it; and that the blessed Savior, in his last words, meant to throw his solemn sanction upon the hope of Israel's restoration. I have no interest in forcing or perverting the Scriptures from their plain and obvious meaning, and if I did not solemnly believe what I here state I would not utter it. A fourth allusion which the New Testament contains upon this subject, is in the fifteenth of Acts, where James says, " Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for his name. And to this agree the words of the prophets, as it is written, After this I will return, and will build again the tabernacle of Dai- id which is fallen down; and I ic ill build again the ruins thereof, and I will set it -up : that the residue of men 192 THE LAST TIMES. might seek after the Lord, and all the Gentiles, upon whom my name is called, saith the Lord." Two things are here to be specially noted. The first is the object of the present dispensation; which is, to talce out of the Gentiles a people for God's name. I have heretofore shown that there is nothing in the Scriptures to warrant the hope that the world is to be converted before Christ comes the second time. The whole object of the present economy is, to take out from among men a people for the Lord. This is here pointedly declared. But James goes further. He assures us that it is the purpose of God, as announced by the prophets, to return after the object of this dispensation has been attained, and then to "build again the tabernacle of David which is fallen down." And in order to understand what is meant by this rebuilding of David's tabernacle, we need only revert to the original prophecy in the ninth of Amos, which treats of Israel's dispersion for their sins, and their re- demption in the latter days, "that they may possess the rem- nant of Edom, and of all the Gentiles, and be pulled out of their land no more." Surely the matter is as plain as words can make it, that, at the end of this dispensation, Christ will come and restore the scattered Jews to their own land, and reign over the house of Jacob forever upon the throne of his father David. There are still other allusions to this subject in the New Testament ; but I have not the time to give them now. It is more especially in the Old Testament that we are to seek the amplest details of Israel's hopes. That is peculiarly the gospel of the Jews. The prophecies there on record respect- ing the conversion and restoration of Jacob's seed may well be pronounced by Bishop Newton to be innumerable. There is hardly a chapter from Psalms to Malachi which does not in some way bear upon it. To give all, we would have to recite about half of all that the prophets have written. OLD TESTAMENT ALLUSIONS TO THE SUBJECT. 193 Let me refer you to a few specimens. Look at the text and its contiguous parts : " Thus saith the Lord : Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the Gentiles, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and briny them, into their own land." What could be plainer than this ? It is useless to say that it refers to the deliverance from Babylon ; for this prediction relates to "the ichole house of Israel," whilst only parts of Judah and Benjamin ever returned from the Babylonian captivity. The restoration here predicted is to be attended with the everlast- ing reunion of the two wings of the great Israelitish schism, so that they shall "not be divided into two kingdoms any ruore at all j" which to this day has not taken place. This restoration is to be perpetual, "forever;" the restoration from Babylon was only temporary. This restoration is to be at- tended with the ultimate entire conversion of the whole nation, and an everlasting release from all their filthiness and sins; but they have involved themselves deeper in crime since they came back from Babylon than before, and even murdered the Messiah. Neither will it answer to say that the restoration here pre- dicted is to be understood spiritualty, as referring to the final conversion of the Jewish people, and their incorporation into the Christian church. The church is no more their land than it is the land of Gentile believers. The prophecy sets forth their spiritual renovation in words sufficiently plain to need no further spiritualizing ; thus leaving us to infer that the other particulars are to be understood in the same plain and obvious sense. The prophecy also contains a promise of the multipli- cation of man and beast, which certainly cannot apply to the church unless our sanctuaries are yet to be filled with the brute creation. The same prophecy promises to Israel their old estates, "/ u-ill settle them after their old estates" which, whether taken in a spiritual or a literal sense, necessa- N 17 104 THE LAST TIMES. rily implies their restoration to a condition of isolation and distinctness from all other orders or races of men. But this is not all. If the regatherins and restoration of the Jewish O O people into their own land is to be understood spiritually, then their deportation from that land and dispersion must be un- derstood spiritually too. The one must correspond to the other. The same prediction contains both sides, in the same strain of discourse; and the promise of the restoration is founded on the predicate of their previous dispersion. Hence, if the one is spiritual, the other is equally spiritual ; and if the one is literal and outward, so also must the other be. God himself, speaking upon this very subject, has settled this point forever. " It shall come to pass, that LIKE AS I have watched over them to pluck up, and to break down, and to destroy, and to afflict ; so will I watch over them to build, and to plant, saith the Lord :" (Jer. xxxi. 28.) Here, then, I take my stand with unflinching firmness, and upon the immutable basis of God's own word, demand of you either to show that the spoiling was only spiritual, or else admit that their final restoration is to be national and literal. If Titus only took the church, and not the literal city, if he only cast the Jews out of the church, and did not kill them or carry them away captives, if he did not devastate and depopulate Palestine, but only intercepted God's spiritual blessings by desolating the ways to eternal life, then, but only then, can this pro- mised regathering of Israel into their own land be interpreted so as to preclude their national restoration. "/ will gather them," saith God, "and briny them into their own land." The same literal restoration of the exiled descendants of Jacob is foretold by Moses, in his farewell address to that people. "VVe there have a graphic delineation of the whole history of Israel up to the present and still future times. Moses there foretells a sore and wide dispersion ; but he pre- dicts with equal explicitness a final and complete recoveiy THE PROPHECY IN ISAIAH XI. 195 from it. "The Lord thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will gather thee from all the nations whither the Lord thy God hath scattered thee. If any of thine be driven out unto the uttermost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God FETCH THEE : and the Lord thy God will briny thee into THE LAND WHICH THY FATHER POS- SESSED, AND THOU SHALT POSSESS IT : and he will multiply thee above thy fathers:" (Deut. xxx.) Never, to this day, has there occurred to Israel such a deliverance, from such a dispersion. And the idea that this prediction is to be fulfilled by. the simple incorporation of the Jews into the existing church, is worse than ridiculous. They are, therefore, to be restored. Isaiah, also, has spoken most pointedly upon this subject. In his eleventh chapter we have a glowing prophecy, which all treat as referring to the millennial times. And in that prophecy we find it written, " It shall come to pass IN THAT DAY, that the Lord shall set his hand again, THE SECOND TIME, to recover the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria, and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the isles of the sea, and he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah" the whole Jewish race "from the four corners of the earth And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people which shall be left from Assyria; LIKE AS IT WAS TO ISRAEL IN THE DAY THAT HE CAME UP OUT OF THE LAND OF EGYPT." Will any man say that such a prophecy as this has ever been ful- filled, or includes no more than the conversion of the Jews to Christianity? Was the deliverance from Egypt a mere join- ing of the church ? Yet here we have God's solemn promise a second time to recover the remnant of his people, to gather Israel and Judah from the four corners of the earth, and to 196 THE LAST TIMES. provide a way for them, "H7ee as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt." Brethren, what you think of these things, I know not ; but I am fully persuaded that it is God's immutable purpose to bring back the Jewish race to its ancient home. The passages which I have given more than prove it ; whilst the great mass of prophecy upon the suBject has not been touched. And if even all these solemn statements of God were to pass for no- thing, the simple but significant facts of history furnish ground enough upon which to infer that Israel is yet to be restored to that land where Abraham lived and the Savior died. Look at that wonderful race ! For nearly two thousand years, scattered all over the face of the earth, oppressed, de- spised, persecuted, unmercifully butchered ; yet still existing, as distinct in manners, feelings and hopes, as when Moses was their leader and Aaron was their priest. Since God shook them out of their ancient dwelling-places, nations, thrones, kingdoms, have risen, flourished, fallen, and lost their proud subjects in the ever- varying stream of human affairs; but Israel still stands apart, unshaken by earth's mutations, with the accents of David and Isaiah still on that people's lips, and still looking for the promised Shiloh to take them back in triumph to their father-land. The Christian church herself, glorious as she is in her list of martyrs and attirements of grace and truth, has, since then, been depressed, diminished, enfeebled, by violence and defections which she has found it hard to survive ; but the house of Jacob, with all their wrongs and spoliations, have only strengthened with their trials, whilst all the bitterness of their great cup of sorrow has never made them forget that they were Hebrews, or loosened the tenacity with which they cling to God's peculiar covenant unto them. Kings have issued severe edicts and commissioned bloody exe- cutioners against them, and the seditious and spiteful multi- tudes have afflicted them with outrages still more violent and JERUSALEM. 197 tragical. Princes and people, civil ized and savage, Pagans, Mahometans, and professing Christians, disagreeing in so many things,- have more than once made common cause for their extermination. But still they live and thrive. Though for nearly twenty centuries without a temple, prophet, king, country, or home, they still bear the same marks which cha- racterized them before Vespasian se' t foot on their sacred land or Titus invested their loved Jerusalem. Look, again, at their holy city. " Captured, ravaged, burnt, razed to the foundation, dispeopled, its deported citizens sold into slavery, and forbidden by severest penalties to visit their native seats ;" yet, even in its mournful desolations, it stands forth, a thing to itself, and altogether distinguished from all other ruins. Who now weeps over the fall of Troy? What people pays pilgrimages of devotion to the ruin-piles of mighty Nineveh or Babylon? These great monuments of human pride and glory sleep their last sleep, and no tear falls upon their unhonored graves. But Jerusalem, even in her ashes, is still dear to the hearts of millions, and the mere mention of that name awakens pangs of mingled grief and hope as deep as those that weighed upon her captive sons when they mourned under the willows by Babel's waters. Beautifully has it been said, that "ever and anon, and from all the winds of heaven, Zion's exiled children come to visit her, and, with eyes weeping sore, bewail her widowhood. No city was ever honored thus. None else thus receives pilgrimages from the fiftieth generation of its outcast population. None but this, after centuries of such dispersion, could, at the first call, gather beneath its wings the whole of its wide-wandering family. None but this has possessed a spell sufficient to keep its people still distinct, even in remotest regions, and in the face of the mightiest inducements. And none but itself can now be repeopled with precisely the same race which left it nearly two thousand years ago." 17* 198 THE LAST TIMES. Now, what mean these anomalous, I might say, miraculous, facts ? Why are the Jewish people still distinct, and Jeru- salem's walls still dear, as ever? Why have Jacob's seed always refused to hold lands anywhere but in Palestine, and Jerusalem always refused to give permanent habitation to any but them ? Meet a Jew where you will, he is a mere wanderer or sojourner, ready to move at the shortest warning. Scat- tered over all lands beneath the sun, he has never taken root in any. And of all that have ever tried to fix themselves in the Holy Land, Romans and Persians, Saracens and Turks, Egyptian Caliphs and Latin Christians, Mamelukes and Ot- tomans, none have ever been able to gain a permanent foot- hold in it. WHY is ALL THIS? Men of political science may try their skill at explanation ; but, after all, the problem will reduce itself to this : that God has his own settled purpose with this people and this place, holding the one in reserve for the other until each shall be forever satisfied with its own. Here, history is prophecy. And if all the holy seers were silent, the very stones themselves cry out for Israel's restora- tion. The rocks of Palestine will have no lord but Jacob. I am, therefore, prepared to adopt the statement of David N. Lord, one of the most profound and able living expositors of sacred prophecy, that " those who assent to the true laws of language and symbols will no more deny or doubt that the prophecies teach that the Israelites are to be restored, than those who assent to the definitions and axioms of geometry will deny the demonstrations that are founded on them. There is not a proposition in the whole circle of human knowledge of more perfect certainty than that God has revealed the pur- pose of regathering that scattered nation, establishing them as his chosen people, and reappointing a temple-worship at Jeru- salem that is to embrace some of their ancient rites. It is not merely certain, but is taught with a frequency, an em- phasis and an amplitude, and invested with a dignity and HOW THE JEWISH RESTORATION WILL BEGIN. 199 grandeur tbat are proportionable to the vastness and wonder- fulness of the measure in the great scheme of his administra- tion over the world." The descendants of Jacob are specifi- cally, and in many places, spoken of as the subjects of a long and painful dispersion and depression, which we see literally verified before our eyes. The same passages, with the same cxplicitness, affirm of this same people, that they shall be de- livered from their oppressions, regathered from their disper- sions, restored to the land which their fathers possessed, and forever secured against any similar calamity. The countries from which they are to come; the manner in which they are to come ; the very methods of their conveyance, on horses, and mules, and dromedaries, in chariots, in litters, and in ships, and in swift-moving vehicles, which some have taken as a description of railroads ; all are specifically noted. And how any student of these things can rise up and say that the doc- trine of Israel's restoration is a fable, I cannot understand. The return of this wonderful people will doubtless begin, in a small way, under what some will call the natural course of things. There are even now already thousands of Jews in Jerusalem and its vicinity. A goodly portion of the Holy Land is at this moment under mortgages in the hands of those rich Jewish bankers, the Rothschilds, of Europe. The effects of the peace just concluded between the great powers of the Old World, in securing toleration of other religions under the Turkish laws, is at once the signal for the downfall of the Ottoman empire, and the opening of the door for Israel's return. Many religious associations in all parts of Protestant Christendom are in efficient operation with and for the Jews, all looking more or less to their ultimate restoration. These things, all working in the line of Israel's intense desires, can- not but work mighty consequences. They are the prelimina- ries of the second Jewish exodus. But it is not by these alone that Israel shall be redeemed. 200 THE LAST TIMES. According to the eighteenth of Isaiah, and other passages, there will yet be great national movements upon the subject. We there read of a great maritime power, spreading wide its wings, existing somewhere in the Far West from Palestine, and which must either be the United States, Great Britain, or perhaps both, as one in religion, language and laws. This power, accustomed to send messengers by sea, is to become interested in behalf of the Jews, and to aid them with con- tributions, embassies, treaty-stipulations, fleets and other ways. The prophet himself calls to this power, (I use Horseley's translation,) " Ho ! land spreading wide the shadow of thy wings !" and he gives it its commission, " Go ;" which would seem to indicate that it will be from the study of pro- phecy, and from the will of God as thus presented, that men shall be roused up to this work. " Go, as a swift messenger, to a people wonderful from the beginning hitherto, a nation expecting, expecting, and trampled under foot, whose laud rivers (invading armies) have spoiled ; and all the inhabit- ants of the world, and dwellers upon earth) shall see the lifting up, as it were, of a banner upon the mountains ; and shall hear the sounding, as it were, of a trumpet." That is, as I under- stand it, when these movements in favor of the Jews begin, there will be an extraordinary waking up upon the subject, and a very deep interest felt, so that men generally will regard themselves as specially called to help in the great work. And it is a singular fact, in this connection, that the United States government, without any assignable cause for it, did, only a few years ago, send out Lieut. Lynch and his party, to explore the Jordan and obtain detailed and authentic descriptions of the condition and topography of Israel's land. England has done the same, as if these countries, so closely allied in so many particulars, were already laying the foundations for their work and mission in bringing back the dispersed children of Abraham. PROPHETIC DESCRIPTIONS OF THE RESTORATION. 201 But I have no expectation that any thing very decisive or extraordinary will occur in the line of the Jewish restoration, until God's judgments shall begin to tear asunder the nations. There is first to be a "pruning," " a taking away of luxuriant branches," "a leaving to the mountain-birds of prey;" and only "at that season a present shall be led to Jehovah of hosts, of a people dragged aicay and plucked ; even of a people wonderful from their beginning hitherto; a nation expecting, expecting, and trampled under foot, whose land rivers have, spoiled, unto the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, Mount Zion :" (Isa. xviii. 7.) When the " distress of nations with perplexity" shall have fully set in, and the day of earth's troubles has come, then the people of Israel shall flock home, like doves to their windows ; and the Lord himself shall show wonders in their favor, like to the day that he brought them up out of Egypt. The last chapter of Isaiah tells of manifestations of divine power, mercy and consolation, and says, " When ye see this, your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like an herb; and the hand of the Lord shall be known- toward his servants, and his indig- nation toward his enemies. For behold, the Lord will come with fire, and his chariots like a whirlwind; to render his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For by fire and by his sword will the Lord plead with all flesh, and the slain of the Lord shall be many. . . . And I will set up a sign among them, and I WILL SEND THOSE THAT ESCAPE OP THEM UNTO THE NATIONS, to Tarshish, Pul, and Lud, that draw the bow, to Tubal and Javan, to the isles afar off, that have not heard my fame, neither seen my glory ; and they (that escape God's terrific judgment upon Israel's enemies} shall declare my glory among the Gentiles; AND THEY (THE GENTILES) SHALL BRING ALL YOUR BRETHREN (the prophet's brethren, THE JEWS) for an offering unto the Lord out of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots, and in 202 THE LAST TIMES. coaches, and upon mules, and upon swift beasts, (rapid vehicles,) to my holy mountain Jerusalem, saitli the Lord." The accompaniments and great results of this final resto- ration of the Jewish people are so wonderful and miraculous, that it is hardly possible for us to form a proper conception of them. Within fifty years from this present time, perhaps the whole story will be told. One thing is certain, that Israel's restoration is not for Israel alone, but for the whole world. It is one of those means, in the wonderful arrangements of God, for letting forth his mercy and salvation upon all the inhabit- ants of the earth. It is in the seed of Abraham that all nations shall be blessed. Israel's restoration shall be the world's resurrection. Paul says, " If the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness ? If the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead?" (Eom. xi. 12, 15.) This return will itself be a fulfillment of prophecy so startling that it will open men's eyes as they never have been opened, and make them feel the power of divine truth and the reality of Jehovah's sovereignty as they never have felt them. The Bible will suddenly become a new book, and beam forth a new light and speak with a more potent authority. In the language of Hamilton, "The moment the vail is rent from Israel's eyes, the vail will be rent from a thousand prophecies ; and, read in the light of restored and regenerated Judah, the word of God will sparkle with unwonted coruscations, and, like deep-colored gems that look dusty in cloud-light, many of its dark sayings will brighten up into its divinest truths when the beams break forth from Salem." The thorough cleansing and renewal which will pass upon the Jewish people, and God's wonderful manifestations in JERUSALEM'S COMING GREATNESS. 203 their behalf, shall speak like a new revelation to the hearts and consciences of men ; and " many people, and strong nations, shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord ; and ten men out of all languages of the nations shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew, saying, " We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you :" (Zech. viii. 12.) All Israel shall then own the Messiah, and be fully and forever converted unto him, not by the slow processes of present evangelization, but by wonderful manifestations from God, as in the case of Paul, their distinguished type: (1 Tim. i. 16.) Noble saintship and Davidic zeal shall again be found in Judah. "He that is feeble among them shall be as David ; and the house of David shall be as Elohim, the Jehovah angel, before them :" (Zech. xii. 8.) The times of the Gentiles being fulfilled, Jacob's trouble shall be over and the grand Sabbath of the world begin. Christ shall sit upon the throne of his father David, and reign over the house of Jacob forever; and "they shall call Jerusalem the throne of the Lord." According to "the word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw," not concerning the church, but CONCERNING JUDAH AND JERUSALEM, "the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the hou^ of the God of Jacob, and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths ; for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem :" (Isa. ii. 1-3.) "'AND THE LORD SHALL BE KING OVER ALL THE EARTH :" (Zech. xiv. 8.) This world shall then have embraced its rightful Sovereign, and the hearts of its great nations shall beat in unison with heaven. Nor need you be surprised, my brethren, when, in the light of these prophecies, I declare the conviction that Jerusalem 204 THE LAST TIMES. is yet to become the metropolis of the world, just as it was the metropolis of Judea in the days of Solomon. All the nations of this world are yet to come under one universal government, the kingdom of Christ and his glorified saints. " God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name ; that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord:" (Phil. ii. 10.) "Now we see not yet all tilings put under him :" (Heb. ii. 8.) But "He must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet:" (1 Cor. xv. 25.) "The Gentiles must be given him as his inheritance, and the utter- most parts of the earth for his possession :" (Ps. ii. 8.) He has declared himself to be appointed King of the Jews, and Prince of the kings of the earth : (Matt, xxvii. 11 ; Rev. i. 5.) " The kingdoms of the world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ ; and he shall reign forever and ever:" (Rev. xi. 15.) And the centre and seat of this great kingdom is JERUSALEM. " The Lord of hosts shall reign" where? "IN MOUNT ZION, AND IN JERUSALEM, and before his ancients gloriously :" (Isa. xxiv. 23.) " The Lord also shall roar" from, whence ? " out of Zion, and utter his voice FROM JERUSALEM, and the heavens and the earth shall shake; but the Lord will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, DWELLING IN ZION, my holy mountain : then shall Jerusalem be holy :" (Joel iii. 16, 17.) Nay^as there is to be a literal reign of the Son of man on earth, where is it most likely that his imperial seat will be ? What locality does the mind most naturally turn to ? The holy associations and the very geographical position of Palestine mark it out with signal felicity as the place where the Son of Mary shall hold his sublime court. As remarked by one who has looked carefully at the matter, "Palestine is so remarkably situated, that it forms the bridge between two continents and a gateway to a IMPORTANCE OF THE HOLY LAND. 205 third. Were the population and wealth of Europe, Asia and Africa condensed into single points, Palestine would be the centre of their common gravity. And with the amazing facilities of modern intercourse, and the prodigious extent of modern traffic, it is not easy to estimate the commercial grandeur to which a kingdom may attain, planted as it were on the very apex of the old world, with its three continents spreading out beneath its feet, and with the Ked Sea on one side to bring it all the golden treasures and spicy harvests of the East, and the Mediterranean floating in on the other side all the skill and enterprise and knowledge of the West. For the sake of higher ends it seems the purpose of God to make the Holy Land a mart of nations, and, by bringing the forces of the Gentiles to Jerusalem, to send the blessing of Abraham over all the earth." It is also well known that ever since the Jews first entered Canaan, it has been the battle-ground of nations. To this hour it is mixed up with the mightiest disputes that disturb the world. The Assyrian, the Egyptian and the Roman of old, the Arab, the Turk, the Greek, the Papist and the Rabbi of our times, all have claimed it as if the earth con- tained not another prize like it. The late war, which converted the Crimea into a Golgotha and made the world tremble, had its beginning in Jerusalem, in disputes and altercations about its shrines and holy places. And the history of the world is filled with illustrations of the desirableness that has ever adhered to that " goodly land," and of the interests involved in its occupation. Ages have rolled around it as the spot of decision on which the question of supremacy is suspended. And divine prophecy, sounding through the long galleries of centuries, proclaims the fact that all the nations shall yet be governed from that point. Men may think I dream, but I must take God's word as meaning what it says. The ch;y is coming when the world 18 200 THE LAST TIMES. shall join in that clad song of David, "Beautiful for situation, the joy of the ichole earth, is Mount Zion, THE CITY OF THE GREAT KING !" That wonderful people, the scattered relics of a mighty nation, shall come back to their ancient home. From the Xorth and the South, from the East and the West, they shall come with singing unto Zion. "And they shall build the waste. cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; and they shall no more be pulled out of their laud which I have given them, saith the Lord :" (Amos ix. 14, 15.) Jehovah Elohini shall come down again, more glorious than when of old he dwelt in cloud and flame in the Holy of Holies, even Jesus in his own glorified humanity; and they shall say, "Lo! this is our God! we have icaited for him, and he will save us: this is the Lord ; ice have waited for him, we icill be glad and rejoice in his salvation :" (Isa. xxv. 9.) Jerusalem's light shall then have come and the glory of the Lord have risen upon her, and she shall arise and shine. Gentiles shall come to her light, and kings to the brightness of her rising. Her sons shall come from far, and her daughters shall be nursed at her side. The abundance of the sea shall be turned to her, and the wealth of the Gentiles shall come unto her. The multitude of camels shall come up, the dromedaries of Midian and Ephah; all they from Sheba shall come; they shall bring gold and in- cense, and they shall show forth the praises of the Lord. All the flocks of Kedar shall be gathered together unto her. The rams of Xebaioth shall minister unto her; they shall come up with acceptance on God's altar, and he will glorify the house of his glory. The nation and kingdom that will not serve her shall perish, and be utterly wasted. The glory of Lebanon shall come unto her, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of God's sanctuary; and he will make the place of his feet glorious. The sons of them that afflicted her shall como bending unto her, and all they that THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY CITY. 207 despised her shall bow themselves down at the soles of her feet ; and they shall call her, " THE CITY or THE LORD, THE Ziox OP THE HOLY OXE OF ISRAEL!'' (Isa. k. 14.) But Jerusalem below, radiant in all its untold glory, shall be but a type and earthy picture of the higher and subliiner Jerusalem that is above, that firmly-founded city for which Abraham looked, whose builder and maker is God, that, city which John saw " descending out of heaven from God, having the glory of God, and her light like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper-stone, clear as crystal." The one is earthly, the other is heavenly. The one is built by human hands, the other is the workmanship of God himself. The one has a population composed of men holy and happy, but men in the flesh; the other is the glorious residence of the glorified saints. The one shall rest upon the earthly mount; the other shall be above the mountains and the hills." The one will need clouds and rain, sunshine and peaceful night ; the other has no need of the sun nor of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God shall lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. The one shall have its temple and its altars; the other has no tem- ple therein, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it. And whilst the sons of Abraham in the flesh shall possess Jerusalem that is below, the sons of Abraham by faith in Christ, who have come out of great tribulation, and washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb, shall, in their glorification, have their everlasting bliss and home in " the Jerusalem that is above." The relation of the one to the other is like that of the Sanctuary to the Holy of Holies. The one is the metropolis of the "new earth;" the other is the " new heavens." The one is suspended in the clouds to pour its radiance on the saved nations below : (Rev. xxi. 24 ;) but both belong to the one sublime and wonderful economy which is to encompass this planet when once its redemption is complete. 208 THE LAST TIMES. All hail to the day when these things shall be fulfilled ! The cross shall then give place to the crown, and gladness supplant our sighing and tears. Hope shall then change into fruition, and the exile reach his eternal home. Oh, let us rejoice and give thanks that such promises have been left us. Let us stay ourselves upon them and feed upon their precious- ness. They are " well-ordered and sure," and cannot dis- appoint us. They are all as immutable and abiding as God's own eternal nature. Time may intervene and great changes may occur before they are fulfilled; but, as Jehovah lives, if we are Christ's we shall be glorified with him and dwell in the city he has prepared. " Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! Name ever dear to me, Would God my woes were at an end, That I thy joys might see !" NINTH DISCOURSE. THE WORLD TO COME IT.T.f STTCATm IN T THE SCENES OF THE TRANS- FIGUUATIOX THE BLESSEDNESS OF (JURIST'S PERSONAL PRESENCE THE MINISTRATIONS OF THE GLORIFIED SAINTS THE ABSENCE OF ALL POWERS AND AGENCIES OF EVIL THE BLESSING OF THE WORLD THROUGH ISRAEL THE CURSE REPEALED. HEB. ii. 5 : The world to come, icliereof we speak. THESE words occur in connection with the apostle's en- deavor to impress his Jewish brethren with a sense of the greatness and glory of the Lord Jesus and of the salvation which is preached in his name. He begins the epistle by announcing the Savior to them as the Son of God, the ap- pointed heir of all things, the Maker and upholder of the worlds, the brightness of the Father's glory and the express image of his person, who has been exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high. These were sublime statements, and needing to be well substantiated to be made acceptable. He, therefore, instituted various lines of argument, adapted to the Jewish mind and founded upon the Scriptures, which all held to be divinely inspired. And as the Jews regarded angels as the highest created orders, and as standing next in the scale to the eternal Father himself, Paul's first effort was to prove from prophecy that Christ is superior to the angels. He introduces three points in which this super-angelic dig- nity is shown. The first is, that Christ is assigned a higher name than the angels j the second is, that he is clothed with a sublimer honor than the angels j and the third is, that 18* 209 210 THE LAST TIMES. Christ is invested with a sublimer office than the angels, they being only ministering spirits, whilst he is spoken of as a divine King, whose throne is forever and ever, and the sceptre of whose kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness. The princely investiture and reign of the Messiah is thus distinctly deduced from the Old Testament, and used by the apostle as the sub- limest demonstration of the Savior's personal dignity. And this Messianic dominion he applies particularly to what is hereafter to grow out of the gospel economy. He tells us that it is peculiarly " the world to come" over which the Mes- siah's reign is to be exercised. "For unto tlie angels hath he not put into subjection the icorld to come, whereof we speak;" thus proceeding upon the implied assumption that it has been, by promise, put into subjection to Jesus Christ; and that all those allusions to the Savior as a King have their chief application and ultimate fulfillment in that "world to come." The Messiah's reign and this world to come accord- ingly belong together, and coexist in the same period and locality. By determining, then, what is meant by this " world to come," we may form an idea of what is included in the Messianic kingdom ; or, if we already know what the consum- mated Messianic reign is, and where it is to be, we have it already decided what we are to understand by this " world to come." If any stress is, therefore, to be laid upon the conclusions evolved in the preceding discourses, there is no alternative left but to understand this world to come as the millennial world, or the world as it shall be when Christ shall have re- stored the throne of David, and entered upon his glorious dominion as the sovereign of the nations and Lord of the whole earth. And to this agrees exactly the original word, oizou/jLsvr), which means the habitable earth, the domicillatcd globe on which we dwell, and not some remote supernal region, as we sometimes imagine. The world to come, then, THE NEW EARTH. 211 or the oixoufjLEVTfV -njv patJJutotvuj as the apostle calls it, is no- thing more nor less than this selfsame world of ours in its final or millennial condition. This earth is not to be annihilated. God never obliterates his own creations. The dissolving fires, of which Peter speaks, are for " the perdition of ungodly men;" and not for the utter depopulation and destruction of the whole world. They may consume cities, destroy armies, and effect some important meteorological and geological changes; but men and nations will survive them and still continue to live in the flesh. The earth is to be renovated and restored from its present depression and dilapidation, and thus become " the new earth" of which the Bible speaks. It is to pass through a " regeneration" analogous to that through which a man must pass to see the kingdom of God ; but there will be a continuity of its elements and existence, just as a regenerated man is constitutionally the same being that he was before his renewal. It will not be another earth, but the same earth under another condition of things. It is now laboring under the curse ; but then the curse will have been lifted off, and all its wounds healed. At present, it is hardly habitable, no one being able to live in it longer than a few brief years; but then men shall dwell in it forever, without know- ing what death is. It is now the home of rebellion, injustice and guilt ; it will then be the home of righteousness. It is now under the domination of Satan ; it will then come under the blessed rule of the Prince of peace. Such, at any rate, is the hope set before us in the word of God ; and this I hold to be "the icorld to come" of which the text speaks. It cannot be any thing else. It cannot be what is commonly called heaven ; for the word oixoo^vT) cannot apply to heaven. It is everywhere else used exclusively with reference to our world. Neither can it be the present gospel dispensation, as some have thought ; for that began long before this epistle was written, and could not, therefore, have been spoken of by 212 THE LAST TIMES. Paul as yet "to come." We are consequently compelled to understand it to mean our own habitable world in its millen- nial glory. And as the prophecies concerning the Messiah's eternal kingship are here referred to as having their fulfill- ment in the subjection of the millennial world to his dominion, we are furnished with another powerful argument of Scrip- ture in favor of the doctrine of Christ's personal reign as a great Prince in this world. Indeed, the Bible is so full of this subject, and its inspired writers are so constantly and enthusiastically alluding to it, that I am amazed to find so many pious and Bible-loving people entirely losing sight of it. Ever and anon the Scriptures return to it as the great and animating hope of the church in all her adversities and depressions ; and it does seem to me that we are depriving ourselves of much true Christian comfort by the manner in which we have been neglecting and thrusting aside that glo- rious doctrine. But, as I have already spoken on that subject and given some idea of the manner in which the Scriptures present it, I will not return to it now. My present object is to show, from the Scriptures and by just inferences from them, what sort of a world this " world to come" is, and to describe, as far as I can, what we are to look for when once this earth has been fully subjected to that divine King whose throne is forever and ever, and the sceptre of whose kingdom is a sceptre of righteousness. That " the world to come" is a highly blessed world, and a vast improvement upon the present scene of things, will be inferred on all hands without argument. It could not be a subject of hope if it were not. The Savior himself ex- hibited a model of it when in the Mount of Transfiguration; from which, perhaps, we may obtain as deep an insight of its glories as from any other portion of Scripture. That he de- signed that scene as a miniature model of what his future coming and kingdom is to be, is obvious. A week before it ILLUSTRATION FROM THE TRANSFIGURATION. 213 occurred, he told his disciples that " the Son of man shall come in the glory of the Father, with his angels or messengers with him ;" and that there were some standing there when he made the declaration who "should not taste of death till they saw the Son of man coming in his kingdom." This coming in his kingdom, which some of the disciples were to live to see, is not the final advent ; for the disciples are all dead, and the final advent is still future. Neither is it the destruc- tion of Jerusalem ; for but one of the apostles lived to see that catastrophe, and the Son of man did not then come in his kingdom. And yet some of the apostles were to have ocular demonstration of the Son of man's coming in his king- dom before tasting of death. Search through apostolic his- tory as we will, we shall find nothing but the transfiguration to which the Savior's words will apply. That, then, was, in some sense, the coming of the Son of man in his kingdom. It was not, indeed, the coming itself, but it was an earnest and picture of it. It was the coming of the Son of man in his kingdom, as the bread and wine in the Eucharist are Christ's body and blood. Peter says " the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" are not " cunningly-devised fables." He declares that he was certified of their reality by the testimony of his own senses. We were eye-witnesses, says he, " when ice icere with him in the holy mount." We thus have clear inspired testimony that the scene of the transfiguration was a demonstrative exhibition of the coming of Jesus in his kingdom. Hence, whatever we find in the descriptions of that scene, we may confidently expect to be realized in that " world to come whereof we speak." As Christ appeared in that glorious scene, so he will appear when he returns to this world. As he was then personally present as the Son of man, so he will be personally present in the millennial kingdom. And as he was there attended by different classes of persons, so will his glorious kingdom consist of similar classes. The first will be 214 THE LAST TIMES. the risen and glorified saints, represented by Moses; the second will be the transformed saints, represented by Elijah, who was caught np without testing of death ; and the third and most numerous class will he those who shall live in the body, represented by Peter, James and John, as they bowed before his mighty power, and looted with transport and wonder OB his in enable glory. Let us, then, endeavor to draw out before us same of the more striking features of "the world to come," and, by the contemplation of its attractiveness, endeavor to school our hearts into more ardent thirst to participate in its blissful I do not wish to depreciate in the least those -~-L_:- :..::.:- :" b0BfM -wL:.-:. *: -;.w Em. It is a blessed thing to have the Bible, and to attend properly on the of grace, and to enjoy the renewing and comforting i of the Holy Ghost In giving to us these things, God has endowed us with mercies for which we never can be sufficiently thankful. But he authorizes 10 to look for greater things than these. The puacui economy is only preparatory to something higher and more blessed. And acting tie mere prebrie nto joy There is another and more exalted scene of things to follow after the present. If we axe faithful to our Lord, there re- mains for us "a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness." And one of the most remarkable and sublime features of that "new earth" is, that it is to have in it the personal, visible and illustrious presence of the Son of God, its great King. It was the preaence of Jesus in bis glory that made Peter wish to stay in the Mountain rather than return again into UM cold and heartless world below. That glorious presence MAN'S DESIRE TO BEHOLD GOD. 215 was more than all earth beside. We may thus gather some idea of the preciousness of that promise that "the pure in heart shall see God." The mere vision of Christ in his glory will be heaven to the soul that leans on him as the Redeemer. There is no thirst in man more craving than the desire to behold God. All the images in heathen temples, and all the idolatries of the world, are but expressions of this perpetual sigh of humanity. Moses himself coveted most of all things to see Him who was accomplishing such wonders by his hand. And very few, if any, can pray without first forming to the mind some image of God. We are creatures of sense. Ab- stract spirit is a cold and uninviting conception. All our deepest impressions, and all our ideas, are received by means of the outward senses. And there is no glory of God of which we can conceive that can possibly be so satisfying and trans- porting as that of beholding him,'and for ourselves seeing his glory. All Christ's sublime teachings did not so impress and rejoice the hearts of Peter, James and John, as that one short vision of the Savior, as he was transfigured before them. Not all the sublime experiences of Moses so satisfied him, as when God gave him some visible manifestation of his glory. When John sums up the highest prospects of believers, ho makes their fullest satisfaction and rapture depend on seeing Jesus as he is. And Peter, when he came to his strongest reason for holding Christianity to be a reality, referred to what he had witnessed on the holy mount. It was a glad thing to see Jesus, even in his humiliation. We sometimes wish that we had lived in those days, that we might have looked upon his face and heard the tones of his voice. If we could refer to but one slight glimpse of him, we would treasure it as a blissful thing. We would ever recur to it with pleasure. If there were now a spot on earth where we could see him even as he then was, millions would spare no expense or pains to 215 THE LAST TIMES. gain a look upon him, and multitudes would throng to the place, crying, "Sirs } ice would see Jesus!" And if it would be a high and lawful gratification to see Christ as he once lived on earth, how sublime would be the portion of seeing him in the glory of his kingdom ! "Would it not afford a certainty to our faith, and a rapture to our hearts, worth living for ? Look at the case of the queen of Sheba, when she came to see the glory of Solomon, the type of the greater than Solomon. She had " heard of his fame concerning the name of the Lord," as we have heard of Christ and his glory; but there was an air of romance about it which made her doubtful, just as many even Christian people are with respect to revelation. There was something wanting to complete her enjoyment. She needed yet to see the reality of which she had heard. To secure this, a journey of months through exposure and dan- gers she deemed of small account. "And when she had seen all Solomon's wisdom, and the house that he had built, and the meat of his table, and the sitting of his servants, and the standing of his ministers, and their apparel, and his ascent by which he went up to the house of the Lord, there was no more spirit in her;" she fainted for very ecstasy. Now she could say that it was a true report which she had heard, and that the half had not been told her. Never could she have for- gotten that visit. Never could that vision of Solomon's glory have passed from her delighted memory. Never did it cease from being a sunny spot in her recollection to which to recur as the happiest event of her life. And if the sight of the glory of the mere human type of the Messiah was thus trans- porting and overpowering, what a joy would it be for the Christian to see the blessed Jesus himself in the glory of his ineffable kingdom ? If to see Solomon's grandeur was an event worth living for, who shall estimate the heavenly rapture of beholding the Savior on his high throne of glory, clothed with light as with a garment, crowned with all the sublime BLISS OF THE MILLENNIUM. 217 beneficence of heaven, thousands ministering unto him, ten thousand thousands standing before him, and multitudes of celestial spirits ever shouting to his praise, " Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty !" Would it not be a high privilege to see all this ? Would it not fill out the believer's joy, and establish him in the certainties and raptures of his faith, as nothing else can ? Would it not set his whole nature in a glow with heavenly inspiration, and consecrate him as a new apostle just from the third heaven ? Would it not impart a richer pleasure, and a more satisfying joy, than all the gifts of Pentecost? From this we may, then, infer something of the bliss of millennial times, when Christ shall be upon earth, arrayed in all the glory of his kingdom. Then we shall see him as he is. The glorified saints shall ever be near him, in the closest com- munion with him, for he is their brother as well as their Re- deemer and King. And those who" live in the flesh shall not be excluded from near visions of his glory and rapturous approaches to his person and presence. The ransomed nations shall continually send up their streams of worshippers to Jeru- salem, where they shall "see the King in his leauty," and receive his communications, and be made glad in his favors. Then, with overflowing hearts, shall men say, "It was a true report which we heard ; our eyes now have seen ; and, behold, the half was not told us !" Doubt and unbelief will then be no more. Harassing fears will be cast out. Christ's existence, triumphs and unspeakable glories will then be visibly demon- strated, and the world shall be lifted out of the grave of its darkness and misgivings into the glorious light and liberty of the sons of God. For if Christ's presence in the transfigura- tion converted the rugged mount into all that Peter could desire of heaven, his sublime and gracious presence in his kingdom cannot make this world less than a paradise of God. 19 218 THE LAST TliMES. "Oh, the delights, the heavenly joys, The glories, of the place "Where Jesus sheds the brightening beams Of his unveiled face !" A second great feature of the " new earth," or " world to come/' is the exaltation, presence and ministrations of the church of the first-born. Paul tells us, that when Christ comes, the holy dead shall be raised, and the pious living changed, and both these classes together enter into their high and peculiar estate. These will the Savior bring with him, and have associated with him in the princedom and sublimities of his glorious empire. They shall then have spiritual and glo- rified bodies, like the glorious body of their Lord. They will not return to the earthy life which they once lived in the flesh ; but they shall live a life like that which Jesus lives. They shall be in the closest union with Christ, for they con- stitute his Bride, and are to " be ever with the Lord." His delight shall be in them, and their delight shall be in him. They will share in his glories, and be partakers of his throne. They are to "reign with Christ." They are to judge angels and judge the world. The twelve apostles are to have twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. Having over- come, and kept the Savior's sayings to the end, they shall have power over the nations. He that has been faithful over five talents shall have dominion over five cities ; and he that has been faithful over ten talents shall have dominion over ten cities ; every man according as his work has been. And so "the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to the saints of the Most High." They are to sit on thrones, and judg- ment shall be given them, and they shall be priests of God, even of Christ, and shall reign with him the thousand years. They are to wear crowns of righteousness, which God the righteous Judge will give unto them at that day. Having THE EXALTATION OF THE SAINTS. 219 exercised meekness, they shall inherit the earth ; and, by the righteousness of faith made " heirs of the world," they shall enter upon their inheritance. Jesus is the heir of all things, and the saints are joint-heirs with him. Having suffered with him, they shall be glorified with him. They shall have a city of habitation becoming their high nature, "a firmly-founded city, whose builder and maker is God." They are to eat and drink with Christ, at his table, in his kingdom. " They shall see his face, and his name shall be in their foreheads, and they shall reign forever and ever." They shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but shall be as the angels of God. " Oh, what untried forms of happy being, what cycles of revolv- ing bliss, await the just ! Conception cannot reach it, nor experience present materials for the picture of its similitude ; and though thus figured out with the choicest emblems, they do no more represent it, than the name of Shepherd describes the watchful guardianship of Christ, or the name of Father the unspeakable love of God." " It doth not yet appear what we shall be." What shall be the precise nature of the authority, priesthood, heirship and glory of the saints, can- not now be told. But this " we know, that when he (the Savior) shall appear, we shall be like him, and shall see him as he is." A world of wonders is in every word of this pro- mise. But how great shall be the believer's happiness, what his peculiar circumstances, how large his possessions, and what the exact nature and dignity of his employments, tongue cannot tell, nor heart conceive. We cannot understand the soul's faculties now 5 and they shall be greater hereafter. Sublime are the Christian's relations now; and they shall be sublimer then. Wonderful are the offices and mission of good men now; and they shall be a thousand times more wonderful then. A thoroughly-converted and enlightened man, even whilst in the corrupt flesh, is a noble object to behold. Even the angels are not ashamed to become ministering spirits to 220 THE LAST TIMES. him. What then shall be his glory when he shall come to occupy his throne with the adorable Jesus in the dignity of eternal empire ! That the glorified saints will, to some extent, mingle with those who live in the body, and at times unveil their radiance to them, I think there is reason to believe. Their offices would seem to imply it. If they are to govern, direct and minister to those in the flesh, it is natural to suppose that they will also be visible, at least occasionally. Angels, in the per- formance of similar offices, have often been manifested to living men ; and why should it not be so with Christ's ser- vants, in the wonderful administrations of his glorious king- dom ? The earth will then be much nearer to heaven than ever it was before, and the intercourse between them will doubtless be much more free and intimate. Glorified or spi- ritual bodies are, perhaps, in their nature, invisible to our earthly senses. Christ, after his resurrection, was not visible except at certain times when he manifested himself. The angels are invisible, and yet we have many instances in which they were revealed to the view of mortals. And in that new world in which the glorified saints are to be enthroned, and commissioned, as the ministers of Christ the great King, to execute his orders and administer his government over the nations, we may reasonably expect that they will often appear, and converse with those who live in the flesh ; and that inter- course between them and those in the body will be as real, familiar and blessed as that which Adam enjoyed with hea- venly beings in Paradise But whatever may be the specific nature of the king-hood and priesthood of the glorified saints, or in whatever way they may discharge their sublime ministrations, we may rest assured that their relation to the world will be for good and blessing. Christ will thus associate them with him in his kingdom only the more gloriously to fulfill his grand designs of love and OFFICE OF THE CHURCH. 221 mercy. He came into this world to seek and to save that which was lost. He came to reveal God to man, and to lift up man into harmony with God. He came amidst the grovel- ing, the selfish and the earthly, to tell a tale of disinterested love at which selfishness might hang its head. He came amidst the guilty, the wretched and the lost, to reveal a de- sign of mercy at which angels rejoice with exceeding joy, and before which the aching and the burdened heart may throw off the load under which it labors. He suffered, died, rose again, now lives in heaven, and will soon return to earth, all to cast out the evil which has come upon man, and to bring this world back to the Paradise it once was. And this espous- ing to himself of an elect, ransomed and glorified church can be for no other purpose than that which he has already mani- fested in his wonderful doings hitherto. Much of the great plan of redemption yet remains unfulfilled; and this church of the first-born is exalted to its high place, not only for its own glory and the Savior's praise, but as another great link in the chain of agencies and administrations by which the entire world is to be yet restored to the high sphere for which it was destined. These children of the resurrection are to con- stitute an elect and immortal college, connected with the Savior's own glorified humanity, that he may thus consum- mate his wonderful designs in the ultimate and entire repeal of the curse under which the earth groans, and the recovery forever of the lost heritage of man. Why does he call and constitute the church as we now have it ? Certainly not only that those who enter it may be justified and accepted. There is another object. It is that he may work in and through the church, and carry light, civilization, truth and hope to the children of men. And Christians are not done with this world when they die. When this elect church shall have been completed, and its members come to be priests and kings with Christ in the glorious Messianic kingdom, the same 19* 222 THE LAST TIMES. general calling which they now fill will continue. These sublime princedoms of the eternal empire are a part of God's great plan to let forth his love, wisdom and blessing upon earth's future generations. Blessed, blessed, shall it then be for the world, when once the saints shall be installed with their promised dominion, and sit with Christ upon his throne ! Another characteristic of the millennial world will be the entire absence of all the confederations and powers of wicked- ness. When the Savior comes, Antichrist, in all its shapes, will be destroyed. The wild beast and the false prophet, and all their supporters and adherents, are to be taken and cast into the bottomless abyss. The last renovating fires which are to be kindled in the day of the Lord shall carry all the con- federates in usurpation and wrong to their merited perdition. The dragon, that old serpent, which is the devil, even Satan, shall then be seized, and bound, and confined in the pit, to deceive the nations no more till the thousand years be fulfilled, and after a brief release consigned to eternal death. In- stead of despotism and tyranny shall be justice and charity. Those that now corrupt and destroy the earth will then have been destroyed. The filthy dreamers, who despise government and speak evil of dignities, will then have passed away. Tho raging waves of popular revolution, foaming out their own shame, shall have been stilled, to rise no more. Those wan- dering stars in church and state, by whom so much disturbance is now experienced, will then have gone to the blackness of darkness appointed for them. Might shall not then trample any more upon right. The course of nature, now set on fire of hell, shall then be made to flow in all the smoothness and tranquility of heaven. " 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." False prophets and false teachers, with all their " damnable heresies/' shall then have gone to OF THE HEBREW NATION. 223 their destruction. Nations shall cease their fierce works of war, and armies no more butcher each other upon the bloody field of battle. Violence will no more be heard in the laud, nor wasting and destruction within its borders. Satan will be deprived of his power to stir up rankling passion, and the sway of oppression and iniquity will be ended. The greatest of the world's burdens will thus be lifted off, and the mill-stone that has weighed it down so long will be loosed from its neck forever. A fourth feature of the millennium, or new earth, will be the great exaltation, piety and glory of the Hebrew nation, and of the world through them. I have shown that this people is to be restored to Palestine; that Jerusalem is to be rebuilt in more than its former glory; that the throne of David is to be re-established; and that the Prince Messiah is to be their King. " For lo ! the days come, saith the Lord, that I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel and Judah, and I will cause them to return to the land that I gave to their fathers, and they shall possess it. And they shall serve the Lord their God and DAVID THEIR KING, ichom I will raise up unto them:" (Jer. xxx. 3-9.) "They shall all of them be righteous, and shall inherit the land forever." Their land that was desolate shall become like Eden, and even its desert like the garden of Jehovah. "In that day shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. And he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy." Grod says of the house of Jacob, " The Gentiles shall see thy righteousness, and all kings thy glory. Thou shalt be a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, and a royal diadem in the hand of thy God. Ye that make mention of the Lord, give him no rest till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth. Say to the daughter of Zion ; Behold, thy salvation cometh. And they shall call 224 THE LAST TIMES. them, The holy people, The redeemed of the Lord." "Re- joice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad with her; for thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream." " At that time they shall call Jerusalem THE THRONE OF THE LORD; and all the nations shall be gathered unto it, to the name of the Lord, to Jerusalem." "I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them. And I will make them and the places round about my hill a bless- ing. And I will raise up for them a plant of renown. Thus shall they know that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are my people." "I will be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the lily, and cast forth his roots; his branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell as Lebanon." "And many nations shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob ; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths ; for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem." Jesus himself shall descend among them, and be their King. He shall fight for them in the day of battle, and slay all their enemies. For "God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever," and " before his ancients gloriously." These are glowing promises. Well may they cause the Jew to be hopeful amid all his long-continued spoliations, and to sing still, "If I forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning! If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth !" And when these glad predictions shall be fulfilled, all the nations shall share in the sublime exaltations of God's ancient people and their glorious King. Then all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in Abraham's seed. " Israel shall blossom and bud. SCRIPTURE PROMISES. 225 and fill the face of the earth with fruit." "The remnant of Jacob shall be in the midst of many people as a dew from the Lord, and as showers upon the grass." "They shall be called the priests of the Lord; and men shall call them the ministers of our God." When Zion, the city of the Lord, shall arise and shine, the Gentiles shall come to its light, and kings to the brightness of its rising. When the New Jerusalem appears, " the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it." In that day, Israel's King, even "the Lord, shall be King over all the earth." "All people, nations and lan- guages shall serve and obey him." "The heathen shall be given to him for his inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession." "Kings shall fall down before him, and all nations shall serve him." "He shall reign and prosper, and his rest shall be glorious." "The world to come, whereof we speak," has been put into subjection unto him. The kingdoms of this world are to be his kingdoms. Every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that he is Lord. He must reign until he hath put all enemies under his feet. Morally, spiritually and politically, all people must be event- ually subjugated unto him. "For the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." All these are God's own revelations. They are full of mys- tery, but full of hope. How they are to be fulfilled may be a subject of wonder; but that they will be fulfilled is as certain as the existence of God. It may not all be done at once. It will be an achievement of moral force, and not of mere arbi- trary coercion. It may require years upon years to accomplish all; but He who has promised knows how to perform what he has uttered. The new, august and momentous personal mani- festations. of Christ for which we are taught to look, the en- larged gifts of the Holy Ghost which are yet to be bestowed, the appointment of other, better equipped and more efiicieut 22G THE LAST TIMES. ministerial agencies, the probable revival of miracles, the shaking of the nations with the terrors of coming judgments, the increased power of the Bible derived from the fulfillment of its prophecies, and the removal of Satan and all his treacher- ous opposition, certainly will leave it no difficult task to make a speedy conquest of all the great nations to the glorious dominion of the Son of David, come down from heaven to be their King and Lord forever. At all events, "Jesus shall reign -where'er the sun Does his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more." But the new earth has yet another blessed characteristic. It is to present the glorious spectacle of the entire repeal of the curse of sin. It is true that the complete and entire repeal of the curse will not be consummated until the end of the thousand years, when all wickedness and the wicked shall finally be cast out from the earth forever. But, from the time Christ comes and takes dominion of the world with his glori- fied saints, every thing will advance closer and closer until it reaches this final and transcendent consummation. His com- ing is styled "the regeneration," "the day of the restitution of all things/' the time when God shall "make all things new," "the manifestation of the sons of Grod," for which the creation groans and waits, the day of redemption, when "the creature itself shall be delivered from the bondage of cor- ruption, into the glorious liberty of the children of Grod." Christ is the Redeemer and Lord of the whole creation, as well as of the human soul. When Grod made man, he said to him, "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth." This dominion Adam lost. The rebellion of the soul against Grod brought with it the rebellion of the flesh against the SCRIPTURE PROMISES. 227 spirit, and of nature against the entire man. Discords, anti- pathies and a thousand evils ensued. Christ is the second Adam, and by subverting the empire of Satan he regains the dominion which Adam lost, and carries his redemption as far as the consequences of the fall have reached. Otherwise, the entire breach is not healed, and salvation is imperfect. The whole earth under the Messiah must then ultimately become all that it was under Adam, and what it always would Lave been if Adam had never sinned. The curse that was put upon the ground for Adam's sin, filling it with thorns and thistles, infusing sweat and pain into all our participations of its products, must be taken off. The evils and confusion which sin has brought into the world must be driven out. And this is exactly what is promised under the reign of Christ and his saints. "The Spirit shall be poured from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted a forest. And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." "The mountains and the hills shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir-tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle-tree: and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing; in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a watered place, and the thirsty land springs of water; in the habitation of dragons there shall be grass, with reeds and rushes." "And the inhabitants shall not say, I am sicJe." There shall be no more thence any dying in infancy, or of men who have not filled out their days. " They shall build houses and inhabit them ; and they shall plant vineyards and 228 THE LAST TIMES. eat the fruit of them. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the ox : and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain:" (Isa. Ixv. 17 25.) "The waters of the Dead Sea shall be healed." Trees shall grow which shall "yield their fruit monthly, and the leaves thereof shall be for the healing of the nations." "They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat nor sun smite them." "AND THERE SHALL BE NO MORE CURSE." "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; AND THERE SHALL BE NO MORE DEATH." "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." He may linger through a brief and feeble existence in some of the outskirts of the millennial world; but he must be entirely destroyed. "Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up of victory ;" and earth's redeemed and undying generations shall take up the song, " death ! where is thy sting ? grave ! where is thy victory? Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ !' Such, then, is the glorious consummation to which the works of Providence and grace are tending. Such is the finishing of the mystery which God hath spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets. This battle-field of hell and heaven shall rise up out of all its desolations. The bliss of Paradise shall yet dwell in its valleys and the glory of God shine on all its hills. Though a lazar-house for so many ages, it shall be the home of righteousness and peace and a temple of blessing and glory, whose vaulted dome shall echo forever with redemption's songs. Things may look unpromising now; but everywhere heaven is pouring into it. Tyranny, war, distress and wickedness may seem to be triumphant; but their end is near, and the Desire of nations approaches. Satan and his emissaries may struggle in their desperation ; MILLENNIAL GLORY. 229 but they shall not be able to keep the world from the resur- rection to which it is moving. The sore travail of the Savior's soul shall yet be seen in an everlasting equation between it and heaven. Jesus himself shall set up his throne in it and brighten it with the glories of his ineffable personal presence. The holy ministries of the children of the resurrection shall cover it with a mantle of peace and light. Satan and all his works shall be rooted out of it forever. All its long-erring nations shall be reclaimed, and all its discordant elements recovered to harmony and rest. Over all this place of graves the flowers of immortality shall bloom. Instead of the coffin shall be Elijah's chariot, and in place of the death-struggle shall be Enoch's rapture. And from all God's great universe shall break forth the song of joy and praise over a world that was lost but is found ; over this blasted earth made new again and glorious forever. " Kegion of life and light ! Land of tho good whose sweaty toils are o'er! Nor frost nor heat may blight Thy vernal beauty, fertile shore, Yielding thy blessed fruits for evermore ! " There, without crook or sling, Walks the Good Shepherd. Blossoms white and red Round his meek temples cling ; And, to sweet pastures led, His own loved flock beneath his eyo are fed. " He guides, and near him they Follow delighted ; for he makes them go Where dwells eternal May, And heavenly roses blow, Deathless, and gathered but again to grow. " He leads them to the height Named of the infinite and long-sought Good, And fountains of delight; And where his feet have stood Springs up, along the way, their tender food. 20 230 THE LAST TIMES. " From lips divine flow forth Immortal harmonies, of power to still All passions born of earth, And draw the ardent will Its destiny of goodness to fulfill. " Might but a little part, A wandering breath, of that high melody, Descend into my heart, And change it, till it be Transformed and swallowed up, Christ, in thee ! TENTH DISCOURSE. THE TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCH 8UMMAEY OF OTJK DOCTRINE CERIXTHUS THE ANABAPTISTS MILLER IMPROPRIETY OF CLASSING US WITH THESE PARTIES TRUE CHURCH TESTIMONY BARNABAS CLEMENT PAPIAS JUSTIN MARTYR IREN^US TERTULLIAN CYPRIAN ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AS TO THE FAITH OF THE EARLY CHURCH HOW MILLENARIAN DOCTRINE WAS SUPPRESSED ORIGEN's SYSTEM REVIVAL OF THE PRIMITIVE FAITH LUTHER JIELANCTHON THE FRUITS OF OUR BELIEF DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE EARLY AND PRESENT CHURCH. DEUT. xxxii. 7 : Remember tlie days of old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy fatfter, and lie will show tliee; tliy elders, and they will tell thee. THE past is one of our best teachers. History is one of the storehouses of wisdom. "Not to kuow what transpired before we were born," says a classic author, "is to remain children." In matters of religious faith it is particularly important to recur to the testimony of those who lived before us. Novelty is sometimes the best proof of heresy. That cannot be Christianity which cannot stand the test of history. Antiquity alone is no evidence of orthodoxy. A creed may be old and yet be false ; but it cannot be new and yet be true. The Christian religion is a written tradition, just as complete at its first delivery as it is now. All the advances of science, though they may have assisted in preparing men the better to appreciate it, have not added to it a single jot. In some 231 232 THE LAST TIMES. things the children may be accounted the fathers, and the fathers the children ; but even in those instances " the child is father of the man." "We cannot be independent of what has gone before us. In every thing wisdom bids us " remem- ber the days of old." Yea, "Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls." I propose, therefore, to make some inquiry into the testi- mony of Christians of former ages respecting the doctrines which I have been putting forth in these discourses. If the church in its first and purest periods held them as the teach- ings of the Scriptures, that fact must go very far to confirm them as the truth of God. The saying of Tertullian, that " whatever is first is true ; whatever is later is adulterate," may not always hold good. Neither are we to rest our faith upon the mere opinions of men, whether ancient or modern. "The Bible, the Bible alone, is the religion of Protestants;" and upon the Bible do I rest for the truth of what I have been teaching. But it is not very likely that the most enlightened Christians who were the pupils and hearers of the inspired apostles and their immediate successors were mistaken as to what are the hopes which Christianity presents. If it can be satisfactorily shown that they believed and taught the Scriptures as I have been interpreting them, it will be hard for a reasonable man to conclude that I am wrong. Whilst, then, we take the Scriptures as our only and infallible standard, and accord to every man the right to examine and decide for himself as God shall judge him, the light of antiquity cannot be discarded as useless. It is one of our helps to a right understanding of God's revelation, which we are not safe in despising. And though we are not to receive the testimony of anybody where that testimony conflicts with SUMMARY OF DOCTRINE. 233 the Bible, we will do well to "remember the days of old," and to " consider the years of many generations." The fathers had some advantages which we have not. Let us then avail ourselves of these advantages in our search for truth. Let us ask them, and they will show us, and inquire of the elders, and they will tell us. The principal points which I have thus far presented, as my apprehension of God's revealinents concerning " the last times," are as follows : 1. That Christ Jesus, our adorable Redeemer, is to return to this world in great power and glory, as really and as literally as he ascended up from it. 2. That this final advent of the Messiah will occur before the general conversion of the world, while the Man of sin still continues his abominations, while the earth is yet fu^ of tyranny, war, infidelity and blasphemy, and consequently before what is called the millennium. 3. That this coming of the Lord Jesus will not be to depopulate and annihilate the earth, but to judge, subdue, renew and bless it. 4. That in the period of this coming he will raise the holy from among the dead, transform the living that are waiting for him, judge them according to their works, receive them up to himself in the clouds, and establish them in a glorious heavenly kingdom. 5. That Christ will then also break down and destroy all present systems of government in church and state, burn up the great centres and powers of wickedness and usurpation, shake the whole earth with terrific visitations for its sins, and subdue it to his own personal and eternal rule. 6. That during these great and destructive commotions, the Jewish race shall be marvelously restored to the land of their fathers, brought to embrace Jesus as their Messiah and King, delivered from their enemies, placed at the head of 20* 234 THE LAST TIMES. nations, and made the agents of unspeakable blessings to tho world. 7. That Christ will then re-establish the throne of his father David, exalt it in heavenly glory, make Mount Zion the seat of his divine empire, and, with the glorified saints associated with him in his dominion, reign over the house of Jacob and over the world in a visible, sublime and heavenly Christocracy for the period of " the thousand years." 8. That during this millennial reign in which mankind are brought under a new dispensation, Satan is to be bound and the world enjoy its long-expected Sabbatic rest. 9. That at the end of this millennial Sabbath the last rebellion shall be quashed, the wicked dead, who shall all continue in Hades until that time, shall be raised and judged, and Satan, Death, Hades, and all antagonisms to good, delivered over to eternal destruction. And 10. That, under these wonderful administrations, the earth is to be entirely recovered from the effects of the fall, the excellence of God's righteous providence vindicated, the whole curse repealed, death swallowed up, and all the inhabitants of the world thenceforward forever restored to more than the full happiness, purity and glory which Adam forfeited in Eden. Such is my learning of the Scriptures, and such is my solemn belief upon these momentous themes. Some may be disposed to brand it as the old heresy of Cerinthus ; some may classify it with the doctrines of the seditious Anabaptists of Luther's day; and not a few may stigmatize it as " Miller- ism." But, call it what you please, with my present light it is my faith ; and I propose to show you that such was the faith of the universal orthodox church in the purest periods of its history. But, lest it should be derided with names which it does not deserve, let me make an observation or two with regard to the parties just named. Cerinthus was the contemporary of the Apostle John. It THE ANABAPTISTS. 235 is a question now, among learned men, whether he ever did teach the carnal notions which are ascribed to him. It is recorded of him, however, that he " falsely pretended to won- derful things, as if they had been shown him by angels, assert- ing that after the resurrection there would be an earthly kingdom of Christ, and that the flesh, (or man again united with flesh,) again inhabiting Jerusalem, would be subject to desires and pleasures ;" that, " being an enemy of the divine Scriptures, he said there would be a space of a thousand years for celebrating nuptial festivals;" that "he taught that Christ would have an earthly kingdom, aud, as he was a voluptuary and altogether sensual, he conjectured that it would consist in those things that he craved in the gratifica- tion of appetite and lust." If these things are true, which is very questionable, it has been well for Christians that they never permitted themselves to be carried away with such gross and plainly unscriptural carnalities. The kingdom of heaven is not meat and drink, marrying or giving in marriage. The children of the resurrection are never to return to this fleshly and sensual life, but are to have spiritual bodies, and inhabit a city " not made with hands," and be kings and priests unto God, blessed and holy forever. The Anabaptists were a fanatical and seditious people, with whom no sound Christian can sympathize. Mosheina says, " They gave themselves out for the messengers of heaven, to lay the foundations of a new government, and to destroy and overturn all temporal rule and authority, all human and political institutions. Having turned all things into confusion and uproar in the city of Munster by this seditious declara- tion, they began to erect a new republic conformable to their absurd and chimerical notions of religion, and committed the administration of it to John Bockholt, a tailor by profession !" Milner says, " They taught the people to despise their lawful rulers, and the salutary regulations by which all communities 236 THE LAST TIMES. exist. Everywhere it was the cry of these enthusiastic vision- aries, No tribute ; all things in common ; no tithes ; no magis- trates ; the baptism of infants is an invention of the devil I" From such delusion, fanaticism and blasphemy may the Lord ever preserve us ! And yet with such people we are often classed when we undertake to declare the real gospel doctrine of Christ's coming and kingdom. The late Mr. Miller, of whom we heard so much a few years ago, was doubtless a simple-minded, honest and pious man. But he was comparatively illiterate, imaginative and enthu- siastic. He did not fully grasp the sweep, order, consistency and grandeur of God's purposes as they are presented in the Scriptures. He believed that this world was to be burned up and depopulated of all its present orders of inhabitants. He taugut that, none were to exist on the earth after Christ's coming but the church of the first-born in their glorified state, who should again return to a physical form of life, plant vine- yards, build houses, and carry on many of the pursuits of life somewhat as we now have them. He had no consistent views of Christ's reign over the nations, and denied all probation after Christ's coming. He was carried away with some crude calculations of prophetic dates, upon which he relied too con- fidently. He was disappointed in some of the leading par- ticulars upon which he gained his notoriety. But neither prophecy nor the students of prophecy are responsible for his mistakes. And to make all deductions from prophecy bear the odium and ridicule excited by the vagaries of uninformed and deluded men, is neither sensible, pious, nor respectful to the word of God. We have nothing to do with the crudities and wild imaginings of a sensual Cerinthus, the fanatical Ana- baptist, or the unbalanced Father Miller. Our business is with what God has written for our learning and with the interpretations of those who were the least likely to be mis- taken in regard to the leading features of God's revelations., THE TESTIMONY OP THE CHURCH-BARNABAS. 237 Let us, then, proceed with our task, and endeavor to ascer- tain the views and teachings of the early Christians with re- gard to the doctrines of these discourses. What expectations were formed of the Messiah at his first coming, and how Christ and his apostles proceeded respecting those expecta- tions, I have already set forth. In other words, I have given you the inspired Scriptures for every thing that I have thus far said. This alone is, or ought to be, sufficient. But as there is disagreement as to the manner in which those pas- sages are to be understood, I will give you the proof that the best Christian authority is in favor of the interpretations which I have maintained. The first witness I produce is Barnabas, a Levite of the country of Cyprus, and one of those who sold their possessions and laid the money at the apostles' feet. Luke says that "he was a good man, and full of the Holy Ghost." He was the companion and fellow-preacher with the Apostle Paul. He has left an epistle which learned men think was written before the Epistle of Jude or the writings of John. A few have considered it apocryphal ; but Vossius, Dupuis, Cave, Mill, Clarke, "Whiston, Wake, and most of those competent to judge in the case, esteem it the genuine production of Barna- bas the Levite, so honorably mentioned in the Scriptures. At all events, it belongs to early Christian antiquity, and is a competent witness as to what were the views then entertained. In the thirteenth chapter of this epistle we find it written : " God made in six days the works of his hands, and he finished them the seventh day, and he rested the seventh day and sanctified it. Consider, my children, what that signifies : he finished them in six days. The meaning of it is this : that in six thousand years the Lord uriU bring all things to an end. For with him one day is a tlwusand years, as himself testi- fieth. Therefore, children, in six days that is, in six thou- sand years shall all things be accomplished. And what is 238 THE LAST TIMES. that he saith, And he rested the seventh day? He mcancth this : that when his Son sJiall come, and abolish tJie season of the wicked one, and judge the ungodly, and shall change the sun, moon and stars, THEN he shall gloriously rest in that seventh day. . . . Behold, he will then truly sanctify it with blessed rest, when ice (having received THE RIGHTEOUS PROMISE, ichen iniquity shall be no more, ALL THINGS BEING RENEWED BY THE LORD) shall be able to sanctify it, being ourselves first made holy." In these words it is plainly taught : 1. That Christ is to come again personally to our world at the end of the six thousand years. 2. That the wicked one and his domination will remain in existence until Christ conies. 3. That the seventh thousand years of the world is to be a millennium of holy rest, in which the saints are to inherit their promises and iniquity be done away; aud 4. That this millennium of glory is to be introduced by the personal coming of the Messiah to abolish the empire of the wicked one, judge the ungodly, change the present constitu- tion of things and renew the world. Such, then, is the testimony of that "good man," the companion and fellow of the Apostle Paul. A second witness is Clement, whom Paul mentions among his " fellow-laborers, whose names are in the book of life." In such high repute were his writings held, that they are found included in one of the oldest collections of Xew Testa- ment writings as a part of the sacred canon. He does not refer to our subject as directly as Barnabas ; but there can be no doubt of his having entertained the same views. Dr. Hamilton of Strathblane, in a work against the students of prophecy, puts him down as evidently a millennarian ; that is, one who believes in the personal reign of Christ with his saints on earth. He connected " the great and glorious PAPIAS AND JUSTIN MARTYR. 239 promises" made to the people of God with the promise that " the whole earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord." He taught that "we shall come to judgment in the flesh, and so also in the flesh receive the reward." He also identified the coming of the kingdom of Grod with " the day of God's appearing" and exhorted his readers hourly to expect, wait and pray for it, that they might "enter into his kingdom and receive the promises." And if there is any weight to be attached to his apprehensions of divine truth, it goes decidedly in favor of our doctrines. The next witness is Papias, the disciple of the Apostle John and a companion of Polycarp. Eusebius speaks unfa- vorably of his judgment in one place; but elsewhere pro- nounces him " eloquent and learned in the Scriptures." He himself says that he had most assiduously collected all that could be gathered of the teachings and sayings of Christ and the apostles. He certainly had every opportunity of knowing the truth. And he has recorded it as his belief, and as con- tained in what he had collected from the fountains of Chris- tian doctrine, that " there will be a certain millennium AFTER THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD, when Christ will reign BODILY (personally} upon this very earth." We come now to Justin the martyr, who was born ten years before the death of the Apostle John. Mosheim calls him " a man of eminent piety and learning, who, from a pagan philosopher, became a Christian martyr." In his Dialogue with Trypho, he says, "I, AND AS MANY AS ARE ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS, do acknowledge that there shall lie a resurrection of the body, and a residence of a thousand years in Jerusalem rebuilt, adorned and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah and others do unanimously attest. . . . Moreover, a certain man among us, whose name was John, one of the apostles of CJirist, in a revelation made to him, did prophesy that the faithful believers in Christ shall live a thousand years in the New 240 THE LAST TIMES. Jerusalem, and AFTER THAT shall be the general resurrection and judgment." Not only does Justin here declare himself a believer in our doctrines, but, as Semisch (in Herzog's Cyclopedia) says, he " distinguishes that belief as the key- stone of orthodoxy." The testimony of the distinguished Irenaeus is also of par- ticular value. He was the disciple of Polycarp, the pupil of the Apostle John. It has justly been said that, " for learning, steadfastness and zeal, he was among the most renowned of the early fathers." Mosheim says that his writings are " the most precious monuments of ancient erudition." His tutor, Polycarp, was one of those " angels" to whom the Savior ad- dressed one of the seven epistles recorded in John's revela- tion. He was a most diligent collector of all that was to be known of what Christ and his apostles taught. Irenscus regarded him with peculiar veneration, and says of his teachings, " I remember his discourses concerning the conver- sations he had with John the apostle and others who had seen the Lord; how he rehearsed their discourses, and what he heard them say of our Lord and of his miracles and doc- trine." Irengeus, therefore, had good means of knowing what ideas the sacred writers attached to their own writings, and what ideas and hopes the Spirit through them inculcated respecting God's great purposes. Hear, then, what this learned and devout man has said concerning our doctrine : " In whatever number of days the world was created, in the same number of thousands of years it will come to its consum- mation. God, on the sixth day, finished the works which he made ; and God rested on the seventh day from all his works. This is a history of the past and a prophecy of the future ; for ' the day of the Lord is as a thousand years' " Here is a distinct announcement of the millennial Sabbath. As to where it is to be celebrated, he is equally clear. "It is fitting," says he, " that the just, rising again at the appear- IREN.EUS AND TERTULLIAN. 241 ance of God, should, in (he renewed state, receive the promise of inheritance ichich God covenanted to the fathers, and should reign in it; and (hat then should follow the final judgment. For, in the same condition in which they have labored and been afflicted, and been tried by sufferings in all sorts of ways, it is but just that in it they should receive the fruits of their sufferings, so that where, for the love of God they suffered death, there they should be brought to life again; and where they endured bondage, there also they should reign. .... I say it is becoming that the creation, being restored to its original beauty, should, without any impediment or drawback, be subject to the 'righteous. This the apostle makes manifest in the Epistle to the Ro.nans Thus, there- fore, as God promised to Abraham the inheritance of the earth, and he received it not during the whole time he lived, it is necessary that he should receive it, together with his seed, that is, with such of them as fear God, and believe in him, IN THE RESURRECTION OF THE JUST They will un- doubtedly receive it at the resurrection of the just : for true and unchangeable is God ; wherefore he also said, Blessed aro the meek, for they shall inlierit THE EARTH." Four things are here asserted : first, that Christ will really appear at the end of the six thousand years ; second, that the millennium comes after the Savior's advent; third, that there is to be a resurrection of the just at the beginning of the mil- lennium ; and, fourth, that Christ is to reign with his saints in this world. Such is the testimony of Irenams, the pupil of Polycarp and Papias, the disciples of the Apostle John. We come now to Tertullian, the eminent contemporary of Irenaeus, a man of eloquence and learning, who, with all his faults, had many excellencies. His testimony is equally con- spicuous and positive. "We also confess," says he, "that a, kingdom is promised us on earth, AFTER THE RESURRECTION; for it will be for a thousand years in a city of divine work- Q 21 242 THE LAST TIMES. manship, viz. : Jerusalem brought down from heaven, which city Ezekiel knew, and the Apostle John saw. This is the city provided of God to receive the saints in the resurrection, wherein to refresh themselves with all spiritual good things, in recompense of those which in the world we have despised and lost." He also testifies that it was the custom of his times for Christians to pray that they might have part in the first resurrection j thus showing that this was the general and firm belief of his time. Clement of Alexandria, the contemporary of Tertullian, whom Eusebius designates as an " incomparable master of the Christian philosophy," also refers to the mystic sanctity of the seventh day, as pointing in the estimation of both Hebrews and Greeks to the final revolution of the world and the reno- vation of all things. Cyprian, the great bishop of Carthage, who scaled his faith with his blood, also alludes to the subject in a way leaving no doubt that he apprehended the Scriptures in the same man- ner. " In the divine arrangement of the world," says he, " seven days were at first employed, and in them seven thou- sand years were included." This implies the doctrine of the millennial Sabbath and, taking it in connection with his ex- pectation of the future honors of the martyrs, and his decla- ration that in this world " things evil and adverse shall in- crease until the end come as foretold," we cannot suppose that he differed on this subject from the distinguished teachers who went before him and whose disciple he claimed to be. We have now brought down our list of testimonies to the end of the second century after Christ. I have given you the language of the most pious and distinguished Christian teach- ers who lived during that time. And without one dissenting voice among them, we here have, as their unanimous appre- hension of the Scriptures and of what Christ and his apostles taught, THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS MILLENARIAXS. 243 1. That there is to be a millennial Sabbath at the end of six thousand years from the creation of Adam, in which the world shall joyfully rest from its long week of turmoil and disorder. 2. That the personal and final advent of Christ, and the resurrection of the holy dead, shall occur at the commence- ment of the millennium. 3. That Christ is to reign with his saints in glorious empire upon this earth. And, 4. That all sublunary things, embracing the entire lower creation, are to undergo a universal renovation, and be restored to their original excellence and glory. Nor was there any acknowledged Christian, until The time of Origen, in the middle of the third century, that ever recorded any other faith upon this subject. We may safely challenge all the research of the world to produce one single orthodox opposing testimony prior to the days of Origen, than whom, Milner says, " no man not altogether unsound and hy- pocritical ever more injured the church of Christ." Indeed, the evidence that these views were a vital and prominent part of the faith of Christians for the first ages is so clear and conspicuous that I do not know that any scholar has ever ven- tured to contradict the fact. Let me submit to you some statements of learned men upon the subject. The well-known infidel historian, Edward Gibbon, has this statement : " The ancient and popular doctrine of the mil- lennium was intimately connected with the second coming of Christ. As the works of the creation had been finished in six days, their duration in their present state, according to a tradition which was attributed to the prophet Elijah, was fixed to six thousand years. By the same analogy it was inferred that this long period of labor and contention would be sue ceeded by a joyful Sabbath of a thousand years; and that Christ, with the triumphant band of the saints and the elect 214 TIIE LAST TIMES. who had escaped death, or who had been miraculously revived, would reign upon earth The assurance of such a mil- lennium teas carefully inculcated by a succession of fathers from Justin Martyr and .Irenaeus, who conversed with the immediate disciples of the apostles, down to Lactantius, who was preceptor to the son of Constantine. IT APPEARS TO HAVE BEEN THE REIGNING SENTIMENT OF THE ORTHODOX BELIEVERS." This Lactantius, to whom Gibbon refers, lived in the early part of the fourth century. Mosheim pronounces him " the most learned of the Latin fathers." He was known in his time as " the Christian Cicero." His sentiments upon this sub- ject deserve to be presented among our testimonies. "When God shall come to judge the world," says he, "and shall restore unto life the just that have been since the beginning, he shall converse among men a thousand years, and rule them with a most righteous government And they that shall be raised from the dead shall be over the living as judges. And the Gentiles shall not be utterly extinguished ; but some shall be left for the victory of God About the same time the prince of devils, the forger of all evil, shall be bound with chains, and shall be in custody all the thousand years of the heavenly empire under which righteousness shall reign over the world." Such, then, according to Gibbon, were " the reigning sentiments of orthodox believers" for more than three centuries of the Christian era. The celebrated Chillingworth says, " That this doctrine (of the millennium and Christ's personal reign on earth) was by the church of the next age after the apostles held true and catholic, I prove by these two reasons : first, whatever doc- trine is believed and taught by the most eminent fathers of any age of the church, and by none of their contemporaries opposed or condemned, that is to be esteemed the catholic doctrine of the church of those times ; but the doctrine of the CONCURRING AUTHORITIES. 245 millenaries was believed and taught Ixj the most eminent fathers of the age next after the apostles, and by none of that age opposed or condemned; therefore IT WAS THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF THOSE TIMES." Mosheirn says, " The prevailing opinion, that Christ was to come and reign a thousand years among men before the final dissolution of the world, had met icith no opposition previous to the time of Origen." Burton says, " It cannot be denied that Papias, Irengeus, Justin Martyr, and all the other ecclesiastical writers, be- lieved, literally, that the saints would rise in the first resur- rection, and reign with Christ upon earth previous to the general resurrection." Munscher says, " How widely the doctrine of millenarian- ism prevailed in the first centuries of Christianity, appears from this, that it icas universally received by almost all teachers." Grieseler says of the first centuries, " Millenarianism be- came the general belief of the time." Newton says, " The doctrine of the millennium was gene- rally believed in the three first and purest ages." Semisch says, "The ancients expected a kingdom in this world, in which Christ, after his coming, should reign with his risen and glorified saints ; that he would visibly return in order to establish a terrestrial theocracy as the centre of a dominion over the world ; that he would destroy the kingdom of Antichrist, and subjugate such worldly powers as are sus- ceptible of being fashioned for the divine kingdom; that there would be a distinction in the resurrection, first the re- surrection of the saints for the divine kingdom, and after- wards the rest of the dead at the final judgment; that there would then be perfect happiness of soul and sense, and the glorified saints reign together over unglorified humanity." But I will not trouble you with needless repetitions. What 91* 246 THE LAST TIMES. these authors have said is just what multitudes of others equally learned and disinterested have declared. Russel, and Bush, and Lardner, and Whitby, and Neander, and Mede, and Kitto, and Maitland, and Taylor, and Milner, and Barnes, the encyclopedias and reviews, friends and enemies, ancients and moderns, admit and declare the fact, that the church of Christ, for the first two centuries after the inspired apostles, was uni- versally millenarian, and that she substantially believed and taught all that I have brought forward in these discourses. I have not been preaching novelties, as some have been disposed to think. I have been giving you only what I find in the blessed Bible, what those believed and taught who made the Bible, and what all the true believers in the revelations of Grod, for more than two hundred years after Christ, accepted as the teaching of that holy book. And if I have not proven to you that the millenarian faith was the orthodox faith of primi- tive Christianity, there is no weight in testimony. Ask the fathers, and they will show you the elders, and they will tell you. And if the church of our day is to keep to the simplici- ties of those early times after which she professes to pattern, she must hold to the personal reign of Christ with his saints on earth as one of her sublimest hopes. It is a sad fact, however, that from the fourth century until the sixteenth this doctrine gradually lost its hold upon the minds and hearts of professed Christians, and went down into almost absolute neglect. But with it went down the great doctrine of justification by faith, and nearly every thing that is dis- tinguishing in gospel religion. IT FELL ONLY AS POPERY ROSE ; and it is only as it rises again that popery shall shrink and quail. So long as men think they see and hear Christ in the pope, and believe that they are worshipping and honoring Christ by serving and obeying hierarchies regarded as jure divino, we need never expect them to believe that Christ will ever reign here in person. The two ideas are fundamentally HOW MILLENARIANISM DECLINED. 247 antagonistic. If Christ is himself to reign here in universal empire, he has not given that empire into the hands of a vicar ; and if he has made the pope the supreme lord of the world, it is settled that he will never reign here otherwise than by the pope. Either proposition confutes the other. The two cannot live together. And this puts into our hands the key to the true explanation how the church has come to lose sight of the primitive and apostolic faith upon this subject. The processes by which millenarian doctrine was gradually reduced to disrepute and neglect are at once curious and deplorable. Mosheini says that " its credit began to decline principally through the influence and authority of Origen, who opposed it with the greatest warmth, because it was in- compatible icith some of his favorite sentiments." So, then, there was something sinister in the very root of anti-uiil- lenarianism. And yet Origen could not bring himself to renounce the primitive belief altogether. "We do not deny/' says he, " the purging fire of the destruction of wickedness and the renovation of all things. ... If any man shall pre- serve the washing of the Holy Spirit, he shall have his part in the Jirst resurrection. . . . Wherefore, let us lay the Scriptures to heart, and make them the rule of our lives ; that so, being cleansed from the defilement of sin before we depart hence, we may be raised up with the saints, and have our lot with Christ Jesus." After all, then, it was more the wild caricatures of our doctrine than the doctrine itself upon which the burden of his opposition fell. And just so Augustine says, that the first resurrection and reign of the thousand years "would indeed be tolerable, if it should be believed that spiritual delights should redound to the saints in that Sabbath by the presence of the Lord ; for we also our- selves formerly were of that opinion. What induced him to change his mind we know not. Perhaps he also had some favorite notions to support ! Even Jerome, that " unmerciful 248 THE LAST TIMES. scoffer" (as Ward calls him) at our doctrine, is obliged to admit some of its leading features, and acknowledges that lie 11 durst not condemn it, because many ecclesiastical persons and martyrs affirmed the same." There are, as I apprehend, three great causes to which we are to attribute the decline and fall of ancient millenarianism. The first and greatest was that mystical and allegorical method of interpreting the Scriptures which Origen set on foot, and which has done more mischief to the cause of evangelical religion than all the assaults of its enemies. Mosheim says that this "unhappy method opened a secure retreat for all sorts of errors that a wild and irregular imagination could bring forth. Believing it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to defend the sacred writings when interpreted literally, accord- ing to the real import of the words, he had recourse to the fecundity of a lively imagination, and maintained that the Holy Scriptures were to be interpreted in the same allegorical way that the Platonists explained the history of the gods." Who would have supposed that the boasted spiritualizing method of modern theologians had its origin in paganism and heathen mythology ? " Origen alleged that the words of Scripture were, in many places, absolutely void of sense! and that the true meaning was to be sought in a mysterious and hidden sense arising from the nature of things in themselves." That is to say, in plain English, we must first form our con- clusions from philosophy, or from our preconceptions as to how things ought to be, and then interpret the Scriptures according to these a priori conclusions ! A beautiful system, truly, for ascertaining the meaning of God's revelations ! The results of its adoption may easily be imagined. There are some rich specimens of its operation upon record. One man found hidden meaning enough in the interjection "0!" to serve him for seven sermons ! Another argued eighty-two particulars concerning the Bride of Christ from the hroses of ORKJE.N'S METHOD OF INTERPRETATION. 249 Pharaoh's chariot ! Origen himself gives the meaning of the history of Moses thus: "The king of Egypt is the devil; the male and female children of the Hebrews are the rational and animal faculties of the soul ; the ruidwives are the Old and New Testaments. Pharoah's daughter is the church ; Moses is the law ; the ark and flags in which he was found are the absurd and carnal glosses of the Jews," &c. &c. I am thus particular in showing what was Origeu's alle- gorical or spiritual method, because, as Mosheirn says, " it was followed by a prodigious number of interpreters in that and the succeeding ages, and overflowed the church ;" a system which, to this hour, more or less palsies and disgraces our hermeneutics. Well has Dr. Clarke said that "every friend of rational piety and genuine Christianity must lament that a man of so much learning and unaffected godliness should have been led to countenance, much less to recommend, a plan of interpreting the divine oracles, in many respects the most futile, absurd and dangerous that can possibly be conceived ; and by which the sacred writings may be obliged to say any thing, every thing, or nothing, according to the fancy, peculiar creed, or caprice of the interpreter." And Milner declares that " a thick mist for ages pervaded the Christian world, supported by Origen's allegorical manner of interpretation. The learned alone were considered as guides, implicitly to be followed; and the vulgar, when the literal sense was hissed off the stage, had nothing to do but to follow their authority wherever it might lead them." This, then, was, the system, "pernicious," "unhappy," "mischievous," "lamentable to every friend of genuine Christianity," injurious beyond every thing else, casting dark- ness over the whole field of inspired truth, throwing un- certainty over all Christian hope, and, in the hands of its own author, making the Bride of Christ the daughter of the devil ! TIIIS was the system by which the glorious anticipations 250 THE LAST TIMES. of the primitive church were declared mere fable ! THIS is the system which modern Christians may thank for striking from their creed the sublime hopes of this world's ultimate renovation and Christ's personal reign over it in eternal peace ! I should think that the school of spiritualizers have nothing to boast of in the line of their paternity. But there was another matter relating to this period, the influence of which gradually increased and spread through succeeding ages, prompting men to lay hold of any artifice or device to get rid of the primitive millenarian doctrine. I refer to the conversion of the Emperor Constantino, and the consequent elevation of the church to the patronage of the civil government. " It was the constant and uniform opinion of the church previous to this period," says Brooks, "that Rome would become the seat of Antichrist ; that the empire would be divided into ten kingdoms; that then Antichrist would be revealed and prosper for a time ; and that, after the reigning power should have suffered a signal discomfiture, the dominion should be altogether taken from the Eternal City. Such a notion could not be palatable to the Roman emperor, if known to him ; and the less so if it was further understood that some had already mused in their hearts whether the emperor himself were not personally the Antichrist. These things must have been very perplexing to those ecclesiastics now mingling with the court who were of a compliant and secular spirit : which may be judged of, when we find an honest, bold and godly man like Lactantius expressing him- self on these topics with avowed reluctance. . . . The con- venient explication, however, was soon discovered and adopted by many, that Antichrist was pagan Rome, and that from the date of Constantino's conversion the millennium commenced." A strange millennium and binding of Satan that, which com- prised the rancorous dissensions, bickerings, persecutions and mischievous strifes that originated in the Arian controversy ! PERVERSIONS OF OUR DOCTRINE. 251 Yet able men maintained the foolish idea. Others betook themselves to the work of raising questions to obscure the divine authority of the Apocalypse, in which the doctrine of the millennium is taught. And all to make the Christian creed agreeable to the pride and vanity of a lloman emperor ! After a while, when the Bishop of Rome came to be ele- vated to the high rank of universal father, the embarrassment became still greater. "The inconvenience of explaining Rome to be the capital city of Antichrist was more sensibly felt than ever, and could not be asserted without giving occasion for the very obvious conclusion that the bishop of Rome would some day apostatize, together with the church of which he was the head. Accordingly, from the time of Jus- tinian, efforts were both openly and clandestinely made to get rid of the doctrine altogether, by removing or corrupting the evidence in its favor, or by affixing to it the stigma of heresy. Pope Damascus endeavored peremptorily to put it down by a decree. And some works of the fathers which were in favor of it were successfully suppressed, and others were altered or interpolated to make them read as was desired." (Brooks' Elements of Interpretation, pp. 48-60.) You will thus perceive how sycophancy, villany, corruption and vanity combined with Origen's pernicious obscurations of holy writ for the suppression of the primitive and apos- tolic doctrine of the millennium. There was yet another particular which was made to con- tribute materially to the process of cheating the church out of its ancient hopes. Like all other doctrines of the Bible, this respecting the millennium has suffered in the hands of some of its advocates. Some of its early believers spoke of it in a manner liable to perversion, or connected it with fancies or fables which have nothing to do with it. Cerinthus was a heretic; and yet he had advocated the doctrine of Christ's personal reign on earth, and arrayed its scenes in the fancies 252 THE LAST TIMES. of his own carnal heart. Here was a fine chance to stigma- tize the whole thing as a sensual and heretical dream, which was not suffered to pass unimproved. Irenrcus had also put upon record a floating story that the earth, in the millennuim, will be so productive that "a grain of wheat will produce ten thousand heads ; and each head will yield ten thousand grains; and each grain will yield ten pounds of flour; and other fruits will yield seeds and herbage in the same proportion !" &c. That the earth will be extraordinarily fruitful in the good days to come, is distinctly declared in the Scriptures. Joel says, "The mountains shall drop down new wine, and the hills flow with milk." Yet the excessive exaggerations of the matter by some enthusiastic persons were precious morsels for those who wished to destroy the millenarian hopes. On other subjects, wild caricatures furnished no ground for their rejec- tion ; but upon this no allowances could be made. And then, as now, these innocent extravagances were most unjustly, but still effectively, paraded around by the opposers of our doctrine, to bring it into disrepute, and to defame it as a mere fancy of over-credulous and weak people. Such, then, were the processes, facilitated by the growing corruptions of the times, by which the doctrines of the pri- mitive church on this subject were suppressed and branded as heresy. Can any man do justice to himself, or to the revela- tions of his God, and not appeal from a decision thus brought about, and recoil from it with indignation and abhorrence ? It was the decision of sycophancy, deceit and unholy degrada- tions and perversions of the law and the testimony. And yet the Christian world, to this day, has not recovered from it. But God did not leave himself without witnesses. From the times of Origen to Augustin, and down into papal ages, we can still find many distinguished names whose authority was distinctly given in favor of millenarian views. Among these were Apollinarius, Lactantius, Victorinus, many of the THE VIEAVS OF LUTHER. 253 members of the Council of Nice, Epiphanius, Paulinus, Cris- pold, Norbert and others. But the ages of darkness came. Star after star went out, until the world was at its cloudy mid- night. And the hope of the millennial reign, with all other great doctrines of the Scripture, slept, until God called Lu- ther, and the light of Christianity's renewal came. What were this great man's views upon this subject, is no- where specifically given. Yet he has left enough on record to demonstrate that his sentiments differed materially from those generally prevalent. 1. His method of interpreting the Scriptures was the mil- lenarian method. On Deuteronomy he says, " I here once more repeat, what I have so often insisted on, that the Chris- tian should direct his efforts towards understanding the so- called literal sense of Scripture, which alone is the substance of faith and of Christian theology, which alone will sustain him in the hour of trouble and temptation, and which will triumph over sin, death and the gates of hell, to the praise and glory of God. The allegorical sense is usually uncertain, and by no means safe to build our faith upon ; for it depends for the most part on human opinion only, on which if a man lean, he will find it to be no better than the Egyptian reed. Therefore, ORIGEN, Jerome, and similar of the fathers, are to be avoided, with the whole of that Alexandrian school which abounds in this spe-cies of interpretation." 2. He denied that there will be a millennium of universal righteousness and peace before Christ comes. He says, " They (the pope and his rabble) shall be preserved until the coming of Christ, whose most bitter enemies they are and ever have been." He says that " the gospel shall continue to be preached even to the end of time, but not so as that all men shall repent and accept of it; for this shall never be; the devil will not suffer things to be brought so far, and the world without him is the enemy of the word, and will not be ad- 22 254 THE LAST TIMES. monished. There shall, therefore, be and remain in the world manifold perversions of faith and religion." And again he says, " The last days shall be days of unmeasured wickedness, as Christ says, ' When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth ?' " 3. Luther taught that the earth shall be restored to its original excellence, and that it shall be the residence of the glorified saints. On 2 Pet. iii. 13, he says, " God has pro- mised through the prophets, here and elsewhere, that he will make heaven ancl earth new again. How it shall be, we know not, except that the promise is that heaven and earth shall become such that no sin shall be in them, but righteous- ness only, and that they shall be the residence of the children of God This text teaches that we shall live upon earth, and that the entire heaven and earth shall become a paradise of God." 4 Luther spoke of Christ's kingship in a way which can be justified only on the supposition that he is to reign literally and personally in this world. On the second Psalm he says, "Christ was appointed King upon the holy Mount Zion. This is particularly to be remarked ; for the Holy Ghost mentions the corporeal Zion, that we may be assured that this king is divinely appointed, and is a real Man. . . . The Person and the place are appointed and made known. The Person is the Son of God, and he is King in Zion; that is, the Son of David, and the heir of David ; and he who was promised to David to be the King over the circumcised people over whom David reigned. We are, therefore, to expect this man to teach in Zion, and to reveal himself in Zion, because he is ap- pointed of God to be King of Zion The eternal Father himself crowned him to be King of Zion, on, Mount Zion, in the city of Jerusalem He is the Son of God, yet born a man corppreally, that he might receive the throne of his father David, and rule in Zion." The present form of Christ's king- OF MELANCTIION. 255 dom lie describes as that in which he " reigneth no otherwise than as master of a hospital amongst the sick, poor, and dis- eased," but as to be followed by another "of glory and abso- lute felicity, in which sin with its attendants shall trouble man no more." 5. Luther believed that the great purposes of God's mercy would reach their consummation at the end of the six thou- sand years from the creation, according to the saying of Elias and the belief of the primitive church. 6. Luther believed and taught that this consummation was to be expected every day. On Daniel xii. 7, he says, " I ever keep it before me, and I am satisfied, that the last day must be before the door; for the signs predicted by Christ and the apostles Peter and Paul have all now been fulfilled, the trees put forth, the Scriptures are green and blooming. That we cannot know the day, matters not ; some one else may point it out ; things are certainly near their end." Again, "We cer- tainly have nothing now to wait for but the end of all things." Again, " Let us not think that the coming of Christ is far off. Let us look up with uplifted heads, and with a longing and cheerful mind expect our Redeemer's coming. Though the signs may seem uncertain, yet no man can despise them with- out danger." " I persuade myself, verily, that the day of judgment will not be absent full three hundred years more. God will not, cannot, suffer this wicked world much longer." Melancthon taught in the same style. He insisted that the Mahometan empire and the papacy shall not be destroyed till the time of the resurrection of the dead; that the world would endure six thousand years in its present state, and then enter upon a millennary Sabbath according to the saying of Elias; and that "we may be sure that this aged world is not far from its end." Thus, with the dawn of renewed Christianity, we see the glimmerings again of the ancient faith upon this subject. 256 THE LAST TIMES. Gradually, slowly, and against various hindrances, it once more came forth to the view of mankind. Many of the English Reformers were decidedly millenarian. In all reformed Chris- tendom mighty men of God (such as Comenius, Jerieu, Sera- rius, Poiret, Mede, Burnet, Peterson, Spener, Lange, Bengel, Delitzsh, Oetinger, Stilling, Lavater, Sander and Hoffmann) rose up to defend and proclaim the hopes of Justin, Irenaeus and Tertullian. Just as men studied the prophecies, and read them as God caused them to be written, the advocates of the ancient faith increased, until now we can number some of the greatest, wisest, holiest and most eloquent men upon earth among the defenders of the sublime hopes of the millenarian creed. Nor is our doctrine that barren and useless thing which its enemies have represented it to be. Its influence, wherever believed, has been salutary and comforting. Dodwell testifies, " It was one principal cause of the fortitude of the primitive Christians, who even coveted martyrdom in hopes of being partakers of the privileges and glories of the martyrs in the first resurrection." Bishop Newton endorses this statement as "just." Gibbon says that as long as this error (as he calls it) was permitted to subsist in the church, it was productive of the most salutary effects on the faith and practice of Chris- tians, who lived in the awful expectation of that moment when the globe itself, and all the various race of mankind, should tremble at the appearance of their divine Judge." Bush, though an enemy to this doctrine, says, " "We have no difficulty in supposing the belief in the millenarian error was calculated to produce, and did produce, results of a most auspicious character, which a different construction of the sacred oracles would have failed to effect." Such testimony, from such sources, is sufficient. Grapes do not grow upon thorns, nor figs upon thistles. "A corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit." PRIMITIVE AND MODERN FAITH. 257 Everywhere the Scriptures refer us to Christ's coming and kingdom as the great motive to repentance, holiness and watchfulness. The Savior commands us to watch and pray, because we know not what hour the Lord cometh. Our mo- deration is to be made known unto all men, for the reason that "the Lord is at hand." Amid all the calamities and disturbances that howl around us, we are to lift up our heads, and stand unmoved, " for the day of our redemption draweth nigh." And who does not see and feel that if we did really believe the solemn truth that any day we may witness Christ's final appearing, we would be much more circumspect, prayer- ful and diligent at our posts ? The practical effects of such a faith would be like a resurrection to our dead and slumbering churches. It would be like a new Pentecost to the wilted hopes of our degenerate Christianity. Brethren, there is one thought more to which I must give utterance in this connection. It relates to the difference between primitive and modern faith and hope. It would seem as if the church had quite drifted away from her ancient moorings. The early Christians dwelt upon no subject more than that of the coming and kingdom of the Son of man. But who among the great mass of living professors is looking for that glorious advent which is to consummate all the gracious purposes of God? Who is expecting Christ? Who believes that his appearing is at hand ? Who acts now from the great idea of impending judgment ? AVho is not dream- ing of a millennium first ? If Christ were now to come, how many of you could look up and say, " This is my Lord ; I have waited for him ; blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord !" Would not such an occurrence rather fill you with dismay, and make you cry out in surprise and despair ? Such was not the mental condition of the first Christians, who suffered, looking for the coming of the Savior. They looked for him every day; most of you are not looking for him at all, R 22* 258 THE LAST TIMES. They looked for him with desire and hope ; most of you never think of his coming but with fear and dread. They thirsted for it, and longed for the scenes it is to reveal ; many of you rather wish that Christ might never come, and would be more comfortable if you could think that the whole thing were a fable. They watched every turn in human affairs, in the hope that the next would bring their Redeemer from the heavens and give them the kingdom ; but, amid the most wonderful commotions in society that man ever witnessed, people now stand callous and unmoved, as if they had nothing to hope for and no interests to lose ! Alas, alas ! it would seem as if all the hardness and unbelief of eighteen centuries were accumu- lating upon this generation. "Ask thy father, and he will shew thee ; thy elders, and they will tell thee." There is but one way of safety left. We must take the gospel the simple gospel as Christ has given it and make it reality in our experience and our hopes, or we must take death and everlasting despair. The decree of the Eternal has gone forth, and we must be hid in Christ or perish. We are hemmed in to this, and there is no escape. All other depend- ence is vain. The very ground beneath our feet is quaking and gliding away. And, unless we plant ourselves firmly and at once upon the Rock of ages, we shall soon find ourselves tossing upon the boisterous flood of a starless and rayless eternity. Behold and wonder ; but do not despise and perish. Rise ; call upon God. What you do, do quickly. And may Jehovah be our portion, and helper, and everlasting friend ! Amen. ELEVENTH DISCOURSE. VTHEN SHALL CHRIST COME ? THE TIME NOT WHOLLY A SECRET RELATION OF CHRIST'S COMING, IN POINT OF TIME, TO OTHER THINGS PREDICTED IN THE SCRIPTURES FIRST METHOD OF COM- PUTING THE TIME, OR MILLENNIAL SEPTENARY SECOND METHOD, OR 1260 YEARS' DOMINANCE OF THE PAPACY THIRD METHOD, OR THE VIALS OF WRATH. JAMES v. 8: StablisJi your hearts: for the cominy of the Lord draweth nigh* IF, then, it is a truth that Christ the Lord shall return again to this world, as the Scriptures so explicitly affirm, and as is acknowledged in all the creeds, confessions and hymn- books in Christendom, one of the most stirring questions con- cerning it is, WHEN SHALL HE COME ? This question was again and again asked by the disciples while he was yet on earth, and must ever possess a lively interest to every thoroughly Christian heart. But, of all questions relating to our faith and hope, this is, perhaps, the most difficult to be answered. Nay, so far as respects the precise day or year, it cannot be answered by man or angel. " The times and seasons the Father hath put in his own power." It is true, however, that we need not remain in such total ignorance on the subject as that that day must needs come upon us unawares. Daniel was indeed directed to "shut, up the words and seal the book" of his visions concerning it ; but they were to remain " closed up and sealed till the tima 259 260 THE LAST TIMES. of the end" only; and he assures us that then "the wise shall understand," though " the wicked shall not understand." Jesus himself has described the signs which are to precede it, hy which we ruay as infallibly judge of the nearness of the end as we judge of the proximity of summer by the budding of the trees. Paul says expressly that " the children of light" " are not in darkness, that that day should overtake them as a thief." And in the Apocalypse, which is specially devoted to the portrayal of the grand scenes of Christ's revelation and the events which are to precede and accompany it, the particular promise is given, " Blessed is he that readeth and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein ;" which certainly implies the possibility of being able to understand these things with some good degree of certainty if we will only investigate with proper attention and prayerfulness. Hence Luther expressed it as his belief that God would yet raise up some one who should be able to reckon up the times, and with certainty hit upon the very day. I hold, therefore, that, instead of ren- dering ourselves chargeable with irreverent prying into the secrets of Deity by inquiring when Christ shall come, it is our hopeful duty so to inquire ; and that, if any man lack wisdom to understand what the Scriptures have said upon this point, he may ask God and expect it to be given him as liberally as upon any other subject. It is noted, in commenda- tion of the prophets, that they " searched what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify;" and why should not similar searching be commendable in us ? When the disciples asked the Lord, " Tell us when shall these things be, and what shall be the sign of thy coming and of the end of the age," he kindly entertained their request; and now that we are bordering so near upon the time, will he be angry with us for pressing the same inquiry? And when the Pharisees and Sadducees came to him with their tempting WHEN SHALL CHRIST COME. 261 skepticism, did he not rebuke them as hypocrites who could " discern the face of the sky," but would not put themselves to the pains to "discern the signs of the times"? Let us beware, then, how we scout this question, lest we "fall through the same example of unbelief ;" and let us reverently approach the holy oracles to learn what God has revealed to us, to ascer- tain our position in the calendar of prophecy and to make ready for the solemn scenes that are before us. May the Lord aid us in our inquiries ! Our question is, WHEN SHALL THE SON OP MAN COME ? I propose to consider it, first, relatively, by showing in what connections with other predicted events the Scriptures place the coming of Christ ; and second, absolutely, by showing to what period things are pointing as the time of the Savior's coming. 1. The Son of man shall come in a period of abounding apostasy, unbelief and wickedness. Such was the condition of the world when God sent the flood; and Jesus says, "As the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." Peter says, " There shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming?" Paul says of the coming of the Lord Jesus, " That day shall not come, except there come a falling away first;" and that "in the last days perilous times shall conie, 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 statements need no comment. Christ will come in a period of abounding guilt and faithless- ness. 2. He shall come in a period of revolutionary troubles, 262 THE LAST TIMES. political perplexities and great national agitations. Jesus says, " There shall be upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity ; the sea and the waves thereof roaring; men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things that 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." According to the Revelation of John, the final advent is to be immediately pre- ceded by the outpouring of sundry vials of wrath in quick succession, each one filling nations with trouble, anguish and desperation. The Psalmist says of the same period that God shall speak to the kings and rulers of the earth in his wrath, " and vex them in his sore displeasure." This point is also sufficiently plain and well settled. 3. The Son of man shall come while the ten ultimate divi- sions or kingdoms of the Roman empire are still standing. This is clearly revealed in Daniel's interpretations of Nebu- chadnezzar's dream of " the great image." That image sym- bolized the four great monarchies that were to exist and suc- ceed each other upon earth. The first was the Babylonian, or golden head of the image, the lion with eagle's wings. The second, or silver breast and arms, was the Medo-Persian, the great-toothed devouring bear. The third, or brazen loins and thighs, was the Macedonian or Alexander's kingdom, the leopard with four wings and four heads. And the fourth, or iron legs and feet, was the Roman empire, the dreadful, terrible and mighty ten-horned beast which devoured and trampled down every thing before it. The ten toes, or ten horns, are the ten kingdoms into which the Roman empire was divided by the barbarian invasions, and which now stand as the representatives of the old Roman empire. And Daniel tells us that " in the days of these kings (denoted by the ten toes and horns) shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom." He says that he beheld until these thrones were cast down, HE WILL COME BEFORE THE JEWS ARE RESTORED. 263 and the time that the beast was slain was the time when the judgment should sit, and "one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven." The same is taught in the visions of John. The ten-horned beast of the thirteenth chapter can be none other than the Roman empire, and its ten horns its ten divisions. And, according to the nineteenth chapter, it continues in existence, persecuting the saints and warring against the Lamb, until destroyed by the personal descent of him whose name is The Word of God, King of kings, and Lord of lords. This point, then, is also suffi- ciently established. 4. The Son of man shall come before the Jews as an entire people shall be restored to Palestine. There will be a portion of Jacob restored before the Lord comes, but not the entire race. It is expressly said that when God assembles Jacob and gathers the remnant of Israel, "their King shall pass before them, and the Lord on the head of them:" (Micah ii. 12,13.) "The Lord will go before them, and the God of Israel will be their rearward:" (Isa. lii. 12.) He must there- fore be on earth before this general gathering of the Jews takes place. It is further evident from the twelfth of Zecha- riah, the twenty-eighth and twenty-ninth of Ezekiel, and the eighteenth and nineteenth of Revelation, that Christ is per- sonally present when the terrible destruction occurs to the armies that invade Palestine; whilst it is plain from the sixty- sixth of Isaiah that it is only after that terrific overthrow that the great and triumphant assembling of Israel takes place. It is those who escape that awful destruction that are to go to the nations, Tarshish, Pul, Lud, Tubal, Javan, and the isles afar off, and make known the wonders they witnessed: and only then shall the Gentiles bring all the children of Israel out of all nations, upon horses, and in chariots, and in litters, and upon mules, and upon swift vehicles, to God's holy mountain Jerusalem, for an offering unto the Lord: (Isa. Ixvi. 19, 20.) 204 THE LAST TIMES. It is also explicitly stated that the time of Israel's deliverance is when Christ personally comes; not before. So Paul affirms in Romans xi. 26, which he says is the teaching of the pro- phets. So the Psalmist says : " When the Lord shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory." And so Zechariah de- clares, whn God shall "pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication, they shall look upon him whom they have pierced." Christ will therefore come before the general restoration of Israel. 5. He will come while the papacy and the Man of sin still live and continue in power. It is now established, as well as any interpretation of prophecy can be, that the "little horn" in Daniel's vision (Dan. vii. 824) denotes the papal power. And he says, " I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them, until the Ancient of days came." It must live on, then, until Christ comes until "the judgment shall sit." That the "Man of sin, the son of perdition," in 2d Thessalouians, is the pope and his apostasy, is also clearly ascertained, and universally agreed by Protest- ants. But Paul describes him as pressing his work of deceit and blasphemy until " destroyed by the appearing of Christ's own presence." And in John's account of the doings of Jesus in the great day when he shall come forth in his wrath, we find this self-same monster still existing, still arrayed against God, and only taken and destroyed by the administrations of the great day of God Almighty. The Son of man shall there- fore certainly come whilst the papacy still lives. 6. He shall come in a period when a far-sounding cry shall be raised in slumbering Christendom that his advent is at hand. The Savior tells us that in that period "the kingdom, of heaven shall be likened unto ten virgins who went forth to meet the bridegroom; but while the bridegroom tarried they all slumbered and slept. And at midnight there was a cry HE WILL COME UNEXPECTED BY THE WORLD. 205 made, Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him." That this parable portrays the condition of the church in the period of the advent, there can be no room for doubt. Christ, in the preceding chapter, was engaged in a description of his coming and the end of the age. And this is but a continuation of that discourse. " THEN/' says he, that is, in the time when what I have said shall be fulfilled, then shall the kingdom of heaven the community of professing Christians be like the ten virgins. They shall sleep with regard to this great sub- ject. And while they sleep the announcement shall go forth that the bridegroom is coming. The same thing is set forth in the Apocalypse, where, in connection with the scenes of the last days, the announcement of the blessed Savior is, ''Behold, I come as a thief; blessed is he that watcheth!" All this shows that in the period of the advent, a cry declar- ing his coming shall be poured upon the dull ear of Chris- tendom. 7. But, notwithstanding the cry, Christ shall come when but few will at all believe that his advent is near. He says himself, "When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?" "In such an hour as ye think not, the Son of man cometh." "Evil servants shall say in their hearts, My Lord delayeth his coming." Some will scoff and say, "Where is the promise of his coming?" People will be say- ing "Peace and safety," when sudden destruction shall come upon them. " As in the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage," self-contentedly pursuing the vanities and pleasures of earth, "and knew not until the flood came and took them all away: so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." From these plain statements of the word of God, two things may be remarked. The first is, that there certainly is to be no thousand years of universal righteousness and peace pre- vious to Christ's coming. The second is, that we need fix 23 26(5 THE LAST TIMES. upon no other times for Christ's coming than the times in which we live. I proceed, then, to the second branch of the subject, in which I proposed to bring forward what light can be obtained for a somewhat more direct and categorical answer to the question, When shall Christ come? Nor is there as much barrenness upon this line of inquiry as may be supposed. There are sundry distinct and independent processes by which information may be gathered. And if we should find upon examination that these several processes harmonize in their results, we may take them as mutually corroborative, the one as sustaining the truthfulness of the other, whilst the com- bined testimony of all, if found to agree, must create a very strong probability in favor of the period to which they point. The first method of computing the time I will introduce by a quotation from Johnston, a distinguished writer on the pro- phecies. " Through the whole Scripture, both of the Old and New Testaments/' says he, "there is a striking typical repre- sentation of some great and important Sabbath, as a great septenary that has not yet taken place, and which evidently appears to be the millenarian septenary, as the great Sabbath of the whole earth. God blessed the seventh day, and hal- lowed it. In the Decalogue this peculiar distinguishment of the seventh day, or weekly sabbath, was most solemnly renewed. Every seventh year was appointed a sabbatical year. And the commencement of the year of jubilee, which was every fiftieth year, was to be fixed by the running of a septenary of sabbati- cal years. ' Thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven years, and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years.' The numbei seven, because used in Scripture to complete all the sacred divisions of time, was regarded by the Jews as the symbol of perfection, and is used in this sense in Scripture. The ques- THE SEVENTH MILLENNIUM. 2G7 tion then arises, Is it to be supposed that all these events, which are interwoven with the Mosaic dispensation, which was itself symbolical or typical, and which are introduced into the New Testament, and abound so much in the book of Revela- tion, have no antetype to correspond to them? no great sab- batical septenary to which they all point and in which they all shall be accomplished ? Is it not highly probable that they are all typical of the seventh millenary of the earth, which is the great Sabbath?" To this I may answer that it is not only probable, but the nest thing to absolute certainty. When we go back into antiquity, whether Jewish, heathen or Christian, we find a general and deeply-seated belief that the world shall endure six thousand years in its secular and toiling state, answering to the six days of the creation; and that then will follow a thousand years of holy rest, peace and joy, the millennial Sabbath, or golden period of the world. Bishop Russell, of Scotland, says, "It is found in the most ancient of those commentaries of the Old Testament which we owe to the learning of the Rabbinical school;" and that "there is no room for doubt that the notion preceded by several cen- turies the introduction of the Christian faith." It is given as a tradition of the house of Elias, and thought by many to date back to the great prophet Elijah. Professor Bush, in his book against the millennium, speaks of this tradition, and says, "It is but fair to admit, that, as there is nothing in the Scriptures which directly contradicts it, it may be well founded." Ac- cording to Plutarch, the Chaldeans had a similar belief. Zoroaster also taught it. Daubuz says that the Tuscans held it, and that it is retained among the Persians to this day. The Magi entertained it. We saw in a previous discourse that it was held and inculcated, as a branch of Christian truth, by Barnabas, Justin Martyr, Papias, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, and all orthodox Christians for the first centuries of the Chris- tian era. Luther entertained it. Melancthon wrote it on the 268 THE LAST TIMES. fly-leaf of the Bible, as a matter not to be disputed. Thousands of divines since his time have received it as part of their faith. And when we come to place together certain state- ments of the Scriptures, there seems to me to be a weight of testimony in its favor fully warranting us in setting it down as sacred truth. Look at these sentences : " In six days the Lord made heaven and earth." "On the seventh day he rested and was refreshed." "One day is with the Lord as a thousand years." "THERE REMAINETH THEREFORE A REST ffaftjlarifftios, a KEEPING OF SABBATH TO THE PEOPLE OF GOD." I have shown that Christ will come before the millennium, not after it. The millennium is the seventh thousand years, or great Sabbath, of the world. Now then, if we can ascer- tain in what period of the world's age we live, we may form some idea of the time when the Son of man shall come. To g ascertain this with certain accuracy is impossible; but we may approximate the truth with some degree of reliability. The commonly-received chronology, which makes the world four thousand and three years old when Christ was born, is that of Archbishop Usher, who wrote about one hundred and fifty years ago. According to his computation, the world would yet have to continue one hundred and forty-one years before reaching the commencement of the seventh thousand. Dr. Jarvis, whose examinations are more recent, makes the world four thousand and nineteen years old when Christ was born; which would leave one hundred and twenty-five years to intervene before the millennium. There is however a ques- tion among chronologists, as to the length of time that elapsed during the reign of the Judges after the entrance into Canaan. According to 1 Kings vi. 1, the age of the world at Christ's birth was one hundred years less than it is made by taking the reigu of the Judges according to Paul's reckoning in Acts xiii. 19, 20. That Paul's account is to be taken in preference to the other OPINIONS -OF CnRONOLOGISTS. 269 lias been very satisfactorily shown by Clinton, and is now very generally conceded by chronologists. With this correction, then, on the basis of Usher and Jarvis, there would yet remain twenty-five or thirty years to the completion of the six thou- sand from Adam. And this brings the matter near to what other learned investigators have made it. Sylvester Bliss, author of a valuable "Analysis of Sacred Chronology," com- putes the age of the world at Christ's birth at four thousand one hundred and twenty years; which leaves twenty-four to com- plete the six thousand. The Rev. R. C. Shinieall, in his '-Age of the World," reckons ttcelce years from the present (1856) as completing the siz thousand. The Rev. C. Bowen, whose esti- mates and tables were adopted by Dr. Elliott and affixed to his exposition of the Apocalypse, computes the age of the world at the Savior's birth at four thousand one hundred and twenty- cight years; leaving ten //ears to the beginning of the millennial Sabbath. And Fynes Clinton, according to Bickersteth, "one of the ablest chronologers of the present times," whom Bowen mainly follows, and whose researches are deemed very valu- able, computes the world's age at four thousand one hundred and thirty-eight years when Christ was born; lea ring but six years until the serenth thousand shaU b'jin. If, then, we be allowed to correct Usher and Jan-is by more recent investigations, we have the concurrent testimony of these half-dozen learned and received chronol-jgists, that the. six thousand y ars from Adam shall be fulfilled icithin the pre- sent century, IN LESS THAN FIFTY YEARS ! And if Christ is to come at the beginning of the millennium, or seventh thou- sand years, you may see how near we are approaching to that august event. Let us pass now to another method of computation on this subject, and see whither that will condiu t us. The " little horn" described in the seventh of Daniel, the prophet declares, " made war with the saints, and prevailed 23 270 THE LAST TIMES. against them, until the Ancient of days came, and judgment was given to the saints ;" that is, until the coming of Christ. He also tells us the duration of the period in which the saints are thus to be afflicted. " They shall be given into his hand until a time and times, and the dividing of time," or three years and a half. These are of course prophetic or symboli- cal years, in which each day stands for a year ; as in Numb, xiv. 13 ; Ez. iv. 4-6 ; Rev. ii. 10 ; Dan. ix. 24 ; where this matter is sufficiently explained, a day standing for a year. So Melancthou and the Magdeburg centuriators understood them. Professor Stuart says, " The great mass of interpreters in tho English and American world have, for many years, been wont to understand the days designated in Daniel and the Apoca- lypse as the representatives or symbols of years. I have found it difficult to trace the origin of this general, I might say, almost UNIVERSAL custom." Professor Bush says, " In taking a day as the prophetical time for a year, I believe you are sustained by the soundest exegesis, as well as fortified by the high names of Mede, Sir Isaac Newton, Faber, Scott, Bishop Newton, Keith, and a host of others If the old year- day is wrong, not only has the whole Christian world been led astray for ages by a mere ignis-fatuus of false hermeneu- tics, but the church is at once cut loose from every chronolo- gical mooring, and set adrift on the open sea, without the vestige of a beacon, lighthouse, or star by which to determine her bearings or distances from the desired millennial haven to which she had hoped she was tending." Three years and a half, as men anciently reckoned, contain twelve hundred and sixty days. Twelve hundred and sixty years, then, is the length of the period from the giving of the saints into the hand of the little horn to the judgment and coming of the Ancient of days. Hence, if we can ascertain when the saints were given into the hand of the little horn, we may judge of the time when Christ is likely to come. 1260 YEARS OF THE LITTLE IIORX. 271 I have said that this little horn denotes the papacy. Every unbiassed investigator must come to this conclusion. The terrible beast on which it grew certainly represents the Roman empire ; and the papacy arose upon the Roman empire. It grew up among ten other horns of this beast, which are ten kings or kingdoms ; the papacy sprung into being from among the ten separate but closely-related powers into which the old Roman empire was divided by the barbarian invasions. Before this little horn, three of the other horns were plucked up ; the papacy possessed itself of the Gothic king- dom of Odoacer, which fell in 493, the Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric, which fell in 554, and the Lombardic kingdom of Alboin, which fell in 774; and thus, as proclaimed in the bull against Queen Elizabeth, he subdued three kingdoms. This little horn was "diverse from the first," or other ten; the papacy is an ecclesiastico-political establishment, altogether different in its elements from the other kingdoms in which it sprung up. "In this (little) horn were eyes, like the eyes of a man." The papacy claims to be a universal overseer, and is full of cunning, subtlety and far-sighted plans. It had also "a mouth speaking great things" "great words against the Most High," and " his look was more stout than his fellows." The papacy has ever been characterized by its pompous, arrogant, sacrilegious and blasphemous as- sumptions. There never has been a king or potentate on earth who has ventured upon such pretensions as the pope of Rome. The little horn " thought to change times and laws." Since the times of Julius Caesar, none but the papacy has ever arrogated the right to regulate the calendar, or to dictate and annul the legislation of the world. This little horn prevailed against the saints, and wearied them out, and had them in his hand. The papacy is the 272 THE LAST TIMES. power from which the humble confessors of Jesus have suf- fered more than from Nero and Caligula. In every particular the prophetic description fits the papacy, and fits nothing else. The giving of the saints into the hands of the papacy was the investiture of the popes with universal jurisdiction, over- sight and dominion over the church. Clothing them with such power was most literally and effectually giving the saints into their hand. Let us inquire, then, when this occurred. History presents two dates, at which different interpreters have thought they could trace the act which gave the saints into the hands of the papacy. The one is the year 533 or 534, when the Emperor Justinian gave the pope precedence of all his episcopal brethren; the other is the year 606, when the Emperor Phocas declared the pope head of all tho churches, and sole universal bishop. Newton has mentioned other dates, such as the years 727, when the pope and the Romans finally broke their connection with the Eastern em- peror; 755, when the pope obtained the exarchate of Ra- venna; 774, when he acquired the kingdom of Lornbardy; and 787, when the worship of images was first established, and the pope's supremacy endorsed by the second Council of Nice. But neither of these dates mentioned by Newton an- swers to the case before us ; and Newton himself does not venture to say upon which of them we are to rely. And the earlier date which goes back to the time of Justinian seems equally inadequate to answer to that for which we are inquir- ing. The truth is, that the papal power was not the product of a single day or year. It grew. But the great and effective act which made the pope lord of Christendom, and thus gave the saints into his hand, was the decree of Phocas in A.D. 606. It is to this date that the great mass of the most accredited interpreters refer us in connection with this subject. Taking this as the date, then, when the papacy obtained ita SUNDRY AUTHORITIES. 273 power, and adding twelve hundred and sixty years, the given period of its dominancy, we arc carried dowu to the year 1866 or 1867 as the time when Christ shall come and the judgment sit, the exact date which Bowen and others have hit upon by an entirely different process. The authorities sustaining this computation are very nu- merous, and include some of the weightiest of names. I will refer to a few. Baronius, in his ecclesiastical annals, and other Romish historians, have referred to the decree of Phocas in 606, as the first effective official acknowledgment of the pope's supre- macy. Mosheim says, " The most learned writers, and those who are most remarkable for their knowledge of antiquity, are generally agreed that Boniface III. engaged Phocas, that abominable tyrant, to take from the bishop of Constantinople the title of oecumenical or universal Lisltop, and to confer it upon the Roman pontiff; and thus wit* t/f papal supremacy jit'st introduced." Luther alludes to the year 606 as a notable commencing papal epoch. Osiander, one of his first disciples, has done the same. Flacius, also a pupil of Luther and Melancthon, represented the twelve hundred and sixty days as having com- menced in 606, and by consequence as running out in 1866. Robert Fleming, about one hundred and fifty years ago, in his little book on the Rise and Fall of Papacy, said, '-We may justly reckon that the papal head took its rise from that remarkable year, 606, when Phocas did in a manner devolve the government of the West upon him, l>y giving him the tide of universal LisJiop. From which period, if we date the twelve hundred and sixty years, they lead us down (as I said already) to the year 1866." David Simpson, a divine of the last century, says, " Some begin to reckon (the twelve hundred and sixty years) from the year 606, when the proud prelate of Rome was declared S 274 THE LAST TIMES. universal bishop. If this be right, (and he seems to bo strongly of that opinion,) then the Pope of Rome will be com- pletely destroyed about the year 1866," and Christ of course come ; for the papacy is to stand till Christ comes. Scott, the commentator, says, " The beginning of the twelve hundred and sixty years must be placed subsequent to the four first trumpets, on the subversion of the Western empire in 566. This made way for the pope. He became universal bishop in A.D. 606." The learned George Stanley Faber, who examined very deeply into these subjects, says, "The year which I have fixed upon for the date of the twelve hundred and sixty years, is the year 606, a year marked by so singular a combination of circumstances, that I know not how any other can with equal propriety be selected. If, then, I be right in my opinion, we are now removed but little more than sixty years from the commencement of the end of the vintage of God's wrath." This was written in 1805, and fixes 1866 as the time when things shall come to the scenes of their consummation. But I have not the time to multiply quotations. Chytroeus, Pareus, Whiston, Cogswell, Bryant, Elliott, Gumming, Junkin, Berg, and many more, have taken the same dates. This method of computing the time of the end is, therefore, not a mere conceit, but a thing commanding the belief of some of our ablest interpreters, and claiming our particular attention. I will only add the testimony of Luther, who, not long before his death, said, " I persuade myself verily that the day of judgment will not remain absent full three hundred years more;" according to which we are now living in the very period of the judgment. I would not be understood as hold- ing or teaching that Christ will certainly come in ten years from the present time. I do not feel authorized to fix upon any one specific date for that great event. But here we have two distinct and independent processes, sustained by the best THE SEVEN VIALS. 275 authorities on the subject, and both of which concur in the representation that the day of Christ's coming is near at hand, and lies within the limits of this present century. Well may we then take up the language of the text and say, " TIIE COMING OP THE LORD DRAWETH NIGH !" But there is still another method by which light may be thrown upon this mysterious subject. In the sixteenth chapter of Revelation we read of seven angels having seven vials of the wrath of God, which they pour out in quick succession upon the inhabitants of the earth. These vials are called " seven plagues," and evidently relate to " the last times." It is under the pouring out of the sixth vial that the coming of Christ is announced. And if we can identify the fulfillment of these plagues, and ascer- tain under which of them we are now living, we may form some idea of our probable nearness to the time of the Savior's coming. Let us then enter upon this inquiry. " And the first (angel) went and poured out his vial upon the earth ; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image." This, and what follows in the vision, is of course symbolic, and is to be interpreted by the laws which apply to symbolic lano-uao-e. " The land or earth, when distinguished from the o C / _ sea, rivers, fountains and heaven, denotes the population of an empire under a settled government. The ulcer denotes an analogous disease of the mind, a restlessness and rancor of passion exasperated by agitating and noxious principles and opinions, that fill it with a sense of obstruction, degradation and misery, resembling the torture of an ulcerated body." Accordingly, the best interpreters apply this vial to the first or incipient stages of the French Revolution. As Lord remarks, "No symbol can be conceived more suited to repre- sent the restlessness under injury, the ardor of resentment, 276 THE LAST TIMES. hate and revenge, the noxiousness and contagion of false principles and opinions, that marked the commencement of the political disquiets and agitations of the European states toward the close of the last century. . . . France received its first and largest tempest. But the angel, scattering a shower on Belgium, Holland and the Valley of the Rhine, crossed the Alps, steeping heights and recesses in the bitter flood, drenched the vales and plains of Italy, swept around over the German empire and the British isles, and finally dashed the vengeful dregs on the peninsula of Portugal and Spain and the distant southern shores of this continent." "And the second poured out his vial upon the sea, and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living thing died in the sea." " This denotes the second great act in the tragedy of the French Revolution, in which the people slaughtered one an- other in feuds, insurrections and civil wars, and extermi- nated with the dagger, the bayonet and the guillotine, all the influential ranks, king, queen, nobles, prelates, civil magis- trates, priests,' military commanders, soldiers, persons of illus- trious descent, of distinguished reputation, of talents, of wealth, and demagogues, political chiefs, who rose to conspicuity and influence by their acts as revolutionists." Every living soul in any way distinguished died in the sea of deadly blood ! So Lord, Faber and Cunninghame understand this vial. "And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters ; and they became blood." " This symbol denotes the vast bloodshed in other Apoca- lyptical kingdoms in the insurrections and wars which sprung out of the French Revolution. It commenced in Austria in 1792, and soon extended to Holland, Sardinia, Russia, Italy, Spain, England, Prussia, Switzerland, Denmark and Portugal, and continued with little intermission for more than twenty years, in which the blood of millions of the French was FOURTH AND FIFTH VIALS. 277 poured out on the soil of other kingdoms, millions of other nations in resisting their aggressions, and vast multitudes of both sexes put to death in the violence of revolution, the siege and sack of cities and the repression of insurrections." Lord, Faber, Cunninghame, Keith and Elliott. "And the fourth angel poured out his vial on the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which hath power over these plagues, and they re- pented not to give him glory." The sun, in the language of. symbols, denotes the civil power, or those who exercise government in a kingdom or state. This plague is accordingly interpreted of those oppres- sions and spoliations which resulted from previous wars and troubles, and with which the revolutionary rulers of France and contemporary authorities of other countries scorched and devoured their subjects. Alison says that a war of plunder, confiscation and slaughter was waged against the rich from mere envy and avarice, and thousands of families were re- duced from affluence to beggary. Time would fail for an enumeration of the di.stres.ses inflicted by the mad worship- pel's of reason and liberty, and even by Napoleon himself. History hardly contains a parallel to those times of wo. And yet the people repented not of their sins. Lord, Faber, Cun- ninghame, Keith, and others. ''And the fifth angel poured out his vial 1 the second part I am not so confident. John says, " I saw three unclean spirits, like frogs, come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are -vey/zara 3a'.;j.wu>v demon-spirits, -working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the war of that great day of God Almighty." This evidently refers to some new and strangely-successful turn in the affairs of the kingdom of darkness. Wonders are to he wrought. Demons are to be the agents. The move- ment is to combine the elements of paganism, European poli- tics, and the false religion of the papists. Its effect shall be to marshal the powers, of the world for their last conflict. And it is not at all improbable that we have the beginning of all this in the strange, infatuating, and widely-spreading abomination called " SPIRITUALISM." Paul most solemnly assures us that " The Spirit (of Gocfy tpeaketh expressly, fhct IN THE LATTER TIMES some shall depart from the faith, (jii'niij heed to seducing spirits, and di8affxa).ia.is datfJLOviwv TEACHINGS OP DEMONS speaking lies in hypocrisy:" (1 Tim. iv. 1, 2.) I cannot dwell upon this now ; but I am convinced that a careful investigation of this system of demon ism will show many and strong points of correspondence to what Paul and John have here written. It is yet in its incipiency. Time will reveal the truth. But enough is plain to show that we are now living in the period of the sixth vial. The fifth reached its acme eight years ago. The sixth certainly has begun. And it is in connection with this sixth vial that Jesus says, " BEHOLD, I COME." My brethren, look at it, and put not the solemn truth away from you. Here are three wholly different and independent methods of ascertaining something as to the period when our blessed Lord shall come ; and each of the three, according to our very best information on the subject, gives forth the 24* 282 THE LAST TIMES. distinct and firm testimony that we are at this moment treading the very margin of the great consummation. There is still another method of learning when the final advent is near, the presentation of which I will reserve for another discourse. But, look in whatever direction we may, we shall only find the evidence thickening that the time has wellnigh come. "The tide of pomp That beats upon the high shore of this world," is ebbing fast. Soon shall those great solemn words bo spoken, "Ix is DONE!" " Six thousand years of sorrow have wellnigh Fulfilled their tardy and disastrous course Over a sinful world ; and what remains Of this tempestuous state of human things Is merely as the working of the sea Before a calm that rocks itself to rest. The world appears To toll the death-bell of its own decease, And by the voice of all its elements To preach the general doom !" And after gathering together all the light within my reach, I say to you, in all seriousness and honesty, that I believe there are some listening to me now who will never taste of death till they see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. You may consider me beside myself if you will. You may take heed to my announcement, or you may despise it as folly. You may be wise, and prepare to meet God, or you may take the opiates of unbelief, and say, " No danger ! no danger !" But, in the name of that Jesus whom I believe to have sent me to you as his ambassador, I declare to you that " THE COMING OF THE LORD DRAWETH NIGH !" What, then, is to be done ? Shall we turn aside from our THE DUTY OF CHRISTIANS. 283 avocations and give ourselves up to dejection or the silly con- ceits of wild enthusiasts ? No, no, no. We must only stand the firmer to our posts. The command of Jesus is, " OCCUPY TILL I COME." We must keep steadfastly to the duties of our places, and do with our might what our hands find to do, and work and wait, and wait as we work, until Christ shall call to us from the heavens, " Well done, good and faithful servants; enter ye into the joy of your Lord!" He never meant that the promise of his coming should frighten us, or depress us, or make us unhappy. He meant it for the comfort of his people in their trials, to inflame their zeal, to inspire their hopes, and to serve as a sort of present compensation for their toils and sufferings. Instead of being discomfited, then, as we see the time drawing near, let us rather be joyful, and lift up our heads, and press for the crowns that are drawing so close. The faithless and the impenitent may well be alarmed and be moved to cry for mercy ; but for those who have laid up their treasures in the world to come, the scenes at hand are full of gladness. The admonition of the text is, "StablisJi your hearts." That is, we are to grasp firm hold of the exceeding great and precious promises of Jesus, and rest confidently upon God's sublime covenant of mercy, and make up our minds to stand or fall clasping the cross, and we shall be safe. We must settle our souls upon Him who is able to save to the uttermost, and give ourselves fully up to be his followers and servants, and he will not disown us in that great day. Though we may have been slumbering long upon Delilah's lap, if we will only rouse up and keep to our duty in Christ Jesus we shall have strength against all our foes and all our dangers. Let me exhort you, then, by the stirring solemnities of this theme, to be up and doing. "Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light." If you have been prayerless hitherto, begin at once to call upon that 28-4 THE LAST Savior who has never yet despised the cry of a sincere sup- pliant. If you have never avowed yourself a disciple of Jesus, do it at once, and put yourself within the range of that prof- fered grace which God has declared to be sufficient for you. "Be not afraid ; only believe." And if you are depressed, burdened, or cast down at the prospect before us, listen to the sweet voice of the Savior, as he tenderly says to you and to all, " COME UNTO ME, ALL YE THAT LABOR AND ARE HEAVY LADEN, AND I WILL GIVE YOU REST. TAKE MY YOKE UPON YOU, AND LEARN OF ME, AND YE SHALL FIND REST UNTO YOUR SOULS." TWELFTH DISCOURSE. RECAPITULATION FOURTH METHOD OF ASCERTAINING WHEN CHRIST SHALL COME, OR THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES THE SENTIMENTS OF DISTINGUISHED MEN RESPECTING THE NEARNESS OF THE END THE INTENSE DESIRABLENESS OF THE SAVIOR'S COMING CONCLUSION. LVKE xxi. 28: And when these things begin to come to pass, then look iip, and lift up your heads: for your redemption drawdli nigh. IT is now three months since I commenced discoursing to you upon the holy prophecies concerning " The Last Times." And though I have announced this as my last discourse in this series, I find that I have not uttered the half that I originally contemplated. I have presented only some frag- ments of the grand system of God's purposes, as I think I see it revealed in his holy word. I regret that I have not been able to say more and to say it better. Nevertheless, under the divine blessing, what I have said may not be in vain. It may serve to set you upon trains of thought and investigation, and thus conduct you to a knowledge of what is coming on the earth, which perhaps you would not other- wise have reached. I thank God that he has preserved my life and health to pursue these studies thus far, and that so many have given me their serious attention, notwithstanding the obstacles interposed by a winter of unwonted severity. The pleasure and profit which these efforts have given me more than repay for the toils they have cost, whilst I have the further comfort of knowing that they have been blest to tho 285 286 THE LAST TIMES. good of immortal souls. Prophecy was " written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope;" and in fulfillment of this end have I thus been engaged upon it. I preach for no other purpose than to render you wiser, better and happier. I stand here only to help you to become more heavenly in your thoughts, more angelic in your affections and more Christ-like in your character. And if ever I should lose sight of this great aim of my office, I should fear that my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth. It is, perhaps, the greatest failing of the Christians of this generation that they are too speculative and imitative in their religion. We are too easily satisfied with floating notions of what the Scriptures teach, without searching and verifying for ourselves. We are too prone to think it enough to comply with popular religious customs, and to assent indefi- nitely to the belief current among those around us. We do not draw our ideas and our hopes with sufficient directness from the fountains of truth, nor bring the teaching of reve- lation home to our hearts with the proper practical earnest- ness. We are orthodox enough, but too uu devout. We assent to the revealments of God, but we do not drink them in, and imbed them in our souls, and wrap them up in the warm embrace of our affections, as we should. Dr. Chalmers once said, " I have all my life viewed the truths of Christianity too much in the way of speculation, and as if at a distance. I have not closed with them ; I have not laid hold of them ; I have not apprehended them. I have been persuaded of the truth of the promise?, but not embraced them. With the exception of an occasional gleam of light and comfort from the freeness of the gospel, I have had no steady, habitual, personal sense of that freeness. I have abundantly ac- knowledged it, but have not used it." This is a sad confession, and a statement too true of many LUKEWARMNESS OF MODERN CHRISTIANS. 287 modern Christians even of the more reputable sort. What we need is a new baptism in the faith which appreciates the power of divine truth and sees and feels its reality. We need some spiritual solvent to reduce our knowledge to wis- dom and our intellectual assent to a hearty consent. We need a more vivid and abiding apprehension of what God hath said, that we may live more in and upon his word. Nor is this anywhere more needed than upon the thrilling themes we have been considering. Though there is not a doctrine of our holy Christianity more largely treated in the Scriptures, more definitely asserted in all the creeds, more touchingly celebrated in our sacred songs, or more constantly acknowledged in our Bermons and our prayers, than the coming again of Christ; yet there is hardly another article of faith so coldly, remotely, indefinitely and fruitlessly apprehended. Though it involves all our sublimest hopes, and is the basis of our most precious expectations, how few ever advert to it as a reality, or have any clear conceptions of it ! Though it is the culmination of human hope and destiny, to how many is it a mere dead letter, awakening no emotion, exciting no concern and making no impression ! Though nobody disputes it, yet who feels it or lays hold of it as a literal truth? As a vital thing, it has welluigh dropped out of the creed. Its practical influences upon men's hearts and lives have become so feeble as to be almost imperceptible. When Christianity was pure, this doc- trine was among the most vivifying of the faith. Men be- lieved it, and it quenched the fear of death and made martyr- dom a thing to be coveted ; but now it stands upon our books like a superannuated fable. Then it beamed forth a light and life which lifted the soul up in sublime and joyous anticipa- tions; but now it has become like the mute letters in the spelling of certain words, which, for all practical purposes, might as well be omitted as retained. These are deplorable facts. They speak badly for our experience in divine things, 288 THE LAST TIMES. and tell a mournful tale for modern Christianity. Who, then, can mistake the plain duty of a faithful minister in such a case ? The subject is too momentous to be trifled with. Our respon- sibilities are too solemn for us to be unconcerned. Hence, in much weakness, but with honesty of purpose, I have endea- vored to raise my voice in serious warning, and made it my studied aim to give no "uncertain sound." Firmly believing that " He that shall come will come, and will not tarry/' I have labored hard to advise you of his approach, and to have you wide awake, that that day may not overtake you unawares. I have accordingly gone back to the original fountains of information upon the subject. I have tried to show where and how it is presented in the Scriptures. I have called your attention especially to Christ's own great predictions respecting it, and endeavored to brush away some of the cobwebs of a perverted erudition with which modern commentation has obscured and defaced it, and shown that the Savior means exactly what he says. I have proven to you, in the second place, that Christ's coming is not to be a thousand years hence, at the end of a fancied millennium of universal righteousness, liberty and peace; that sin, oppression and antichristianism shall prevail in the world until he comes; and that only his personal presence and administrations on earth will make the mil- lennium, or impart to this lower creation the redemption for which it sighs. In the third place, I showed that the prevailing notion that when Christ comes it will be to depopulate, destroy and anni- hilate the earth, is the mere dream of poets, without founda- tion in the word of Grod. This earth shall endure forever, and in the light of its sister worlds roll on to all eternity. It will be changed in its fashion, but not destroyed. It will be renovated, but not depopulated. It will be restored, not anni- hilated. It will yet be the bright dwelling-place of righteous- RECAPITULATION. L'^'.t ness and peace. The will of God shall yet be done here as it is in heaven. It will be the perpetual home of a saintly population, reflecting the glory of its Maker and rejoicing forever in his smiles. All that is vile in principle or impure in effect will be purged away; but its firm substance, its splendid scenery, and its impressive images of the Creator's power and the Redeemer's love, shall never end. After Christ shall come and set up his throne here, as Chalmers says, "There will be a firm earth, as we have at present, and a heaven stretched over it, as at present; and it is not by the absence of these, but the absence of sin, that the abodes of immortality will be characterized. There will be both heavens and earth in the next great administration, with only this specialty to mark it from the present one, that it will be a heavens and earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." I next explained the resurrection, showing that the resur- rection for which we arc to aim and hope is an eclectic resur- rection, a resurrection of them that sleep in Jesus from among the dead at Christ's coming, and that "the rest of the dead" shall not live again until the thousand years are finished. I have also exhibited the Scriptural evidences of the great fact that the Messiah's reign is to be in this world ID a uni- versal and eternal kingdom of bliss and glory. I have endeavored to expound to you the mysterious doc- trine and administrations of the coming judgment: how it now exists, how it will be manifested at Christ's coming, and how it will affect the various classes concerned. I have unfolded to you the destiny of the Jewish race : their restoration, their sanctification, their blessed condition in the millennium, and the good that is yet to come to the world through them. I have placed before you something of the world to come, where Christ's sovereign and personal rule is to be revealed, T 25 290 THE LAST TIMES. that new earth, in which the entire creation shall again return to its pristine loveliness, and where, as Heber sings, "On David's throne shnll David's offspring reign, And the dry bones be warm with life again, Ten thousand harps attune the mystic song, Ten thousand thousand saints the strain prolong, 'Worthy the Lamb! Omnipotent to save, Who died, who lives, triumphant o'er the grave !' " I have further shown you that these are no mere dreams, now for the first time broached, or found only in the rhapso- dies of enthusiastic minds. I have proven to you that such were substantially the hopes of the church before Christ came as the child of Mary; that Jesus and his inspired apostles epoke of these hopes as deeply founded in the purposes and promises of God ; that they were entertained, preached and gloried in by those who received their instructions from apostolic lips, and by the Luthers, and Arndts, and Paleys, and Baxters, and Weslcys, and Halls, and Edwardses and Chalmerses of the first three hundred years of the Christian church ; that no Christian ever disputed them previous to the time of Origen ; and that they are now held and proclaimed by hundreds and thousands among the purest, the most eloquent, the most learned, and the most useful of the children of God on the face of the earth. How the church came to lose sight of these hopes I have also indicated. It was popery that obscured them and cast them into darkness. First came Origen's fanci- ful method of interpreting the Scriptures, casting uncertainty upon the clearest statements, and introducing a way of expo- sition which all men unite in lamenting and condemning. Then came the desire to render the Christian faith palatable to a Roman emperor, and then to the papal usurper, leading to a repudiation of a part of the Bible and the mutilation and interpolation of the writings of the fathers. And thus, as the joint work of Origen's vagaries and the sycophantic spirit KEOAl'lTl LATIDX 201 and corrupt principles of some who canie after him, a disposi- tion was made of these great anticipations from which every good man should recoil with horror. It was a stroke of Satan to cheat the Bride of Jesus out of her subliiuest dowry. To this day the church is more or less under the influence of that deception. Nor can we do duty to ourselves or to the truth of God, and yet patiently acquiesce in a decision brought about in a way so unchristian and unwarrantable. Nay, I feel confident that when once we have fairly examined this whole matter, the pure millenarian doctrine will be held and preached as one of the most glorious articles of our most holy faith. But I have gone further than all this. I have not only maintained that Christ will come again to this world to judge, subdue, renovate and reign in it forever, but that he will come very soon. I have ventured to proclaim my fixed belief that his coming is near at hand. I do not know the day or the year; but I have shown you, as I think, that God does not mean that we should remain in total ignorance of the period of his coming. In every other great event that he has brought about in human affairs, he has given pre-intimations of the time when it would be; and we cannot suppose that the time of the great consummating event of all is shrouded in such perfect secrecy as that we can know nothing till it comes. We accordingly find various dates and signs described in the Scriptures, from which we may learn enough to prevent our being surprised by it. In my last I gave three different methods by which light may be thrown upon this subject. First, the Scriptures fur- nish a system of septenaries, or sevens, from which we learn that Christ will come at the end of six thousand years from the creation of man; which period, according to our best information, will run out within the next twenty or forty years. We next find the duration of the papal dominancy, 292 THE LAST TIMES. which is to be destroyed only when Christ comes, limited to twelve hundred and sixty years, which term must needs expire within ten or twenty years from the present date. lu the third place, we find a description of the seven last plagues, in connection with the sixth of which Christ's coming is announced, and all of which up to the sixth have clearly been fulfilled, whilst we are now entering upon the sixth. These three processes of computation, independent but harmonious, unconnected yet mutually corroborative, are sufficient to prove to us that we are treading close upon the time when all God's purposes shall be fulfilled. There is, however, still another method of gaining informa- tion upon this point, to which I will direct your attention. The Scriptures very minutely describe certain signs which are to precede the final advent, and direct us to look for those signs, and assure us that "when these things begin to come to pass" we may know that the great event is near, even at the door. Let us then trace some of these signs, and look to see whether they have as yet appeared or not. 1. The Scriptures very distinctly tell us that the period of Christ's coming shall be a period of abounding apostasy, skep- ticism and wickedness. I need not again repeat the passages on this point. "As the days of Noe were, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man." As Milton says, "the first peculiar sign (of the final advent) is an extreme reckless- ness and impiety, and an almost universal apostasy." And what a distressing agreement to this do we find in the charac- teristics of the present times ! Look at Christendom itself. About one-half of those who profess and call themselves Christians are wrapped up in the foul embrace of Popery, where it is the fashion, if not the law, to put aside the Scrip- tures as dangerous, to trust to the word of the priest for for- giveness, to pray to Mary as the great intercessor, to adore the pope as the vicegerent of God, to hold for doctrines the mere PRESENT DEPRAVITY OF THE WORLD. 293 commandments of men, and to look for admission into heaven through human works. The millions in the Greek and Ori- ental churches are scarcely any better in regard to what con- cerns the vital matters of evangelical godliness. Look even at Protestantism, how fearfully corrupt in some of its branches ! How divided and torn by the low bickerings of sect and schism ! What vast numbers are in our churches as well as in papal churches who arc nothing more than baptized infidels ! How many who commune at our altars are not half persuaded of the truth of the professions which they make ! Look at the moral and religious condition of the nation- at large, even those the most enlightened and Christian. See how crime flourishes and infidelity vaunts itself. What are our secular newspapers but registers of depravity, avarice, am- bition, lawlessness and sin ? See the inefficiency of law or gospel to restrain the violence of passion, or to keep under the brazen iniquity which rears its head aloft on every side. Be- hold your crowded infidel clubs, your besotted revolutionary combinations, and your hardened and daring propagandists of falsehood, treason and all forms of social disruption. See with what popular favor the basest of men set themselves np as Grod's oracles, claiming inspiration from heaven whilst preach- ing death to the church and to the state, and listened to with admiration by thousands who still wish to be considered virtuous and even Christian. See with what readiness people reputed intelligent take up with the lowest delusions, and stand forth as the abettors and defenders of some of the foulest emissions of hell. Behold how even great men, professed theologians, editors, professors, lecturers and men in high places of influence, adopt, advocate and preach theories of pretended science and philosophy which unsettle the very foundations of piety and faith. What contempt for Chris- tianity, and disrespect for its ministers, and callousness to its great truths, do we everywhere encounter ! And may we not Lv ' 294 THE LAST TIMES. conclude, with the great Luther, that " God will not, cannot, suffer this wicked world much longer ?" 2. Another sign of the Savior's coming is to be found in great revolutionary troubles, political perplexities and vast national agitations. The Savior himself, and all the prophets, have taught us this. And never have the universal political heavens been so shaken as in our day. When were human politics so confused, contradictory, perplexing and threatening as now ? Look at them from one end of the world to the other. Who among the great ones of the earth can tell where he stands? Behold the strange alliances, the deep, sudden and mysterious antipathies, the unforeseen combinations of events, and the unknown tendencies of mighty inscrutable movements, which have been manifesting themselves all over the world in these last days. Who can tell what shall be next ? If it is war, who knows where it will end ? If it is peace, who is sure that it will not prove as disastrous as war ? In either case, mighty dangers everywhere threaten. Democ- racy, republicanism, autocracy and military despotism have about equal chances; and neither has any rational hope. As things now are, no conceivable human arrangements can steer clear of the mighty maelstrom which seems to have drawn all the nations within the circle of its awful whirl. Men of wisdom, men of Ahithophel astuteness, are at their wits' end, and the prudent and the far-sighted are growing wild with amazement and fear. With all that can be done, things refuse to bend to any mortal control. The ship answers no more to the helm. .There is not a government on earth that is not quaking with commotion. Every thing is moving, but whi- ther politicians cannot tell. 3. A third sign of the nearness of the end is a stir and inquiry among many respecting the subject, leading to the conviction that Christ is at hand. This is set forth in two passages, the one in Daniel, tho other in the Lord's prophecy THE SPIRIT OP INQUIRY AAVAKKNING. 295 in the twenty-fifth of Matthew. The passage in Daniel is, " O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end ; many shall run to and fro, and l:i,irl ,t^ G shall Le increased." That is, in the period of the end, as Michaelis interprets, " many shall give their sedulous atten- tion to the understanding of these things;" or, according to a marginal note in an old English Bible, " many shall run to and fro to search the knowledge of these mysteries." Dr. Gill thus explains the passage : " Towards the time of the end appointed, many shall be stirred up to inquire into these things delivered in this book, and will spare no pains or cost to get a knowledge of them ; and, with the blessing of God upon them, the knowledge of this book of prophecy will be increased, things will appear clearer and plainer the nearer the accomplishment of them." Luther's rendering of it is as follows: "And now, Daniel, shut up these words, and seal this book, until the last times ; when many shall come over it, and find great understanding." Coke, Clarke, Henry and Duffield understand the passage in the same way. It is about equivalent to that other declaration in the same chapter and concerning the same period of the end, "The wise shall un- derstand." And as the result of all this inquiry and enlight- enment on the subject of prophecy, the Savior tells us that " then shall the kingdom of heaven be likened unto ten vir- gins which went out to meet the bridegroom, and their cry made, Behold, the bride groom cometh ; tjo ye out to meet hi in." And how evidently and significantly has this mark of the cud been manifesting itself within the last fifty years ! Though the multitude still turn- from prophecy as from a sealed book, yet what a stir, anxiety and study has it awakened in many earnest minds ! I have counted more than one hundred authors who have written and published nearly twice as many volumes on the subjects of unfulfilled prophecies since the 290 THE LAST TIMES. present century began, and most of whom have advocated and proclaimed substantially the same views presented in these discourses. Many of them differ with each other ; but they differ mostly as the clocks of the same city, only in minutes, not in hours. Their leading conclusions are the same. In every denomination, and in every Christian country, the sub- ject is being studied and agitated. Everywhere there are men of God proclaiming the great doctrine of Christ's speedy coming to reign with his saints upon the earth. In England, in Scotland, in France, in our own country, in Germany, in Norway, in Russia, in India, in the isles of the sea, the cry has been raised, " BEHOLD, THE BRIDEGROOM COMETH ; GO YE OUT TO MEET HIM !" Never, never, since the days of the early Christians, has there been so much earnest long- ing, expecting, preaching, believing and praying upon the subject of the nearness of Christ's coming. The interest, the study and the faith are by no means as general as they should be, but general and intense, enlightened and earnest enough to warrant us in saying that this sign of the end has appeared. 4. Another indication to which the Scriptures refer upon this subject is the general shaking and crumbling of social order. " In the last days perilous times shall come." There shall be "dreamers who despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities, and of those things which they know not." God says, " I will shake all nations, and the Desire of nations shall come." " Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." "I will overturn, overturn, overturn it, until he come whose right it is ; and I will give it him." And how manifestly arc these signs fulfilling! What is now the leading watchword that is convulsing the whole earth from the equator to the poles ? Reform, reform, reform ! The church must be reformed; government must be reformed; every thing must be reformed. Nothing is any longer right THE PASSION FOR REFORM. 297 or adequate for dotard humanity. Laws, creeds, politics, the- ology, worship, venerable customs, all are found fault with by the restless spirit that is abroad, and must be revised, changed, recast, and reconstructed on other models which cannot be agreed upon. The fathers of old have become mere infants ; the intellectual giants of other times have dwindled into dwarfs ; the great emancipators of the world have degenerated into dreaming schoolboys, who knew nothing of humanity's wants, and never comprehended the will of God or the good of man. Suddenly it has been discovered that our domestic institutions are wrong, that our marriage-laws are wrong, that our entire legislation is wrong, that the wisest cabinets arc composed of fools, that our church arrangements are imbecile, that old-fashioned religion is mere hypocrisy and cant, and that whatever is, is wrong. Protestantism must needs have a new foundation, and men are tinkering to effect it. Catholi- cism must have an addition to its creed, and a special conven- tion was just called to inaugurate the miserable absurdity. And we must have new recensions, and new liturgies, and new interpretations, and new distributions of powers in church and state, and even new gospels, until every thing rocks and totters in the throes of approaching dissolution. Young America, and young England, and young France, and young Italy, and young China, and the ruling spirit even where things have been stagnant for ages, now cry, " Down with the world's old props ! Down with the rickety regime of other days !" And everybody is in the intensest earnest. As Car- lyle says, " The age of shams is past." Every sect, party, clique, club and faction, and every individual man, seems to be determined that his own way shall carry. There is no yielding, no compromise, no ear open to the counselings of moderation or entreaty. All is being unsettled, canvassed, distracted and rendered impotent, except in that direction in which the wave may for the moment dash. Never before 295 THE LAST TIMES. were such mighty conflicting forces at work in our world. Never before has there been such a deep and universal agita- tion upon all that respects the interests of man. Govern- ments the most powerful, ideas the most potent and customs the most firmly rooted are becoming mere playthings in the hands of remorseless and determined revolution. Surely the signal for the end has come. This loud cry from every quar- ter for reform, change and something new, only proves that " SOCIETY is SICK" and nearing its dissolution, and yet, like the sick man, imagines that if its bed were changed it would be well. Alas, alas, for the projects and dreamy hopes of modern reformers ! "The world is grown old, and her pleasures are past; The world is grown old, and her form may not last ; The world is grown old, and trembles for fear, For sorrows abound, and judgment is near ! The sun in the heavens is languid and pale, And feeble and few are the fruits of the vale, And the hearts of the nations fail them for fear, For the world is grown old, and JUDGMENT is NEAR ! The king on his throne, the bride in her bower, The children of pleasure, all feel the sad hour; The roses are faded, and tasteless the cheer, The world is grown old, and JUDGMENT IS NEAR !" Only look abroad, my brethren, and see how thrones, powers, governments, superstitions, and all the old stabilities, are creaking, shaking, crumbling, dying. Behold how vain the help of man is. Consider how implacable is human dis- satisfaction. Mark how the mind of the world is expecting some great, speedy, mysterious change, such as has never yet been. And is it not certain that "the old And crazy earth has had her shaking fits More frequent, and foregone her usual rest, And nature seems with dim and sickly eye To wait the close of all" ? DARKNESS BEFORE LIGHT. 299 I have read somewhere, in a very sagacious writer, that wheu happy changes are contemplated most people erroneously turn to the quarters of light for the signs of its approach. This has ever been man's mistake when looking for the fulfillment of God's great purposes, and is the mistake of many now. People are looking for the setting up of Christ's kingdom, and the introduction of millennial glory by reforming and rcbap- tizing present modes of effort and thought. But so it will not be. God's method of progress is to make darkness the way to light, death the prelude to life, despair the introduction to salvation, and corruption and confusion the road to order and glory. It is not in what seems hopeful, but in what seems gloomy and untoward, that we are to look for the signs of tho speedy forthcoming of God's wonder-working goodness. It is the stirring upon the face of the dark waters that gives prog- nostic of the breaking forth of light, life and beauty. The bursting glories of spring come directly out of the bleak winter. It is from the corrupting seed that we obtain the harvest. The darkest hour is said to be that which immediately precedes the day. The period most hopeful is that when the apparent motives for despondency are most overwhelming. The stress of the controversy between hope and fear always falls upon the eve of triumph. Those dim hours of dismay to the scattered followers of Christ at his crucifixion were but the preludes to the bringing in of light and immortality for man. The bloody persecutions under the Koman emperors which threat- ened the extinction of Christianity were the immediate pre- cursors of its victory over even the throne of the Cajsars. And so the Scriptures teach that it will be in the ushering in of the great consummation. The sun must darken and the moon withhold her light, and then shall the Sun of righteous- ness arise with healing in his wings. People think they see signs of promise in the movements of reform. They think to give the church a better shape, and 300 THE LAST TIMES. the state a better government, and the world a freer Bible, and that thus the millennium will come. I have no confidence in any. such hopes. I see more of promise in the darkest fea- tures of the times than in all these pious and patriotic dreams. I look around me, and find men uniting, oft unconsciously, in pronouncing past experiments inadequate to accomplish what was expected of them. Once it was thought that Protestant- ism would soon regenerate the world; and yet so little pro- gress has it made in two hundred years that some of its own distinguished children, in every department of it, are pro- claiming in many ways that it will not do without mending. Some thought that the great Bible, Tract, Sunday-school and missionary movements would soon win the nations to faith in Jesus; and yet the world is perhaps more wicked now than it has been since Noah's flood. Skeptics in the church, and skeptics out of the church, are rising up to pronounce all our boasted efforts a failure. Many are losing confidence in the Bible and that simple evangelism in which they hoped, and are going back to Rome, to unbelief, to "spiritualism," or to some other low ism of natural or Satanic religion. I deplore the facts, and mourn that people should have so little faith, and reason so illogically. And yet in this very darkness I read the promise of coming light. In this very misgiving, despera- tion and gloom, I see the argument for the speedy springing forth of glorious and unfading hopes, not as human reason calculates, but as God purposes. I behold in it the rapid winding up of the present dispensation to give place to that better state of things of which the prophets all have spoken. Statesmen and churchmen see in it the unmistakable evidences of unprecedented changes, though they widely differ as to what those changes are to be. I go to the " sure word of pro- phecy," and there I find the mystery explained. That holy book which is the world's great light on so many important things does not fail me here. OPINIONS OF EMINENT WRITERS. 301 Sir Robert Peel has .said, "Every aspect of the present times, viewed in the light of the past, warrants the belief that we are on the eve of a universal change." Dr. Arnold, in his Lectures on History, says, " Modern history appears to be not only a step in advance of ancient history, but the. la*t step it ap- pears to bear marks of the fullness of time, as if there would be no future history beyond it. ... We have the full amount of earth's resources before us, and they seem inadequate to supply life for another period of human history." Professor Robin- son says, "Before another half-century shall have rolled away, there will be seen revolutions in the Oriental mind, and the world, of which no one now has any foreboding. The time is short: the crisis rushes on." The London Quarterly says, "The long pent-up winds are beginning to break loose; and the sudden bursts of tempest that have swept over Europe these few years past are precursors of the world's last desolat- ing storm." Bishop Chase asks, "Are not these signs and prognostics of the speedy coining of our Lord to judgment ?" And when I look at all these things : the six thousand years nearing their close; the period of Popery's dominancy ex- piring; the sixth vial pouring out; the earth exhibiting all the features that are to characterize the last days; the nations distressed and their leaders tremulous with fear ; history closing up; all the old landmarks of society invaded and simulta- neously giving way more or less before resistless innovation ; the predicted cry, Behold, he cometh, ringing through every land; the whole world becoming like a magazine, where a single spark may produce a universal explosion that must carry all existing things to desolation; our great men, and devout men, and nearly all thinking men, proclaiming the pre- sence of some unknown change; and the book of God, which I have taken as my guide, telling ine that when these thingg begin to come to pass my Savior and his kingdom are at hand : would I not deserve to be classed with infidels and scoffers 26 302 THE LAST TIMES. if I did not believe, and merit the condemnation of a hypo- critical and faithless watchman if I did not declare, that so it is, and that "THE END OP ALL THINGS is AT HAND" ? I know that this earthly-minded and skeptical generation will give me no credit for what I have done. I know that I have exposed myself to the low jeers of many who have not the patience to examine, or the eyes or ears to see and hear, what God hath said and what Grod is doing. I shall be called a visionary and an enthusiast, and be branded with opprobrious names. Be it so ! I would rather bear the sneers and vulgar taunts of all Baltimore, and all the world, and be found ready when my Savior comes, than to be accounted the most sober of theologians, and enjoy the fame of the most revered favorite of popular laudation, and have the day of the Lord find me unfaithful to my duty and unprepared for my change. What- ever men may say or think, I know that I preach what apostles preached, when I tell you that the end is near. I fix upon no specific date. I know not the day, the season or the year when the Son of man shall come. He may come in twenty years, or in ten years, or in five years, or before another year : I cannot tell. But this I believe, and this I desire to preach : that his coming is at hand, and we ought to be ready and look- ing for it every day. Nor am I alone in these convictions. "The Lord corneth!" says Krummacher. "Never did the church witness such a con- stellation of signs of the near coming of Christ as now." That "ripe scholar and profound student of prophecy," Dr. Elliott, says, " We are come so near to the day of the Son of man, that the generation now living shall very possibly not have passed away before its fulfillment; yea, that perhaps our own eyes may witness, without the intervention of death, that astonishing event of the consummation.' 1 ' Pym says, "Upon us the ends of the world are come ; and this generation shall witness the advent of the Lord in glory to introduce the millenary reign FURTHER. CONFIRMATORY <>MM<>\s. 303 of righteousness and peace." Cunninghamc says, "All the events of our own times, the growing disorders of the body politic, the fears and expectations of men, the deep per- suasion of an impending convulsion inrooted in every thinking mind, the solemn and awakening declarations of Scripture, the clear and unequivocal voice of prophecy, every sign, every promise, every testimony, unite in announcing his (Christ's) approach." Habershon says, "The time undoubt- edly is near at hand when the redemption of the body shall be experienced, and when these bodies of our humiliation shall be fashioned like unto his glorious body." "It is reasonable to conclude," says Faber, "that the time is not very far dis- tant when the personal Word shall begin to tread the wine- press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." Cuui- ining says, " We are led from all signs to infer that the meet- ing-place of all the lines of God's providential work on earth is very near. ... It is very remarkable that all the great times and dates of prophecy meet and mingle about the year 1864. ... I do feel, that if 1864 be not the close of the age that now is, and the commencement of a better one, it will be a time un- precedented since the beginning." Brooks says, "The signs of the second advent in the state of the world at large are such as to impress my own mind with a deep persuasion that we are on the eve of events of immense immense importance to mankind." "From whatever dates we reckon," says Bick- crsteth, "we cannot but consider that the time of the end is drawing near, and that awful events of judgment and mercy are before us." "The happy hour is not far hence," says Taylor. " It is near, and hasteth greatly. . . . This generation and century will witness his glorious epiphany!" "Almost all writers on prophecy," says Cox, "who have studied its mystic numbers, make them terminate at periods towards which we are rapidly approaching. However different tlu so views and schemes, they agree in this, that within a few 80-4 TUB LAST TIMES. years from the present time some of the greatest events ever witnessed will take place." I might give many more such statements. Brethren, these are not the ravings of fanatics, nor tho loose vociferations of ignorant people. They are the delibe- rately-formed conclusions of our most competent, most pious and most profound investigators of God's holy revelations. Men of the highest order of mind, scholars of the profoundest erudition, Christians of the most enlightened piety, after' years and years of patient, laborious, prayerful and independent study, and in the face of a speedily-appearing Judge, have thus solemnly proclaimed to the world that we are now stand- ing upon the very eve of the Savior's coming. And how dare we rise up and say that their testimony is false ? " Very true," some will say j " it is all well put in ; but it is such an awful thing to think of! It will trouble people's minds, it will disturb their peace, it will produce melancholy and dejection, it will make nervous persons gloomy, injure their health and awaken unnecessary anxiety and alarm; and there- fore it should not be preached." My friends have not failed to give me the benefit of such suggestions. People are thrown into trepidation when we advert to the subject, and beseech us to desist, although it is the master-theme of the gospel and the final chorus in which all the harmony of the Scriptures concentrates and combines. They would rather not hear of it ; they would be glad to believe that we have less ground for our declarations. They regard it as only ter- rific, whereas the Scriptures commingle with it the fulfillment of all man's sublimest joy. Jesus says, " When these things begin to come to pass, then LOOK UP AND LIFT up YOUR HEADS : FOR YOUR REDEMPTION DRAWETH NIGH." Hear and consider, ye of little faith. "Are you so enamored of sickness that you have no longing for the resurrection-body and the beauteous robes of incorruptiou and immortality ? DESIRABLENESS OF T1IK KM). .']U5 Are you so enamored of aches, aud ills, and losses, and be- reavements, and pains, and battles, and famine, and plague, and pestilence, that you do not wish them to be done with ? Why, every statement in this blessed book leads us to the otherwise-delightful conclusion that the nearer the great issue comes the happier God's people should feel. The sound that rings sweet and audible from the skies amidst the crash uf nations, the overturning of thrones, the dissolution of dynas- ties, and wars and rumors of wars, is, Lift up i/uur /<< your redemption is near ! And if I should be able only to point out a few weeds floating upon the sea that hulk-ate we arc approaching the great continent of glory, if I should be able only to give an Alpine flower here and there, however fragile, yet a sweet messenger of the coming spring, every true Christian ought to rejoice and be glad that there are tokens of a day when a genesis shall pass upon the earth better and brighter than the first, and a paradise come in as the coronal of time more glorious than that which was its dawn." So discourses one who, from Covent Garden, is warming more hearts with these momentous themes than any other living man. And many have expressed themselves to the same effect. Luther once held in his hand a necklace of agates, and said, "I would readily eat up this to-day for the judgment to come to-morrow." " Blessed consummation of this weary and sor- rowful world!" says the eloquent Irving; "I give it wel- come, I hail its approach, I wait its coming more than they that watch for the morning. Over the wrecks of a world I wec p, over broken hearts of parents, over suffering in- fancy, over the unconscious clay of sweet innocents, over the untimely births that have never seen the light, or have just looked upon it and shut their eyes until the glorious light of the resurrection-morn. my Lord, come away! Hasten with all thy congregated ones ! My soul desireth to see the U 26* 306 THE LAST TIMES. King in his beauty, and the beautiful ones whom he shall bring along with him." " Come forth out of thy royal cham- bers, Prince of all the kings of earth!" says England's greatest poet. " Put on the visible robes of thy imperial majesty. Take up that unlimited sceptre which thy Almighty Father hath bequeathed thee. For now the voice of thy Bride calls thee, and all creatures sigh to be renewed." "How cheering the hope/' says Cox, "how cheering the hope, amidst the din of war, the shouts of false joy, the yell of idolatry and the groans of creation, that a period is hastening when peace shall stretch its shady wings over the sons of men, when rivers of joy shall water this vale of tears, 'when cherubim to cherubim shall cry, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY IS THE LORD GOD OF HOSTS } THE WHOLE EARTH IS FULL OF HIS GLORY !" " Oh that Christ would remove the covering, draw aside the curtains of time and rend the heavens and come down !" says Rutherford. " Oh that shadows and night were gone, that the day would break, and that He who feedeth among the lilies would cry to his heavenly trumpeters, Make ready, let us go down and fold together the four corners of the earth I" " Hasten, my Savior, the time of thy return," says Baxter. " Send forth thine angels, and let that dreadful joyful trumpet sound. Delay not, lest the living give up their hopes; delay not, lest earth should grow like hell and thy church be crumbled to dust. . . . Oh, hasten that great resurrection-day, when the seed that thou sowest cor- ruptible shall come forth incorruptible, and graves that re- ceived but rottenness and retain but dust shall return thee glo- rious stars and suns. Thy desolate Bride saith, Come. The whole creation saith, Come, even so, come, Lord Jesus!" And why should not every believing heart look up and re- spond with rapture, "AMEN, AND AMEN" ? View the untold glories which Christ shall bring with him for every waiting soul. Consider the sublimities of happiness which that great NEARNESS OF THE ADVENT A SUBJECT OF JOY. 307 consummation shall spread forever upon this smitten world. And why should we start back from the conviction that it is near? " Thrice blessed hope, If home like this await the weary soul ! Look up, thou stricken one ! Thy wounded heart Shall bleed no more at sorrow's stern control." When the blessed Savior was about to leave this world, he said, " I go to prepare a place for you. And, if I go and prepare a place for you, / will come again and receive you unto myself; that where I am there ye may be also." And hardly had he reached the threshold of his Father's sublime and holy habitation until he shouted back, " SURELY I COME QUICKLY." Nor does the church enter into the rapture of her hopes until she brings herself to respond with John, "AMEN ; EVEN so, COME, LORD JESUS !" Therein lies our highest joy. All that is dear and precious is linked with that glorious coming. And when He who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory. Then all wrongs shall be righted, the long-severed united and long-deferred hope be fulfilled. Every thing now is disjointed, depressed, sickly and sad. We are surrounded with funerals, graves, diseases, crimes and tears. There is no home so happy, and no heart so joyous, but it has in it the deep undertones of sorrow and trouble. " There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there ; There is no fireside, bowsoe'cr defended, But hath one vacant chair. The air is full of farewells of the dying, And mournings for the dead ; The heart of Rachel for her children crying Will not be comforted." But when the expected Savior comes, these woes and griefa shall have an end. Then shall the buried babe and slumbering 308 THE LAST TIMES. boy of promise awake from the cold dark sleep of years, no more to writhe under fierce disease, or to be torn from pa- rental love. Then shall those loved forms on which the clods are pressing, and over whose damp resting-places many a win- ter's snow has lain and many a summer's flower bloomed, come forth to light and life never again to fall under the power of corruption. Then shall the broken and scattered household be regathered to separate no more. Then shall be the coro- nation-day for them that have labored and suffered for Jesus. Then shall the martyr receive his crown and the saint his ineffable portion. Then shall tears cease to flow and saduess to depress. Then shall the exile reach his happy home and the toiling pilgrim find his everlasting rest. Then shall the worshipper look upon the face of his God and the faithful servant receive the transporting commendation and welcome of his Lord. Then shall earth's long-predicted sabbath come and the eternal jubilee of the redeemed begin. Then shall the mystery of divine compassion be consummated, and this prodigal orb of ours, restored once more to her Father's smiles, take her place in the sisterhood of unfallen worlds, reflecting in richer lustre and celebrating in grander songs the praises of Him who made it and the mercies of Him that redeemed it with his blood. No, no, no ; the doctrine of the Savior's speedy coming is not a thing of gloom and sadness. It is gospel, pure gospel, nothing but GOOD NEWS. If it has any thing distressing in it, you yourself must put it there by your hard-heartedness, your prayerlessness and unforsaken sin. If you have fixed your heart and faith on Jesus as your prophet, priest and king, you have naught to fear and every thing to hope. They that put their trust in him shall never be put to con- fusion. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord encampeth round about them that fear him. Hath he not said, " He that confesseth me before men, him will I also CONCLUDING EXHORTATION. 309 confess before my Father, and before his holy angels"? Is not the immutable covenant made and sealed, pledging all the sublime attributes of God for the believer's safety ? If he spared not his own Son, but delivered him up freely for us all, will he not with him also freely give us all things ? The only question is, Have you submitted to Christ f Have you given up to do all your duty as he enjoins it ? Have yuu accepted of him as your Savior and your hope ? Have you identified yourself with him in the fellowship of his church? Is he your alpha and your omega ? your all in all ? Then fear not. Only be faithful a little longer, and the day will come which will be to you a gladder day than ever you thought it possible for you to see. And as you behold the fig-leaves put- ting forth as the heralds of its approach, "look up and lift up your head ; for your redemption draweth nigh." But God forbid that I should cry peace where there is no peace, or encourage hope where there is no hope. If any of you are yet prayerless, without submission to Christ, loving self or the world more than God, and standing aloof from the gospel-way of life, you may well be alarmed and tremble at what is before you. The day of the Savior's revelation will be a day of fearful vengeance upon them that know not God and obey not the gospel of his Son. And better, a thousand times better, that you should now be filled with all Belshazzar's terror, if it will lead you to repentance, than to go on in carnal comfort and meet your coming Judge with hearts unrecon- ciled and sins unforgiven. And yet you need not tremble with utter despair. You are not where the rich man called for help but found it not. The door of salvation still is open. The proclamation of forgiving mercy still rings in your ears. Wicked and negligent as you have been, you may yet come and share in the sublimest joys Christianity has to give. Your injured and weeping Redeemer still stretches out to you his hands and bids you Come. The Spirit and the Bride say 310 THE LAST TIMES. Come. And whosoever will, let him come. Oh, how great is the mercy which some of you have abused, and the compas- sion and privileges which you have set at naught ! Never- theless, here I am to-day, with authority from God in heaven to offer to you a free forgiveness and eternal life, if you will but accept the gift upon the plain and easy terms therewith annexed: "Turn yourselves and live." Will you do it? You, prayerless, careless father, mother, child, reviler, prodi- gal, blasphemer, scoffer, neglecter of God, will you do it? Your time is growing short. Your day of grace will soon be over. Your summer-time of hope will soon have passed away. Will you now start to be a child of God and heir of heaven ? There is room enough ; will you come and occupy it ? The robes, and palms, and harps and crowns of righteousness and life are soon to be distributed ; will you come and put in your application ? Oh, let those stiff necks bend, those hard hearts relent, those stubborn wills surrender; and send up your prayers to the mercy-seat now ere it is changed to an inex- orable judgment-throne. Gracious God ! pity poor sinners, and spare them yet a little, and plead mightily with them that they may repent and live ! Oh, suffer them not to perish for- ever ; but so move them by thy good Spirit that they may seek thy face and come with all thy saints into the joys of that nearing world for which we long and wait. And then and there we will ever sing, " UNTO HIM THAT LOVED us, AND WASHED US FROM OUR SINS IN HIS OWN BLOOD, AND HATH MADE US KINGS AND PRIESTS UNTO GOD, TO HIM BE GLORY AND DOMINION FOREVER AND EVER. AMEN." APPENDIX. 0n % Subjects 0f ijjis IT may be interesting to the reader, and serve as a guide if he should desire to prosecute the subject further, to have a list of the books which, in some^ essential parts, or entirely, accord with the conclusions announced in this volume. We therefore append such a list, for the double purpose of facili- tating the student's access to rnillenarian authors, and of indicating to sonic extent the authorities to whom reference may be made to sustain the leading doctrines of these dis- courses. The catalogue is not as complete as the writer desires it to be. With all the pains that he has taken with it, it doubtless has defects. However, it contains his best infor- mation on the subject, and may prove useful. Of course he does not agree with all that these various writers have said; but authority may be found in all of them for some promi- nent feature of his views. I. PATRISTIC BOOKS. IREN^EUS, Bishop of Lyons, in France, who died a martyr, A.D. 203. The fifth book of his elaborate work "Against Heresies" contains his distinct testimony on this subject. JUSTIN THE MARTYR, one of the earliest writers of the Chris- tian church, beheaded A.D. 167. "Dialogue with Try- pho." Translated by Brown, 1755. LACTANTIUS, L. C. F., " the most eloquent of all the ccclesi- 311 312 APPENDIX. astical Latin authors, generally distinguished by the title of ' The Christian Cicero.' '' "Divine Institutes con- cerning the Future Blessed Life" book vii. Parid, 1548. OTHER FATHERS have given their testimony, but their remarks lie scattered promiscuously through their works and commentaries. They are largely quoted by Homes On (lie Millennium, Burnet in his Theory of the Earth, Greswell On the Parables, and many more, whose works are referred to below. II. JEWISH BOOKS. BEN EZRA, J. J., a distinguished Spanish Jew, a convert to the Roman Catholic Church. " The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty." 2 vols. Svo, 1827. Translated by Edward Irving. This work was written a little more than one hundred years ago. It throws much light on the subject of unfulfilled prophecy. KIMCHI, DAVID, a Spanish Jew of great erudition, who lived in the thirteenth century. "Commentary on the Old Testament" ABARBANEL, JARCHI, ETC. See Schbetgen and Stehelen's Rabbinical Literature, 2 vols. Svo, 1748; also, Stuart on the Apocalypse, chapter xx. III. PROMISCUOUS BOOKS. FINCH, SERJT., a distinguished Englishman. "The calling of the Jews The World's great Restoration." 4to, 1621. MEDE, JOSEPH, born 1586, died 1638; he was "one of the profoundest Biblical scholars of the English church, of APPENDIX. 313 whom it was said that in the explication of the mys- terious passages of Scripture he discerned the day before others had opened their eyes." "Clavis Apoca- lyptica," and other works, pronounced by Bickersteth to be " invaluable expositions of various prophecies, de- serving and repaying the closest study." ALABASTER, WILLIAM, Canon of St. Paul's, died 1640. "Ecce Sponsus Venit." 4to, 1633. ARCHER, JOHN. "The Personal Reign of Christ on Earth." 1634. MATON, ROBERT, minister and Commoner at Oxford, 1642. "Christ's Personal Reign on Earth." "Israel's Re- demption Redeemed." 4to, 1646. DURANT, JOHN, " sweet old Durant," Brown designates him. "Christ's Appearance the Second Time for the Salvation of Believers." 12mo, 1653. FARMER, JOSEPH. A small volume entitled "A Sober Enquiry ; or, Christ's Reign with his Saints, modestly asserted from the Scriptures." 1660. The Edinburgh Review says, " The spirit of this little piece of antiquity is admirable, calm, candid and Christian." TILLINGHAST, JOHN. "Generation Work;" 12mo, 1655. "Knowledge of tlie Times;" 12mo, 1654. "Eight Last Sermons;" 12mo, 1654. "A superior writer, both in practical and evangelical sentiment, and in prophetical knowledge. Though he prematurely applied predictions, his works contain much that is useful," says Bickersteth. 21 ol I APPENDIX. HOLMES, NATII. " The Resurrection Revealed." Fol. 1654. COMENIUS, BISHOP JOHN AMOS, " eminent as a divine and grammarian/' born in Moravia, 1592, died at Amster- dam, 1671. "Lux in Tenebris." 1657. POIRET, PETER. "Divine Economy." 7 vols. 8vo. Trans- lated into English. JERIEU, PETER, a French Calvinist, by some called "the Goliath of Protestantism," born 1637, died 1713. "L'Accomplissement des Propheties." 1686. Also trans- lated into English. 3 vols. 8vo. PETERSON, WM. " Wahrheit des herrlichen Reiches Jesu Christi." 1693. WHISTON, WM., a learned English divine, successor to Sir Isaac Newton as Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge. "Literal Accomplishment of Scriptural Prophecies." 8vo, 1724. SPES FIDELIUM; or, "TJie Believer's Hope;" by a Presbyter of the Church of England, supposed to be Dr. Grabe, or Dr. Lee. 8vo, 1714. BURNET, THOMAS. "Theory of the Earth." 2 vols. 8vo, 1728. LANGE, JOACHIM. "ApoJcalyptisches Licht und Recht." Fol. 1730. BENGEL, JOHN ALBERT, a celebrated Lutheran divine, born 1687. Clarke says, "In him were united two rare qualifications, the deepest piety and the most extensive learning." "Ordo Tempo r urn ;" 1741. "Exposition of APPENDIX. 315 the Ajiocalypsc ;" 1740, (German.) ''Discourses for the Common People" (Reden fiir's Yolk ;) 1748. Many fancies with many truths. CRESSENER, DR. "Protestant Applications of the Apoca- lypse." "Written in 1690, and dedicated to Queen Mary. GOODWIN, THOMAS, a celebrated Dissenter, a member of the Westminster Assembly of Divines, and one of the two men whom Wood called " the two Atlases and patriarchs of Independency." "Exposition of the Apocalypse." 1679. GILL, DR. JOHN, "eminent as a divine, theologian, and orientalist," born in England, 1697. "Sermons on Prophecy." Svo, 1750-55. "Body of Divinity." Also, Commentaries on portions of the Bible. LAVATER, JOHN G. C., a celebrated writer, born at Zurich, 1741. "AussicJtten in die Ewiylceit." Six letters. DAUBUZ, CHARLES, "a scholar of the first rank, born in France in the seventeenth century." "Commentary on the Apocalypse" 1720. Translated by P. Lancaster in 1730. STILLING, JOHN HENRY, "Der treuherziger," as Semisch calls him. " Seigsgeschichtc dcr Christlichc Religion." 1799. "Xachtrag." 1806. FABER, GEORGE STANLEY." "Dissertation on the Prophecies." New York, 1811, Svo, 2 vols. in one. Also, other works. DRUMMOND, H. "Defence of the Students of Prophecy in Answer to Dr. Hamilton." Svo, 1828. 316 APPENDIX. IRVING, EDWARD. "The Last Days." 8vo, 1828. Many useful thoughts. LAMBERT, C. P. "Exposition des Predictions et des Pro- messes faitcs a V Eglise, pour les dernier s temps de la Gentilite." 2 vols. 12mo, 1806. "A striking testi- mony to the premillennial advent, restoration of the Jews and reign of Christ, by a French Roman Catholic," says Bickersteth. PIRIE, DR. ALEXANDER. "Miscellaneous and Posthumous Works." 6 vols. 12mo, 1805. ANDERSON, WILLIAM. "Apology for Millenarian Doctrine." Two parts, 1830-1, 1842. "A Letter to the Author of 'Millenarianism Indefensible."' 12mo ; 1834. "An ahle writer," says Bickersteth. STERRY, PETER. " The Rise, Race and Royalty of the King- dom of God, and the Appearances of God to Man." 2 vols. 4to, 1683-1710. PERRY, JOSEPH. " Glory of Christ's Visible Kingdom." 1721. RUDD, SAYER, M.D. "Essay on the Resurrection, Millennium and Judgment." London, 1734, 8vo. BlENCHO, J. "Restoration of the Jews the Crisis of all Nations." 8vo, 1800. "Signs of the Times." 8vo. 1808-17. SCOTT, THOMAS. "Restoration of Israel " in answer to Rabbi Crool. 8vo, 1814. APPENDIX. 317 HUSSEY, JOSEPH. "Glories of Christ." "An author of some distinction," says Taylor. "The most decided millcnarian I ever met," says Cox. He lived a century ago. GLAS, JOHN. See his works, in 4 vols., Edinburgh, 1761. THORPE, WILLIAM. "Destinies of the British Empire." 8vo, 1831. CUNNINGHAME, "WM., Esq. "Political Destiny of the Earth," "Fullness of Times" "Tlie Conversion and Restoration of the Jews" &c. &c. A very able and voluminous writer on the prophecies. PETERSON, DR. J. TV. "Scriptural Exposition and Demon- stration of the Millenarian Reign." 1677. COCCEIUS, JOHN, professor of theology at Bremen. "Com- mentarii in Sacra Scripturas." Fol. 12 vols. 1706. "De Ecclesia et Babylone." "De Antichristo" &c. "A man continually quoted and applauded by Vitringa for his piety, learning and ability as an expositor of pro- phecy," says Brooks. Home says of his Commentaries, " They abound with valuable illustrations, and will amply repay the trouble of perusal." Apthorp says he is "often fanciful, but learned, pious, and far more dis- cerning in the true scope of prophecy than many who succeeded him." TYSO, JOSEPH. "An Inquiry after Prophetic Truth relative to the Restoration of the Jews and the Millennium." 8vo, 1831. 27* 318 APPENDIX. FRY, JOHN. "The Second Advent; or, Glorious Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ." 2 vols. 8vo, 1822. "Full of useful thoughts." Bickerstcth. FRERE, J. H. "Combined View of the Prophecies." 8vo, 1815. "Structure of the Apocalypse" 1826. HALLET, JOSEPH. "Notes on Peculiar Texts of Scripture." 3 vols. 8vo, 1729-36. HARTLEY, REV. T. "Paradise Restored; or, a Testimony to the Doctrine of the Blessed Millennium." 1764. ALLIX, PETER. "Confutation of the Hope of tJie Jews con- cerning the last Redemption." 8vo, 1707. ALTINGH, J. "Spes Israelis" 4to, 1676. KOPPIUS, J. B. "Excursus in Eptst. Pauli ad Thessalon" 8vo, 1791. PENN, GRANVILLE. "Cliristian Survey of Prophecy." 1824. GALE, THOMAS. "Discourse concerning Christ's Second Coming." 8vo, 1673. CLINTON, FYNES. "Fasti Hellenici." " One of the ablest chronologers of the present times," says Bickersteth. HABERSHON, MATTHEW, Esq. "Dissertation on tfc Prophetic Scriptures." 8vo, 1834. "Guide to Chronological Prophecy." 1835. APPENDIX. 319 McNElL, REV. HUGH. "Sermons on the Second Admit." Philadelphia, 1841. "Lectures on the Jews." 1830. "Eloquent and pious; one of England's most gifted divines/' says Winthrop. SlRR, REV. JOSEPH D'AacY. "The First Resurrection con- sidered in a Series of Letters ; occasioned by a treatise of the late Rev. H. Gipps." Philadelphia, 1841. A strong argument, with many useful observations, and written in a good spirit. Cox, REV. JOHN. "Millcnarians Answer of his Hope." 1832. "Thoughts on the Coming and Kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ." 1836. A warm-hearted and sensible writer of the Baptist denomination. NOEL, G-. T. "The Prospects of the Christian Church." BROOKS, REV. J. TV. "Elements of Prophetical Interpre- tation;" also, "Essays on the Advent." A calm, im- pressive and instructive writer. PYM, WM., "Thoughts on Jfillenarianism." Third edition, 1831. "Doctrine of the JYeic Testament on the Second Advent." BIRKS, REV. T. R. " The Four Prophetic Empires," "The Millenium" "The First Resurrection," &c. BlCKERSTETH, REV. EmVARD. "A Practical Guide to the Pro- phecies, with reference to their Interpretation and Ful- fillment, and to Personal Edification/' A learned man, of a most amiable, candid and devout spirit. 320 APPENDIX. BEGG, JAMES A. "Letters on the Coming of Christ." 12mo, 1831. HOOPER, JOHN. " The Doctrine of the Second Advent." ROGERS, WM. "Jems, come quickly,' &c. HOFFMAN. " Weissagung und Erfullung." DELITZSCII. "Die Billiscli Profihctische Tlicologie" " SECIIS PERIODEN DEE CHRISTLICHE KIRCHE." 1851. CROLY, DR. G-. "Treatise on the Advent;" also, on the Apoca- lypse. VAN MILDERT, BISHOP. "Boyle Lectures." 1830. BONAR, HORATIUS. "Apostolicity of Chiliasm." "Prophetic Landmarks." BoNAR, ANDREW. "Redemption draweth nigh." ELLIOTT, DR. E. B. "Horce Apocalypticcc." 4 vols. A very learned and useful exposition. Cuniming charac- terizes it as a " noble and precious work." LORD, DAVID N., Esq. "An Exposition of the Apocalypse." 1847. A work of much learning, and particularly valu- able for its development of the laws of synibolization. TAIT, REV. WM. "Exposition of the Hebrews." 2 vols. 8vo, 1845. APPENDIX. :}'2l " THE LITERALIST," embracing sermons from Yilliers, Auriol, Goodhart, Freemantle, Hill, Dalton, &c. " EXTRACTS OF PROPHECY," collected from Burg, Maitland, Madden, Simon, Campbell, Dodsworth, Fry, Erskine, Keble, &c. 1835. Very good. CARLYLE, DR. J. "Latter-day Pamphlets." "First and Second Advent." "WARD, H. D. "History and Doctrine of the Millennium." LORD, KEV. ELIAZER. "Messiah in Moses and the Prophets." THOMAS, J., M.D. "Etpis Israel: an Exposition of the Kingdom of God, icith reference to the End of Time and the Age to come." 1851. Somewhat dogmatical, but furnishing some useful thoughts. BUCK, REV. D. D. "An Original Harmony and Exposition of the 2-ith chapter of Matthcic, and the Parallel Pas- sages in Marl- and Luke ; comprising a Review of Com- mon Figurative Theories of Interpretation," &c. 8vo, 1853. An unusually clear and powerful book, richly rewarding the reader. KEITH, DR. ALEXANDER. "Harmony of Prophecy; or, Scrip- tural Illustrations of the Apocalypse;" "TJie Land of Israel, according to the Covenant;" "Signs of the Times" &c. SHIMEAL, REV. R, C. "Age of the World," &c. 1842. LlLLIE, DR. J. "The Perpetuity of the Earth." V 322 APPENDIX. HILL, II. F. "The World to Come; or, the Saints' Inherit ance." HENSHAW, BISHOP J. P. K. "Lectures on the Second Ad- vent." 1842. NOLAN, DR. F. " Chronological Prophecies." 1837. HAMILTON, DR. J. "Harp on the Willows." SCHMUCKER, DR. J. G. "Exposition of the Revelation of St. John." 2 vols. 1821. Very fanciful in some of his principles of interpretation, but learned, modest, and presenting many thoughts worthy of attention. GUMMING, DR. JOHN. "Lectures on the Apocalypse;" "Lec- tures on Daniel;" "The End;" "The Signs of the Times," &c. A prolific author ; very eloquent and im- pressive, but not always consistent with himself. WINTHROP, REV. EDWARD. "Lectures on the Second Advent." 1843. "Premium Essay on Prophetic Symbols." 1854. DUFFIELD, DR. G. "Dissertations on the Prophecies." Good. " SHADOWS OP THE NEW CREATION." By "W. S. WOODWARD, H. Sermons and Essays on the Advent. GEORGE, Duke of Manchester. " The Finished Mystery." WHITE, H. "Practical Reflections on the Second Advent." APPENDIX. J523 " GLIMPSES OF MESSIAH'S GLORY." By twelve Clergymen of the Church of England. 1848. Plain, serious aud practical. IMBRIE, REV. C. K. The Kingdom of God." 1849. Can- did and forcible. CARLETON, REV. H. "Analysis oftlie Twenty-fourth of Mat- thew r 1851. Valuable. LEWIS, SETH, Esq. "The Restoration of the Jews, with the Political Destiny of the Nations of the Earth." 1851. A writer of strong sense, candor, and reverence for God's word. BRYANT, REV. ALFRED. "Millcnarian Vieics, icith Reasons for receiving them" 1852. "Excellently adapted to remove misconception, disarm prejudice and conciliate faith," says Lord. LORD, DR. NATHAN. " The Millennium : an Essay." 1854. Calm, comprehensive and impressive. HARKNESS, REV. J. "Messiah's Throne and Kingdom." 1855. JANEWAY, DR. J. J. "Hope for the Jews." 1853. TAYLOR, REV. D. T. "The Voice of the Cliurch on the Com- ing and Kingdom of the Redeemer ; or, a History of the Doctrine of the Reign of Christ on Earth." 1856. A work of much useful information. 324 APPENDIX. " TUB TIME OP THE END : a Prophetic Period, developing, as predicted, an Increase of Knowledge respecting the Prophecies and Periods that foretell the End; Illus- trated by the History of Prophetic Interpretation, the Expectation of the Church, &c. Also, Our Present Position in the Prophetic Calendar, by Elliott ; Lectures on the Nature and Nearness of the Advent, by Gum- ming; Lectures on the New Heavens and New Earth, by Dr. Chalmers, Dr. Hitchcock, and John Wesley ; and The Testimony of more than one hundred Witnesses against the modern Whitbyan Theory of a Millennium before the Advent." 1856, 12mo. " The Theological and Literary Journal" says, " The work presents a group of highly-interesting themes that are now en- gaging the attention of the people of God, and will well repay readers of all classes for a perusal." Here are more than one hundred works from which selec- tions can be made, furnishing a millenarian library of no mean dimensions. May the Lord direct his people to the truth. Amen. THE END. CATALOGUE OF STANDARD LUTHERAN AND VALUABLE MISCELLANEOUS WORKS, PUBLISHED, AND OFFERED FOR RALB BT T. NEWTON KURTZ, PUBLISHER, BOOKSELLER AND STATIONER, NO. 151 WEST PRATT STREET, BALTIMORE, MD. Orders for any of the Books in the following Catalogue (which can be sent per mail at the rate of one cent per oz. if pre-paid), or for anything else in the BOOK and STATIONERY line, will be promptly attended to if addressed to T. NEWTON KURTZ, No. 151 PRATT STREET, BALTIMORE, MD. THE GENERAL SYNOD'S STANDARD ENGLISH LITURGY, for the use of Evangelical Lutheran Churches in the United States; two editions 12mo. and octavo. The new GERMAN LITURGY (prepared by the Pennsylvania Synod), 12mo. and large 8vo. bound in the various styles, also for sale at the publisher's prices. ENGLISH LUTHERAN HYMN-BOOKS. GENERAL SYNOD'S STANDARD EDITIONS Of which there are four editions published, viz .: 48mo. or miniature edition, 24mo. " medium " 12mo. " large " 8vo. ". pulpit " Each size is bound in various styles, and sold entirely for cash. GERMAN LUTHERAN HYMN-BOOKS. EVANG. LIEDER-SAMMLUNG General Synod's standard edition. DEUTCHES GESANGBUCH Pennsylvania Synod's edition. GEMEINSCHAFTLICHES GESANGBUCH New York or Union edition. ENGLISH LUTHERAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL HYMN-BOOK. With a view to the more extensive use of this Hymn-Book in our Sunday-Schools, the prices have been much reduced, and they are now offered at a very small advance on the prime cost ; and as there is no reason why it should not be used altogether in our Sunday- Schools (for the book is as well adapted for the purpose as any pub- lished in the country), we trust our Superintendents and Teachers will make an effort to introduce it generally. It is bound in various styles. GERMAN LUTHERAN SUNDAY-SCHOOL HYMN-BOOK. Authorized to be published by the Penn. Synod 32mo., half roan. ENGLISH LUTHERAN CATECHISMS. LUTHER'S SMALLER CATECHISM Gen. Synod's standard edition. LUTHER'S SHORTER CATECHISM Illustrated by additional Questions and Answers, by J. G. Morris, D.D., 18mo., half sheep. THE SERIAL CATECHISM, or Progressive (Religious) Instructor for Children, prepared with a special view to Infant and Sunday- Schools, in two numbers. They can be had separately or bound together. A SHORT EXPLANATION OF LUTHER'S SMALLER GATE CHISM, with Scripture Proofs and Illustrations, prepared by Rev. Dr. Mann, and published by the authority of the Synod of Penn- 3 sylvania, for the use of Families, Catechumens, and Sunday- Schools 18mo., half morocco. GERMAN LUTHERAN CATECHISMS. DR. LUTHER'S KLEINER CATECHISMUS West Pennsylvania Synod's new and improved edition, containing the Formula of Discipline, Augsburg Confession, &c. 18mo., half sheep. KURZE ERKLARUXG DES KLEINEN KATECHISMUS. Dr. Martin Luther's, mil Beygefugten Bibelstellen Zum Gebrauche. In Familien, fur Confirmanden-Unterricht, Katechisation, und Sonntagsschulen. Herausgegeben mil Kirchlicher Genehmigung. This is the Explanation of Luther's Smaller Catechism, by Rev. Dr. Mann, in German, and authorized to be published by the Penn- sylvania Synod. 18mo. half roan. LUTHERAN PRAYER-BOOK. For the use of Families and Individuals, with In- troductory Remarks on Family Prayer, together with a selection of 176 HYMNS, with Music or Tunes adapted to them. By B. KURTZ, D.D. /Second edition, revised, enlarged, and much im- proved. "This Prayer-Book has been prepared mainly for the English portion of the Lutheran Church, yet it is believed nothing will be found in it to prevent its free use in any Protestant Christian family. In the German language we are abundantly supplied with such helps; but in English, a general and complete Prayer Book, adapted to daily devotion, to special occasion?, and to every emergency, has thus far remained a desideratum, which it has been our aim to supply. It is, therefore, hoped that the Lutheran Church especially will encourage this enterprise." Extract from the Author's Preface. The rapid sale of the first edition (nearly 4000 copies) of this work, and the favor with which it has been received by the Church gene- rally, has induced the publisher to have it thoroughly revised, en- larged, and greatly improved, and it is now believed to be equal, and in some respects superior to any similar work published in the English language. It is a large duodecimo volume, of nearly 600 pages, printed on large, clear type, and bound in various styles. The following is a synopsis of the contents : 4 A Valuable Table to guide in reading the Holy Scriptures system- atically ; and also References to select portions of the same. Introduction Prayer in all its Forms. Morning and Evening Prayers, with Scripture (reading) Lessons for every day for eight weeks. Prayers for Particular Days. Occasional and Special Prayers and Thanksgivings. Prayers before and after Meals. Prayers for Children. Prayers for Little Children, in prose and verse. Form for opening Sunday- Schools, with Prayers annexed. A selection of 176 HYMNS, with 61 popular TUNES adapted to them. WHY ARE YOU A LUTHERAN? or a Series of Dissertations, explanatory of the Doctrines, Government, Discipline, Liturgical Economy, Distinctive Traits, &c., of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States. By B. Kurtz, D.D., with an Intro- duction by John G. Morris, D.D. 12mo. " We believe that the extensive circulation and perusal of this pub- lication (Why are You a Lutheran?} among our people, will be the means of rectifying many mistakes, and diffusing correct informa- tion in regard to Lutheranism; and that its general distribution will also tend to the prevention and removal of unfounded prejudices in the case of many candid and serious persons of other denominations, who are willing to investigate before they censure or condemn.''' The above is an extract from a Recommendation signed by many of our most eminent ministers, such as Dr. S. S. Schmucker, Dr. Reynolds. Dr. Krauth, Dr. Bachman, Dr. Morris, Dr. H. N. Pohlman, Dr. S. W. Harkey. the late Dr. E. Keller, Revs. P. Rizer, W. A. Passavant, J. Z. Senderling. S. R. Boyer, F. R. Anspach, John Heck, A. Babb, A. H. Loch man, &c. It is bound in various styles, and sold at reduced prices. AMERICAN LUTHERANISM VINDICATED! or an Impartial Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on certain Disputed Topics, including a Reply to Rev. W. J. Mann's "Plea for the Augsburg Confession," published by the "Lutheran Board of Pub- lication." By S. S. Schmucker, D.D. 12mo. cloth, ELEMENTS OF POPULAR THEOLOGY With special reference to the Doctrines of the Reformation, as avowed before the Diet at Augsburg, in MDXXX, by S. S. Schmucker, D.D. 8vo. sheep. The same work abridged, and adapted particularly to use in the Lutheran Church. 12mo., cloth. THE AMERICAN LUTHERAN CHURCH Historically, Doctri- nally, and Practically delineated in several occasional Discourses, by S. S. Schmucker, D.D. 12mo., cloth. THE LUTHERAN MANUAL ON SCRIPTURAL PRINCIPLES; or, The Augsburg Confession illustrated and sustained, chiefly by Scripture proofs, and extracts from Standard Lutheran Theologians of Europe and America: together with the Formula of Govern- ment and Discipline adopted~by the General Synod of the Evan- gelical Lutheran Church in the United States, by S. S. Schmucker, D.D. 12mo., cloth. SCHMUCKER ON THE REFORMATION 18mo., cloth. SCHMUCKER'S PORTRAITURE OF LUTHERANISM 18mo. DEFINITE PLATFORM Doctrinal and Disciplinarian, for Evan- gelical Lutheran District Synods, constructed in accordance with the Principles of the General Synod. thin 12mo. TO ROME AND BACK AGAIN, OR THE TWO PROSELYTES. By J. G. Morris, D.D. 12mo., cloth. THE BLIND GIRL OF WITTENBERG; A Life-Picture of the Times of Luther and the Reformation. From the German, by J. G. Morris, D.D. 12mo., cloth. THE LIFE OF JOHN ARNDT Author of the Work on "True Christianity." By John G. Morris, D.D. 18mo., cloth, with a correct portrait of ARNDT. This work is a biography of one of the ablest men and most dis- tinguished servants of God the world ever produced, and is now offered for the first time in the English language. It should be read by every Lutheran and Christian in the land. THE CATECHUMEN'S AND COMMUNICANT'S COMPANION. For the use of young persons of the Lutheran Church, receiving instruction preparatory to Confirmation and the Lord's Supper, with forms of Prayer for one week, and special cases and occa- sions. By J. G. Morris, D.D. Third edition, revised and corrected, 18mo., cloth. EXPOSITION OF THE GOSPELS Luke and John Designed for the use of Families, Bible Classes, and Sunday Schools. By Rev. J. G. Morris, D.D. and Rev. Charles A. Smith, D.D., 12mo. cloth. THE CHARACTER AND VALUE OF AN EVANGELICAL MINISTRY, and the Duty of the Church in Regard to it. By Rev. Simeon VV. Harkey, D.D., Professor of Theology in Illinois Stale University I8mo. cloth. " The writer of this work believes that the greatest want, as well as the greatest hope and the greatest blessing of this country and of the world, is a faithful and well-qualified Evangelical Ministry. So deeply is he convinced of this, that he has solemnly consecrated the remainder of his life, be it worth much or little, to the great work of increasing the number of true ministers of Christ My object lias been to do good to stir up ' the pure minds of ministers and people by way of remembrance,' and to come to the help of rny brethren who are bearing 'the burden and heat of the day' in the Master's vineyard. " I would commend the book to the attention of all Christians, and especially to my beloved brethren in the ministry, and hope that they may find great benefit by circulating it freely among the people of their churches." Extract from the Author's Preface. LECTURES ON THE EPISTLE OF PAUL THE APOSTLE TO THE HEBREWS By Rev. J. A. Seiss, A.M., 8vo. This is a valuable work, highly recommended by several of our Synods and most eminent clergymen. There are but few left. THE BAPTIST SYSTEM EXAMINED, The Chnrch Vindicated, and Sectarianism Rebuked. A Review of " Fuller on Baptism and the Terms of Communion." By Fedelis Scrutator thick 18mo. cloth. LIFE OF MARTIN LUTHER Being a comprehensive, though con- densed and correct History of the Life and stupendous achieve- ments of the Great Reformer. By Rev. R. Weiser, I2mo. cloth new edition, revised and corrected. The same work, illustrated with fifteen erigiavings, representing the most important events in Luther's life and history. THE LIFE OF LUTHER With Special Reference to its Earlier Periods, and the opening Scenes of the Reformation. By Barnas Sears, D.D. This is an original work : with three fine steel arid twenty-three wood engravings, all finished in the highest style of the art 12mo. cloth. A DEFENCE OF LUTHER AND THE REFORMATION. By John Bachmari, D.D.,LL.D.. against the Charges of John Bellinger, M.D., and others: to which are appended various Communications of other Protestant and Roman Catholic writers who engaged in the controversy. Large 12mo. cloth. REGINA, OR THE LITTLE GERMAN CAPTIVE. By Rev. R. Weiser, Professor in Central College of Iowa, Fort Des Moines. Thick I8mo., cloth. This is an intensely interesting narrative of a little German girl, who was stolen by the Indians, and retained in captivity nine years, and finally restored to her mother. It should be in the library of every Christian family and Sunday School in the land. It is illustrated with several beautiful and appropriate engravings. MEMOIR OF REV. WALTER GUXN, late Missionary in India, from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States, by G. A. Lintner, D.D., 18mo. cloth. A MANUAL OF CHRISTIAN BAPTISM: INFANT BAPTISM, AND THE MODE By Rev. Thomas Lape, A.M. Sixth edition ; corrected and enlarged 18mo. This is a brief, yet comprehensive work in favor of Infant Baptism, and presents the whole controversy in so simple a form and clear a light, that all who read can understand it. DISCIPLINE, ARTICLES OF FAITH, AND SYNODICAL CON- STITUTION, AS ADOPTED BY THE EVANGELICAL LU- THERAN SYNOD OF SOUTH CAROLINA, and adjacent Slates, to which is added a Liturgy, and some forms of Prayer for families and individuals 12mo. cloth. HISTORY OF THE SALZBURGERS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. By Rev. P. A. Strobel 12mo. cloth. MANUAL OF SACRED HISTORY A guide to the understanding ot the Divine Plan of Salvation, according to its Historical Develop- ment. By John Henry Kurtz, D.D., Professor of Church History in the University of Dorpat. etc. Translated from the sixth German rlilion, by Rev. Prof. Charles F. SchaefTer, D.D. Large 12mo. TH\ CHILDREN OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. By Rev. Dr. Stork. THE^EPULCHRES OF OUR DEPARTED. By Rev. F. R. An- spacV, A.M. 12mo. cloth. THE LIFE OF PHILIP MELANCTHON, the Friend and Companion of Lutner, according to his Inner and Outer Life. Translated from the Go-man of Charles Frederick Ledderhose, by the Rev. G. F. Krotel. of Lancaster, Pa., with a portrait of Melancthon 12mo. MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND TIMES OF HENRY MELCHOIR MUHLENBERG, D.D., Patriarch of the Evang. Luth. Church in America. By M. L. Stoever, A.M., Professor in Penn. College. 12rno., cloth. LUTHER'S CHRISTMAS TREE, by Rev. Dr. Stork, illustrated with six large engravings, representing important events in the life and times of Luther. Small 4to., paper. STARCK'S PRAYER-BOOK In German and English 12mo. SCHMUCKER-S (Dr. J. G.) EXPLANATION OF THE REVELA- TION OF ST. JOHN In English and German 12mo, with a portrait of the author. ^" There are butane left of this work. JOHANN ARNDT'S WAHRES CHRISTENTHUM ARNDTS TRUE CHRISTIANITY In German and English, large 8vo. shp. THE CHRISTIAN BOOK OF CONCORD, or Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, comprising the Three Chief Symbols, the unaltered Augsburg Confession, the Apology, the Smalcald Articles, Luther's Smaller and Larger Catechisms, the Formula of Concord, and an Appendix. To which is prefixed an Historical Introduction. Second edition, carefully revised by Rev. Drs. C. P. Krauth, W. M. Reynolds, J. G. Morris, C. F. Schaeffer, and Rev. W. F. Lehman. Translated from the German large 8vo., sheep. THE UNALTERED AUGSBURG CONFESSION, and the Three Chief Symbols of the Christian Church, with Historical Intro- ductions and Critical and Explanatory Notes. By Christian Hein- rich Schott ; carefully translated from the German. 12mo., cloth. THEOLOGICAL SKETCH BOOK, or Skeletons of Sermons 2 vots. 8vo.. half cloth. HAZELIUS' CHURCH HISTORY 12mo. LUTHER'S COMMENTARY on Saint Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, to which is prefixed Tischer's Life of Luther: also a Sketch of the Life of Zuingle, in English and German large 8vo., sheep. SELECT TREATISES OF MARTIN LUTHER, with the Original German, by Rev. B. Sears. 12mo., cloth. THE CANTICA SACRA; a Collection of Church Music, embracing, besides some new pieces, a choice selection of German and English Chorals, Set Pieces, Chants, &c., from the best European and American authors, adapted to the various metres in use, with the Text in German and English, by Rev. J. J. Fast. ENGLISH LUTHERAN ALMANAC Containingvaluable statistical and general information of the Church ; also a complete list of all the Lutheran Ministers in the United States, with their Post-Office address, carefully corrected published annually. BLANK CERTIFICATES of Ordination, Licensure, Confirmation and Marriage. The form and style of these Certificates are entirely new and very neat. STANDARD THEOLOGICAL VALUABLE MISCELLANEOUS BOOKS. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF JAMES ARMLMUS, D.D., formerly Professor of Divinity in the University of Leyclen. Translated from the Latin, \viih a Sketch of the Life of the Author. It may not be generally known that only two of the three vols. of the Works of Arminius have ever been published in the English language, viz. : The edition published in 1825, by James Nichols, London the third volume either never having been translated, or if it was, never republished; it remains for an American translator to render the third volume into English, and for an American publishing house to first offer, in the English tongue, the complete Works of the Great Expounder of the Arminian System. The competency of the American translator for his task is vouched for by those who know him best, and who are well and favorably known by the literary and religious public. The works of Arminius make three handsome octavo vols. of about 600 pages each, well printed on fair type, bound in cloth. THE COMPREHENSIVE COMMENTARY ON THE BIBLE Containing Scott's Marginal References; Malt. Henry's Com- mentary; Practical Observations of Kev. Thomas Scolt, D.D.. with extensive Explanatory, Critical, and Philological Notes, selected from Scott, Doddridge, Gill. Adam Clark. Patrick, Poole, Lowth, Burder, Harmer, Calmet, Stuart, Robinson, Bush. Rosenmueller, Bloomfield. and many other writers on the Scriptures. The whole designed to be a Digest and combination of the advantages of the best Bible Commentaries, embracing all that is valuable in Henry, Scott, Doddridge, &c. In six volumes, super royal octavo, bound in full, strong sheep. CLARKE'S COMPLETE COMMENTARY OiN THE OLD AND NEW TESTAMENT 4 vols. super royal 8vo., in full strong sheep. 10 CLARKE'S COMMENTARY ON THE NEW TESTAMENT 2 vols. super royal 8vo., full sheep. SIMMON'S SCRIPTURE MANUAL, Alphabetically and systema- tically arranged, designed to facilitate the finding of proof-texts. This is a truly valuable work. MACKNIGHT ON THE EPISTLES, with a Commentary and Notes; to which is added a History of t fie Apostle Paul. CHRIST'S SERMON ON THE MOUNT. A beautiful little minia- ture volume, printed on large type, intended as a pocket manual for frequent perusal. It is a very appropriate present from a pastor to a church member, or from one pious friend to another. THE HISTORY, DOCTRINE, GOVERNMENT AND STATISTICS OF THE RELIGIOUS DENOMINATIONS IN THE UNITED STATES, with a preliminary sketch of Judaism, Paganism, and Mohammedanism, by Joseph Belcher, D.D. Embellished with nearly 200 fine engravings, large 8vo. roan, embossed. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF REV. JOHN CUMMING, D.D., 25 vols. I2mo. BARNES' NOTES ON THE NEW TESTAMENT, 11 vols. 12mo. Do. Do. JOB, DANIEL, AND ISAIAH 5 vols. 1 2rao. LIVES AND TIMES of the Most Distinguished CHRISTIAN FATHERS, to the close of the 3d century, 8vo. sheep. GAILLARD'S CHURCH HISTORY 8vo. stiff paper. GATHERED TREASURES FROM THE MINES OF LITERATURE ; containing Tales, Sketches, Anecdotes, and Gems of Thought; Literary, Moral, Pleasing, and Instructive, 8vo. roan embossed. PILGRIM'S PROGRESS, with engravings, 18mo., cloth. A good edition of this excellent work. LOOKING-GLASS; or, Intellectual Mirror A Juvenile Book, with 64 engravings, 18mo., cloth. DODDRIDGE'S RISE AND PROGRESS OF RELIGION IN THE SOUL 32mo., cloth. KEMPIS' CHRISTIAN'S PATTERN 32mo., cloth. MASON ON SELF-KNOWLEDGE 32mo., cloth. MRS. ROWE'S DEVOTIONAL EXERCISES OF THE HEART. 32mo., cloth. YOUNG AMERICAN; or, Book of Government and Law, by Peter Parley 12mo., half morocco. II JESUS' WITNESSES, or the "Great Salvation Exemplified." 12mo. THE COMPLETE WORKS OF THOMAS DICK, LL.D. Illustrated with numerous engravings, 2 vols., 8vo., sheep. PLUTARCH'S LIVES 8vo., sheep. A good editiou. THE SPECTATOR by Addison, 8vo., sheep. ROLLIN'S ANCIENT HISTORY 2 vols., 8vo., sheep. THE WRITINGS OF REV. LORENZO DOW, containing his Expe- rience and Travels in Europe and America; also his Polemic writings, 8vo. BOOK-KEEPING BY SINGLE AND DOUBLE ENTRY. Simplified and arranged, according to the present Practice of well- regulated Counting Houses in the United States. By John H. Shea, Accountant. This is a practical system, and is considered one of the best works on the subject of Book-keeping extant. It is now offered at a reduced price. This Treatise comprises FORMS of RECEIPTS, DRAFTS. BILLS OF PARCELS, ACCOUNTS CURRENT, and such Accounts as usually occur in actual business. Also, USEFUL CALCULATIONS of Interest, Equations or Average of Payments, and a VOCABULARY of Commercial Terms, in ALPHA- BETICAL ORDER. It contains a SERIES OF LECTURES ON DOUBLE ENTRY, peculiarly adapted to extensive and complicated business. The LECTURES include a variety of Questions concerning Domestic Business Discounting and Renewing Bills Importing and Export- ing the purchase and sale of Bills of Exchange Commission and Company Accounts, both Domestic and Foreign. TO SUPERINTENDENTS AND TEACHERS OF SUNDAY SCHOOLS. The undersigned respectfully announces that he is Agent for the sale of the publications of the MASSACHUSETTS SABBATH SCHOOL SOCIETY. And is prepared to furnish them at the lowest catalogue prices. These publications are entirely different from those published by any other Sunday School Society, and are now so well and favorablj known throughout the country, that no special recommendation is deemed necessary. The whole number of bound volumes of this Society is about 700. varying in price from 7 cents to $1. They publish 20 difforeni volumes of Scripture Question Books for Sabbath Schools, and a large number of Catechisms for Infant Schools. The Society has put up six Selected Libraries, viz. : LITTLE BOY'S AND GIRL'S LIBRARY, 25 vols. for . $3 (1C THE INFANT'S LIBRARY, 40 vols. for THE SABBATH SCHOOL LIBRARY, 100 vols. for THE FAMILY LIBRARY, 25 vols. for THE CHILDREN'S LIBRARY, 100 vols. for 5 OC 10 OC 10 OC 18 OC 30 OC THE YOUTH'S LIBRARY, 150 vols. for The prices of these Sabbath School publications are fully as low. if not lower, than any other similar Books published in the country and are regarded as unexceptionable on the score of sectarianism. A full assortment will always be kept on hand and for sale by the undersigned. Terms cash. GF" Catalogues, with the price annexed to each book, will be fur- nished gratis, when applied for. Also, a large assortment of SCHOOL AND CLASSICAI BOOKS, Pulpit and Family BIBLES, Books of Common (Epis- copal) Prayer, Hymn Books of the various Denominations, Church Music Books, PAPER, AND STATIONERY generally, for sale at WHOLESALE AND RETAIL by T. NEWTON KURTZ, PUBLISHER, BOOKSELLER, AND STATIONER, No. 151 West Pratt Street, Baltimore, Md. A 000 602 333 7 University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed. "ware war I OCT